Outlanders 48 serpents.., p.19
Outlanders 48 - Serpent's Tooth, page 19
Durga rose shakily from cover. His gun was empty, its slide locked back. Bullets had lacerated his shoulder. Lakesh struggled to his feet, only able to use one arm to assist his efforts to stand. He trotted down the stairs to join Domi who wrapped her arms around him, burying her face in his chest.
“You…saved us,” Durga whispered. “Those maniacs could have killed all of us.”
Lakesh could feel Domi trembling against him, hear her choking down a sob of worry over his bloodied condition. “The queen…shot…”
Durga’s eyes widened. “Mother?”
“I tried…I failed,” Lakesh murmured. He looked at the column, reddened with the lost queen’s blood.
Durga whirled, then ran up to where Lakesh was looking. The prince cupped his mouth, eyes pained as he looked down on the bullet-ravaged corpse. For all the suspicions that Lakesh had possessed about the Nagah prince, he knew the cold truth that no son should have to see a parent violated by the horrors of gunfire.
First Garuda, now Yun. Though the losses were separated by decades, Lakesh could see that Durga was hit hard by the grisly demise of the queen. He almost felt ashamed that he was going to present the evidence that the prince was behind both the impending threat of the Millennial Consortium and had been the force that organized the Fist of Enlil. Lakesh tried to fight his shame aside, but the heartbreak in Durga’s eyes was hard to beat.
“Are you okay?” Domi asked softly. “Moe?”
Lakesh looked down at her. Her ruby-red irises were matched by the swollen, tear irritated veins of the whites of her eyes. Tears left her cheeks glistening.
“Talk to me, please?” she asked.
“My arm hurts,” Lakesh admitted reluctantly.
Domi looked to Durga. “You have to say something.”
“His mother was just murdered,” Lakesh replied, his voice cracking. The furrows cut in his forearm and bicep were reminders of his failure to protect the queen.
Domi pulled reluctantly away from him. “The prince, in association with Colonel Hedin, conspired to make this attack possible. The queen sent me to bring Hedin before this council!”
Shell-shocked, confused citizens looked at Domi.
“You fucking ghouls!” Durga cursed. “You’re accusing me…”
Durga trembled with rage and Domi tensed. Lakesh felt a twinge of panic in his heart, seeing Domi put aside the vulnerable, compassionate child and allow the cold fury to return.
“It’s true,” General Kimerra spoke up. “The queen left these orders with me. We were called to respond to an attack by the humans of the Millennial Consortium. Already Kane, Brigid and Grant are out there trying to hamper the consortium’s army, but we as a council have to agree to mobilize our forces!”
Durga glared at Kimerra, then glanced back to Lakesh and Domi. Lakesh had cast aside his fear, standing as backup to his diminutive lover.
“You hear this kind of paranoid ranting?” Durga asked, a sob cracking his voice. “My mother is lying in a pool of her own blood, and they want me arrested? They want the control to throw the lives of our soldiers away in an attack on a human army?”
“Come off it,” Domi growled. “If Hedin can’t confess, I’m sure he left behind enough notes to prove your ass is guilty!”
Durga hissed, fangs snapping down. “Quiet!”
The blast of a handgun into the air broke the tense tableau. All eyes turned to Hannah as she stood over the limp, legless form of Manticor. The smoking gun in her hand faded as the focus of attention as hard, angry eyes burned with seething fury.
“The queen has been murdered, and her son is guilty,” Hannah hissed. She looked toward Manticor, the harsh rage flickering, replaced by a moment of hollow-souled sadness. Returning her attention to Durga, she aimed Manticor’s pistol at the prince. “As the next in line of leadership, I demand justice. Destroy the consortium’s army, hang Durga and his conspirators, and the failures from Cerberus will be made to pay for their fumbling ways!”
Durga, Lakesh and Domi all shared a frightened moment as the beautiful, vicious princess’s compassion shattered like glass, leaving behind a gaping hole where reason used to rule.
Chapter 18
Kane had sneaked within fifty yards of the ammunition stockpiles for one of the consortium’s artillery nests. A quartet of mortar tubes was aimed toward the Nagah hangars in the distance, stacks of fat shells resting in crates. The ex-Magistrate was aware that the millennialists could pump out those high-explosive rounds at the rate of five per minute per tube. While a combined total of twenty shells in a minute from one firebase didn’t sound like much, each of the deadly mortar projectiles packed a pound of high explosives. With the added firepower of the other two artillery nests, the 81 mm and 120 mm tubes had the power to carve a swathe of destruction through even the heavily armored panels that protected the hangar.
Given the number of crates of ammunition, this particular firebase had the potential to sustain its rate of fire for close to half an hour. It wouldn’t require more than thirty seconds to hammer the hangar entrances open with the rain of thunder. The remaining ammunition would target the depths of the hangar and alternate exits from the Nagah stronghold. With almost all exits to the outside world hammered shut by a wave of thunderbolts, the cobra folk wouldn’t be able to fight back while hundreds of savage pirates, bandits and mercenaries poured into their midst.
Kane also realized the purpose of the salvaged, refitted skimmers. The small flying saucers were able to slip through the wreckage of the hangars, able to hover within the confines of the building, providing vital air support. He’d seen and reported to Brigid and Grant, the presence of a second skimmer. This particular craft’s armament was highly visible, the long barrels of .50-caliber machine guns bristling through a jury-rigged gunport. The twin Fifty was a menacing piece of ordnance that could chew through stone walls and armor plate as if they were soft clay. Against snake soldiers defending their home, the dual-mounted machine guns would be like a scythe to grain.
Nagah bloodshed would be horrendous if they could not find a way to eliminate the skimmers.
Kane conferred with the others over his Commtact. “Grant, when you bait your trap, I’ll take up the slack on the second skimmer.”
“That’s if the consortium’s pilots are stupid enough to commit both of their skimmers to chasing my ass down,” Grant returned. “Besides, the range on those Fifties is measured in miles, well out of reach of our puny little grenade launchers.”
“Puny?” Brigid asked. “Grenade launchers?”
“Only three hundred yards,” Grant answered. “Even without the beam weaponry of a normal skimmer, the pilots could hang half a mile up laughing at us as they poured bullets down like rain.”
“If they’re both armed with Fifties,” Kane offered. “We didn’t see any guns on the first consortium skimmer.”
Kane heard Grant sigh, getting ready to deliver another morale-destroying pronouncement when Lakesh’s voice came over their Commtacts. “Friend Hannah, please. We did our best to save the queen.”
Lakesh’s words hit the Cerberus trio like a splash of ice water, chilling them all to the bone.
“Lakesh?” Kane asked. “What’s wrong?”
“Punishing us for her death won’t bring the queen back,” Lakesh continued. He obviously was transmitting to Kane and the others without the knowledge of the Nagah. There was a tremor of fear in his voice.
“Hannah?” Grant asked. “I thought that Durga was the big plotter here?”
“Please, perhaps we can provide assistance to Manticor…” Lakesh began.
“Manticor’s down,” Brigid said. “And we could tell that Hannah had affection for him. Her pain must have driven her to distraction.”
“Distraction?” Grant asked. “The snake bitch probably has Lakesh shitting in his pants and has the backing of the Nagah council to lynch him. That’s not distraction, she’s bug-fucking nuts!”
“Grant,” Kane admonished. “Why can’t things ever go simply?”
“Look out!” Lakesh shouted. “Durga’s getting awa—”
There was the meaty sound of an impact, then silence from Lakesh’s communicator.
“Fuck!” Grant snapped. “Did they just kill him?”
“You let Durga slip away, but you assholes can punch a peaceful, wounded scientist,” Domi spoke up. “You dropped your Commtact, Moe.”
Kane sighed with relief. Domi had taken over the running commentary to keep him and the others informed of their situation. At least Lakesh and Domi were on the same page with that strategy, and were resourceful enough to transmit their signals.
“So what do we do now?” Grant asked. “Maybe the consortium’s attack would give us the chance to get Domi and Lakesh back.”
Kane grimaced. “If Hannah and the Nagah weren’t essentially good folk put into a shitty situation, I’d say let the damned snakes squirm. Lakesh and Domi are family, even if Lakesh and I don’t particularly act like friends. But if we let the consortium go through with its assault, innocent people are going to die. And that’s not how we work.”
Grant grunted in disgust. “Shit can’t ever be black and white.”
“Baptiste, if you have your shot, you’d better take it,” Kane said. “On three…”
There was the sudden sound of crashing foliage over the Commtact rather than Brigid’s answer. Kane tensed, finger poised over the trigger of his grenade launcher. “Baptiste?”
“Kane!” Brigid growled through gritted teeth.
“Shit!” Grant cursed. “Light it up, Kane!”
In the distance, a grenade launcher thundered its deadly single shot.
Things were going to hell in a handbasket. Kane triggered the launcher on the end of his Copperhead, then took off to Brigid’s aid. The concussion wave of the high-explosive grenade amid hundreds of rounds of artillery shells buffeted the ex-Magistrate as he sliced through the forest, praying that he wasn’t too late for Brigid’s sake.
THE MILLENNIALIST TUMBLED as Brigid pivoted out of his path, utilizing some of the empty-hand techniques she’d picked up from Kane and Grant over the years. The millennialist’s arms were spread wide as he sought to capture her in a bear hug. The smelly, bearded man with the scars on his face caught the heel of Brigid’s palm in the nose, cartilage and bone popping under the impact. Blood gushed from Nguyen’s nostrils, his head snapping back in surprise.
Stunned but not deterred, the Vietnamese pirate lunged again, this time lashing out with a hard fist. Brigid sidestepped the punch, winding her arm around Nguyen’s extended limb. An epithet exploded from the millennialist’s lips as Brigid turned, using Nguyen’s weight against him, her pivot dumping the man down a slope with a crash and snap of foliage.
“So much for the quiet way,” Brigid muttered. Off in the distance, a thunderclap split the air. She whirled to see a fading pillar of fire roll skyward, the flames dying out as they ran out of fuel to burn.
Kane had already taken out one artillery site. Brigid was running behind the curve and she scurried to the top of the rise, retrieving the Copperhead that had been knocked from her hands in Nguyen’s attack. Thirty feet down the slope, the scar-faced pirate chattered angrily in Vietnamese.
Her time to take out the second artillery site was running down, and she shouldered the Copperhead. The extra weight of the rifle grenade had thrown off the submachine gun’s balance, and she adjusted her aim so that the shoulder-fired bomb would reach its target, not fall short. With an extra hard kick she was unaccustomed to, Brigid launched her grenade toward the ammunition stockpile. As the explosive arced toward the emplaced mortars, she saw the movement of men in the long grass and between tree trunks, thanks to her multioptic visor’s night vision.
Brigid adjusted her aim, leveling the Copperhead at the advancing consortium mercenaries when her grenade dropped in among the mortar shells. A blinding flash forced Brigid to squint, her visor’s light amplification blazing a bright neon green as it tried to process the fireball. A heartbeat later, a rush of air and thundering noise tackled the former archivist like a predatory cat, knocking her to the ground and beating her ears mercilessly. Flattened in the dirt, she saw flaming limbs and torsos tumbling in the air overhead. She realized that it had to have been the hired pirates who were manning the artillery site, their bodies torn asunder by proximity to the earth-shaking detonation.
Able to suck in a breath after being rattled by the shock wave, she blinked as the world returned to darkness. Brigid struggled to sit up, stunned by the force of the massive explosion. Her ears rang, and her head hurt like hell, but she’d survived the blast, while the men who had been summoned by her attacker were not so lucky.
Brigid struggled to her feet, and discovered that the concussion force had torn the Copperhead from her hands. She looked frantically around for it, knowing she didn’t have more than a few moments to find it. If she couldn’t get it, then she’d have to rely on her 9 mm pistol.
“Lose something, bitch?” Nguyen growled, holding the fallen Copperhead in his hands.
Brigid dived sideways as the muzzle flashed, a pair of 4.85 mm bullets glancing off her hip. She was thankful for the ballistic protection properties of the shadow suit, but knew that if she hadn’t leaped for cover, the angle of attack on the Copperhead’s rounds would have been sufficient to penetrate the high-tech protective polymers. Skidding in the thick brush, Brigid ripped her pistol out of its holster.
Nguyen cursed, sweeping the long grass and bushes with the remainder of the weapon’s 35-round magazine, but the bullets passed over her prone form. The crackle of the weapon gave Brigid something to focus on, and she cranked off three shots at the millennialist pirate.
More curses salted the air, and Brigid emptied her slim little pistol. She wasn’t hitting anything, but she was keeping the millennialist from transferring to another weapon and continuing his attempt to murder her. She bit her lip and dumped the empty magazine from the little handgun, stuffing home a fresh one. She hoped that her adversary didn’t have anything heavier than a pistol of his own.
Something thumped into the grass off to her right, and Brigid’s most powerful weapon, her mind, recognized the sound of a grenade landing. With a lunge, she tumbled down the slope where she’d thrown her attacker. Gravity and the lubricating qualities of wet grass and mud accelerated her away from the deadly radius of the grenade’s shrapnel barely in time, bits of shrapnel poking into her shadow suit like needles, but stopping just at the skin.
It was as irritating as hell, but a lot better than those bits of notched wire slicing through her suit and churning through her internal organs. Her butt and legs had been peppered with the splinters of wire and grenade shell, boots too thick to be penetrated by the decelerating fragments. With a tumble, Brigid flopped into the mud bottom-first.
Nguyen scowled from his vantage point halfway up the slope, but Brigid had landed right in his line of sight. The Vietnamese pirate’s handgun was a beast of a weapon that would probably knock a hole in Kane’s old Magistrate armor, let alone her sleek shadow suit. She fired uphill at Nguyen, the first round plucking at the man’s thigh. The pirate missed his first shot, as well, a beefy slug kicking up a gout of mud where it struck inches from Brigid’s head. She pulled the trigger on the little 9 mm again, but in her dive to escape the grenade, the pistol had been bound up with long, tough grasses and clogged with mud. The trigger was spongy as the action froze.
Nguyen chuckled and thumbed back the hammer on his hand cannon. “Jammed?”
“Go ahead and gloat,” Brigid snarled in defiance.
“I will.” Nguyen laughed.
A bolt of black lunged into view, heaving Nguyen into the air. A bloody point of steel jutted through the pirate’s chest, and finally the grim wraith behind him was recognizable.
Kane hurled the corpse aside, the throw wrenching his blade out of the corpse’s back.
“No, motherfucker,” Kane answered Nguyen’s final boast. “You’re never gloating again.”
Kane slid down the slope in a controlled skid. He stopped to scoop up Brigid’s fallen Copperhead. As he extended his hand to Brigid to help her up, Grant’s voice was audible over their Commtacts.
“I’m pinned down by a patrol near my target!” he announced.
“We’re on our way!” Kane called.
DURGA NEVER LOVED Hannah more in his life, and if he weren’t fleeing to ensure his freedom, he’d have gone back and kissed her hard. As it was, he was positive that the next time she saw him, she’d do her best to drop all the fires of hell on him. Manticor looked in a bad way, and there was never any doubt about Hannah’s affection for Matron Yun. In response, the princess had snapped in an emotional burnout of epic proportions.
Hannah’s rage, directed at Lakesh, gave Durga the sliver of opportunity to escape.
That’s right, Durga thought as he squirmed out of the utility tunnel access hatch. Forget the horror of your own mother sprayed all over the architecture.
A wave of nausea rocked him, and he remembered Enlil’s taunting nightmare of watching Yun and Hannah pinioned on giant skewers. Their unnatural writhing on the stainless-steel spikes was the first solid mental image he had of their end. Before the telepathic conversation with the Annunaki overlord, he glossed over the end of their existence in his plotting.
Yun would have died of old age. Or her body would have been cleaned up, a serene expression settled onto her face after the coroner prepared her to be viewed by Durga. And Hannah? Maybe he could have ultimately persuaded her to see things his way, to accept that a strong Nagah nation needed to be forged by the fires of conflict with the two races most determined to render the cobra folk extinct—human and Annunaki. A cleansing war would safeguard the Nagah from further reprisals, and maybe, down the line, coexistence with the mammals could be reestablished.
