Vox astra, p.10
Vox Astra, page 10
part #1 of Vox Astra Series
A sweeping spotlight crossed the path ahead of them. Bug Eye stopped, and Kanigher hunkered down and waited for the light to pass before continuing. He considered going back for the others in his bunkhouse, but it would only heighten his risk of capture and endanger them since he had no idea what awaited him outside the wall.
As they resumed their approach, the light swung back and flared on them twenty yards from the hole. Kanigher lost sight of the Boston in the blinding brightness.
Harsh voices shouted in Chinese. An alarm screeched.
Instinctively, Kanigher dropped to a crouch.
A gunshot cracked, sounding like thunder. Another round hissed through the air in front of him. He fired the laser torch blind and heard someone scream in pain. When his eyes adjusted, he saw guards scrambling atop the walls, aiming rifles at him, and guards on the ground running in his direction. A searing, fiery brightness came then with an enraged roar and concussion that knocked Kanigher to the ground and jolted the laser torch from his hand. Gunfire followed, dim in his ringing ears. Kanigher scrambled to his feet, disoriented, clueless as to where to run.
Teeth dug into his hand, biting firmly but not hard enough to break his skin.
Warm breath. Hot saliva running onto his wrist.
A dog’s mouth.
Too large for the Boston.
It tugged on Kanigher until he moved with it, and then it let go of his hand and picked up speed, forcing Kanigher to jog. He stumbled on the rough ground but kept moving after the dog. A brown-and-black Belgian Malinois, it wore a different version of Kanigher’s cybercowl, fitted above its left ear and eye. Its harness held pouches like those on the Boston’s, but the largest bore a red cross in a white circle.
Another explosion quaked the night.
Kanigher crouched and covered his head with his arms.
Muffled screams and shouts filled his aching ears as the thunder faded. Some in Chinese, some in English. The other prisoners. The explosions must have panicked them awake, and he’d left his bunkhouse door open. He hoped none of them were hurt.
A fourth explosion erupted much closer than the others. Shrapnel sliced Kanigher’s forehead, and the blast pushed him forward, driving him through the hole in the wall behind the running Belgian. Blood in his eyes, he fled the chaos at the camp and trailed his guide down a darkened street littered with burned-out cars and debris from the bombed buildings. His head throbbed. He wiped the blood from his eyes, trying to clear his sight. Kanigher struggled to keep up with the trotting Belgian. Bug Eye ran beside it, the two dogs stopping at regular intervals to sense the night and pick a safe path through the maze of streets.
Kanigher recognized the pattern.
Run five to ten yards. Stop. Scent, listen, look. Then another five to ten yards.
Stop and go.
A system he’d invented and perfected in years of training soldier dogs.
He intended it for safe, fast movement over unknown terrain.
Although he’d field-tested it, he’d never had an opportunity to see it in action.
He kept within one yard of the Belgian. They turned the corner down a new street, and Kanigher glanced back at the fire rising from the camp. A pillar of smoke drifted above the wall. The voices and gunfire faded. Soon patrols would prowl the city. Someone had blasted the camp to cover his escape, but in the din and flash of combat, Kanigher hadn’t seen who. He hoped—whoever they were—they were well hidden and had an escape route.
The dogs led Kanigher along a desolate side street cluttered with trash, broken bricks, and cracked cement. The Boston scurried down the block then sat, facing the intersection, watching. The Belgian circled back to Kanigher and lowered to a down position. Kanigher knelt and scratched the dog between the ears.
Kanigher read its tags: Nightingale.
“Good girl,” he said.
The Belgian wagged its tail.
Kanigher opened the First Aid pouch on the dog’s back, took out an antiseptic wipe and a tube of liquid skin. He cleaned and dressed his wound to stop the blood from flowing into his eyes. In another pouch, he found a stash of cookies and gave the Belgian two. The dog gobbled them, then snapped back onto its feet, curled away from Kanigher, and ran down the street, Bug Eye beside it. Kanigher hurried after them.
They raced through the empty town. Sharp rubble dug into Kanigher’s feet, shredding his flimsy prison sandals, but he ignored the pain and pushed himself to keep up. The dogs sniffed out their trail, winding a path east toward the edge of town. They passed the looming shape of a ballistic personnel carrier, five stories tall and embedded in the earth, one of the secret weapons that had enabled the enemy invasion. Then they rounded a corner and came to a plaza outside an office building. A headless statue on a cracked pedestal loomed over them. The building’s demolished upper floors threw down jagged lunar shadows.
The sound of distant engines grumbled, echoing off the old buildings as soldiers launched pursuit. Kanigher resisted the panic brewing in his gut. They had put a fair distance between them and the prison camp, but jeeps, tanks, and hoverbirds would overtake them if they remained in the open. Kanigher scanned the area for hiding places. The office building appeared far too damaged and unstable, and piles of rubble clogged the entrances to all the other structures in sight.
The dogs stood side by side, ears pricked up.
Waiting.
Seconds ticked away.
The motor sounds grew and spread out from the prison camp.
The rhythm of hoverbird blades picked up and cut the night.
Kanigher’s heart pounded in his chest. He knelt by the dogs, trusting them, knowing they saw a different darkness than he did, and heard a greater range of night sounds. A single, sharp bark came, and then the dogs took off running.
“Wait for me!” Kanigher cried.
He rushed after them, struggling to keep his balance on the litter-strewn street. The dogs raced around the damaged office building, along a side street, then down an alley. Kanigher chased them, ignoring his tightening fear as the alley sloped down into a darkness that swallowed the dogs and left him blind. He slowed, picking his way carefully through debris. Ahead of him, the dogs sniffed and panted. Their nails scratched concrete and jostled rubble.
Kanigher’s foot struck a wall. He stopped.
The noise of hoverbird engines buzzed.
“Where are you?” he whispered.
He clicked his tongue twice, a standard signal he’d used with his dogs. A low blue light appeared. It painted an aura around the silhouettes of Bug Eye and Nightingale and revealed a third dog, a Doberman Pinscher, also rigged with a harness and cybercowl based on Kanigher’s design. The light glowed from its collar. The three dogs surrounded Kanigher and ushered him through a narrow opening at the end of the alley into a tunnel. They walked for several minutes. The motor sounds died away. Kanigher caught his breath. Soon the yellow-white glow of a field lantern appeared up ahead, pouring out of a doorway. When they reached it, the Doberman sat beside the door like a sentry. The Boston and the Belgian entered the room. Kanigher inched his way to the opening and peeked inside.
An American soldier sat across the room, her back against the wall, head slumped onto her chest. Blood stained her uniform. She seemed very still, but her torso rose and fell with her breath. A fourth dog, a Chocolate Lab, lay beside her, its head on her leg. Blood spotted its fur. Its cybercowl covered nearly a third of its head, encompassing one ear and both its eyes, and it too wore a harness like the other canines. Bug Eye and Nightingale sat by the soldier’s sides. Kanigher approached the woman. All three dogs tracked him, ready to attack if he made a move to harm her. Slowly, he took the woman’s hand and pressed two fingers against her wrist, feeling her weak pulse.
The soldier kicked her leg, shuddered, and then snapped up her head. “Who’s there?”
The Lab lifted its head, bared its teeth, and growled at Kanigher.
Kanigher rocked back on his heels. The woman removed her helmet and tucked it onto her lap. A partial cybercowl covered her left temple and ear and encircled half of her left eye. In the poor light of the field lantern, she looked ghostly from blood loss. Her eyes locked on Kanigher’s.
She stroked the Lab’s neck. “Easy, girl.”
The Lab stopped growling.
Kanigher read the woman’s nameplate and rank insignia. “Are you badly hurt, Lieutenant Haney?”
Haney squinted, eyeing Kanigher’s face. She reached into a pocket on her sleeve, pulled out a mobile intelligence data unit, and tapped on the screen. The glow lit her eyes. An image resolved onscreen. She held it up to Kanigher, comparing his face to the face of a man in the picture, awaiting confirmation from a facial recognition scan. Though he hadn’t seen it in years, Kanigher knew the photo: outside his old kennel and training facility, a red bandanna in his hand, he knelt beside a German Shepherd, Sarge. A good dog. The first Kanigher had put through his cybernetics program. Involuntarily, he touched the old scars in the side of his head where his cybercowl had been mounted when he handled Sarge. Enemy soldiers had ripped it from him when they took him prisoner. In the picture, he didn’t yet have the cowl. He looked fifty pounds heavier, his hair clean of the gray that shot through it now, his face smooth and unmarred by scars and bruises—and he smiled.
“Captain Kanigher?” Haney asked. “Is that really you?”
Kanigher read the doubt in her eyes, and, in an odd way, he shared it.
He must have seemed to her like a ghost risen from the grave. He certainly felt like one. She knew his name, who he’d been, but he couldn’t say for sure he was still that same man in the picture anymore. He opened his mouth to answer, but no words came.
Haney pulled herself up higher against the wall. “Wow. I can’t believe we found you.” She coughed lightly after speaking.
“How bad is it?” Kanigher said.
Haney mustered a false grin. “Could be a lot worse, could be a lot better.”
“Let me see.”
Haney nodded, then rolled her stained uniform shirt up to her left armpit, exposing the bloody wound in her side. She had field-dressed it, cleaned it, then sealed it with liquid skin, but several nasty slivers of metal still poked out from her flesh, letting blood dribble out around them, slowly bleeding her to death. Kanigher recognized the projectiles. Needles from a hover mine. Each a foot long and embedded deep in Haney’s side. At least she’d left them in. If she’d removed them, barbs on the ends would’ve ripped out her insides. He guessed she had a fifty-fifty chance of survival without immediate medical care.
“What’s the prognosis, doc?” Haney asked.
“Like you said. Could be better.”
“Story of my friggin’ life.”
Kanigher leaned back on his heels as Haney lowered her shirt. “You need a doctor to stop the bleeding.”
“Roger that. Soon as the rest of the squad returns, we can bug out. We get fifteen klicks out of town, and we can call for air evac. They won’t come any closer. Too dangerous, especially now we’ve stirred up the hornet’s nest out there.”
“Can you walk fifteen klicks?”
“Got no choice,” Haney said. “Move it or lose it.”
Kanigher nodded. A quiet moment passed, and he sensed the dogs watching him, protective of Haney but signaling something more with their stare. Something like—affection? Admiration? He recalled the plaintive howling of the unknown dog, how it had seemed meant for him.
“Lieutenant,” Kanigher asked. “How’d you wind up here?”
“Ran into trouble about seven klicks east of town. An old battlefield, full of leftover live ordnance. The dogs did great. Led us across most of it safe and sound, but the mine that got me sat in the crook of a tree branch. Its hover unit had died god knows how long ago. No sound, no scent for the dogs to pick up on, but as soon as I blipped its proximity sensor—wham! Knocked me and Sallygirl on our asses and gave us a good sting. My second, Sergeant Andru, wasn’t so lucky. Seven needles in his neck and head. Didn’t make it out of the field.”
“I’m sorry,” Kanigher said.
“He was a good man.”
Haney stroked the back of the Lab’s neck then gestured for Kanigher to check the dog’s side. Five needles, twins of those embedded in Haney, protruded from between Sallygirl’s ribs.
“Sallygirl got it worse than me.” Haney’s voice turned shaky and clipped. “She’s the only reason I’m still alive. She jumped in front of me, took the worst of what came our way.”
“Sallygirl’s a good girl,” Kanigher said. At that, Sallygirl raised her head a few inches, met Kanigher’s eyes for a moment, then settled down again on Haney’s leg. “What I meant was why are you here in the first place? This place, town. Behind enemy lines.”
Haney scrunched her face. “Damn, Cap, isn’t it obvious? We came for you.”
Kanigher shook his head. “No, no. Bullshit. I’m not worth you and Sallygirl sitting here with those needles in your sides or Sergeant Andru’s life. Not after all this time. A hundred other soldiers in that camp are worth more than I am.”
“Not to my squad,” Haney said.
“Your squad?”
“Guess I should introduce you.” Haney gestured to the Boston. “You’ve already met the little guy, Bug Eye. His size comes in handy, and he’s got more determination than most soldiers I know. He can get in and out of anywhere if you give him the right scents. And Nightingale you met. She’s our scout. Carries our med gear too. Outside the door, there is Marshmallow Soldier. As fierce as he looks, but he goes soft the second you give him anything sweet. There’s not an explosive he can’t sniff out, no matter how well hidden. Sallygirl is our tracker. The rest ought to be here soon. I feel them nearby.”
Kanigher touched his forehead, indicating where Haney wore her cowl.
“Yep,” Haney said. “Plugged in and ready to play. I guess you’d know all about that.”
“It’s been a while. I imagine it’s different now.”
“The tech, yeah, a little. We get and send clearer sensory and emotional impressions than your original equipment, but it’s still only impressions. Thing is, dogs are dogs. They’re smart, and, you treat ’em right, you got friends for life.”
Kanigher nodded. “I worried all this went away with me.”
“Almost did. A year after you were captured, the brass tried to shut it down. One of my squad convinced General Kubert your program was worth funding. They hired new geniuses to continue your work. They’re adapting your cybernetics work for human/machine interfaces now. Making good progress too. Rumors about top-secret programs and new kinds of weapons. Hasn’t ended the war yet, but it lets us hit a whole lot harder.”
“How… how bad is it?”
“Like me. Could be a whole lot worse, could be a whole lot better,” Haney said. “The Coalition occupies four states. Used to be six. We’re in one of the occupied ones.”
“They dropped you behind enemy lines to rescue me?”
“My squad only works behind enemy lines. Guerilla warfare. Hit-and-run. Us and a few other squads spread throughout the occupied territory. We drive the Coalition nuts, fouling up their supply lines, screwing their communications, spoiling their food. You name it, we gremlin it. I’ve been deployed almost a year straight now, and they still haven’t quite figured out what the hell keeps hitting them.”
“Are we winning?”
“That call’s way above my pay grade,” Haney said. “Every day seems the same to me. Cloudy, with a chance of explosions and gunfire. Coalition is dug in deep from Providence to Atlantic City and over to Pittsburgh, but we stopped them advancing past Pennsylvania, even pushed them back a good way. Two years now, we’ve had troops on the ground in China and Russia to busy them on their own turf. Mexico’s on fire, and the border is a no-man’s land, but they never did get a foothold in Texas. We kept them out of the Northwest too. Our allies are propping us up best they can, but they’ve got their hands full with their own fights. At least no one’s gone nuclear, yet so that’s considered a plus. But it’s going to be a long war.”
The news stunned Kanigher. “We’d been fighting five years when they captured me. How long have I…?”
“You don’t know?”
Kanigher shook his head.
“Guess it all blends together, the beatings, the hard labor, the lousy food—kind of like being in the infantry,” Haney said. “Hard to keep track when you’re living like that.”
“Hey,” Kanigher whispered. “How long?”
“Eight years.” Haney rubbed Sallygirl’s head while Kanigher absorbed her answer.
“Guess I should’ve known,” he said.
Bug Eye and Nightingale jolted to all fours, eyes and ears alert. Sallygirl lifted her head, and from the corridor, Marshmallow Solider growled. Seconds later, a tremor ran through the ground. Kanigher put a hand down to brace himself until the rumble ended.
“Tanks,” Kanigher said. “Looking for us.”
“No doubt about it,” Haney said. “Probably backed up by hoverbirds and foot patrols.”
“If we stay here, they’ll find us,” he said. “The rest of your squad may never reach us.”
Haney shook her head. “Don’t worry. Those Coalition bastards can’t always go where my squad can go. That’s what makes us so effective.”
In the corridor, Marshmallow Soldier filled the doorway. His blue light flashed three times, darkened, then flashed three more. The click-clack of nails on cement and the scrape of metal echoed down the tunnel. The Doberman backed into the room. Two shapes followed him and moved into the light, a pair of German Shepherds. One, young and lithe, wore a standard harness rig and cybercowl, which wrapped the right side of its head. The second stood taller than the other dogs. It took Kanigher several seconds to accept what he saw, but he knew the moment the dog moved into the light this one had made the howl. Impossible as it seemed, he knew its face and its stance. He knew its scent. He remembered the sound of its voice.
