Dominant Species (21 page)

Another sound broke her concentration, now level with her and to the left. Darcy flattened into the wall, trying desperately to zero the source.

More than one, she recognized, her teeth grinding. Bastards are talking to each other, coordinating.

The eroding situation demanded a tactical change. Whatever moved through the Lobby walls did so invisibly and Darcy wasn't going to wait for them to pop up in her face. With great deliberation, her fingers slid down to her hip and closed on a familiar curved slab. As she positioned the device near the rim of the ledge, she felt the words FRONT TOWARDS ENEMY embossed faintly along the curved outer shell.

Sneak up on this, motherfucker.

Darcy quietly pulled a fistfull of dirty fiber insulation from a breach in the wall and placed the cottony pink wad in front of the antipersonnel mine. Wriggling methodically backward, Darcy slithered feet-first through several feet of torn wall and emerged in a dark hallway on the far side, her original point of entry.

To her right the hall led back to the turbolift, but the view from that angle was sure to be limited. Darcy looked aft as she quickly stowed the rifle, her mind trying to picture the layout of the Lobby cut into single floors. She had seen a wide section of catwalk extending from somewhere aft, angling up in a series of staircase landings to the ceiling. The vantage point should give her high ground and a flanking position. Pivoting to her left, she bolted downslope, her concern over slipping lost in the urgent need to move.

The metal rungs barely caught her eye as she bolted past a half-open hatch. She braked hard, dielectric actuators causing the polymeric gel in her soles to deform in a high-grip tread pattern. Cursing the sneaker-like squeal, Darcy ducked through the hatch and launched herself up the ladder.

Reaching the top, she pushed up on the circular hatch that sat over the ladder-tube like a hinged manhole cover. It lifted with barely a creak. The scant crescent gap allowed Darcy to peer out at floor-level from the highest balcony in the Lobby. The ceiling hung just overhead and a set of tiered landings rose to meet the roofline. Motionless, Darcy strained to listen. The silence told her nothing; her flanking maneuver might have put her out of earshot as intended.

Or not, she snarled, and the bastards are just waiting for me.

Taking a deep breath, Darcy raised the hatch enough to slither through. Arms outstretched, she dragged herself forward with only fingers and toes, her progress measured in inches between intermittent pauses.

The sniper edged her way to a pile of mechanical debris, where she looked for a gap that would allow her to use the heap as a screen. An overhanging flap of crumpled sheet metal proved the best she could find. Keeping the muzzle behind the improvised blind, Darcy gazed out through the scope.

Rapidly quartering the room, Darcy tore through a hasty search that would pick up only the most obvious tells-- motion, shine, striking difference in color. She hadn't expected to catch someone out in the open but couldn't pass up the chance for a lucky break. Finishing the wide z-pattern, Darcy reluctantly accepted that her allotment of good karma had been burned on the table. If she was going to get an edge now, she'd have to earn it herself.

A scrape, metal on metal, short but distinct. The image in the scope streaked up to the landing closest to the ceiling. Slowly now, the crosshairs crawled right to left across a battery of air handlers. Condensation chambers rose two abreast from each compressor. Even through the grime that encrusted the blue-painted unit, the number 43 was visible in yellow.

A full heartbeat late Darcy registered the familiarity and the scope centered the numerals once more. She slid her view to the right where condensor 44 appeared to be intact. Reversing her track, the sniper swept left across three units, coming to a halt on a cracked pulley, the split chain hanging motionless on one side. Her breath quickened.

The darkness beyond was blurred by the depth of field but she could still make out the dark louvered circle. Darcy pushed the zoom forward with delicate care until she drew the grate into sharp clarity. A shattered lock dangled limp on the mangled frame. Beyond, the entire grate hung askew.

The skin rippled along Darcy's spine. Pulling off the riflescope she craned over the balcony lip and struggled to spot her first hide.

"No chance," she muttered, knowing full well that the huge structure that blocked her view down would have blocked her view up just as well. It would have been impossible to see any of the compressors from below, and yet 41 stood before her, and the open grate beyond, precisely as she--

Imagined? Remembered? She struggled to frame an impossible event in some logical rationale, but nothing fit. She could not have known the grate was there, any more than she could know what was beyond. And yet somehow, she did know. She remembered.

Darcy drew the rifle back to her shoulder and peered at the grate. Darkness beckoned beyond, where the curved sides of the duct ran straight and true to a four-way junction some thirty meters in. She knew the way the metal groaned under great weight, how the seams snagged more going in than coming out. The picture grew sharper in her mind, details of sound and feel resolving to unnatural clarity. The sensations became immersive, absorbing her.

Her mind moved quickly through the ductwork, advancing in improbably long strides. One leg after another reached forward, clawed talons biting into the curved walls. A metallic clatter filled her ears, sounds that were at once alien and yet somehow perfectly in place. Voices murmured, slurred voices she could feel more than hear.

Emerging from one section of duct, Darcy reached out with a metallic claw that should have been her hand; at least it felt like her own hand as it clamped down on a length of pipe. The metal tube crumpled in her grasp. Her immense weight swung effortlessly between two heavy columns, a fan of arms to either side of her body snatching at every conceivable foothold. Just as quickly, she plunged headlong into another tube, this one smaller than the first.

Blue light wavered at the end of the dark tunnel. Lake light, Darcy recognized as she scuttled closer. The disk of blue expanded quickly to reveal details beyond. She was lower in the Lobby, perhaps halfway down to the lake surface. Gazing from within the tube, she could see some of the catwalks that angled towards the Tower.

Motion on one of the suspended walkways caught her attention and she felt her wide body hunker down between a pair of vent frames. Tension gathered in her numerous arms and legs as she made out two shapes that moved slowly along the steel bridge. One of the grey figures was decidedly larger that the other, a Gatling gun unmistakable beneath his right arm.

Her perspective edged closer.

CHAPTER 22

"You're fucking dead, Rimmer."

Jenner tried to twist away from the armored hand that pinned his throat against the wall. The Marine's other hand, clenched in a fist, hovered just off the tip of Jenner's nose. Crumpled bits of foil and vacuseal sprouted between the carbon-clad fingers.

The fist cocked back and Jenner yelped, eyes clamped shut as he turned his face from the blow. Thunder echoed in his ear, a tooth-rattling vibration that proved remarkably painless. Somehow he thought having his skull caved in would hurt more. Jenner opened one eye in a fearful squint.

Taz stood frozen in place, his fist buried in the wall alongside Jenner's head. The Marine's entire body trembled. With a metallic screech, the first tore free and Jenner felt his body lurch, shoved away by the hand at his throat. He slid across the wall and crashed to the floor, bouncing down the pitched floor in a jumble of flailing limbs.

"The Majah'd have my bollocks for breakfast if I fragged you now you bloody little wog. But when he find out you've rifled our bloody rations," Taz hurled the fistful of torn wrappers, "then you and me are gonna ‘ave a go."

Jenner's stomach twisted as he watched the bits of foil flutter to the deck. He had come so close, watching the Marines store their food, their medicines. The plan had been a simple one, but not without dangers. Getting caught by Taz with a gutfull of MREs and a pocket of empty wrappers was just about as dangerous as Jenner could imagine.

Taz paced to the center of the room as a string of curses spooled endlessly under his breath. He turned back and Jenner could see the knife in his hand. The serrated blade twirled as if on its own, one moment pointed up as though ready to carve a turkey, then in a sudden crescent of silver it switched ends, extending edge-out along the curve of Taz's forearm. The rapid cyclic display was unnerving.

Jenner glanced to the door and prayed that someone would return. The odds, he knew, were slim. Monster and the mechanic were supposed to be fixing something and the girl had gone off on some kind of lone patrol. He had overheard the Major talking to Stitch about finding a bridge, although Jenner couldn't imagine anybody building a bridge where there were no roads. Whatever the case, Jenner feared that every possible source of protection was scattered, too far to hear a single scream. Watching Taz spin the knife, Jenner doubted that he'd last long enough to scream twice.

As if in confirmation of Jenner's worst fear, Taz spun around abruptly and barked, "What?"

Jenner's hands flinched up to his chest, palms out. "I didn't shay anything," he bleated, his tone high-pitched and quivering.

"Where are you?" The long knife disappeared into its sheath as a stocky carbine took its place in the Marine's hands. Taz took two long strides toward the door before Jenner realized that the Marine's comment was directed at someone else. The urgent chatter continued as Taz blew through the doorway and vanished down the hall. "Hang on, I'll be there in two mikes..." The voice disappeared before the pounding footsteps faded to silence.

Jenner sat breathing heavily and listened for the rapid return of footsteps that would reveal the cruel joke. Seconds ticked by in silence. For the first time since awakening, Jenner was alone.

A hand nervously crept to his face, gums closing down on a nub that had no nail. He looked at the hand and regarded the lumpy appendage with an equal measure of disgust and self-pity.

A flicker of silver caught his eye as a scrap of foil glinted in the light. Jenner's heart skipped a beat; he still had the plan. Accelerated perhaps, but he was way past going back now.

The MREs weren't steak dinners to be sure, but each square block of sawdust-flavored gel was packed with nutrients. He had tried to make sense out of the labels; protein, polydextrose, cyanocobalimine-- whatever it meant, the stuff was made to keep Marines alive so it had to have some value. Looking across the room, Jenner made his decision.

Driven by a mounting urgency, he scrambled to the counter where the Marines had stacked their supplies. Clumsily he tore into the remaining packs, shoveling wads of food down his throat. Wrappers he couldn't tear he simply chewed with his back teeth, sucking gooey contents from tattered strips. Jenner choked down the last of the sparse supplies and cast about for anything else that looked remotely like the stuff humans are made of. He rummaged the first aid supplies, sifting through the stack of candidates.

"Syntheshkin bandage, gets abshorbed by the body." He tossed the roll onto the gloss surface of the medical repair table. "Plashma pack," he read, holding up the small ceramite container of condensed blood. "Shounds about right." He flipped the second item next to the bandage. A spool of sutures and a tube of antibiotic followed, Jenner's criteria having no clear definition. He tossed a set of thermoplastic splints over his shoulder and paused to read the label on a small box of green pads before deciding that it too was worthless.

The word MIDAZOLAM caught his eye, small black letters that nearly wrapped around the vial of cinnamon-colored liquid. He grabbed it with nubby fingers, ignoring the raw twinge. With considerable effort Jenner forced an infuser head over the neck of the vial and pressed firmly, noting the hiss familiar to junkies across the galaxy. If the life offered any consolation prizes, he knew damn well how to work an infuser.

His heart beat like a jackhammer as Jenner scrambled to the door and peered down the hall in both directions. Nothing moved, not a sound in either direction.

Shuffling quickly back to the table he took a deep breath and pressed the infuser against the flesh of his neck and thumbed the release. A descending hiss cut through the air and a delicious haze began to wind its way through Jenner's senses.

He exhaled a long slow breath and laid back onto the table.

CHAPTER 23

Ridgeway hurtled down the sloped hall, toward the Tower and the drumbeat of gunfire. Light flashed through the open doors at the end of the hall, the yellow-orange blaze of muzzle-flash. CAR in hand as he rounded the corner, Ridgeway burst into the Lobby.

Darcy was somewhere high on the stern wall. Ridgeway couldn't see her but the sniper rifle's pulsing muzzle flash was brightest along the ceiling. Straight across the room, a section of air duct disintegrated in a blistering hail of fiery impacts. Below, Monster and Merlin stood out on a long section of catwalk, back to back, weapons held high.

Defense formation, Ridgeway recognized immediately. Unknown targets, maybe multiple. His CAR snapped to his shoulder as he swept the convoluted maze of ducts that hung above the two Marines. At least two sections were already riddled, smoke curling from fist-sized holes. Darcy was reducing a third to burning scrap.