Task Force Page 10

  “What you said about us starting the war, you really think that’s true?” Chisnall asked, off comm, coasting up alongside Barnard.

  “Some people believe it,” Barnard said.

  “And you?”

  Barnard swerved away from him to avoid a cracked area of concrete that had risen up to form a small ridge.

  “I’m open-minded.”

  “Nice to know,” Chisnall said, letting a cold chill drop into his voice. “But you can keep it to yourself from now on. These guys don’t need to have doubts about why they’re putting their lives on the line here.”

  “I don’t get you, Chisnall,” Barnard said. “I’m trying to figure you out and I’m failing.”

  “Don’t worry about it. Just stay on task,” Chisnall said.

  “I don’t care what people think of me,” Barnard said. “Price ignores me. Wilton is terrified of me. I don’t care about the Tsar. He’s a jerk. And Monster doesn’t talk much anyway. But you? You’re a mystery to me.”

  “How so?”

  “Because these guys all look up to you like you’re some kind of god. But all I see is a scared little boy.”

  “Ouch,” Chisnall said.

  “What these guys need is a leader who’s not afraid to lead,” Barnard said.

  “You don’t pull your punches, do you?” Chisnall said.

  “I heard about Uluru,” Barnard said. “Get over it. Stop trying to protect these guys and start doing your job.”

  “I am doing my job,” Chisnall said. “You keep your ideas to yourself. These guys don’t need to be wondering whose side you’re really on.”

  She turned to face him and her eyes were stony. “I’m no traitor,” she said.

  “Then what are you?” Chisnall asked. “The most important mission of the war and they landed me with you. No combat history, no explanations. I could have used another experienced soldier.”

  “Like the Hero of Hokkaido?” Barnard said with a small twist of a smile.

  “Yes, like the Tsar. But I got you,” Chisnall said. “Someone who knows things they’re not supposed to know. Who are you?”

  “That’s not important,” Barnard said.

  “I’ll decide that,” Chisnall said.

  “It’s above your security level, Lieutenant,” Barnard said.

  “I’m in command of this team,” Chisnall said. “Right here, right now, nothing is above my security level.”

  “This is,” Barnard said.

  Chisnall opened his mouth, but any further questions would have to wait. A Bzadian came running out of a side street, right at them.

  “Help! Help!” He was not in uniform. He was a civilian, which, to a human, was a rare sight. The interactions humans had with Bzadians were mostly at the end of a gun.

  “The river!” the civilian said.

  He was overweight, also an unusual state for a Bzadian. His fingers were soft and pudgy and even the short run over to their position left him breathless. His hands waved around like windmills.

  “What is it, sir?” Chisnall asked.

  “There’s something in the river!” the Bzadian puffed.

  “River monsters, perhaps?” Price asked.

  “Boats!” the Bzadian said. “Small boats. I think they’re sc—” He couldn’t bring himself to say the word. “The enemy!”

  “Scumbugz?” Chisnall asked. “Here in the middle of New Bzadia? That’s not possible.”

  “I know what I saw,” the fat Bzadian said.

  “Have you alerted the Coastal Defense Command?” Chisnall asked.

  “Yes.”

  “All right, we’ll check it out,” Chisnall said. “But in the meantime I want you to let us know if you see anyone carrying cans of Puke spray.”

  “Puke spray?” The Bzadian seemed even more alarmed.

  “What is it?”

  “Like this,” Chisnall said, and showed him.

  Monster caught the Bzadian as he slumped, then effortlessly slung the flabby shape over one shoulder.

  “Put him somewhere he won’t be found,” Chisnall said. He looked at the others. “I think we may have a problem.”

  “Movement up ahead,” Wilton said.

  Kris stopped about a quarter of the way across the bridge and leaned over the rail to peer down. Something was floating beneath the mist. Whatever it was, it was large, ripples spreading backward down the river as far as she could see. There was an unusual sound in the air also, a low murmur that seemed to be coming from the water.

  She reached for her phone, but even as she did, a realization struck her. The restaurateur. Where was he? He had said he would meet her on the bridge. Had something happened to him? If so, was she in danger too? She glanced around the bridge, seeing nothing, then down at the bike path, which ran along the riverbank. A vague blur of movement caught her eye. She dropped just as a thud hit the rail above her. A mist of fine gray powder wafted downward. Instinctively, she shut her eyes and mouth and clamped two fingers over her nose, rolling out onto the roadway as another thud sounded.

  Something was wrong with her vision now—the images in the NV goggles were swimming, and when she tried to stand up, her legs were weak and loose. Dark figures were scrambling over median barriers onto the bridge on-ramp. She tried to focus on them but her eyes were a blur.

  On her hands and knees, she scurried away from them—away from her command center and safety.

  Her command center. In the fog of her brain, she remembered her phone.

  She peered at the buttons, but they were just blurs. Kriz forced her eyes to focus and pressed the speed-dial button. A voice answered. It was someone she knew well, although she could not remember his name. She tried to talk through thick lips but her tongue was a swollen, useless lump of meat and only groaning sounds emerged.

  Now there were dark figures running up the bridge toward her. There was no time. Somehow, she got to her feet and staggered to the railing of the bridge, leaning over, and over. The mist below her looked like a soft cushion for her fall, but that was an illusion. The truth was the cold hardness of the river water.

  The shock gave Kriz clarity. Her eyes began to focus; her tongue began to stir. But the phone was gone, knocked from her grasp by the impact. Her NV goggles had somehow remained in place and the river was a dark green otherworld.

  The current dragged her downstream, and she began to flail back to the surface, desperate for a gasp of air. She watched in astonishment as a giant black fish swam toward her … no, not a fish, a tank. A human battle tank, floating beneath the surface, its huge treads idle yet terrifying as they passed inches from her face.

  Tanks, floating in the river! Kriz had no time to comprehend the meaning of this discovery as she reached the surface and gasped in a lungful of air, then another. Vaguely, through the mist, she could make out the bridge. Figures were bending over the railing. They must have seen her too. Guns swung in her direction. She plunged back below the surface as bullets disintegrated in the water around her.

  “Where the hell is he?” Chisnall yelled.

  “Can’t see him in the mist!” Price yelled back.

  “Anyone got eyes on?” Chisnall asked. No one replied. “Well, keep looking.”

  “Maybe he’s unconscious,” the Tsar said. “Wilton’s shot was right by his face.”

  “No such luck,” Price said. “You don’t breathe in puffer dust and keep walking.”

  “Maybe he fell off the bridge,” the Tsar said.

  “No, he definitely climbed over the railing,” Wilton said.

  “Find him,” Chisnall said.

  Before he raises the alarm. Before he puts the entire mission in jeopardy.

  Deep in the river, another vehicle was approaching: a troop carrier with large bulbous wheels. Only the tops of the vehicles were above the water, Kriz realized. The rest was hidden from Bzadian eyes beneath the surface of the river.

  Her mind was finally clear, freed from the effects of the few grains of the powder she had inge
sted. This was an invasion. No question about it, and the scale of it she could only guess at. What mattered now was raising the alarm.

  She swam underwater for a few yards and then surfaced for another breath, ducking back down before the watching shooters could see her through the mist. Another vehicle loomed through the water, and, with a purpose born of desperation, she swam for it, scrabbling for a handhold. A series of rungs ran up the side and she grabbed at one, her hand slipping, then fastening firmly. The rung yanked at her arm, dragging her along with the vehicle as it made its way upriver. She clutched at a higher rung, then another, hauling herself up until her face emerged from the water. Here, right above one of the vehicles, the mist was thickest.

  The shadow of the bridge passed overhead and still she held on, waiting for the pylons of the next bridge, the railway bridge.

  When the sky darkened for a second time, she let go of the rung and swam to the nearest pylon. Her hands scrabbled for purchase on the rough concrete of the pylon as she worked her way around, still underwater, emerging on the upriver side, out of sight of her pursuers. A few deep breaths and she dived back under, kicking for the next pylon. From the second pylon to the riverbank was a short swim, and she emerged in a clump of bushes below the bridge.

  Kriz rested while she tried to get her breath and her bearings. She tried to think but lucid thoughts were like ghosts in the night, slipping away as she tried to latch on to them. Only slowly did reason start to return. When it did, there was a problem.

  She was on the wrong bank. Disorientated in the water, she had ended up on the far side away from her command center.

  “There he is!” Barnard shouted. “By the base of the railway bridge.”

  The others raced over and stared down at the tiny figure on the far side of the river, clambering out of the water.

  “He swam upstream against the current!” Chisnall said.

  “Or hitched a ride,” Barnard said. “That’s what I would have done.”

  Chisnall glanced sideways at Barnard. The rest of them had been scanning the river downstream, waiting for the Bzadian to emerge from the water. Only Barnard had crossed the bridge to look upstream.

  Wilton’s rifle sounded, just a soft phut, right by Chisnall’s ear, and puffer powder exploded on the Bzadian’s back. He staggered but kept going.

  “Just give me one real bullet,” Wilton raged. “Just one full metal jacket and this is over right now.”

  “Price, Wilton, on me,” Chisnall said. “We’ll take care of this. You others, get back to the north bank and continue the patrol.”

  Chisnall leaped onto his T-board and stamped on the speed switch. It shot forward, and he nearly lost his balance, crouching down to regain it.

  He looked back to see Price and Wilton close behind him.

  The Demons were arrayed on the far side of the bridge.

  “You lost a Puke?” Yobbo called out as they approached.

  “You need us to sort it out for you?” Miscreant asked.

  “We’ll clean up our own mess,” Chisnall said, dodging around a couple of the Demons, who didn’t even try to get out of his way.

  “Send a boy to do a man’s job,” he heard one of the Demons call out behind him.

  Chisnall scanned to his right as he raced down the road and caught a glimpse of their prey, running full speed on a side road in the shadow of the railway bridge. A haze of light from a delivery truck blocked his view, and then they were past the side road and the glimpse was gone.

  Chisnall tried to picture the area. They had studied a map of it many times in preparation for the mission. That side road led to a pedestrian bridge.

  “I think he’s trying to get back across the river,” Chisnall said.

  At the end of the road, a looping curve led to the left. Chisnall took it at speed, leaning into the curve, the tires protesting but holding. He had to take the curve a little wide to get around without spinning out but just managed to keep his balance. He looked around to see if Price and Wilton had kept up with him. To his surprise, they were both just ahead of him, having taken the curve slightly tighter and shooting up on the inside. The road took them around the front of the old state library and past the art gallery, now stocked with Bzadian artworks—the original human artworks, many of them priceless, left to rot in Dumpsters outside.

  The parking lot of the gallery led them to a path that ran down to the pedestrian bridge, but already Chisnall could see that he had made a mistake. The bridge was empty.

  “Split up,” he said. “Find him.”

  Kriz had never intended to use the exposed pedestrian bridge, which offered no concealment. Her plan was to get up onto the railway overpass that curved above the buildings of the city.

  The overpass sloped down to ground level just a few blocks away, and if she could get to that, she felt she could make it across the river, hidden behind the high metal walls of the railway bridge.

  Passing a construction site, Kriz slipped past the safety barriers and trotted quickly down a footpath beside the roadwork. The machines, the equipment, and even the safety gear the road crew used were sitting in the middle of the road, waiting for work to resume the next day. The thought crossed her mind that in a human society, it would have all been locked away, to avoid the risk of it being stolen. But in the more developed, civilized Bzadian society, stealing was almost unheard of.

  She crossed the street and picked up a safety helmet. One of the crew had left behind a jacket. It was a nondescript gray, a perfect cover for her uniform. She put it on, although it was at least a size too large, and picked up a tool. After hefting it a couple of times, she discarded it as too heavy and likely to slow her down. A laser-measuring meter, about the size of a flashlight, was much lighter and easier to carry. She tucked her sidearm into a pocket and slowed her gait, trudging forward. To watching eyes she would be just a weary road worker, heading home after a long shift. It occurred to her that she was stealing, like a human, but she wasn’t. Not really. She would return the equipment as soon as she was able.

  What was going on? Her mind was clearer now but still thoughts collided with each other, making little sense. She forced herself to calm down and try to find a rational explanation for what she had seen.

  An armada of fighting vehicles was making its way up the river, destination unknown. Enemy vehicles. They were using the river to infiltrate a force into Bzadian territory. She tried to think of possible targets. The army base at Enoggera? Or the air base at Amberley? She discarded her own headquarters as a target. They had already passed that.

  Someone was chasing her. They had to be humans too; nothing else made sense. They must be somehow connected to what was happening in the river. Above her, the tall concrete trusses of the railway overpass began to slope down to the ground. A wire fence blocked access to the railway tracks.

  It was high, but she was pretty sure she could climb it.

  “Easy does it,” Chisnall said. Wilton had screamed past on a side street and Chisnall was immediately conscious that they were drawing attention to themselves.

  He eased the pressure on the ball of his foot, slowing his own T-board down to a fast walking pace. “You’re on patrol, not in a race.”

  “Copy that,” Wilton’s voice came back over the comm.

  A road worker was ambling down a side street, away from a construction site. A female in a large jacket, wearing a helmet and carrying some kind of equipment. She didn’t concern him. With any luck she would be half-asleep after a hard night’s work. And he was just a soldier on patrol.

  It seemed they had been lucky so far. The Bzadian from the bridge hadn’t managed to raise the alarm. If he had, there would be hovering rotorcraft and heavily armed Land Rovers racing around the city.

  If this were a residential area, the Bzadian could bang on a door until somebody woke up, but this part of the city was industrial, and the buildings were empty and locked.

  Chisnall turned a corner, then another, circling aroun
d a city block. The next brought him onto the side road and he saw the road worker again, approaching a high metal security fence that separated the railway from the roadway. He slowed, not wanting to appear suspicious or in too much of a hurry.

  You’re a Bzadian soldier on patrol, he told himself. Just smile and nod.

  The road worker saw him as he entered the street. She turned in his direction, waving her arms. She was clearly upset about something.

  A soldier patrolling on a T-board rounded a corner just as Kriz reached the high fence. At last! Thank Azoh! Someone with a radio. She glanced around and then began to run toward the soldier, wanting to shout but afraid the humans, somewhere in the vicinity, would hear her.

  The road worker began to run. Chisnall slowed. Best to hear what she had to say. He stopped as she ran up to him.

  “Soldier,” she said, “I am Major—” Her voice broke off. “Chiznel?”

  It was simultaneous. The spark of recognition. The flash of understanding.

  Chisnall just had time to notice wet clothes beneath an ill-fitting jacket before his eyes met her face. This was no road worker. It was Kriz, the Coastal Defense Command officer he had met via the video screen on the island. There could only be one explanation for that.

  He grabbed at the can of Puke spray on his belt. She reached inside her jacket pocket. He was fast.

  She was faster.

  Kriz did not bother to draw the sidearm out of the jacket. That would have taken time. Her thumb found the safety catch and her finger found the trigger all in one movement. She saw the shock on Chizel’s face as she fired through the fabric at pointblank range at the largest body mass, his torso.

  The sound of the shot reverberated from the high walls of the buildings around her, but she didn’t hesitate. Bzadian body armor was designed to shatter, to absorb the shock of a bullet by spreading the impact through the material of the armor. One shot could not penetrate. Kriz fired again as Chizel fell backward. A canister fell from his nerveless hand.