The Road to Damascus (bolo) Read online

  And all the while, he raced forward, gaining the entrance to Dead-End Gorge, as locals called the box canyon, in less than sixty seconds. They had to plow through the wreckage of a house to reach the entrance. Simon hoped to hell they hadn’t crushed any survivors, on their way through.

  A drone, launched ahead of them, poked its head around the corner, giving them a split-second view of the Yavac. It crouched like a bloated tick in front of a breathtaking fall of white concrete that splashed into the ground between towering rose-toned cliffs. Water poured down the spillway from the deep reservoir behind it. The power plant was intact, but the Yavac had destroyed the towers supporting the high-tension wires that powered the canyon’s homes, farms, and packing plants. Judging by the temperature gradiants registering on Sonny’s sensors, the destruction had just been wrought within the past two or three minutes.

  “Can you kill their main guns with indirect fire, from here?”

  “Not with enough certainty to cripple it before it attacks the dam.”

  “Charge it, then. Fast.”

  They whipped around the corner at battle speed, rattling Simon’s teeth in his jaw. Sonny’s guns were already locked on, the targeting computers having taken their data from the probe overhead. The forward Hellbore snarled, rocking them on their treads. The Yavac’s main gun blew apart, melted off at the turret. Infinite repeaters sliced off half its legs, sending it crashing awkwardly to its left side. It was firing back at them, wild shots that splashed off Sonny’s screens. Then it launched a missile, almost point-blank, at the dam. Sonny’s infinite repeaters slashed out, caught the casing scant centimeters short of the concrete wall. The warhead detonated in the air, rather than inside the concrete, as intended. A fireball scorched the dam, rising in a tongue of flame that turned the water pouring down the spillway to steam.

  Then Sonny’s Hellbore barked again and the Yavac’s turret blew apart. Debris scattered, smashing into the base of the dam and the rose-colored cliff beyond. Simon winced, hoping to hell the pockmarks gouged into the concrete hadn’t cracked it too deeply. A final savage snarl from Sonny’s Hellbore and the Yavac was finished, melted to slag in the middle and smouldering on either side, legs and guns motionless except for the crackling of flames and the wavering heat of smoke rising from the ruins.

  Sonny’s guns, too, fell silent. Simon dragged down air, relaxed his death grip on the command consoles under his hands. “Sonny,” he said hoarsely, “that was some hellacious fine shooting.”

  “Thank you, Simon,” the Bolo said quietly. Sonny knew as well as he did just how close they’d cut it, swatting down that missile.

  “Can you get a structural reading on that dam?”

  “Scanning with ground-penetrating radar. I detect no deep structural cracks. The surface is pitted, but the structure is sound.”

  A deep sigh gusted loose. “Oh, thank God.”

  He glanced at the situation reports coming in from Jefferson’s artillery crews and nodded to himself, satisfied that the last few Yavac Scouts scattered through this maze of gorges would be shot down within a few minutes. The battle was as good as over. All that remained, now, was picking up the shattered pieces and rebuilding. He thought of Etaine, of Renny’s ghastly ashen face, thought of Kafari Camar and Abe Lendan, and wondered if he would ever see any of them again. And if he did, would any of them have the courage and the strength to start over? With warm spring sunlight and blessed silence pouring down across them, Simon couldn’t imagine a better spot in which to try. Very quietly, Sonny turned his bulk around, grinding the Yavac into the ground under his treads, and left to hunt for survivors.

  II

  There was a trail, of sorts, faint enough it barely qualified and so obscured by rising smoke she lost it and had to backtrack a couple of times to regain it. The smoke gave only the illusion of concealment, however. Kafari knew that much about high-tech warfare. Their body heat would glow like a neon beacon and motion sensors would pick up every shudder of their lungs as they struggled up the cliff face. The climb was sheer agony. Kafari had done a lot of rough camping and hiking, but she’d never made such a murderous climb in her life.

  Knowing the president’s life depended on her decisions didn’t add to her peace of mind, either. She could hear soft gasps and half-muttered curses as Abe Lendan struggled up the trail behind her, wincing at each rough handhold that scraped his fingers raw. Kafari’s hands were bleeding. So were her knees and one cheek where she’d slipped down a near-vertical stretch. She’d slithered to a stop only when her feet hit Abe Lendan’s shoulders and then, only because he dug in with feet and fingertips to halt her fall. She’d lain there for a moment, shaking and gasping, then struggled up, again. The weight of the guns slung across their backs only added to the misery, but Kafari wasn’t about to leave them behind.

  They’d gone maybe two hundred feet straight up when a cataclysmic roar shook them from the direction of Dead-End Gorge and the dam. Blue flame shot skyward, burning its way up out of the gorge and turning the smoke incandescent. Kafari plastered herself against the rockface, trying to sink down into it. She could hear Aisha’s voice somewhere below her, praying out loud between the booming of Olympian guns and the cracking echoes that slammed from one cliff face to another. The sound, alone, crashing down against them, was like a giant fist against their flesh. Dinny was crying, in great sobs of terror. So was Kafari.

  More explosions, more smoke and hellish light boiled up from Dead-End Gorge. Kafari couldn’t tell if they were hearing only guns or if part of the noise was the dam breaking apart. If the dam went, were they high enough to avoid the flood? Kafari wasn’t sure they could climb at all, not with the whole rockface shaking under their bellies.

  The sudden silence was a shock.

  Kafari froze, listening, hardly daring to hope. More silence, profound and alien. From far, far away, back in the distant gorges closer to Maze Gap, she could hear a pattering of gunfire, but it was sporadic, sounding like a child’s popgun by comparison with the awesome explosions that had crushed them flat for so many terrifying minutes. Then a low rumble came from the entrance to Dead-End Gorge, vibrating the cliff under her bloodied fingertips. It didn’t feel like the concussion tremors from individual legs of a Yavac walking down the canyon. This was a continuous rumble, diffused across a broader base.

  The Bolo?

  God, was it the Bolo, heading back toward them?

  “Lookit that!” Dinny shouted, pointing toward the smoke pouring out of Dead-End Gorge.

  Kafari stared. It was a huge, dark shape, ablaze with running lights, like a big freighter moving ponderously toward spacedock. Gun snouts bristled on every surface. It passed Alligator Deep, a mere hundred meters further along than they’d managed to run, then it checked, abruptly. The moment after that, It swung around, ponderously, and headed straight toward them. Kafari gulped.

  “Uh, guys, I think it’s seen us.”

  That’s a good thing, isn’t it?

  They watched in awed silence as the immense machine lumbered through the brimstone ruins the battle had created. Fires blazed everywhere, occluded as the Bolo interposed its bulk between blazing houses and barns and the trail they clung to, ant-like. It pulled up directly alongside, treads grinding like logs in a sawmill. Its topmost turret rose more than a hundred feet higher than their heads. Heat poured from it, from its hull and its guns and some kind of energy screen around it. That screen cut off, abruptly, with a faint crackle and pop. Then the ponderous thing stopped, no more than a long step away, wreathed in heat and smoke and an aura of dark and dangerous power.

  A hatch popped open, no more than three meters from Kafari’s feet, in a flat part of the hull that she could easily have stepped onto, if she’d dared such a thing. An instant later, the Bolo’s commander scrambled up, his brave crimson uniform stained with sweat, his dark hair ruffled by the breeze trying to dispel the smoke. Kafari stared at him, locked gazes with his, feeling battered and sweat-stained and ugly as a road-ki
lled toad. A look of wonder had come across Simon Khrustinov’s face, a wonderment that deepened when he saw who was climbing the cliff with her.

  “Dear God,” he whispered, glancing into Abe Lendan’s eyes. “Mr. President, if you don’t give this young lady a medal, I sure as hell will.”

  Kafari’s eyes started to burn, with more than drifting smoke.

  “Miss Camar, may I offer you and your friends a ride?”

  The burning in her eyes started to drip messily down her face. He reached across, steadied her as she stepped onto the Bolo’s warhull. The warmth of his hands on hers, the careful strength of his grip, holding her like fragile china, told her more than words ever could. His gaze touched something deep in her soul, something warm and alive that she had forgotten, during the past hour, that she still possessed.

  “Careful,” he whispered as her knees jellied. “Steady, now. Can you climb down the ladder, there, while I help the others across?”

  She nodded. He helped her through the hatch, then turned to steady Abe Lendan and Dinny and Aisha Ghamal, by turns. She had to crawl slowly down the ladder, not only because her hands were slippery with blood, but because she’d begun to shake so violently, she could barely keep her feet. When she reached bottom, she found herself in a snug compartment, dominated by viewscreens and a huge, powered chair festooned with cushioned straps. There were five smaller couches, evidently for passengers, crammed into the small space, along with storage lockers and huge viewscreens that surrounded the command chair on three sides. She stumbled toward the nearest couch and sank down onto it, shaking.

  Metallic clangs reached her as the others climbed down. Abe Lendan appeared first, drooping with exhaustion. Dinny followed him down, eyes wide as he stared, enraptured, at the Bolo’s Command Compartment. Simon Khrustinov came next, bracing Aisha from beneath, so she wouldn’t fall as she shuddered her way slowly down the ladder. Kafari slid hastily to the next couch, making room for the injured woman. The Bolo’s commander eased Mrs. Ghamal onto the couch and got busy with medical equipment, which took her vitals and injected something automatically.

  “The auto-doc will take very good care of you,” he said quietly, “while we’re underway. You should be feeling better shortly.”

  Aisha’s expression had already relaxed as pain-killing medication spread visibly through her, allowing her to sag into near slumber within moments.

  “You’ve all been exposed to radiation,” he added, studying the auto-doc. “We’ll start chelation immediately. Not to worry,” he added with a gentle smile, “we’ve improved anti-radiation therapy, over the years. We’ll cleanse your systems before any permanent damage occurs.”

  That was the best news Kafari had heard all day.

  Simon Khrustinov was helping the others into couches, webbing them carefully in and swinging the auto-docs into place. When it was Kafari’s turn, she surrendered gratefully to those gentle hands, sighing as a flood of medication hit her system.

  “Are those bee-stings?” he asked, frowning slightly.

  “They are, indeed,” President Lendan answered for her, voice filled with rust and pride. “When a Yavac stepped on our shelter, we had to clear a whole mess of Deng infantry out of a barn. She threw a couple of beehives into it. She and Aisha did, between them. What the bees didn’t sting to death, we shot down as they ran out, chased by the swarm.”

  Simon Khrustinov’s smile started in his eyes and spread to the rest of him, while a slow burn of something shivery and wonderful kindled in Kafari’s middle. He said softly, “That has got to be the most creative way of killing Deng I have ever heard. Eh, Sonny?”

  A metallic voice spoke from the air, causing Kafari to jump with shock. “Indeed, Simon. There is no mention of anything like it anywhere in my databases, which include several centuries’ worth of strategems for dealing with an entrenched enemy. I would like to have seen that,” it added, sounding almost wistful.

  Simon Khrustinov chuckled. “So would I. That one’s going to go down in the legends of the Brigade, or I don’t know my fellow officers.”

  “Welcome aboard,” the metallic voice added. “It is an honor to carry you to safety.”

  “Thanks,” she whispered, voice watery and small.

  Simon Khrustinov finished adjusting the auto-docs, gave Dinny Ghamal a wink and a grin that lit the boy from inside, then strapped himself into the command chair.

  “Okay, Sonny, let’s see if Jefferson’s artillery has finished mopping up, yet, or if we have a few more Deng to shoot down.”

  As the Bolo rumbled into motion, Kafari wanted — badly — to keep her eyes open, to watch the viewscreens and savor the way Simon Khrustinov’s hair fell in sweaty waves over the back of his collar. But the medication had spread a deep and wonderful lassitude all through her limbs and the lifting of responsibility from her shoulders, responsibility for the president’s safety and the future of her entire world, left her with drooping eyelids. She was still telling herself to stay awake when the world went blissfully dark and silent, drifting away. Kafari slipped into deep, exhausted slumber, unbroken even by nightmares.

  Chapter Eight

  I

  Madison had changed.

  Or maybe she had. Kafari shrugged her pack into a more comfortable position and adjusted the straps, then set out across campus. The library, with its all-important SWIFT transmitter, was nearly three kilometers from her little cubicle. She didn’t mind the walk, most days, although the weather was sometimes unpleasant and she was often achingly tired.

  “Don’t worry about the fatigue,” the doctor had told her, “it’s just a byproduct of your body’s effort to repair the damage. Take it slowly and be patient. It’ll pass, soon enough, and you’ll feel more like yourself, again.”

  Kafari wasn’t sure, any longer, what “feeling like herself” actually felt like. She didn’t know herself, any longer, didn’t recognize the girl who lived inside her skin, these days. She peered into the mirror, sometimes, trying to find herself, and saw only a girl with eyes like flint who sometimes, for reasons Kafari didn’t completely understand, made older, ostensibly stronger men shudder. She had lost herself, somewhere, in the smoke and the shooting and the killing.

  Compared to others, Kafari had lost very little. She was far luckier than most of her friends, lucky in so many ways it was hard to count them all. Her parents had survived. They’d gone, that morning, to Grandma and Grandpa Soteris’ farm, tucked back into a corner of Seorsa Gorge. Chakula Ranch was gone, and two of her brothers with it, but everyone else in her immediate family had survived, including most of her aunts and uncles and cousins.

  They had come to the hospital in Madison to cheer her up. They’d all come to Madison again, just three weeks later, when President Lendan bestowed Jefferson’s highest honors on those who had fought and, in many cases, died. Kafari’s Uncle Jasper, Commander of Jefferson’s Ground Defense Forces, had been one of thousands of soldiers killed in battle, trying to defend the northwestern portion of Madison. He had earned a Presidential Gold Medallion, which Abraham Lendan presented posthumously to Aunt Rheta and her son, Kafari’s cousin Geordi. Aunt Rheta cried the whole time. So did Kafari.

  And then President Lendan had called her name, as well as Dinny and Aisha Ghamal’s. Stunned, Kafari joined Aisha and her son at the steps leading to the podium, where President Lendan waited. Kafari and Aisha clasped hands as they climbed up.

  “For courage under extreme fire,” the president was saying while film crews and reporters trained their cameras on them and transmitted the images to the entire world, “for brilliant battlefield decisions that saved lives, including my own, and for the determination to keep fighting against incredible odds, it is my humble honor to award these Gold Presidential Medallions to Kafari Camar, to Aisha Ghamal, and to Dinny Ghamal. But for them, I would not be here today.”

  The applause from the Joint Chamber floor washed across them as Abraham Lendan slipped the ribbon holding the medallion around her ne
ck. As he shook her hand, he murmured for her ears alone, “Well done, my courageous captain. Very well done, indeed.”

  She touched the medallion with numb fingers, watched Aisha and Dinny receive theirs, then watched Simon Khrustinov accept two medals, one for himself and one for the Bolo. Her fingers kept stroking the heavy medallion around her own neck, as though trying to convince themselves that it was really there. She hadn’t expected this. Hadn’t expected anything like it. Her eyes stung as she descended the steps and returned to her seat, engulfed by warm hugs and tearful congratulations from her entire family.

  She didn’t display the medallion at her tiny apartment. It was too precious to leave it there, where locks were flimsy enough that a child of two could break the door open just by leaning on it. She’d asked her father to store it in the family’s lock-box, which they had recovered from the wreckage of their house. Her parents were gradually rebuilding Chakula Ranch and Kafari helped as much as she could. She’d felt so guilty over running off to Madison for classes, she’d almost cancelled her plans.

  Her mother had taken one look at Kafari’s face after reaching that decision and stepped in, fast. “You’re not going to sell your dreams or your future short, my girl. You need that degree. And Jefferson needs psychotronic technicians and engineers. We’re a long way from the Central Worlds, out here, and we don’t have much to offer that would tempt high-tech specialists into relocating. Besides,” she winked, “your husband may decide to foot the bill for the rest of your education.”

  “Husband?” Kafari echoed, voice squeaking in suprise. “Mother! I’m not even dating! Who is it, you had in mind for me to marry?” Kafari was running through a mental list of men her mother might consider suitable, weighing it against a list of men Kafari thought she could tolerate, at least. She realized with a slight flutter of panic that those two lists did not converge anywhere.