We are a band of brothers, native to the soil,
Fighting for the property we gained from honest toil.
By every stone in Charleston Bay, by every beleaguered town,
We swear to rest not night nor day but hunt the tyrants down.
Then, bathed in valour's holy blood, the gazing world afar,
Will greet with shouts the Bonnie Blue Flag that bears a single star.
–The Bonnie Blue Flag/The Gathering Song, Confederate anthem
It amazed Harry that City Hall wasn't only an armed camp and refugee reception centre now, but something like a market. The gathering militia and the refugees had nyuyen, that had hit torpid, forgotten Redding like a dose of Cram. There were food stalls, pack and boot merchants in the hall; stalls outside the square to sell anything that could be sold. Horatio, the morose dwarf arms dealer who'd risen from tending bar in Kali's Club Eclipse, had returned to his former calling with a decently novahot City Hall nightclub. Their hired Ripperdoc had turned his clinic into a battlefield hospital; medkits and cyberlimbs were in short supply, but not volunteer helpers. The chica printing 'Redding Defender' tee-shirts upstairs, with two assistants, had been working from her parents' basement last month. A Corp subsidiary could've worked faster and cheaper, but Megacorps now and forever could get slotted.
Predictably, there were also a good few overfriendly and underdressed women hanging around towards the evenings. Harry had just assured the third young lady in a week that his reputation was greatly exaggerated and no, sorry, even for her starving kid, he was not ready to get geeked by his beloved wife this evening.
The young lady flounced off just as Paladin and Emperor Norton rounded the corner in pleasant conversation. Having heard that the former Knight was an equally fruitless mark, it was Norton that she deliberately stumbled over her high heels into, with a lingering hand and alluring smile.
"Ah, good evening, my, um, good woman," Norton managed, "What is it that you, er, do?"
Paladin gave the woman a look that sent her scurrying away. Moving to his side, Harry endeavoured to laugh the collision off.
"Keeps the boys' spirits up. Reminds them what they're fighting for...not just that, I mean Redding's people, working and living free."
"It is a gaping security risk, however." Paladin grated, "A danger to the civilians onsite, also - an evacuation plan, in case of a sudden attack, must be prepared. As for morale - you may not have learnt in Redmond, Hotspur, that Joan of Arc's first action in saving France from invaders was to expel prostitutes and camp followers from her army's camp."
"...and that improved morale?"
"They knew they served a holy cause, for right and justice."
"What, like the Native Californians thought? Sorry, I didn't mean –!"
Paladin spun on his heel and stalked away. Harry got the impression that his falling into bed with Ilsa again hadn't had the good result Susan had hoped for.
"He who tames the tongue is a perfect man, Sir Hotspur." Norton sagely chided, moving to Harry's side, "Remember, also, that wine and women have been the downfall of heroes and kings!"
"That is…chip truth, your highness. Hey, did you ever…? I mean, don't Emperors and kings and such need heirs?"
"Alas, it seems it will be our fate to appoint a successor." Norton stroked his beard, to Harry's wonder, gazing into the middle distance, "Still, our former engagement to Princess Caroline of Britain was indubitably a most epic and fated romance…ill-fated, sadly, as corporate interests, fearful of the old world and new allied against them, conspired to frustrate our union. In an unguarded hour, we even once conveyed our offer of marriage to the all-beloved chanteuse, Miss Maria Mercurial. Doubtless intimidated by the great disparity in our ranks, that shining lady has yet to make her feelings known. Still, the firm love of our subjects is more than a consolation. We have never failed in our duty to them; never turned back from the course we judge right. We are fulfilling our place in the world's great chain of being–as you also assuredly are, Sir Hotspur–and what more could be desired?"
After squeezing Harry's shoulder, Norton strode away. He mildly sat down with three recruits huddled round a commlink; Hailey had interviewed Susan and Norton himself for the infomercial 'Who are Norton's Army?', which they were watching. The men shifted to give Norton space, with jovial salutes.
Harry was just about certain; if he'd been mad as Norton, and no better than Harry Fawkes, then he would have convinced himself that every hooker he felt like slotting was his queen and done just as he wanted. No, dead certain–in Hong Kong, that was just about what he'd done.
Chip truth, America had better heroes than Hotspur. His respect for the Emperor was strong as his desire to be a worthier man than he was. While Norton contributed little more than the imperial assent to strategy meetings, he had gifted to every one of Redding's Defenders a spirit of good-humour and the impossible. Apart from healing more fighters than the Ripperdoc, he had driven some very surprised drug dealers out of City Hall with a stick. Tomas knew of all the very underpowered gangs that Redding could boast, and anybody accosting Norton would quickly find out they had two small armies to deal with.
-0-
Harry and Paladin managed to bury the hatchet. They looked over City Hall, the next day, as the newly hired mercenaries settled in, and the first wave of Norton's Army stumped off the trucks they'd ridden with their families from Colma.
The separatists who'd ridden clutching their guns looked as grim and weary as they would've done wherever they'd come to. Norton quickly stepped onto an ammo crate with a speech of hope and shame on the Tir, which visibly lifted even the fainting children's spirits. Susan and Sarah moved through the crowd, directing the families who couldn't download Hailey's 'Welcome to Redding, chummer!' vid-guide towards shelter. The metas driven out of the Valley had mostly signed up for Redding's Defenders in the end; they received Norton's Army with some caution, but a monumental warmth of understanding.
The mercs, a human-majority mix of metatypes from Calfree, UCAS, Pueblo and Texas, clearly had yet to fall under Norton's spell. A smallish Free Company who'd worked Calfree's civil and border conflicts for years, they seemed more amused than impressed. The North Calfree volunteers from Redding, Eureka and Weaverville who weren't arguing over a card game didn't look too thrilled either at such a mass of armed outsiders.
"Soldiers without occupation are unsecured munitions." Paladin told Hotspur, Tomas and Selene, as soon as they'd sat down in a conference room with the mercs' captain, "More patrols; towards the border more than the city. A serious training regime. Having them dig and refill holes would be better than inactivity."
"Maybe at Knight Errant Corp, but–"
"No, I'm sorry, this place does need a smidge more discipline," Selene, the elvish quartermaster, cut in, "In a month and a half we've had a dozen accidental firearm casualties, dozens of knife and fist fights. I'm tired of explaining, to every stubborn ork who'll only use his dad's old hunting rifle, that we can't ensure ammo supplies without uniformity of arms. AK-97s would be cheapest. Anything better would be wasted on the average Defender's shooting skill."
"That is what they must improve." Captain Kanji Arai spoke as laconically as ever.
(It was none other than the ex-Imperial Marine and his partner, who'd fought beside the Runners to save San Francisco, who had arrived at the head of the mercs. Though Hotspur would have welcomed the miraculous reappearance of Owens, Fyrefox, Roller and Douglas rather more, he'd greeted them with delight. Takahashi had affected a fauxhawk and a Hawaiian shirt; he looked remarkably happy with life. Arai looked as serious-spit-and-polish in his fatigues as Harry remembered very well.
"Seeing the world might take more nyuyen than we anticipated," Takahashi had earnestly related, "But there is more world to see within Calfree than we imagined. More than Saito-san may ever perceive. I've already learnt more magic than I'd dreamt possible, before. We have met with some who hate all Japanese, for San Francisco, others that hated me for my magic…even some who hate us for our love. But we have received help and kindness, from many different people…from metahumans, who might have cursed us for what we once did to their people. Even to their own families. Ronin-san, our eyes are fully opened. We will fight with you for Calfree."
"So da." Experience had been bitter in Arai's gaze, but his handshake had been solid, "We are all ronin, now. So long as it is unnecessary that we acknowledge that witch, Tresckow, we will fight beside you to the death.")
At present, Selena was mildly asking Arai if there were, in fact, never less than fifteen deaths per year in Marine basic training? Arai responded that this was the price Japan paid for the world's toughest military force–but of course, he would hardly put Americans or elves through an IJM hell-week.
"Yeah." Harry nodded, hard, "These guys signed after they lost everything, or to protect the families they'll go home to. They left jobs behind, or dreams. They're not killers for life like us."
"Knight Errant Pawns have families also, and sometimes go home to them," Unless some novahot Runner geeks them, Paladin's eyes plainly implied, "Nothing can be accomplished without sacrifice–"
"Can I speak now?" Tomas had been furiously attempting to for a while, "You've worked with wiz Runners, the fragging Marines, and Knight Errant–while I've been running a militia here in Redding since I left school. Ain't that so?" The table acknowledged it, "Chip truth; we didn't spend our all our weekends in the forests and our evenings at the shooting ranges to make up for the size of our tools, or anything else. What's more, we didn't do this in order to die for Redding like cannon-fodder orks in the fragging Trids. When the fragging Tir Ghosts appear out of thin air, me and my people mean to geek them–we have to be ready, all of us, whatever it takes. Folk who've lost everything but their lives, folk who freely signed up for their families; they can take all the Marine drek, all the Knight Errant drek, and all the Kung Fu drek you can put them through! They've beaten those NC fraggers already, and they'll do more than you can think. Only, don't call them maggots and pissants, or treat them like parts in a gun. Don't forget that they're more than a means to an end. I know, I had two-dozen fighters, before this; more of my family than friends. But if we can keep that, now we're a fragging army, won't that be worth it? A hard, free army–" The ork nodded to Hotspur, "–of chummers?"
"Tomas, my friend. There was a reason I left Knight Errant." Paladin stood, and formally shook the bearded, rant-happy ork militia chief by the hand.
"Likewise, a reason I left the Marines, Tomas-san." Arai rose, and bowed his head. He took a moment to stick out his hand, and Tomas took a while to take it.
The three paramilitaries then roundly agreed on Point One for increasing discipline; Hotspur had to stop spoiling the men rotten. Even if they were his chummers, he had to act like a commander as well. Selene, the ex-National Guard officer who quietly and efficiently did more to keep Redding's Defenders running than anyone else, confirmed that it was a balance; call it a Zen, if you like.
Typically, Harry hadn't much to say back; he'd felt his lack of military experience even more keenly for the last month than his dislike of moderation. It was like being a green Runner again, after so much drek, learning Shadow-survival with Douglas and the old crew…but only drekhead wageslaves clung to career ladders. Shadowrunners did the job that had to be done. They learnt whatever they had to that might keep their crew alive, this time. Sometimes you had to charge, sometimes meditate and moderate; he could never have survived without learning that. He would do what worked, instead of what the perfect Prime Runner would do…but he fragging wished he was mixing with the recruits right now, like Susan, Sarah and Norton were.
(It emerged the next day that Susan had spent her evening having a quiet chat with most of the loose women hanging round City Hall, who subsequently either disappeared or volunteered as nurses. There were more ways to be Joan of Arc than Joan's, whoever she'd been)
"…alright, understood. A bit less hanging out with the ranks. Though I should tell you, they're giving static about human recruits getting more background screening than metas."
"I'll check with Hailey, whenever she does jack out, but we've got enough problems without NC moles." Selene responded. "I don't see many orks signing up for Humanis. I'm amazed that militia fighters are letting us examine their personal histories at all, but I suppose they know privacy is dead, in the age of the cyberdeck."
"Slot that." Tomas growled, "I'm SINless, I never touched the Matrix, and in the old days I never had to rake muck on a comrade. We were ready to fight any corp, any country, not turn into a fragging bureaucracy! I know, we need this drek now…but tell me we're checking the fragging elves right back to their toilet training?"
With true elvish presence, Selene barely had to incline her head. Tomas dissolved in blustering apology.
"You might recall that Tir Intelligence use non-elvish pawns–through blackmail and coercion, as well as bribery. We couldn't make a real Tir spy with token vetting alone, but we've picked up three stooges already. I'm sure there's a few more we haven't found – but I'm certain that no one in this room is Tir, including me."
They swiftly decided to ask Hailey to equalise the background checks. It had been decided before, without Paladin, that any NC who tried to poison their family from within, once made, would be quietly executed. The meeting broke up; as Harry walked out to the square for a short break, Tomas followed him and caught his arm.
"I didn't mean that. I don't fragging think–!"
"Hey, chummer. Null persp. You're against the Tir, not elves, everyone gets that. You say what you feel; none of this would be here without you. Chip truth; why the frag weren't you running this city, when we rolled in?"
Tomas roared with laughter. Thumping down on a bench in the square as Harry swigged from his water bottle and passed it over.
"…ah. I wanted to lead the defence of Redding, didn't I? Never thought I'd be leading an army, or what it'd take…couldn't have done it without you. It's been like kayaking right down a waterfall, with everyone's lives on our backs…you know?" Harry nodded, shadows in his eyes, "But it's been worth it. Two-dozen crazy trogs with a cabin full of guns; Redding thought we were wackos, mostly. Sometimes, I wondered why I was fixing to fight for them…but not these days. Redding ain't my home, it's our home. My brothers, our folks – that hot chica there, on that street!" The passing woman, who Harry agreed was hot, ignored the catcalling orc, "Everyone's coming together. Telling Tir Taingire they got no right to take our lives or our land. That's worth all we can give."
Beyond the rush of the shadowrun, and the prize of victory (Though he had forged through this current job without much of either), Harry's future hopes hadn't actually settled on anything definite beyond making love to Susan for a day and night. Where would they live? Back to the Central Valley, still smoking and ravaged? Or staying on in a town without shadowruns, filled with their chummers?
No. If they actually got through this, they'd be running from every assassin Tir commanded, all their lives. Just the two of them, forever, no matter how many raw orgasms he pumped through Susan's body to win a moment of warmth. You couldn't have any kind of family without somewhere to live.
"…frag it, all this time, I've just wanted to get out there with a gun." Tomas was saying, "With my brothers, with all our chummers…how the frag do you stand it?"
"You said it. No one faces death just for the fun of it, not even shadowrunners–we fight because of the people we fight with."
Harry looked Tomas dead in the eye as he spoke and clasped his arm. The big ork grinned like a Jack-O-Lantern and shook his head.
"Smooth as drek. No wonder you got all that tail, squishy."
Harry gave Tomas a dead arm, Tomas gave Harry a rather deader one. They went back in to face yet more meetings, stocktakings and choices, shoulder to shoulder.
-0-
Selene couldn't have run Redding's Defenders alone–Ilsa had organised in concert with her, ensuring that every squad had a marksman or light machine gun, a street shaman or a medic. Harry had intended to ask her about training their magically-active recruits, with Takahashi…but she had actually locked herself in an office upstairs, with a dusty volume of civic history thicker than a chocolate cake, as soon as she'd heard the ex-Marines were in Redding.
Takahashi had found Sarah, and had a brief, difficult talk with her about the Marines and their pasts, with much bowing from him and silence from her. They did part, if not as chummers, then as allies. Takahashi wanted desperately to say something to Ilsa, but he didn't know what.
Paladin, whose situation was remarkable similar in some respects, paced like a caged bear on the lower floor. Takahashi thought the former Knight looked rather soulful and insanely hot; he couldn't help telling Arai as much.
"Hm!" A stern, jealous look and a tightening hand on his. Takahashi savoured the chills.
"I mean, don't you agree, anata?"
"Blondes aren't my type, Taka-chan."
"Suppose not. You prefer small, cute mages, don't you? While I love, love, love strong and grim-faced men who were born to wear a uniform…"
Arai couldn't help pulling his Taka-chan in for a kiss. His partner sighed, as Arai's hand swept firmly down to his hoop. A few passing recruits whistled or sniggered, but they were used to Hotspur and Fighter. In fact, they started looking at the ex-marines like feeling humans, rather than the evil empire's stormtroopers.
Meanwhile, Tomas had strolled up to Sarah with a commlink. She gave him the flat look that told him not to get his hopes up, if he was looking for that–but in fact, he had a vid of Kat Berg's Truly Trideo interview.
"Heard you were a fan, right? Ah…?"
"I've got horns, haven't I? And it's Sarah."
"I mean...what's your whole name? Dumbest thing, but I never heard it."
"Don't laugh, right? Rosenblum. Stupid name for a big dumb troll."
"Dunno. Not meaning anything here…Jewish name, right?"
"Dunno what that means. My dad got killed by gangers over some drek. My mother…the clinic said a human with a troll inside her had to get it aborted, no choice. A street doc cut me out, on our squat's kitchen table. She got sick after that. They didn't have time to tell me how I should live, or what I was born for… nothing good, I guess."
"Frag it, Sarah…I can't hug you, can I? I just want to fragging hold you."
"It's been years. It never goes away, the fear, but I had to live with it…you can touch me. I won't break."
Tomas threw his thick arms round Sarah's midriff. She was stiff, her eyes were bright with nervousness. It was entirely awkward but strangely tender.
After she'd watched the vid, Tomas told Sarah about the fair number of churches in Redding, as he'd told Paladin. There weren't any left these days of the type that preached about soulless trogs; Jewish and Christianish were about the same, weren't they? Sarah knew no more herself, but she supposed that meant more to learn.
-0-
Two days later, it gave Susan a strange, rich feeling to see sentries in Redding Defender shirts on the Lake Shasta dam. But a cold wind, scented with blood and ash, caught her ponytail as she leapt from the first of the vans.
Redding's Defenders would never defend much more of north Calfree than Redding. Against an elite and outnumbering modern army of ridiculously greater strength–Ilsa and Selene had both said several times– guerrilla war was a last, fatal resort and dividing their forces plain suicide. Still, Redding's Defenders had fought the NCs throughout the Valley–a party of their best men were escorting the rest of Norton's army north, right now. They had sent patrols along the border, they would send more, and they were finally getting down to preparing Shasta dam as a defensive lynchpin.
"The Tir can't blast it without maybe flooding the whole valley," Tomas had told them, stabbing his claw at the digital map, "With the lake and the forests, with the Pit River Bridge blown to drek since '36, the road on top of the dam is their best route for tanks and APCs. Best place for a hundred fighters to stand off a thousand, until they drop the Ghosts behind us. Still our best chance."
They had begged, bought or captured Ingram Valiant and Stoner-Ares MGs, a few IWS missile launchers and RPGs; Arai's mercs had even brought a couple of Onotari Ballista SAM launchers. But those were all that stood even a chance of immobilising a main battle panzer or getting through a rotorcraft's countermeasures. Decking was still their strongest weapon. Hailey had demurely proposed setting up a field Matrix warfare hub, in the nameless hamlet just over the dam from Redding
"Maybe, like, the people living there should clear out? Before the shooting starts?"
"That place is nearly all elves, and their families," Tomas admitted, "Suppose they never felt very welcome in Redding, though they hate the Tir more than any of us. We should have reached out to them before now, but it's been a busy fragging month. Frag, the Tir are gonna be geeking Redding elves on sight, after they stood with us in '36–but we've got barely any elves fighting with us right now. We should've reaching out to them before."
Selene lips quirked into a charming smile. Fighter and Hotspur had both frankly wished they'd ever learned from mistakes so quickly as Redding's most fervent defender…but the moment had been brief, before the call had come in.
A patrol had found the token Calfree Guard on the dam dead or fled; they'd seen a sizable NC warband passing over towards the hamlet of elves. Like Anya, Susan had asked what the frag they had to do, to finish those drekstains–but what she did was leap into a van. Hailey had come with her, to look over the ground–and even Norton, with Bummer and Lazarus at his heels, had insisted on heading out into the field this time. As Pup nuzzled her two friends' noses goodbye, Susan had hugged Harry and promised him; she'd be back in a matter of hours.
"Right, and then it's your turn to stay home in the castle, princess. You're the one who can train our kids and make them tougher than the Ghosts. Wasn't that something you always wanted to do?"
So much so, that Susan was more scared of fragging it up than anything else. So, for now, she was out in the field again. Shasta lake was a rippling plain of sunlight, with redwoods crowded along its far shore, small as matchsticks and swarming with birds. The faint roar of sluices drifted up the curved sky-sized slab of concrete that had been the second biggest dam in the old U.S.
Norton looked over all of it with a smile; asked a rapt Hailey, could a computer screen ever hold such beauty? Fighter was more concerned with the noise of gunfire trickling over the water.
The Runners, Norton, and the volunteers who'd come with them in both vans, quickly linked up with the small patrol on the Redding side of the dam. The militiaman leading the patrol did his best to salute Fighter while lying prone behind a rock with readied AK.
"Too many NC fraggers for us to just charge over the dam, boss. Even if they hadn't, ah, wired it with explosives."
"Oh…drekbiscuits." Hailey whispered.
Fighter could make out the heavy wires, running the length of the road that curved above Shasta Lake. Even Ilsa had never suggested more than spreading rumours they were prepared to do this–but who was that batdrek, if it wasn't the NCs? They'd lost, all over Calfree, but if they'd had the sanity to surrender they would never have killed orks for being born. They were falling on the hamlet of elves across the dam, right now, with the same insane hate. Thinking of that made it desperately hard to think.
"Boss? Anyone who can get rid of a bomb…?" The patrol leader was asking. Norton immediately stood up with immense resolution.
"Ah, your highness, you actually–?"
"We feel certain that a solution will present itself." Norton pronounced, "Nor would it befit our honour to shrink from any task we might have asked of a subject."
Fighter firmly reminded Norton about preserving his life for his peoples' sake. Bummer and Lazarus gazed raptly at her, panting–it looked like they would've both volunteered, if they'd known what bomb disposal meant. Doggos were Arctic like that.
Meanwhile, Hailey slotted a Skillsoft into the chipslot under her brown fringe. Her eyes rolled blind for several seconds, then she stepped forward. Redding's Defenders had used that particular PU-written Skillsoft a great deal, against the IEDs that the Native Californians scattered over the Valley roads and homesteads like poison seeds. Downloaded knowledge was not practiced experience, however, and even the crudest-seeming triggers had taken Fighter's chummers from her before. Her hand gripped Hailey's arm of its own accord.
"We, like, need to get to those people now, or they'll all be killed horribly." Hailey quietly set her shoulders back, still looking towards the dam. "You'd totally do anything you could."
"Frag it, why don't we get to hang out more? I mean, when did I last say you're novahot?"
"Shucks…" Hailey almost looked round at Fighter, more unsettled than Susan had ever seen her, "Null sweat, chummer. It's poor Kilgore you should worry for."
Kilgore, Hailey's new Sundowner drone, hovered swiftly to the edge of the dam like a steel hawk. After five minutes of peering through his cameras, Hailey gave the thought and Kilgore stooped to cut wires. Then she prudently sent Wilson, her Steel Lynx ground-drone, to cross ahead of them. Wilson had motored half-way down the road when a thin pillar of smoke went up on the other side, and Fighter stood.
"Don't be stupid, please!" Hailey tried to catch her hand, "You won't save those folks, or anybody, ever, if you're stupid about this!"
"Lady Susan, we must insist on leading the way! 'Such divinity, doth hedge a king…'"
Since her first shadowrun, Fighter wasn't going to forget what happened when fools rushed in. She'd learnt to plan, or at least listen to Ilsa. She'd learnt to put every weapon she held where they might save her life and would kill the killers. But she couldn't learn to hold back when lives were at stake, not when she'd got this strong and lived this long. Unless you were slaughtering mindless ork gangers in those Humanis-funded Matrix games, no strategy meant survival. Harry would understand…he had to.
"Don't follow until I'm across. If it blows, I'll make a jump for it."
Low and rapid, Fighter sprinted over the dam. She touched grass on the far side level with Wilson, as she heard her chummers rushing across behind her. Then she sprinted into the trees towards the sound of assault rifles.
-0-
The elvish hamlet was, quite conventionally, nestled within the forest that crowded the lakeshore. The dam had wiped out the river's salmon decades ago, and passing trade certainly wasn't a livelihood; the elves mostly combed the Shasta caves for magical components. The village had evidently been very awake to Tir's coveting of the same caves, and duly prepared.
The NC had got close enough to fill one solidly-built blockhouse with firebombs, before lethally-aimed gunfire from every house had routed them to the cover of trees and their pickups. Within the houses, human and elvish mothers applied medkits, while beautiful children loaded stacks of rifles for their parents and big sibs. Who knelt at the windows and shut their elvish ears to the groans from outside.
Four young elves had held off the Native Californians, while the rest of the hamlet got to their homes. Two of the elves had been ripped up by AK-bursts, two of them had been taken alive, and one of them had now finally expired. Elorn didn't know why he'd bothered spitting out that he'd been born in Redding–he was no spy for the Tir, who would kill him and his father the day they marched in–except it was the truth. It hadn't stopped the skinhead humans from putting bullets in his gut and his kneecaps, kicking him to the edge of the darkness; binding his hands was just an assertion of dominance. Then, with ice-spear clarity, he saw only the brute with a gun above him, and the drone in the sky which had shot the man down.
Fighter, likewise, was grateful for Hailey's distraction. Big AK bullets still smashed through the treetrunks, as she dodged one to another. Then she Wallran halfway up a great oak and spun down, smashing a skull under her boot-heel. As the other Defenders doggedly rushed up and opened up, from the cover of trees and rocks.
Even with Fighter roughly weighing in against six of the fanatical militants, her band were outnumbered. Yet she only had two more throats to kick through, after all that, before the NC warband were crushed like a can in a vice. Their leader barely had time, before an AK bullet zipped under a truck to shatter his spine, to press the button he should have pressed minutes ago, had he been watching the dam rather than geeking Tir Daisy-Eaters. The secondary radio detonator went off along the Shasta dam.
-0-
Past a wall of smoke, through her drone's shaking optics, Hailey breathed again to see that only the road across to Redding had been wrecked. The dam still stood, though a ghastly crack reached almost down to the lake. Terror made the vision of crashing floods over the whole north of Calfree more vivid than any million-nyuyen Matrix dream.
Even before that, Redding's Defenders hadn't been inclined to mercy for the wounded and surrendered enemy. They'd seen too many burnt homesteads and tortured bodies; they'd learnt there was little you could do to a Humanis and feel much guilt for. But Norton stepped forward; healing the wounded of both sides, looking on the carnage and the groaning dam with a majestic sadness. The Defenders reluctantly shouldered their guns, and Norton told them they were great heroes.
The NC man and woman who'd thrown their hands up eagerly agreed. They'd joined the Native Californians to fight Tir Tairngire, they said; if they'd tried to desert they would've been carved up and shot. The glaring die-hards who Norton had Healed from mortal wounds certainly looked ready to.
Fighter couldn't have protected them herself, probably wouldn't have. The idea that she could have been the heroine of Humanis, if Ork Slayer instead of Orion had been her shifu, only made her hate them more. She had owed them her life, since her first shadowrun, and hated that; now she owed her life again to their incompetence. It was always a drekky feeling, knowing that better Runners than you had died, but death was the only escape.
She plunked herself down next to the NC's former prisoner, Elorn–a black elf with his mass of dreadlocks tied back, and the build of an Olympic sprinter. She fiercely wanted to be treating his injuries, but could hardly complain about Norton Healing them instantly. It wasn't that she was some messiah who had to do everything; when she felt this useless, she had to do something.
"Hoi, chummer. You chill?"
"Suppose I'll live."
Shaking with the ghosts of healed agony, Elorn gave one glance at his fellow villager's gutted body. Then he moved away. Susan sat close to his side, nearer the lake, as Hailey sat down with them.
"It looks like you and your village really fought. That makes you heroes, no matter what. Believe me."
"…okay. Doesn't look like it was enough, though." Elorn's voice was low for an elf, as the mud beneath a shining river.
"We're going to fight the Tir when they come. The plan was to dig in a fortress or something and hold the dam–but it looks like you're a fortress here already. It would seriously be an honour if you fought beside us."
"Is that so? No worries about Tir spies stabbing you in the back?"
"Do we look like Humanis, skinny?" A dwarf woman among the Defenders growled, giving a hearty kick to a dead skinhead.
"No. You look like Redding–why the frag d'you think we live across the lake? You think, you suspect, or you fear, that me, him, all our families–" He pointed to his slaughtered friend, "–are spies for Tir Tairngire. When my old man fought the Tir in '36. When the first ones those arrogant, unashamed fascists will put up against the wall is us! They brainwash their people that every other country is a drekhole, and goronagits are race-traitors full of unelven blood and spunk. Half of us were exiled from Tir for breaking the purity laws or looking at a noble the wrong way–and yes, some of us are fragging Tir spies! Our village has one street, and most of the Tir exiles on one side don't speak to the Redding elves on the other–I never spoke to that poor fragger in my life, before today!" He indicated another of his dead comrades, "So we're no more a happy family than the rest of this drekhole state, but we decided–at least, my old man and his stupid buddies decided–to make our stand here against the world. Serious, thank you for saving my life; but don't expect any thanks or help from them. They don't expect it from you."
The village, indeed, remained silent and guarded as a cemetery. The dwarf joked that if she'd ever thought elves were always laughing and singing to trees, one look at Elorn's gloomy face would have set her right. Norton ushered her aside for a stern word. Bummer rubbed up sympathetically against Elorn's side.
"Um…I'm Hailey. Hi, chummer!" Hailey smiled up at the taller, grimmer elf, as she fidgeted and blushed like a rose, "Um, er, like, you kinda remind of this other elf I knew! His name was Tarne, and he was really serious as well. Whenever he did speak it was absolutely something to hear, and do. Coincidentally, he sort of turned out to be a Tir spy, so I guess you're not totally alike…"
"Guess not. I'm sorry you went through that."
"Null sweat. Shadowrunners have to be tough." A pale shadow blotted out Hailey's smile for a moment, "I couldn't ever, ever, ever give it up though. It's so much fun! Just like falling in love."
"Right. Forgive me asking, but do most of your crushes have pointy ears and epic hair?"
"…not all."
Hailey looked away. Even with her secret dalliance with another Tir spy threatening a Shasta dam-sized catastrophe…she was not the creepy elf groupie she saw reflected in Elorn's weary eyes. A couple of her San Francisco chums had ruined themselves over sexual obsession with the Fair Folk–she assumed the San Francisco elves had needed all that nyuyen to survive. But she just kept falling for guys who happened to be dark, strong, solemn and elvish…as Whiteknight had probably known.
…Susan was even mugging encouraging faces at her. Heart rotten with guilt, Hailey smiled brightly back.
-0-
"Okay, so how are we getting back to Redding?" Susan asked, standing up, "There could be more NCs heading right for us, right now."
"Miles around the lake, miles downstream to another bridge," Elorn glumly offered, "We have boats down at the lake you could've probably commandeered at gunpoint, but–"
"Commandeer? We scorn the word!" Norton clapped a hand on the elf's shoulder, "As the generous goodwill of our subjects has sustained our life before, today it shall carry us home across Lake Shasta in triumph!"
"…right. Like I said, those folks aren't keen on anyone making them subjects…"
"We make nothing of anybody, my good elf. This is our land, and these are our people. Our quest is but to heal the wounds of our people's bodies, and the wounding divisions between them, by serving as Emperor to them all. That all peoples may live as and where their nature guides them, in fellowship and freedom–with none to make them afraid."
Elorn finally manage to tell them that the NC warband had shot up all the boats after being forced back from the village. A militiaman suggested that Fighter could 'ninja' across the wrecked crossing, while Norton could fly across on a nature spirit's back. Fighter responded that they weren't about to leave the rest of the party on their own. The mood was getting rather frustrated.
"Do not despair, Lady Susan." Norton consoled her, "As soon as Sir Hotspur hears of your plight, he will certainly fly to your rescue."
To Norton's bemusement, most of the party burst into ribald guffaws. Only Hailey, apart from Susan, wasn't laughing.
"…he, like, totally would. I called Redding as soon as we got cut off. Susan, I think we need to get back there right now. And, your highness...thank you."
"Whatever for, dear child?"
"For being you, I guess?"
-0-
Back in Redding, Harry certainly was heading straight for the doors of City Hall, sword at his side– when Paladin intercepted him. The fallen knight's eyes seemed to reflect Hotspur's primally furious brown gaze. The shadowrunner was a wolf with his mate's howl of distress in his ears.
"Do you mean to rebuild the dam yourself?"
"I just need to get to her. I'm an adept, I am not staying here, they did this to cut them off from help! Cut Susan off from me! No, no, never again! Thought you were meant to be smart. Wouldn't you go if it was Ilsa? Hypocrite–!"
Harry was adept-fast, but Paladin had killed vampires for a living. His muscles crashed against Harry's speeding body, but for a moment, the struggle was only breath and fury.
"–dummkopf! The NCs!" Paladin hissed, "We thought they would assault Norton's Army as they travelled, if they could still pose any threat at all! But the greater part of our fighters are escorting them up, or patrolling the border, or trapped with your wife who the world knows you would cross water and fire for, but you must not! It is not she who is in danger…!"
Hotspur and Paladin's commlinks rang together. Both of them went for their earpieces; it was Anya.
"Guys, we're getting too many glitches on security cams. Ain't a decker, could be hexes. Could be nothing, but you know, it never is..."
-0-
One advantage of City Hall as a military HQ, in Tomas's opinion, was its position in the centre of a wide and grassy town square. Redding's Defenders had occupied two disused shops and one small office block round the edge as sentry posts and put up a basic fence; they stopped any civilians who weren't trusted Reddingites and kept the volunteers or merchants securely within the hall. A few Stoner-Ares MGs stared through sandbags at the front. They'd even towed some concrete blocks into place as anti-ramming bollards…Tomas' claws still had the blisters. But anybody who thought that was no fit work for a real leader could get slotted.
He knew his people, he'd ask nothing of them he wasn't ork enough to do himself, and they'd soon stand in the firing line together against Tir Taingire. Hotspur and Fighter, Tomas, Sarah, Hrafna and all the rest–they'd play their part, he'd make sure of it. However strongly his bunk in the basement was calling him.
With nothing else to fill the last twenty minutes of work, Tomas chose to stump out to the south sentry post and chew fat with his brother Jules, who was stationed there. Then they'd meet up with brother Rick and knock back some awful synathol in the City Hall bar. Maybe he'd see Sarah Rosenblum there, one evening, smiling.
He automatically slung his faithful AK over his shoulder as he went out. Typecasting drekheads labelled orks a warrior race, but, born in sleepy Redding to think only of the coming war, Tomas reckoned he had a warrior's spirit.
There was one ork standing sentry outside the post. His partner, he gruffly stated, was ill.
"Then call relief for him! Can't get sloppy when we're defending every life in Redding, soldier."
"…not my Karen. Joe. Linda…"
"What?"
The ork recruit's stiff face shook. Like a monster in a mire, Tomas glimpsed the torment within.
"…they called me. They had my wife and kids. What they said they'd do to them, if I didn't–!"
Then a human woman with buzzcut hair, from within the post, put two silenced bullets through the sentry's skull. Tomas was bursting through the door, punching her down, before he'd even begun to swing his rifle about and fill his lungs.
He was squeezing the trigger with three bullets punching through his chest. Then two in his head blew out all Tomas Moran would ever do or be. His brother Jules had died from a single stab wound with the other men and orks in the post.
Amy Noble, the blonde NC officer who had scarred Hrafna, looked over the five trogs and traitors her men had killed in all, sourly. The trog's unsilenced gun had fired into the ceiling as it went down. They HAD to move, and move now. She would not fail the man who would save Calfree as he'd saved her; not this time.
Skinheaded men and woman held their Colt-M23s ready, to charge across the square. Pendants of tusks and elf-ears rested against N.C. shirts–the only Native Californians left now were the best, the last true warriors left in Calfree. But she knew that bringing their last pure human nation back from the brink–striking down the usurping traitors, finally facing down the devils of Tir–would take more than the whole of their strength.
She gave the word. The first man out the door toppled back against the next, blood splashing from his punctured forehead.
As her men drew back, Noble coolly traced the shot to an overlooking church steeple. Infiltrating this close with a missile launcher had been difficult even with the help of that miserable trog, but it was paying off at once.
"Hold fast!" She shouted, "Fire when he fires on me!"
With fleet-foot adept speed, Noble sprinted alone across the square. Another bullet struck stone at her feet, then the IWS launcher bellowed and the face of the spire collapsed. With a savage cheer the NCs rushed out, under cover of burst-fire from the fallen post.
(As a summoned Wind Dancer spirit bore Will Casper down to solid ground. The dwarf shipped his Remington, readied his FN HAR for close-up work. Jogged toward the sound of guns, with dull eyes and a blood-curdling whistle on his lips)
Gunfire rapidly opened up from City Hall and around the square. More attackers fell; Noble screamed that they had to take the hall or die. Glass shattered under fire; two more Defenders soaked windowframes with their blood. The IWS launcher blew a chunk out of the office block-lookout post across the square. The heavy gunner was turning to City Hall when Takahashi flung a manablast from the second floor, that scorched his brains out.
"ABUNAI! ABUNAI! ENEMY ATTACK!"
NCs were charging the maglocked back door, with a police-issue breaching charge, when a huge she-troll smashed it open; the door smashed them to roadkill as well. Her dark hair shone like her fangs as the monster roared, spraying auto-fire with the Semopal in her off-hand.
But Amy had killed trolls before; she would not fear them. Darting under the rifle, she stabbed her thin sword through that giant arm that still had tendons–before the Semopal hit the ground, her second and third blows had stabbed through Sarah's chest and neck.
-0-
On the far shore of Lake Shasta, the woman known as Tabitha stared across the waters towards Redding. Her body appeared almost as young as it seemed weak, but her eyes held more sorrow than all the ages of human history. Yet the carved consciousness of fresh wounds, in the gaze of those dark eyes, seemed even more terrible still…
"Hoi, chummer. Small world. Can you do anything to get across this lake, or fix the dam…or something? We'll pay you back any way we can."
With torpid slowness, Tabitha turned her head towards the woman called Fighter. The one whose aura burned red with imperious passion, black with the roots of fear…beautiful and strong, as humans counted such things, yet such a brief, bright candle, among so very many snuffed out.
"I was contemplating the destruction of this obscene dam. Salmon cut off from their ancient migration, dying helplessly. Sites sacred since the Fourth World, drowned and lost. The river polluted, choked with filthy houses of man. The flesh of the living Earth, scarred with poisons and marked by defilers…"
Fighter had taken one Run for TerraFirst in Seattle, releasing animals from a Shiawase lab which Ilsa had needed to put down to prevent a plague outbreak. She'd thought their beliefs were a bad joke, but it had been fair work for the nyuyen. No visionary or megalomaniac she'd met in her life, though, had spoken with the weight of Tabitha's voice.
"Chummer, thousands of people will die if you bring down the dam. I'm sorry, about the world and pollution and that–"
"You never thought of them before." Tabitha hissed, "You love nothing but man."
The terror that struck Fighter almost put her on the floor in a puddle of urine. When she could speak, her voice was very shaky.
"…yeah, I care about men and women and metas. They're idiots, most of the time, but some idiot's got to fight for them. If you want to just drown or burn us little people off the Earth, then I will fight you."
Tabitha inclined her head. Like Ilsa, Fighter could partly feel the space where her Aura should have been, and it was huge–an inhumanly big astral shadow. Norton, who Fighter had pinned some hope on, had silently bowed his head. Bummer and Lazarus were whimpering on the floor, and the NC prisoners looked even worse. One street mage among the party had dropped into an ecstatic trance. Susan stayed rooted to the spot, until Tabitha smiled and sighed.
"The one who battles against destroyers destroys their own self…yet you ask aid of me? You demand I set right all that is ill with the world? Have more care of your wishes in future. For the Earth's sake, I should bury my rage in stillness and silence, in dreaming of vanished forests, until passing ages have dissolved your aberration of a world into nothing. Yet, must I first assist you, out of all metahumanity, with your ephemeral personal troubles? Must I? Do not make a merchant of me again with such an insult as offers of payment."
"…my husband, the man I would die for, is fighting right now for his life. I have to be at his side, I would…! If he dies, hundreds more metas in Redding will be killed. Or raped, or they'll live on under the foot of evil. Making people with loves and names into victims, subjects, things, is simply evil. I don't know what our lives look like to spirits, gods, or whoever you really are. But I don't believe there will ever be a life like Harry Fawkes' again, in all the ages of the world. I cannot let go of him. Help us, please."
"…my sister." Tabitha stared wildly away; Susan wasn't sure if she'd heard anything, "My sister, how your spirit must be in torment. I must find you…"
"My lady." Norton whispered, sinking to one knee, "If you must remain in this world, is your heart not inclined to mercy…?"
"In truth it is, and so must I be–Kingmaker." Tabitha smiled as if at an old friend, "Your borrowed majesty is…altered, strangely. But your state has its own peculiar charm…much like this strange Sixth World." She turned to Fighter, "Human hero. Be careful not to regret the deal you have made."
Tabitha stood, raised her hands, and the rim of the dam lit up like the dawn; every crack and blackened stain was restored. She vanished without a word, and a raven fluttered off to the north. Fighter's party were racing to the bridge and their transport before the light had faded, towards the battle for Redding that had already begun.