Part 17: Oh No You Didn't!

Kang was certain she was dreaming, that the images flashing before her eyes were figments produced in her own mind as the numbing drug seeped through her body. She could no longer feel the sting of the dart still lodged just under the center of her collarbone. The projectile's launcher lay on the ground in front of her, maybe ten meters away. Beside it was the body of an Arume adjutant, her head lying at an unnatural angle, wide eyes staring blankly at the sky. The colonel didn't believe in childish ideas like fate or karma, but she couldn't deny that something in her life was coming full circle with a vengeance right now.

Roland Schuhart had used the same Steyr GB during their last fight together, on a bleak winter day in this city's coastal ruins. He'd pried it from the hands of a dead terrorist at the Museum of Human History, always on the lookout for odd or obscure weapons to add to his collection. The PT92 affixed to his front had come to him in the same way, same place, and same time. What a hypocrite she'd been to question his sanity then, when the whole world was going mad and dragging her with it. It was almost funny: she'd spent the day wishing the old Schuhart would return, and now her only desire was for him to disappear back into the depths of her memory...

Pakka! Spiegel jerked, a nine millimeter jacketed hollowpoint plowing a channel straight through and out the back of her skull. The collaborator NCO on Kang's right swore incoherently as he fumbled with his holster. Schuhart shot him twice in the neck, striking the chink in his armor without breaking pace. Isobael panicked and ran: there was a rapid pakkapakkapakka and she dropped with three rounds in her back. A bolt of violet flashed past Kang, piercing the outside of Schuhart's upper left arm. He grimaced momentarily. Pakka-pakka!

Yes, this must be a dream. That was why Schuhart's blood was white, why his eye glowed electric blue, and why Kang stood untouched as he so efficiently ended the lives of his allies. Bullets snapped past her, ephemeral copper-shelled bees buzzing angrily to their smashing finales. Schuhart slapped the empty Steyr against the Velcro strip on his vest and tore loose the Brazilian Beretta lookalike which hung beside it. Muzzle flashes bloomed dirty yellow in the fading light as the arms dealer moved into the shade of the church which loomed overhead, a gunman of the apocalypse sounding the death knell for this crazy world.

No... not a dream, but a nightmare.

Earlier

"Group Commander, do you copy?"

"I'm here," Renaril answered distractedly. "What is it, Commander?"

"Our plan of operation is ready," Spiegel reported. "We're waiting on your go-ahead."

"Uh, that's good... Just give me, um, a few minutes to get a surveillance update."

Schuhart pushed closer to the Arume transceiver around which the key players were gathered. "You're stalling, Renaril. What's wrong this time?"

"Nothing's wrong... Well, just... My mother is here."

"So tell her to buzz off and let you get some work done."

There was another of those awkward silences, broken by an embarrassed harrumph from Captain Isobael. "...Mister Schuhart, do you know who the group commander's mother is?"

"Do I look like I know?" Schuhart wrinkled his nose. "There's a war on, lady. I ain't got time for the warm 'n' fuzzy family shit."

"Wow." Astra ran a finger down the side of the Luger. "It looks really well made."

"She got a classic," Sauer agreed. "The forime don't build things like that now."

"They don't?" The smallest of the gosta carefully grasped the pistol's toggle knobs and pulled the hinged mechanism up and back. "Why not?"

"Too expensive," the boyish gunner replied, running a rag over her own new sidearm. "That was one of the last ever produced."

"How do you know?"

"Look here." Pulling the Parabellum from Astra's fingers, Sauer pointed to the markings crisply stamped along its top. "There was a list of dates and factory codes in one of my books... Richardson, why did Uncle Roland give you this model?"

"He said it would fit my hands better than the new designs." Richardson didn't look up from her rifle as Sauer laid the Luger beside its mistress. "I don't think I'll actually need to use it."

"Hopefully none of us will," Benelli interjected. "But it's good that Uncle Roland trusts us enough to give them to us, isn't it?"

"I don't think it's about trust," Rubin muttered. "Uncle Roland knows the Arume still want to terminate us."

Webley shivered. "You mean the Arume might play a dirty trick?"

"They've played some already." Sauer pulled back her slide and locked it. "Anyway, Uncle Roland was right about our hands – those Glocks the other side is using are huge." She tipped the pistol up and peered into the breech critically. "Even this type is a bit thick..."

Harrington cocked her head. "Then why didn't you ask for something else?"

"Can't," Sauer grunted. "Miss Camilla gave me this when they were putting her to sleep. I promised I'd keep it with me until she comes back."

Richardson perked up. "You saw Miss Camilla? I heard she was badly hurt."

"Very bad," Sauer confirmed. "The side of her face was all... It was terrible."

"Will she live?"

"I don't know. They took her to the ship, so I think we should try and visit later." Placing the Hi-Power on the spread cloth between her knees, Sauer next turned to her machine gun. "I'm sure Uncle Roland won't refuse us if we do our best in the next mission."

"What's that about me?"

When Richardson looked behind herself, Schuhart was standing close by. "We were hoping," she said, switching from casual Arumic back to English, "that we could visit Miss Camilla later."

"If the medics say she can have visitors, it's fine with me." The one-eyed man nodded to the Russian who had silently watched over the girls during their practice. "Spasiba, tovarishch. You'd better refuel while it's quiet... I haven't heard any explosions in a while," he went on, joining Richardson. "Did you finish already?"

"Yes... It was easier than I thought."

"Not bad." Schuhart looked approvingly at the rubble piles on the far side of the crater-pocked parking lot. "Well, girls... it seems we may not have any more fighting today."

"It's over?" Sauer wasn't the only one to react with disappointment. "The renegades surrendered?"

"No." The 'uncle' began to walk along the row of pupils. "Tessier-Ashpool put us on hold."

Richardson didn't get it, but Korth seemed to understand. "Trouble with Renaril again?" she asked curtly.

"In a sense." Schuhart picked up Rubin's submachine gun and broke it open. "Her mother found out what she's been up to... Seems the lady is some kind of politician up in the sky eyes' Villa Straylight, and she's making us wait while they give diplomacy its funeral oration."

"Then the renegades are still out there?" Harrington frowned. "Are we doing nothing?"

"Of course not." The arms dealer snapped the Shpagin shut and returned it. "The troops in the outer parts of Yuen Long District remained loyal to Spiegel, which left the renegades thinly surrounded from the beginning. Putting off the attack gives us time to reinforce the containment line and reconnoiter the area."

"So they can't get away."

"Right." The man turned his face to the orange sky. "Let's hope this doesn't become a night fight. I hate – " He was interrupted yet again by the ringing of the satphone. "Hello?" His expression suddenly turned to one of intense dislike. "Isabel..."

"How's it now?"

"Still hurts." Elaqebil tried to stifle a whimper as her bearer hopped across a large hole in the road. "The movies always make flesh wounds look so trivial!"

"I've told you that enough times," Azanael panted. Sweat trickled down her face and plastered her steel-shaded hair to her forehead as she ran, her troublesome friend's weighty frame pressing against her back. "It's not... a fun experience..." She glanced to her left, where Kataphel was chugging along with the double burdens of a small wounded Arume and a large automatic rifle. "Where are we going?"

"If we can get onto the Kam Tin Road," the so-called engineer grunted, "we might be able to reach Shek Kong before they catch us."

"All right..." The pilot didn't ask what would happen after that, as she was still trying to psychologically catch up with events thus far. Being taken hostage along with Elaqebil and the twenty-odd relief personnel had been unnerving enough, but the subsequent rescue firmly planted a cherry of surreality on top of this royally fudged state of affairs.

Kataphel was the only commando whose name she knew, if it was even her real identifier: the rest called each other strictly by nicknames. In addition to her, the commander and the other two who Azanael had seen in the mess aboard Hyacinth were present, as were several more who seemed to be part of the same crew. None of them were using any visible Arume equipment: they wore heavy boots, fatigue pants and load-bearing vests. When they talked among themselves, their rapid streams of cryptic words and numbers came in a blend of Arumic, English and something that sounded faintly like Italian. She still couldn't place the accents. Moreover, she'd never heard of an Arume unit like this. How long had it been operating? Where did it recruit its members? Who did it answer to?

"Arty scooters!" The shout came from the tail of the procession. "Five, six and seven o'clock, range three hundred!"

"Damn," Kataphel sighed. "The diversion didn't work."

"Incomiiiiiiing!"

"Get off the road!" The commander's cry drifted back from the head of the line. "Spread out, stay low, find cover!"

Better and better, Azanael thought sarcastically. So who rescues the rescuers?

"Let's go! Pack 'em in!" Schuhart had transformed into a frenetic dynamo, directing the hustle and bustle around the pair of rickety pickup trucks parked outside the triage site. "Everyone make sure your gear is ready – weapons, clips, mags, belts, bayonets and spare barrels if you got 'em, canteens, bandages..."

"Sherbet powder," Errol Darwin chimed in, "caramels, mints, condoms – gwaaak!"

"...toothbrushes, combs and kitchen sinks," Phil finished smoothly. "Quit wankin' about an' throw me a Smelly... Oy, Roland! Yah takin' all the li'l sheilas, yah seppo bastard?"

"Half in my truck, half in the other," Schuhart answered briskly, "and one of you in each. KK, you have first pick."

"All right." The giantess dropped an armload of boxed ammunition into the bed of her allotted vehicle. "I want Krag and Johnson on Brens, Astra and Borchardt as Bren assistants, Karan as sniper, Errol as grenadier and... Vickers, Mannlicher, Benelli and Lebel as vanilla infantry."

Her cousin nodded. "Okay... The rest of you ride with me. Phil, you too."

"Wicked." The Australian picked up his new bayonet and gave it an experimental swing. "Croikey, this is a knoife!"

"Watch where you wave that," Schuhart admonished. "Colonel, you riding with me or with her?"

"Eh?" Kang needed a few moments to pull her focus away from all the locking and loading. "...With her, if that's not a problem."

"Off with you, then." The scarred man went around to the front of his truck and opened the hood. "This won't take a minute."

"What about me?" Isobael asked crossly.

"You said you wanted no part in any unauthorized actions," Schuhart reminded her. "Having second thoughts?"

The Arume captain folded her arms, her expression resentful. "I don't approve of this," she snapped, "but one of us must still accompany you and observe."

"Fine." There was a muffled clunk from the vicinity of the engine. "Grab a weapon and get in."

Her own preparations complete, Richardson turned her eyes to Keiko and her gathering forces. "Karan," the big woman was saying, "are you okay with that?"

"Yes," the Indian asserted, delicately placing the enormous sniper rifle on the open tailgate. "This is... very generous of you."

"I don't feel like hanging back." Keiko picked up Astra under the arms and deposited her beside the behemoth. "Have fun."

The onlooking gosta understood that the pack leader wasn't literally instructing Karan to enjoy himself, but she wondered if the same was true for Phil. "Mister Darwin," she asked aloud, "what happened to your rifle?"

"Nothing happened to it," Schuhart interjected. "He used all his ammunition at Lion Rock and we're not exactly rolling in spare cartons of seven-point-five Swiss." He leaned around the side of the raised hood. "You don't have to take an Ishapore, you know."

"Hush," said Phil indignantly. "It remoinds me of 'ome, even if it wos built by curry-eaters."

"I heard that," Karan called testily.

The offender wasn't listening. "Brian!" he whooped, accosting Daemon as he walked out of the alley. "Come tah see us off, yah pommie wowsah?"

"No," the Anglo-African retorted, pushing his glasses up his nose while his voice dripped with sarcasm. "I came to pray for the well-being of my favorite argy-bargy convict spawn."

"Gawd bless yer," said Phil happily. Seeing that the gosta and their equipment were settled in the truck, he climbed aboard and pulled up the tailgate. "'Ave fun mindin' the castle, mate."

There was a muted bang as Schuhart closed the engine compartment. "Sorry to dump the housework on you with no warning, Daemon. I don't think we'll be gone long."

"I'm used to it," the other said patiently. "But what should I say if the Arume start complaining?"

"Tell 'em I'll talk to 'em when I get back." Schuhart took a shiny cylinder with a spring-loaded fitting out of his vest. "One dose should be enough, right?"

"More than enough."

"Right." The arms dealer jammed the end of the cylinder against the side of his weak leg. "Nnngh! ...I gotta quit stalling and find a surgeon."

"You should," his head of intelligence confirmed. "Before you develop an addiction."

"I know." Schuhart undid his leg brace and placed it behind the truck's front seats. "Right now that's a risk I can take." He climbed in, slamming the door behind him. "Everybody ready?"

"Waiting on you," Keiko called.

"Okay." The engine turned over with a bellicose sputtering. Schuhart let it run for a few moments, then put the truck into forward gear and pulled away from the curb. Keiko followed at a moderate distance as the pickup weaved down the cluttered street and turned onto a wider road, gaining speed in the open.

"For the record," Isobael declared, clearly audible to the other passengers thanks to the open center window at the rear of the cab, "I absolutely do not approve of this!"

"For the record," Schuhart countered, "I heard you the first time... Look at the bright side," he added, steering towards an on-ramp. "I'm the only one in this crate who isn't gay!"

"Humph." The captain threw a withering look at Phil before resolutely staring ahead through the windshield. "This would be easy if we had an Evangelion."

"Would it?" The trucks came to a place where part of a building had collapsed onto the road. The bulldozer Sherman was there, a compact green thing tenaciously plowing rubble out of the way. "You know what we'd be dealing with if the Evas were still around? Tomorrow the Freedom and Democracy Impact! Next week, the Great Proletarian Cultural Impact! We'd never get anything done!" Schuhart re-accelerated as the obstacle fell behind. "I'll tell you one thing, though: this would be simple if our Tiger weren't still out of action."

"Tiger?" Isobael repeated. "How would a predatory cat – "

"Not a cat," the driver interrupted, "a tank... Herr Klapp didn't just throw his half-tracks into that swamp: he also dumped a Tiger, a Panzer Four and two StuGs... Desperate to keep 'em away from the Soviets. Anyway, the Tiger is an eighty-eight with fifty tonnes of armor and engine under it. Its name was once shorthand for 'serious business.'"

Richardson had seen glimpses of what the cannons along the shore had done to Spiegel's hovercrafts and, though she knew the guns of the tanks which had come off the ship were even better, she found the notion of a self-propelled 88mm very appealing. Isobael, however, didn't appear to appreciate it. "It was that good?" she asked skeptically.

"Good?" Schuhart laughed. "Try horrible. The Tiger was an expensive, fragile, underpowered gas-guzzler, too wide to be easily moved by rail and too heavy to cross small bridges or be towed by its own kind. What it did have going for it was a solid punch and brand appeal, which is why it's the Tiger and not the Panther that Hollywood pimps without pause... The way some of them depict it, you'd think the Germans won every battle by parking a Tiger out in plain view and putting up a sign that read 'Kommen Sie hier, Mutterfucker' until the day some Admiralty types put a battleship gun on a Sherman and sailed it across the Channel."

"What..?"

"Exactly." Schuhart paused to signal a left turn and put the wheel hard over at the next intersection. "Now there are hardly any real Tigers left, and ours is the only one that can still fight... That's when it actually works, of course."

Isobael looked at him incredulously. "Why would you want to use such a thing?"

"Annoyances aside, the Tiger does have redeeming qualities." The one-eyed man slipped a finger under the lip of his helmet and scratched. "It's a smooth ride. It can take out a Rand McNally atlas from a kilometer away. It has the best owner's manual ever written. Grown men wet their pants when they see it coming... You just don't get that kind of reaction with the T-Fifty-Five." He glanced at the rear-view mirror. "Everyone okay back there?"

"We're good, mate."

We are? Richardson's tender backside wasn't accustomed to this crude means of transport – the Kettenkrad's seats had cushions, after all. She believed Uncle Roland was trying his best to avoid the bigger bumps and potholes, of course she did, but at this speed he couldn't possibly go around all of them.

Her only solace was found in scrunching down into her corner of the cargo bed, bracing herself by using the plywood butt of her rifle as a third leg. Tucking her head in partially alleviated the buffeting of the slipstream, but left her with nothing but the Karabiner crutch to look at. Sauer had explained the meanings of the letters and numerals on its nicked and scuffed steel body, the 7.62 and byf and 41 neatly stamped in a column, though not the miniscule pictures on the side. One was partly effaced by a series of gouges, but looked like it might be a stylized rendering of a bird with spread wings above something in a circle. The other, a six-pointed star, was intact. She would have to ask Uncle Roland about them later.

Something nudged the girl's shoulder. Raising her head brought her face to face with Harrington. She felt a pang of guilt as their eyes met: here was the one with whom she shared a special bond, the one at whose side she was meant to stand in battle, yet she'd been unable to prevent their separation when unity was most important. Harrington nudged her again when she tried to look away, and stretched out across the breadth of the cargo bed's ribbed bottom. Richardson hesitated a few moments, then followed. Her action drew a smile from the other girl as she clumsily put her arms around that slender body. Harrington's lips moved silently, forming the request Richardson already anticipated: link with me. It was a desire to which the gosta would gladly accede at other times and places, but to do it here was risky...

Sauer, seated just aft of them, had missed nothing. The gosta gunner gave the pair a discrete thumps-up and casually positioned herself so that her own frame blocked them the others' view. Encouraged by this solidarity, Richardson carefully brought a hand to her partner's waist and slipped it under the back of her shirt. Harrington shivered, drawing closer as inexperienced fingers traced the contours of her back and wiggled past the strap of her bra. When Richardson found the sweet spot and applied her palm to it, the telepath pulled her companion into a firm embrace, smiling contentedly.

All the potholes in the world were suddenly irrelevant.

"You've been quiet for a while," Keiko remarked. "What's on your mind?"

"Many things." Kang watched the truck ahead with a pensive expression. "I feel as if one part of me believes the Schuhart I knew would never do the things he does now, while another part insists that he was always capable of ruthless actions."

"I hear he used to be a real idealist," the second vehicle's driver commented. "I wouldn't know."

"No?" The colonel frowned. "But the two of you are – "

"Are so alike, I know." Keiko shook her head. "It's because he takes after my father... You've known him longer than I have."

Looking to her left, Kang watched skeletal, half-submerged buildings flashing past in the water below the road. "Who was your father?" she asked at last.

"A soldier of fortune." The muscular woman's tone was matter-of-fact. "He wasn't a great parent, but he tried to look out for me."

"What was his name?"

"He had a lot of names." Keiko took out a canteen and rested it against the steering wheel while unscrewing the cap. "I never knew if any were real."

"And your mother?"

"Didn't have one – just an old killer with a soft spot and no cooking skills." The operator laughed a little. "He must have looked just like Roland when he was younger."

"What happened to him?" Kang realized too late that she might be prying deeper than she ought. "I'm sorry, I shouldn't – "

"It's fine," Keiko said placidly. "My father was killed in action, fighting a PMC over some refugees. He left me a little money, a pile of firepower and a note telling me to find a cousin I'd never met."

"I see." The Chinese woman digested the information for a short while. "So Schuhart resembles his uncle."

"Totally." Keiko took a sip from the battered metal container. "Want some?"

"No, thank you." Kang could see the back of Schuhart's helmet framed in the rear window of the leading truck's cab, but nothing else. It was an aptly vague image. "It's strange," she confessed. "I call him a friend even though I don't know his real name or age or almost anything about him."

"That's how it is," said Keiko frankly. "Roland Schuhart is a riddle wrapped in a mystery inside an enigma... but he's the only family I have."

"Mister Darwin?"

"Yeah?"

Sauer had to raise her voice even higher as the pickup traversed the crest of a hill, encountering heavier winds. "Where did you learn to fight?"

"Australian Army," Phil answered with great pride. "I wos a marksman wi' the First of the Third of the First, an' me brother pulled wires fer the Navy."

"Did you like it there?"

"Oh, it wos lovely... 'cept fer the pogos, the morale vamps an' the gun bunnies. Me digger mates were all roight, though." The man began to recite a little ditty: "We are a ragged army, the A-N-Z-A-C! We cannot shoot, we don't salute, what bleedin' use are we?"

"Why didn't – " Sauer broke off to grab hold of the truck's side as the vehicle descended a particularly steep stretch. "Why didn't you stay?"

"Got bored." Phil offered a shrug. "An' I loiked the old elephant gun better'n the plastic fantastics they use now."

"I can't believe you haven't been hit."

"Same to you," Azanael retorted, wincing when the gravelly dirt scraped the exposed part of her belly as she crawled to the rubble-choked end of the cramped alley. How she missed her forime coveralls! "It's still quiet?"

"Yeah." Kataphel pulled the magazine out of her weapon, tapped it against the butt a couple of times and slapped it back in. "They know they can light us up the moment we try to escape. They're not in a hurry."

"They could eliminate us right now," the pilot pointed out. "Why wait?"

"We're the only leverage Hyman has. If we all die, there'll be no incentive for Renaril to put off grinding him and his friends into paste." The sapper – that, according to Elaqebil, was the best description for one who was both an engineer and a soldier – rolled her shoulders to relieve tension. "How are the wounded?"

"Uncomfortable, but stable... I think."

"Good. Any word from the commander?"

"She said help was on the way, but it doesn't seem to be coming quickly." Azanael's brow furrowed. "I would have thought a group with a direct line to Yoshimura could call in some... serious favors."

"Probably," Kataphel agreed, "but we're no such group."

Now it comes out. "Were you just name-dropping?"

"Oh, he knows about us. It would be hard to work without his approval." Kataphel crawled a little higher on the pile of dirt and broken concrete. "He's not useful for much else these days. Mariel is the same."

"So who are you? Some kind of internal police unit?"

The sapper shook her head. "Nothing so official. We're... how should I put it? We're very concerned by the path the Arume are taking, and by the way certain interests within our own race are actively undermining all attempts at reform." She made a sweeping motion with her hand. "Hence the recent events on this peninsula."

"I see," Azanael said slowly. "How did you become involved in it?"

"I was an ordinary engineer on an ordinary ship." Kataphel's reply was a candid one. "I didn't give a damn about the way we treat our subjects... I believed in the official policies, and that was that."

"What happened to change your mind?"

"A midlife crisis," Kataphel quipped dryly. "My crew were stranded in unoccupied territory. The forime there helped us survive, not caring that they stood to gain little from it."

"And that made you rethink your attitude?"

"Feh." Another shake of the sentry's head. "I wish I could say their kindness immediately showed us the error of our ways, but I can't. We screwed them over and didn't feel a wisp of guilt until we were home safe."

"Oh." So that's what you meant by breaking a promise... Wait! The hints and scraps Azanael had picked up over the span of her brushes with Kataphel began to click together like bits of some ornate machine. "You were part of a reconnaissance mission, weren't you?" she accused. "Those things happened here, before the existence of this world was announced to all Arume."

"More or less." Kataphel's speech became guarded. "I'll say this: the forime who are coming to save us have every right to hate our guts."