John Steakley - Armor

Every step had firepower.

“Those are the two hundred commandos that will come from you,” Borglyn continued, pointing from screen to screen. “They are as well-armed as Fleet can manage. Those on the right are wearing open-air battle armor. There are thirty of them—each and every one an expert.”

I doubted that, but was damned if I knew what difference it made.

“Those large instruments in the rear, Doctor, are medium-range mortars. They are out of line-of-sight of your tactical blazer cannon and will, in fact, obliterate them when I give the order. You already know something of the one on the left.” He leaned forward and worked a key. The screen above it swelled as the monitor zoomed forward. “That is the hole it has already blown in your… your fort.”

I was squinting at a tiny screen showing an even tinier image and still the hole was clear. It was that big.

God, Holly, get out of there!

The tour ended with Borglyn’s terrifyingly off-handed inventory of his other miscellaneous killing tools. He listed the concussion grenades and the fully charged blaze rifles. But more than what he said, was the way he said it, as if they were just insignificant toys when he knew damn well they were a hell of a lot more.

And he knew Holly knew.

It was chilling.

“Still with me, Dr. Ware?” inquired Borglyn pleasantly.

“Yes,” Holly replied shortly. Was that fear? Certainly respect.

But it sounded too much to me like fatalism.

Borglyn’s smile dropped instantly. His manner became threatening. “And have you indeed seen?” he demanded, biting out each word.

Holly was too smart to answer that one. Or too scared.

Borglyn went on. “Well, I hope you do.” He shrugged slightly; he appeared to be making an effort at maintaining his reasoned calm. But as he began to speak once more, it gradually slipped away to something ominous. Something ugly—

“I have been frank with you. Let me be more so. I want that Cangren Cell—you know that. I want it intact and working—you know that, too. But consider this: We are desperate people, Doctor. We have no fuel left for faster-than-light. Your refusal to cooperate means we must stay and fight you for whatever is left. And we will. One way or another, Sir, I will have you out of that Dome. Even if I have to land this ship myself and blast the can, the dome, the hillside behind it, and you, Doctor, to glass !”

Borglyn paused once more. He was breathing heavily with barely contained fury. His deep blue eyes, always incongruously troubling, shone with a depth of damn near tangible menace.

And one more time it reminded me of something I always seemed to forget when he wasn’t around: he scared me. Not panic. Not quaking. But fear, yes. I genuinely feared the man, more than any other I had known.

I thought of Holly, in there alone and seeing it.

Or maybe he didn’t see it. Maybe he didn’t know enough to realize how utterly lethal Borglyn was. Holly was still in there, after all.

Borglyn was calm again when next he spoke. “You have half an hour, Dr. Ware. Use it to…” His lips curled a cold smile. “…to assess. Then the real world will hit.”

“I’ll watch for it,” blurted Holly suddenly. But it wasn’t even faintly convincing. I felt that pain in my stomach once more.

Borglyn’s voice went dead hard. “Then watch me kill you!” he roared and leaned up to key off the monitor. He stopped his hand. The cold smile returned. “No. You like to see, don’t you?” he snarled. Then he keyed the sound off with a click and spun angrily away.

Damn.

I had to get him out.

And I had to go in there with him to do it. Holly knew what I had done. I doubted he would talk to me at all if he had any choice. I had decided not to give him one.

I stood up, ignoring my wobbly gait, and fell-jumped off the roof onto the soft ground below. I picked myself up about halfway, then had to sit down again. Vertigo. I had to blink my eyes several times before they would focus right. Damn! I didn’t have time for a concussion.

I stood up slowly the second time and stayed up. I scanned the dark outlines of the trees before me. I could almost feel the commandos wandering through them. Too much weaponry and not enough targets. It would have to be the bridge route. Borglyn was sure to have them guarded, but anything was better than crowded woods.

I started off at an easy trot down along the outer perimeter of the Maze toward the river. The jumbled stacks of hovels looming over me were still silent and still. The City looked empty. Or beaten. Or both. Eerie. Where were the crusaders?

I had to slow down to a walk for a while to give my head a fighting chance. Fat lot of good to Holly if I conked again.

Damn Holly, I thought suddenly. What the hell was he doing?

He had a plan, of course. A Plan. There had to be one. Something suitable for a spindly over-romantic would-be hero to pull out at the last second, no doubt. Something the Evil villain would never suspect.

Or probably, in the case of Borglyn, notice. I had to get in there.

I tried trotting again. It worked after a fashion. Faster, anyway.

So. I had to get in there and make Holly see me, make him tell me the grand scheme, make him see it wouldn’t work, plus make him leave with me—all in half an hour.

I tripped on something and slid down on my butt. It hurt like hell. I reached back around and pulled out the culprit. I had landed on the comvid.

I was rearing back to throw it against the side of a shack when it spoke to me in Lya’s voice.

“…oh please, Darling,” she was saying, “it can’t do anybody any good if you get killed.”

She sounded awful. Her voice was hoarse, barely above a whisper. Despair and worry and fear, and exhaustion from them all, trembled within it. Then the screen flickered to life with her face and I saw it was even worse than it sounded.

I hit a key. “Lya? This is Jack.”

She perked up. “Jack? Jack, where are you?”

“Outside the City.”

Her eyes got wide. “The City? But… Oh, Jack. You’ve got to help Holly. He’s in the Dome all alone and he won’t come out and they’re going to blow it up in just a few minutes. And he won’t answer me.”

“I’m going there now. Is he really in there alone?”

“Yes,” she sobbed. “He’s locked himself in and, Jack, the defense screens are down. He’ll be killed.”

I waited for her sobs to pass. “What happened? How did all this happen?”

She gathered herself together with effort, brushing back the tears and her hair and sitting up straight. Then she told me.

Most of it I knew, who Borglyn was and the like. And what he wanted. Other parts I had assumed. The ultimatum, the landing of the troops, the guarantees of safety for cooperative types. No one had believed Borglyn when he had first claimed to have “arranged” to sabotage the screens. The boards showed green.

Then had come the blast to match the hole Borglyn had already shown me. Shortly afterward, Holly had ordered everyone out. It wasn’t until all were gathered in the valley at the Crew Quarters, that Lya had noticed he was missing.

“I called him at the Dome. And he said he wasn’t coming and that he wouldn’t let anyone else in and… and he hasn’t spoken to me since. Jack, you’ve got to do something.”

“I will. But why, Lya? Why did he stay? Did he tell you?”

She frowned and shook her head. “Just that he couldn’t give in to that man, to Borglyn. Not after what happened to the Cityfolk.”

I sighed. “What happened?”

“Oh, I didn’t tell you that. I was so worried about… Well, they had guns, Jack! I don’t know where they got them. And they attacked Borglyn’s people.”