Walter Williams: The Sundering

I don’t remember askingpermission, Sula thought. The thump of a grenade echoed through the building. Sula could smell smoke despite the gush of the sprinklers.

A chunk of plaster banged off Sula’s helmet, and she brushed wet plaster dust off her shoulder. Her team was making good time despite the water that was now beginning to spill down the stairs in little waterfalls.

The lobby was full of bewildered civilians, many partly dressed or in their night clothes. Some were wounded. The sound of wailing children echoed off the tile walls, and people sloshed in water in bare feet or slippers. There was no sign of Team 211.

“All of you clear out!” Sula shouted. She waved an arm to indicate direction. “Head back two or three streets and wait for the all-clear. If you’re hurt, you can call for help there.”

“What’s going on?” someone demanded.

“It’s the war!” shouted an angry bass voice. “The damn war!”

“But isn’t the war over?” asked the first.

“Get moving!” Sula shouted. “Move back before you get caught in the crossfire!”You idiots, she added to herself.

She turned to her team. “Ardelion, how badly are you hurt?” Using Spence’s code name.

Spence looked down at the boot that left red trails in the water. “I’m not sure. I think it’s minor, but it hurts like a bitch.”

“Do you need to be carried?”

Spence shook her head. “I can keep my feet. I just hope I don’t have to run.”

“All right, then. You and Starling pull your hoods over your heads. Rifles completely under the capes. Brush that crap off your shoulders. Move with these people till you get to the car.”

She tucked her rifle under her arm, barrel downward, knocked as much plaster dust off her shoulders as she could, and pulled the hood over her helmet. A pinch sealed the hood in front, over her faceplate, but her faceplate displayed the image transmitted by the hood sensors so that she had a perfectly workable picture of where she was going.

Macnamara in the lead, the team moved with the civilians till they got outside. Suddenly the sounds of firing were much louder, and echoed off the buildings. Vertigo eddied in Sula’s skull at the slight distortion in her vision, and the stuffy air inside her suit sent warning signs of claustrophobia tingling up her nerves. She had to marvel at how well the camouflage capes worked—she couldn’t see anything of Spence or Macnamara except their boots and the wet footprints they left on the pavement.

Once outside the civilians dispersed, and encountered groups of other civilians. They had heard the explosion that destroyed the bridge, apparently, and come either like fools to gawk or like good citizens to help anyone injured by the blast. But the shooting and the continued explosions had made them pause, and now they just hovered in the street, uncertain, all gawkers now.

Sula moved among them and tore open her hood. “Move back!” she called. “This is the war! We’re fighting Naxids! Pull back or you could get hurt!”

“Police!” someone shouted, and the whole crowd began surging back. Sula chanced a look over her shoulder, and saw Naxids in black-and-yellow uniforms scurrying around the corner of the building, having run from the parkway to cut off the retreat of anyone in the building.

“Hurry!” Sula shouted, terrified that the Naxids might decide to fire into the crowd. She and her team were sprinting when they arrived at their car; Spence’s wound barely slowed her down. Sula opened a rear door and flung herself sprawling across the backseat. Macnamara, the best driver, took the driver’s seat, and Spence the front seat opposite.

“Take us out slowly and as quietly as you can,” Sula said. The crowd was still falling back past them, and Sula was amazed the Naxids weren’t shooting at everything that moved.

“Comm,” Sula said, “to Team Two-one-one. Are you out of the building? The building is being surrounded by the enemy. Comm: send.”

Her mind filled with a hopeless plan for driving back toward the building and gunning down the Naxids to break Team 211 free. She’d do her best, but it would just get them all killed.

Two-one-one’s voice, when it came, was breathless. “We’re out, Four-nine-one! We’re running like hell for our car!”

Good for you, Sula thought. The Hunhao swung into the street, its four electric motors driving the wheels in silence. Sula bit her lip: if the Naxids saw them and opened fire now…she remembered the Naxid police vehicle that Hong had wrecked with just his rifle.

“Ardelion,” she said, “how’s that leg?”

Spence was bent over examining the injury. “I can’t bend over far enough in this damn armor to get a good look,” she said. “But I think the bullet went right through the calf. I’ll slap an aid pack on it and we’ll take a closer look at it later.”

Sula sat up and peered out of the back window as the car pulled away. The Naxid police were concentrating on the building, fortunately, not on any onlookers. Those yellow-and-black uniforms were now being reinforced by others in viridian Fleet body armor. She could still hear gunfire rattling away, but none of these Naxids were firing.

Suddenly there was a cry in her ears, and Sula’s blood ran chill as she heard a voice crying over the rattle of gunfire. “All teams! This is Three-six-nine! We’re with Team Three-one-seven! The Naxids have cut us off! We have one dead out in the street and the rest of us are wounded! We need help!”

Hong’s voice came next. “All teams, this is Blanche. Assist Three-six-nine if possible! Three-six-nine, give us your location please.”

Sula called up a street map onto her visor display, and her heart sank as she realized the weakness of the escape plan. She had considered it an advantage that the district was cut into quarters by the intersection of two major roads—all the teams and their vehicles could escape the scene on quiet local roads while the Naxid convoy would be on Axtattle Parkway, with only limited access to the area.

While that was all true, what Sula now realized was that the two major roads cut Action Group Blanche into four pieces, and made it virtually impossible for any of these divisions to help one another. Sula’s team would have to cross both Highway 16 and Axtattle Parkway in order to get into the area where Teams 317 and 369 were pinned down, and that was going to take luck and a fair amount of maneuvering.

“Starling!” she called to Macnamara. “Drive as fast as you can! Prepare to turn left on the second street following this intersection!”

She put the sedan through a series of maneuvers that got it across Highway 16 at a dead run, but by the time she had worked out a route that crossed Axtattle Parkway the two beleaguered teams had ceased to call for help. Either they were all dead or in the hands of the enemy.

By that point, however, Team 151, who had started in the building across the parkway from Sula, was in its own firefight, having been caught dragging a wounded comrade toward their escape vehicle. Team 167 tried to help them but both teams were overwhelmed before Sula could get her own car back across Highway 16 to their aid. Two members of Team 499 were caught in the open, on foot, and forced to surrender—and at that point Sula remembered that Lieutenant Captain Hong had taken 499’s car and driver in order to carry out his improvised plan for demolishing the bridge.

Everything was crumbling away. Almost half of Action Group Blanche had been killed or taken, and all in a matter of minutes. Through it all Hong’s cheerful voice continued to call into Sula’s ears, giving orders, trying to coordinate a response that would rescue his doomed teams.

There was nothing Sula could do to help any of those in trouble. She tried to keep her voice calm as she told Macnamara to slow down and drive out of the area following one of the prearranged escape routes.