Neal Asher - Gridlinked

'What was that?'

It was Aiden who replied. 'Another surveillance drone. I'm getting movement.'

Cormac moved back. There was a mosquito whining in the forest. The gun in front of him began stuttering. He ran for Goff's foxhole and dropped into it.

'Flares!'

The flares shot out while the turret guns on the carrier began flashing. Then he heard something else: a higher whine came from the treetops and the fire of the turret guns met it in the upper branches. Cormac saw something explode in a disc of fire. The severed half of a tree fell flaming.

'Shit! Needles again! Where the hell did he get this kind of armament?'

A silver torpedo shot from the burning treetops, turned in an erratic arc up into the sky, where the turret guns blew it to pieces. Another object shot through, and there was an explosion to Cormac's right. It happened too quickly for there to be a scream. All that was left was a burning foxhole and a few scattered pieces of gory body-armour. He looked up as the fourth missile came through and nosed overhead like a hunting pike. This one was larger. This was the one the others had made a way for. The carrier. Pulse hits crackled along the back of the missile and its flight became erratic. At the last it tumbled through the air and hit underneath the carrier. The carrier lifted on the blast, turned in flames and a cloud of falling earth, and crashed down on its roof.

'Oh fuck,' said Thorn.

Another explosion left another burning foxhole.

'Cento? Aiden?'

'I… tried,' came Cento's broken reply.

Two more detonations silenced the autoguns. In the trees were flashes of proton-gun fire. Something came running from the smoke and flying debris. For a moment Cormac thought it was Aiden, but even Aiden was not so tall. This figure was dressed in a long and tatty coat and had a wide-brimmed hat on its head. Mr Crane. Pulse fire hit the android from every side, but did not slow it. It came amongst them with its clothes on fire. Cormac saw it pause over a foxhole, its hand stab out. Then, all around the nearby foxholes, smoke started coiling into the air.

'Lasers!' someone yelled.

Cormac was about to ask where from, but the smoke revealed the red beams stabbing from beyond the carrier. He had miscalculated. Someone had come in at the back, using what litde cover there was there. Abruptly Thorn replied to that fire. A purple line cut from the slab and there was a white detonation beyond it. The firing immediately halted. Cormac was out of his hole, reaching for his shuriken, as the android turned to him. He saw a face of polished brass. He threw. The shuriken thrummed through the air with vicious confidence. A brass hand smashed it to the ground.

The android came at Cormac.

'Hit it! Hit it!' Cormac heard the sergeant yell. Then Aiden came flashing in from the side and hit Crane with the force of an out-of-control AGC. Both of them hit the ground and slid about three metres. But even as they slid, they exchanged blows with frenetic speed. The sound of combat was like that of a log-chipping machine. Suddenly they were on their feet, apart, then slammed together again. Shreds of clothing and syn-theflesh fell as they hit at each other. Cormac turned to movement at his left. Cento came from the trees at an erratic run. The syntheflesh was burnt from the upper half of his body to expose blackened metal. One of his arms was missing. He seemed to be blind and navigating on hearing alone. In a moment he leapt into the fight. Cormac saw him wrap his legs around the android and his remaining arm around its neck. Aiden proceeded to take it apart.

'As far as you go, Agent!'

Cormac turned. Pelter stepped out from behind a tree, and raised a Devcon assault rifle. Cormac reached for his thin-gun as the rifle fired. A whirring, as a steel hornet shot towards him. Slower than a normal bullet, but fast enough for Cormac to know he was dead. But in that moment, that fraction of fatal seconds, there came another whirring. An explosion rattled fragments of metal against Cormac's helmet. The seeker bullet was gone.

Shuriken hung in the air before him, flexing its chain-glass blades.

'Fuck you, Cormac!'

Pelter fired the remainder of the clip from the Devcon. Shuriken blurred through the air and took out those five seeker bullets in a chain of explosions. Pulse-fire hit the trees, but Pelter was gone, the Devcon abandoned on the smoking ground. Cormac stood where he was for a moment, too stunned yet to take in what had happened. He stared at the ground and wondered how the hell a small rubber dog came to be lying there. Then he shook himself and looked round. Cento and Aiden stood over the dismembered android. Cormac turned back to shuriken and hit the recall on its holster. Shuriken continued to brisde its chipped blades in the air for a moment, before returning to its home with a fractured hum.

'Thank you, Tenkian,' Cormac said, and headed for the trees.

Ultraviolet. A huge burst of ultraviolet. There was only one sort of weapon that kicked out that much, and Jarv-ellis had last seen one in the hold of the Lyric. If John was still alive, he would be there. If John was dead, then Pelter would be there. She tilted the ion engines of the shuttle and put her foot down. It leapt from its recent approach vector and arced towards the distant lights.

'Lunatic shuttle pilot. I suppose I would be wasting my breath in telling you that you're heading for an area that has recently become restricted to all air traffic'

You don't have breath, Jarvellis thought, then ignored everything else the runcible AI had to say. She flicked the side screen to infrared, and saw she was getting quite a picture from that as well. Had to be them.

In the foxhole, with its only other occupant a survival suit filled with crash foam, Mika wrapped her arms across her chest and waited with grim patience. When this was all over she would have to clear up the human wreckage. There was one she knew she would be doing nothing for. The two suited killers, who had opened up with laser carbines from a spread of low scrub just beyond her, had not reckoned on Thorn being on that slab. Mika closed her eyes on the vision of one of them crouched with his carbine at his shoulder, then silhouetted in the white flash, and flying apart. His companion had let out a horrible moaning scream. He must have found some sort of cover, because Thorn did not fire again. Soon, soon it would be over. A close hissing crackle made her open her eyes. The stuffed man was smoking, a hole burnt through his back. Someone dropped into the foxhole beside her.

'Hello, pussy,' said Mennecken, resting his carbine next to the edge of the hole.

Mika did not pause for conversation. The study and saving of life was not all she had been taught on Circe. She pushed herself up with her elbows, turned, and kicked. Her foot slammed up under the mercenary's chin. Mennecken staggered back, then reached up and rubbed at his jaw. He smiled.

'Want to play?'

When he came at her he came straight into the blow

Mika hammered at his sternum. She gasped - body-armour. She chopped with her other hand at his neck, but he tilted his head and the blow caught him across the ear to seemingly no effect. His hand closed on her shirt and with casual contempt he threw her against the edge of the foxhole. She tried to come back at him, but the slap he delivered just knocked her to the ground. Next thing he was astride her and drawing a chainglass knife.

'They killed my brother, and I'll kill them,' said the mercenary. 'But there's always time to play, little pussy'

'Playtime's over, old chap,' said another voice.

Mennecken turned his head to look, and his head disappeared in a wet detonation. Making horrible bubbling sounds the corpse dropped to one side. Mika pushed at it almost in panic and struggled away. She looked up at Thorn as he holstered his pulse-gun. The front of the Sparkind's uniform was soaked with blood.