Unix cut selected straps, hauling Holly from the chair. He propelled her through the giant doorway, into the morning sunlight. Holly breathed deeply. The air was sweet here, but there wasn’t a moment to pause and enjoy it.
“Why don’t you run, officer?” said Unix, his voice alternately high and low, as though half broken. “Run and see what happens.”
“Yeah,” taunted Bobb. “See what happens.”
Holly could guess what would happen. She would get another laser burst, this time in the back. She would not run. Not yet. What she would do was think and plan.
They dragged and prodded Holly across two fields that sloped southward to the cliffs. The grass was sparse and rough, like clumps of missed beard after a shave. Flocks of gulls, terns, and cormorants appeared over the cliff line like fighter jets climbing to cruising altitude. Down past a thicket rampant with wildlife, Bobb stopped beside a low rock erupting through the earth. Just big enough to shelter one fairy from an easterly approach.
“Down you go,’ he grunted, pushing Holly onto her knees.
Once she was down, Unix clamped a manacle round her leg, hammering the spike on the other end into the earth.
“This way, you can’t just take off,” he explained, grinning. “If we see you playing with your chain, then we knock you out for a while.” He patted the scope on the rifle strapped across his chest. “We’ll be watching.”
The rogue fairies retraced their steps across the field, settling down into two hollows. They pulled sheets of cam foil from their packs, draping them over their frames. In seconds all that could be seen were two black-eyed gun barrels poking from beneath the sheets.
It was a simple plan. But extremely clever. If the commander found Holly, it would seem as though she were setting herself up for an ambush. Just not a very good one. The second he showed himself, Unix and Bobb could nail him with rifle fire.
There must be some way to warn the commander without endangering Trouble. Holly chewed it over. Use what nature provides. Nature was providing plenty, but unfortunately she couldn’t reach any of it. If she even tried, then Bobb and Unix would stun her with a low-level charge, without having to alter the basic structure of their plan. There was nothing much on her own person either. Unix had searched her from head to toe, even confiscating the digi-pen so she couldn’t try to use it as a weapon. The only thing they missed was the wafer-thin computer on her wrist, which was shorted out anyway.
Holly lowered her arm behind the rock, peeling back the Velcro patch that protected her computer from the elements. She flipped the tiny instrument over. It seemed as though hydrogel had seeped into the seal, shorting out the electrics. She slid off the battery panel, checking the circuit board inside. A tiny drop of gel was sitting on the board, straddling several switches, making connections where there shouldn’t be any. Holly plucked a blade of coarse grass, using it to scoop up the drop. In less than a minute the remaining film of gel had evaporated and the tiny computer hummed into action. Holly quickly blacked out the panel on her chest, so Bobb and Unix wouldn’t spot the flashing cursor.
So, now she had a computer. If she only had her helmet, she could send the commander an e-mail. As it was, all she could do was run some text across her chest.
CHAPTER 4: BROTHERS WITH ARMS
Tern Mór, Northern Peninsula
JULIUS Root was surprised to find that he was breathing hard. There was a time when he could have run all day without breaking a sweat, and now his heart was battering his ribcage after a mere two-mile jog. He had parked the shuttle on a foggy cliff top on the island’s northern peak. Of course, the fog was artificial, generated by a compressor bolted onto the shuttle’s exhaust. The shuttle’s projection shield was still in operation, the fog was merely a backup.
Root ran low, bent almost double. A hunter’s run. As he moved he felt the primal joy that only surface air could bring. The sea crashed on all sides; an everpresent behemoth, a reminder of Earth’s power. Commander Julius Root was never happier than when he was on the hunt aboveground. Strictly speaking, he could have delegated these initiations, but he wouldn’t give up these excursions until the first rookie beat him. It hadn’t happened yet.
Nearly two hours later the commander paused, taking a deep swallow from a canteen. This hunt would have been much easier with a pair of mechanical wings, but in the name of fair play he had left the wings on their rack in the shuttle. He would not have anyone claim that he had beaten them with superior equipment.
Root had searched all the obvious sites, and had yet to find Corporal Short. Holly had not been on the beach, or in the old quarry. Neither had she been perched in a treetop in the evergreen wood. Perhaps she was smarter than the average cadet. She would need to be. For a female to survive in Recon, she would have to rise above a lot of suspicion and prejudice. Not that the commander was tempted to cut her any slack. He would treat her with the same brash disdain that all his subordinates got. Until they earned something better.
Root continued his search, senses alert to any change in his surroundings that could indicate he himself was being tracked. The two hundred or so species of birds that nested on Tern Mór’s crags were unusually active. Gulls screeched at him from overhead, crows followed his movements, and Julius even spotted an eagle spying at him from the heavens. All this noise made it more difficult for him to concentrate, but the distraction would be even worse for Corporal Short.
Root jogged up a shallow incline toward the human dwelling. Short could not be inside the actual dwelling itself, but she could be using it for cover. The commander hugged the thicket, his dull green LEP jumpsuit blending with the foliage.
Julius heard something up ahead. An irregular scraping. The noise of fabric against rock. He froze, then slowly twisted his way into the foliage itself. A disgruntled rabbit turned tail, wriggling deeper into the hedgerow. Root ignored the brambles dragging at his elbows, inching forward toward the source of the noise. It could be nothing, but on the other hand it could be everything.
It turned out to be everything. From his shelter inside the thicket, Root could clearly see Holly hunkered behind a large rock. It wasn’t a particularly clever hiding place. She was sheltered from an easterly approach, but otherwise she was wide open. Captain Kelp was not visible, possibly filming from a raised vantage point.
Root sighed. He was surprised to find that he was disappointed. It would have been nice to have a girl around the place. Someone new to shout at.
Julius drew his paintball pistol, poking the barrel through spirals of briar branches. He would tag her a couple of times just to make an impression. Short had better wake up and do better if she ever wanted the Recon insignia on her lapel.
There was no need for Root to use the sights on his helmet. It was an easy shot, barely twenty feet. And even if it hadn’t been, Root would not have used his visor. Short didn’t have electronic sights, so he wouldn’t use them either. This would give him even more to shout about after the failed initiation.
Then Holly turned in the direction of the thicket. She still couldn’t see him, but he could see her. And even more important, he could read the words scrolling across her chest.
TURNBALL + 2
Commander Root drew his gun barrel back into the thicket, retreating into the blackness of the overgrowth.
Root battled to contain his emotions. Turnball was back. And he was here. How was it possible? All the old feelings quickly resurfaced, lodging in the commander’s stomach. Turnball was his brother, and a nub of affection for him still remained. But the overriding emotion was sadness. Turnball had betrayed the People, and had been willing to see many of them die for his own profit. He had allowed his brother to escape once before; he would not let it happen again.
Root wiggled backward through the thicket, then activated his helmet. He tried establishing a link with Police Plaza, but all he got on the helmet radio was white noise. Turnball must have detonated a jammer.
Turnball may control the airwaves, bu
t he could not control the air itself. And any living thing would heat the air. Root lowered a thermal filter on his visor and began a slow grid search of the area behind Corporal Short.
The commander’s search did not take too long. Two red slits shone like beacons among the pale pink of insect and rodent life teeming under the field’s surface. The slits were probably caused by a body-heat leakage from underneath two sheets of cam foil. Snipers. Lying in wait for him. These fairies were not professional. If they had been, they would have kept their gun barrels beneath the sheet until they were needed, thus eliminating the heat spill.
Root holstered his paintball pistol, drawing instead a Neutrino 500. Usually in combat situations he carried a tri-barreled water-cooled blaster, but he hadn’t been expecting combat. He berated himself silently. Idiot. Combat does not arrange itself around schedules.
The commander circled round behind the snipers, then put two bursts into them from a distance. This might not have been the most sporting course of action, but it was definitely the most prudent. By the time the snipers regained consciousness they would be shackled to each other in the back of a police shuttle. If by some chance he had stunned two innocents, then there would be no lasting aftereffects.
Commander Root trotted to the first hide, drawing back the sheet of cam foil. There was a dwarf in the hollow beneath. An ugly little spud. Root recognized him from his Wanted sheet. Bobb Ragby. A nasty character. Just the kind of dim-witted felon Turnball would recruit to his cause. Root knelt by the dwarf, disarming him and zipping plasti-cuffs round his wrists and ankles.
He quickly crossed the fifty yards to the second sniper. Another well-known fugitive: Unix B’Lob. The grounded sprite. He had been Turnball’s right-hand fairy for decades now. Root grinned tightly as he bound the unconscious sprite. Even just these two would be a good day’s work. But the day wasn’t over yet.
Holly was surreptitiously worming the spike from the ground when Root arrived.
“Can I give you a hand with that?” asked Julius.
“Get down, Commander,” hissed Holly. “There are two rifles trained on you right now.”