Empire (Empire 1)

The trouble is that a machine gun is best against massed troops. It isn’t much of a tool for taking guys out one by one. And if he got close enough to use a pistol, they’d overwhelm him by sheer force of numbers.

But for the moment, as they were still getting out of their hovercycles, they were massed enough. Cole set up the weapon and let fly. Short bursts, to husband his ammo, because there wasn’t much.

He was pretty sure he put four of them down. Maybe disabled another. But from this moment on, the M-240 was useless. He had to get to the river, where sniper fire from Reuben’s jeesh would be his only protection while he negotiated the river.

Getting to the edge of the cliff wasn’t bad. Getting down the cliff face wasn’t all that hard. And he really had tried to pick the point with the narrowest gap over the rushing water of the falls. From above, it didn’t look too bad. From here, it looked impossible. Because the boulders didn’t conveniently line up with two flat surfaces. Instead, they were rounded and jagged and even though he could easily make the jump, there was nothing he could be sure of gripping on the other side. So easy—so likely—to slide off into the water and get carried down the rapids, the pieces of his body eventually assembling in the smooth water downstream.

He heard the slap-plunk-whine of sniper fire from the Virginia side. The guys had gotten there, even at five bucks a car.

But that didn’t guarantee that somebody on the Maryland side couldn’t get off a round at him while he was exposed on the rock.

A quick prayer. And then a little aside to Rube: I don’t know if they give angel status that fast, but if you can, look out for me here. I’ve got your PDA and Cecily needs it.

Nothing for it but a run and a leap. So he ran. And he leapt.

And even though he scrabbled a little on the rock, he was solidly on and there was nothing for it but to make a shorter leap and then one that was more like a step and now he was on the big center island.

It was rough going. But the guys were doing a good job of suppressing sniper fire.

And then suddenly they weren’t.

Because it wasn’t sniper fire. It was mechs. They were just stepping over the gaps that had been leaps for Cole. And the sniper fire from the Virginia side couldn’t do a thing against them. They knew it. And since the bad guys also knew it, they weren’t exposing themselves anymore. Let the mechs do it, they were no doubt thinking.

His cellphone rang.

He cowered in a depression in the rock, trying not to present a target to the oncoming mechs. Fortunately, the mechs weren’t really designed to walk on terrain as rough as this rock. One of them even tripped. It was keeping them busy. But eventually they’d get where his hiding place no longer hid him, and then he’d be dead. “Hello?” he said into the phone.

“Any way to take those suckers down?” asked Drew.

“Either an AT-4 or two guys pressing the legs apart while two cars run into it.”

“Nobody’s willing to sacrifice their cars,” said Drew. “But hold tight. We’ve got backup.”

“From who? The U.S. Army doesn’t know I’m on their side.”

“Think, Cole,” said Drew. “Our side doesn’t have those mechs. Wherever we see them, it’s okay to kill them.”

It was only a few more minutes, and the Apaches came up the river. No focused-EMP weapon now—where would they plug it in? The mechs didn’t even try to run away. As hard as it was for them to get as far as they had gotten, there was no going back. They aimed at the choppers but before they came in effective range, the missiles the choppers sent by way of greeting ended the conversation.

Cole got up and waved his thanks. He knew there was no way they could land on the island. It was safer for them to get out before the guys from the hovercycles—if there were any left—tried out their antitank rockets to see if they could bring down choppers.

So Cole was on his own getting to the narrowest place on the Virginia side.

Arty and Mingo had both climbed down to the nearest point. What, did they think they were going to catch him?

No. They had a rope.

He caught it. He tied it around himself, up under his arms. Mingo wrapped it behind his back and sat down and braced himself. If Cole fell in the water, they could haul him out, hopefully before he had been beaten to death on the rocks.

He jumped.

He landed.

Arty caught him by the wrist and Cole didn’t even get wet.

Arty and Mingo helped him get up to the observation point.

“Good work,” he said to them.