Once they were halfway to the hotel, she grabbed one of the sentry’s battle rifles and a bandolier of magazines and followed cover north. She was no sniper, but with enough trigger pulls she could put some quality shit on target, as her shooting instructor used to say.
She’d gone only a hundred yards or so when the crack of grenades exploding on that big veranda opened the action. Firing began, quick bursts that made her think the Bears were already slaughtering their way inside. With blood on the walls they’d be half mad with the fighting already.
She watched the hotel over the rifle sights for a few minutes. A man jumped out a third-story window, but lay on the ground clutching his shin. He was too far away to finish off without the luckiest of shots. She decided not to reveal her position just yet, in case there was someone up in the main parking lot on the hill above with a rifle and a view.
The shooting quieted; what little noise she could hear from the hotel now was probably grenade blasts. The question was, how much killing would they be able to accomplish before having to organize their getaway?
With the Bears raising hell and bringing down thunder, she decided that she would just be in the way of all the bullets.
She heard another faint explosion from off to the east. Had the Reaper sentinel triggered her grenade?
She tried to put herself in the minds of the startled Quislings in the hotel. They were staff types; they wouldn’t make a fight of it. There’d probably be a mad rush to the hotel parking lot, but to make the road you had to drive past the hotel, right under the guns of anyone standing on the porch. No, a clever Quisling would make a different escape.
The hotel stables had several tough four-wheel drives and at least one motorcycle, plus the horses. A good rider on a fresh, strong horse could even outrun the Wolves in the thick timber of the Hoosier forest. The stables were out of sight of the hotel with a wooded hill and a gravel golf-course-type path between the two. They could get themselves organized away from the shooting… .
When she reached the stables, it turned out that she was the only one who’d thought of it as a likely escape route, at least so far. The stables seemed quiet and deserted, except for the sounds of the horses and the methodical movement of a couple of them grazing in the field. A couple of fresh hay bales had been tipped off a cart without being cut open, a sign that whoever was feeding the horses had found something more important to do in a hurry.
She stepped out onto the path and started for the stables. Better hiding spots for ambushing escaping Quislings could be found there, and she would have a few hundred yards’ worth of better view of anyone coming from the hotel.
Once at the stables, she set to work disabling the vehicles. She didn’t have time for permanent wreckage, but she could slow them up by a couple of hours by destroying tires and electrical systems. She started with the biggest truck, a double-rear-axle job with a horse trailer attached. It wasn’t until she’d punctured the tires that it occurred to her that it might be a good escape vehicle for the Bears, since it had Ordnance markings and you could fit both Bear teams in the trailer.
She sighed. Too used to working alone.
Footsteps behind.
A kid in jeans and a white T-shirt with food stains came tearing around the truck, running for his life. She couldn’t check the swing of her sword but she did alter its course, giving him a slight haircut and an abrasion as the flat of the blade skipped across his head. The boy fell at her feet with a cry as if she had killed him. He smelled like fryer grease and onions. He probably worked in the resort kitchen.
She readied her sword again and kicked him hard in the ribs. He yelped, but his appearance didn’t blur or alter. He wasn’t a Kurian escaping in disguise.
“What’s your name?” she asked.
The boy was silent for a moment. Then he said, “Tyler.”
“Get across the highway, Tyler,” she said, pointing. “The shooting won’t last much longer.”
“They’re killing the patients, too!” the boy sobbed.
“All the more reason for you to run. Now get!” She nudged him with the toe of her boot and he took off.
>
She wasn’t surprised. The Bears, with their blood up, would go through the place like a buzz saw. While they probably wouldn’t shoot wounded in their beds, she could see them blasting anything in Ordnance colors. The hotel served as a convalescent home for Ordnance wounded and they wouldn’t be able to tell who was who when shooting down a hallway. It was a healthy environment for physical rehabilitation. That’s probably why they kept a few horses around—gentle exercise.
Valentine would be upset. He put more stock into the niceties than she did. She thought it was odd that you could do anything you liked to a man on a battlefield, but the instant he was in a hospital he was off-limits, until he got well enough to go back out onto the battlefield to get blown up again.
Speaking of blowing things up, since she had some time she rigged a couple of the trucks with her remaining grenades. It took her just a few minutes to booby-trap two of the bigger trucks.
Thankfully, boot heels on gravel could be heard some ways off. A fat man in a colonel’s uniform came puffing toward the stables. He moved quietly and gracefully for his rotundity, on little feet that bounced him along like a dancer. His face was a greasy sheen of sweat and his oversized mouth split his face in two, with wide-set pop eyes giving him a froglike visage. Along with the flab around his belly, he carried a big boxy briefcase full of maps and a smaller, expensive-looking leather satchel with papers and a power cord peeping out.
She hunkered down behind an official-looking open-topped four-wheel drive, but the fat colonel surprised her. He hung his overcoat on a gas pump for the utility vehicles, then headed straight for the motorcycle and set about attaching his cases, the map case in the back and the leather briefcase to the handlebars.
Well, if a speedy getaway is what you’re after, you can’t beat a motorcycle. The colonel looked more like he enjoyed a few brandies and pastries in a comfortable chair than a motorcycle saddle, but you never really know.
She carefully worked her way toward him.
His getaway seemed well planned, but his fingers kept failing him with the various latches and nets on the motorcycle for military gear. She felt almost sorry for him, struggling to tie off an elastic cord that had its usual hook missing. She reversed her throwing dagger and sent it sailing at his head, hilt first.
It struck him on the back of the head with a satisfying rap! but did not lay him out senseless. Nor did his appearance blur, so he wasn’t a Kurian in an unusually imaginative disguise.