"General?" Valentine asked, putting Xray-Tango between him and the rifles, just in case.
"Put up those guns, damn it. Run, run for it, boys. Or we're all dead!" Xray-Tango shouted, which was probably true enough.
Thank God!
Valentine got the general to the top of the stairs as the MP ran. Valentine heard another door downstairs torn off its hinges. He heard the scream of some other unfortunate pulled from a hiding spot. Probably the MP. That was enough for the TMCC grunt at the stairs. He put up his rifle and ran for the door, with a convincing "Get out of here!"
His example was one to be followed. The other officers and men made for the exits. One threw a chair out the window, and was about to follow it when a bullet whizzed by. One of the sentries outside, hearing shouts and confusion within, had shot in panic.
"What the-?" the private said.
"Try the door," Valentine suggested, grabbing his pistol belt and heading for the second story. "C'mon, General, let's call for help," he said, waving the pistol to point upstairs. Valentine smashed a red case on the wall and extracted the fire ax from within.
Either he was moving fast or the general was slow; it seemed an eternity until they came through the door to the radio room on the second floor. The rest of the floor was a cavern of future construction. Two operators stood next to the radios, both armed and pointing their weapons at Valentine and Xray-Tango. A trio of message tubes stood up from the floor like unfinished plumbing fixtures.
"Fuck! FUCK! Hold it right there, mister," the radioman with sergeant's stripes said, eyes bulging at the sight of the blood on Valentine.
"Holy shit," the other added, shaking like he had a jackhammer in his hand instead of a revolver.
"Watch those weapons there, soldiers," Xray-Tango said.
"I'm the only one who made it out," Valentine said. "If I were you two, I'd get gone. It's a bodyguard. It's going nuts."
"Jesus, that happened to my cousin in Armarillo," the shaking one said. "Like it got ravies. It killed thirty people before they stopped it."
"If you've got a way out of here that doesn't involve the stairs, I'd use it," Valentine said. "We'll call for help."
"It's my responsibility," Xray-Tango said, his eye twitching madly and the words barely getting out. "Run along, boys."
The men heard a crash below and decided they knew a sensible order when they heard it. They scrambled out the window and dropped to the ground below.
Valentine offered Xray-Tango the ax handle. "You want the honors?"
"Sorry, Le Sain, or whoever you are. I was true to you, best as I could be. You weren't straight with me."
"Could I have been?"
"That's a 'what-if." I don't like to waste time with 'what-ifs." I'm no renegade. I can't let you smash the radio. The only other unit strong enough to send for help is at the quartermaster office at MacArthur Park, down by the warehouses, and if you smash that one too, no one will get here in time. Assuming you cut the field-phone lines north on the bridge, and south on the poles, that is."
Valentine shared a smile with his former superior.
There was a scream from downstairs.
"Sorry, General," Valentine said. He swung the ax handle, connecting solidly with Xray-Tango's temple. He reversed the grip and, with three precise blows, left the radio in pieces.
Valentine hid behind rolls of weatherproofing, ax across his lap, lowering his lifesign. He pulled inward, concentrating on a point six inches in front of his nose, taking it down, down, down...
He became a prowling cat, a hiding mouse, a buzzing fly. A pair of ragged claws scuttling across the floors of silent seas. The Reaper came up and took in the ruins of the radio room. It hissed and picked up the general like a distracted parent lifting a child's dropped doll.
"General! General! Wake! Wake and tell what has passed."
Xray-Tango gave a moan as the creature shook him.
Valentine couldn't let the Reaper go to the window, see the men streaming out of his camp. He couldn't risk a single footstep behind him. It would mean a leap. He gathered himself, and readied the ax.
Even with its attention on Xray-Tango, it felt him coming. It was full night, when a Reaper's senses and reflexes become unholy. Valentine still buried the blade of the ax in its side, missing the great nerve trunks running up its spine. It dropped Xray-Tango.
"Melted butter," Xray-Tango murmured. At least that's what it sounded like to Valentine.