Empire

Anybody who thinks that the dread of shame isn’t stronger than the fear of death has only to consider how many Roman senators, generals, and traitors preferred to fall on their swords or open their veins rather than live through humiliation. But it’s not just humans. Wounded animals try to hide till they’re dead, rather than let their predators eat them alive.

They were about halfway to the bottom when the rebel in the cabin shouted, “They’re coming down the stairs!”

Should have killed him, thought Cole.

No. We should have closed the trap door from the inside.

Fortunately, there was a good chance nobody at the bottom could understand what he was yelling.

They heard gunfire below them.

The elevator door must have opened. But the sound was muffled. They must have built a heavy door between the stairway and the elevator landing at the bottom.

But now that they knew Cole and Cat hadn’t come down the elevator, they were bound to think of the stairway. If it was a grenade they tossed, Cole and Cat should stay high on the stairs. But if they opened the door and fired, they should be down there to shoot back.

Cole didn’t remember seeing any of the rebels armed with grenades.

He sat on the railing, leaned a hand on the center pole, and slid down. As he neared the bottom, he tipped himself off the railing and out of Cat’s way. He landed on the floor, and flung himself into the corner, his rifle pointing at the door just as it opened. He shot once, lining the door and knocking it farther open.

Cat hit the bottom of the stairs with the pin already pulled on a grenade, rolled it on the floor through the gap in the door, then pulled the door shut. It went off.

A moment later they had the door open, and this time there was no attempt at conversation—everybody they saw in that space, alive or dead, they fired at quickly. There started down a bare concrete tunnel—which, from its placement, could only be a tunnel leading under the lakebed toward the mountain where Verus’s arsenal was.

“I hope that grenade didn’t weaken the concrete of this tunnel,” said Cat. “Don’t want all that water coming in.”

“Too bad,” said Cole. Because at that moment water did start coming in. But not from any damage caused by the grenade. The rebels were flooding the corridor themselves, water gushing through a two-foot-diameter tube at the other end.

They could either go back and climb the stairs to the cabin and wait for reinforcements, or charge straight into the gushing water and try to get above the level of the tunnel before it completely flooded.

Cat didn’t hesitate, so Cole followed him.

They stayed to the edge of the tunnel where the force of the thick stream water wasn’t so strong. But the tunnel was filling rapidly—knee level, then hip level by the time they forced their way past the stream and realized they were on the wrong side—there was no door here. Cole could just make out the door shape on the other side through the thick gush of water.

“Swim under?” said Cat.

“No time to go back,” said Cole.

“Get my weapon all wet,” said Cat.

Cole took the Minimi out of his hand as Cat shrugged off his pack. Cat swam under the stream. Cole threw his pack over the rush of water, then his weapon. Cat caught them both.

Now Cole threw his own weapon and his own pack. But the water was shoulder height. Harder to dive low enough to get under the stream. He felt it sucking at him, churning him out away from the door.

Then he felt Cat’s hand catch him under the arm, drag him back.

Their packs were floating on top of the water; their weapons were on top of the packs.

“Door’s locked,” said Cat.

Cole grabbed Cat’s Minimi, leaned his back against Cat, and walked his legs up the door. When Cat was holding him above the level of the water, he fired a burst down between his legs at the thick glass of the window in the door. It took two bursts before the glass crazed and broke.

It wasn’t a very big window. Cole kicked out a few shards of glass, pulled out his pistol, and went through first, because his feet were already high enough. It was the base of a spiral staircase, just like on the other side, and there was nobody there.

He looked up. Still nobody.

Cat was pushing through the weapons. Cole picked them up and set them on the stairs, out of the water.

The packs wouldn’t fit through the window in the door. Cat, who was floating now, kept pulling watertight ammunition packages out of packs and pushing them down through the broken window. Cole put them on higher stairs, out of the water. Then Cat’s feet came through. Cole pulled. Cat was bigger in the shoulders than Cole was, and he got stuck.

At that moment, something dropped down from the top of the stairs. Grenade, thought Cole. They’ve got grenades after all.

But he kept his concentration, marking where the grenade had fallen into the water without letting up on pulling Cat.

Cat slid through. Cole dived for the grenade. Fumbled. Found it. Pushed it into the torrent coming through the window and pushed it down, knowing it would go off any second and take his hand off.

He let go of it and yanked his hand back.

It exploded, making the door tremble and allowing water to spray in around the edges. Cat had already gathered up all the ammunition for his weapon and some of Cole’s. He handed it to Cole and started up the stairs as Cole got his weapon and stuffed ammunition into his pockets.

Another grenade dropped. Another. Cole grabbed one of their grenades and, knowing it was insanely dangerous, threw it spiraling almost straight back up, like the highest forward pass he ever threw in his life. If it went off when it was passing Cat, he would be killing his own man. But if Cat got to the top with a bunch of guys there training automatic weapons on him, he’d be dead anyway.

Meanwhile, there was a second grenade in the water near him. Cole raced up the stairs. Both grenades went off almost at once. The one below him splashed water all over the inside of the stairwell, like the first spurt when you turn on a blender. But the stairs themselves, being steel, shielded Cole from most of the blast. He stumbled, but he kept going.

The upper grenade apparently hadn’t killed Cat—his footsteps were still heading up.

Somebody was still alive up there, but it was Cat’s Minimi that kept firing, the other weapon that fell silent.

He reached the top to find Cat lying on the floor using an armored body as his shield, exchanging bursts with somebody who was some distance away, where Cole couldn’t see. Cole stayed on the stairs and got his rifle out, then inched forward until he could see into the room that Cat was firing into.

It was a narrow, high-ceilinged cavern with steel bracing extending up to the roof. The walls were lined with mechs, squatting on the floor like they were all taking a dump. Cole had always thought that the mechs would hang like suits, with their legs dangling. But then how would anybody get inside?

Cole pushed himself forward a little farther and found a target—a guy running for one of the mechs. Being in a good position, his shot was clean and he took him down. Slid farther in and took out another.

They stopped trying to get to the mechs. Instead, they fled the room. “Idiots,” said Cat softly. “They should have been in the mechs before we made it up here.”

“Maybe some of them already are,” said Cole. “Playing possum.”

“They that smart?”

“I just don’t want to walk down between those rows.”

Which was fine. There were corridors leading off to the left and right. Cole chose the one to the left for no better reason than that he was on that side already.