Something gleamed on the floor, catching her eye. She knelt and used the foilpack light.
The tiny drop of red blood glistened, and it was only the first of the intermittent trail that led through the access tunnels.
Maj followed, reconfiguring the foilpack to send an IM to Mark.
Winded and hurting, Andy pulled himself to his feet and stumbled into the cockpit command chair. He pulled the jetpack off and tossed it to the side, then thrust his hands and feet into the gloves and boots just as a missile slammed into the battlesuit’s side. The big machine rocked and came close to overturning, but the on-board gyros kept it upright.
Sensory feedback from the gloves and boots already had Andy hooked into the battlesuit. He threw one of the battlesuit’s big hands out and caught himself, pushing hard to maintain his balance. The head-up-display helmet descended over his head.
“Belt in or log off,” Andy advised Catie as he sprang into action.
“I’m staying.” Catie spotted the restraining straps on the wall where passengers could tie down. She fit her arms through the loops and pulled the straps tight.
“There’s a crash helmet in the locker beside you.” Andy moved the battlesuit into a run.
“You’re planning on crashing?”
Andy grinned. With the HUD in place, he knew she could only see his lower face. “You don’t plan those things in Space Marines. They just happen.”
“Nice game. Those seem to be your friends.”
“They like to play rough.” A salvo of short-range missiles tore the ground up behind Andy as he ran across the broken terrain. The battlesuit’s big feet sank a half-meter into the ground while he mowed down small trees and brush.
“I think I saw Maj’s dragon.”
“I didn’t.” Sudden movement on the radar screen drew Andy’s attention. The radar tilted, spinning, showing that the most aggressive movement had gone airborne. The battlesuits were also equipped with short-range boot jets that allowed navigation in space and limited flight. “Were you bumped off another game?”
“No. I was in this one when the dragon arrived. Then the armored trolls showed up.”
“Space Marines,” Andy corrected automatically. He paused and turned, locking his feet down to the ground to brace for the recoil from the short-range cannon.
“We’ve stopped. Is that good?”
“Going on the attack,” Andy replied, tracking the crosshairs onto the flying battlesuit. “These guys aren’t as experienced as they act. Man, you don’t give up the ground to go flying around. You’re not locked down to fire your heavy artillery, and you’re nothing but one big…fat…target.” His finger twitched inside his right glove.
Three missiles fired from his shoulder-mounted weapon. They left curving contrails as they rushed toward the airborne battlesuit. All three missiles slammed into the battlesuit’s chest area, ripping a huge crater. A moment later the limited-nuke power plant detonated, ripping the battlesuit to shreds.
Andy opened the comm. “Blue Leader, this is designate Blue Thirteen. My advice is to disengage and log off. Playtime’s over.” He got the battlesuit moving again, flipping up the laser sights and taking out two missiles that streaked for him.
The missiles exploded and rained fragments against his steel hide, but damaged little except the exterior. Blue Leader’s response was way less than gentlemanly.
“Guy’s going to need his mouth washed out with soap,” Andy commented. He moved deeper into the forest and away from the castle grounds. Mounted men had ridden into the inner courtyards, but he knew they wouldn’t stand a chance against the heavily armored and armed Space Marines.
He opened a leg hatch and spread an arc of anticavalry mines. Trees bent and cracked, pulled free of the ground as he thundered through.
Less than a minute later one of the pursuing Space Marines stepped on the group of mines. “I’m hit! I’m hit!” the pilot squalled. “My legs are gone!”
“You’re a sitting duck, pal,” Andy said grimly, tracking the action in his rearviews. He swiveled the shoulder- mounted cannon and fired. Two missiles hammered the battlesuit’s neck joints, triggering the automatic eject sequence.
The battlesuit’s head twisted into position, the chin cutting a deep furrow into the earth. Then the top of the head fragmented, releasing the cockpit inside and shooting it skyward.
“Kind of like a skeet trap,” Andy said, grinning tightly. He brought the arm laser online and got target lock. His initial burst slagged the escape pod before the parachutes ever popped.
Mark paused in his investigation of the circuit paths of the Bessel Mid-Town Hotel’s computer paths. He’d ended up tracking dozens of dead ends and was getting more than a little frustrated. Data wasn’t flowing in any direction, totally stalled out now, and gave him no reference points at all. But somewhere in there, he knew, there had to be a virus that allowed whoever had popped strands on the security system access.
A message flared across the bottom of his vision. MARK, IT’S MAJ. NEED INFO. IN UNDERGROUND UTILITY TUNNELS UNDER CONVENTION CENTER. CAN YOU TRACK?
Holding his position in the crashsuit, Mark lifted his arm and brought up the schematics he’d uncovered for the building, located the service tunnels, and sent them along. Then he added, DON’T GO ALONE.
Maj ignored Mark’s final comment and sent a quick thank-you. She pulled up the schematics he’d sent and examined them for just a moment. The blood drips on the tunnel floor had gotten farther apart, as if the bleeding had slowed or Peter was traveling faster.
After a moment spent orienting herself, Maj took off again. More confident now, and her vision adjusted to the dim lighting, she stepped up the pace to a trot.
According to the schematic, the tunnel she presently followed opened up in a storage area that was right off the main lobby. From there it was just a short distance to the street in front of the Bessel Mid-Town Hotel.
Gaspar monitored the building through the security sensors he’d rendered accessible only by him. Most of the network was devices Heavener had instructed her people to install. He stood inside the convention center, maintaining the holo as the chaos continued.
When he punched the menu for the utility tunnels beneath the convention center, he was surprised to find an extra presence. He accessed the nearest vid buttoncam Heavener’s people had installed along their last-ditch escape route. The vid buttoncam had photo-multiplier capabilities and scanned through the dark easily.
When the girl came into view, Gaspar easily recognized her as Maj Green.
“One of the Net Force Explorers is in the tunnels,” he told her.
“He will be taken care of.”
“She,” Gaspar said automatically.
Heavener’s only response was to shut down the audlink.
Watching the girl run through the tunnels, Gaspar felt a pang of guilt. She was running to her doom, and he had no way to warn her. But what made him feel really guilty was not knowing if he’d try even if he had a way.
In the Space Marine battlesuit, Andy waded through a stream, marking it instantly as an attack zone. The hillside on the other side of the stream went almost straight up. Even as skilled as he was in the battlesuit, Andy had trouble negotiating the climb. At the top, peering down sixty feet to the stream, he knew he was in a good place.
“We’ve stopped,” Catie said.
“Yeah,” Andy said. “These guys are creeps and amateurs, and I don’t have time for them. We need to get back to the convention center and figure out what’s going on. But we’re going on our terms, not theirs.”
“It’s two against one.” Catie huddled against the bulkhead, compacted into a ball.
Andy gave her a grin. “I know. I feel kind of guilty.” When the two pursuing Space Marines plunged into the stream, Andy fired his laser at the water, instantly creating huge clouds of steam. “I figure these guys more for line-of-sight operators rather than guys who are used to instrumentation.”
The steam clouds rose from the stream, turning the world white, rising to cascade over the hill where Andy stood as well. He shifted over to thermal imaging, the scene suddenly shifting to a patchwork world of reds, oranges, and yellows with a few spots of blue and purple. The battlesuit’s interior cooling systems jerked into
