Read Online Single Combat by Dean Ing - Free Book Online Page B
Authors: Dean Ing
Tags: Science-Fiction
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thousand-pound jaybird and ready to toss them all out. She damn' near did. But Control picked up your mayday and there's no shortage of S & R teams in Santa Fe at the moment, so…" Lasser spread his hands; seemed to take the whole thing as a great joke.
"At least you've explained something about Mills," said Quantrill. "I thought I'd seen him before, and now I know when. It was the night I did my first hit, on some Navy saboteur. Mills was Navy too; saw me coming out of the guy's room. I had cosmetic cover but I think he made me last night at the banquet. It was one of those
deja vu
things; you look around and you're staring at him, just like the first time."
"I wouldn't worry about it," Lasser said after a moment of reflection. "If you wore cosmetic cover, Mills probably isn't sure—and if he is, so what? He knows what you do for a living."
Quantrill narrowed his eyes, cocked his head at Lasser, sat up straight. "If he has the need to know, he's in my chain of command."
The two stared at each other a long moment.
Lasser said, "What's good for IEE is good for this country. But you are not, repeat
not
, to repeat that irresponsible notion." The flush across Lasser's cheeks said,
I've told you too much
.
Chapter 14
Quantrill was on his feet in a day, and in a sprint chopper a week later en route to Indianapolis. From the air he spotted two of the three old nuke scars, vast gray dustbowls with shallow lakes at their centers, that had all but killed Indianapolis in '96. Both bombs had targeted soft military sites, a Naval weapons plant and an Army post East of the city's center. The third strike had come during a later nuclear flurry, taking out the Municipal Airport after its conversion to a military base.
Slammed by airbursts, partly consumed by firestorm, the Hoosier heart of the city had refused to quit. Some of the of the old buildings still stood, monuments to an architectural style that had wasted energy when the stuff was cheap. Now, this very morning, one of those old structures had succumbed.
Dropping toward a parking area off Burdsall Parkway, Noah Laker banked their sprint chopper over the felled trade center, now no longer burning but smoldering still. Adams strained at her harness, craning her neck as Laker's deft work brought them over the collapsed edge of the structure. "One of those long-span deathtraps of the eighties," she said. "Rain load, you think?"
Quantrill shrugged. Heavy rains might have been the last straw, but Howell had told him to look for earlier straws. They'd found rebel arms along the border, but in Indianapolis? It'd been a deep cache, the kind you might expect in a region of heavy industry. So deep they'd excavated a bit too far under the old blast-damaged foundation. The acres-wide roof had collapsed only on one corner, kneeling into its parking lot, an obeisance toward Monument Circle in the center of town.
Three of the stubby black Loring sprint choppers were already at the site. Laker's group brought their strength up to nineteen, not twenty; they expected the rover, Quantrill, to disappear. He did not disappoint them.
He took his time, nodding at the fluorescent scrawls left by regulars at stairwells and ramps as he descended into the bowels of the structure. Some of the crews had been on the site for twelve hours, and you had to accept their cryptic signs as gospel even if the ferroconcrete swayed underfoot. "Going in, Control," he said. "Ramp three-ell. Somebody's been here with chemlamps. You copy?"
A moment's pause. "Copying, Q. Mirovitch set the lamps, ah, eleven hours ago, so you should have light for another twenty-five hours."
Quantrill came to a landing halfway down, saw an arm protruding from beneath the laminated girder which had slammed down through the walkway. He grasped the wrist, released it gently. Only one more level remained, but now he picked his way over shards of plastic rail and jagged hunks of concrete. The air below carried a pungent damp stink and
"At least you've explained something about Mills," said Quantrill. "I thought I'd seen him before, and now I know when. It was the night I did my first hit, on some Navy saboteur. Mills was Navy too; saw me coming out of the guy's room. I had cosmetic cover but I think he made me last night at the banquet. It was one of those
deja vu
things; you look around and you're staring at him, just like the first time."
"I wouldn't worry about it," Lasser said after a moment of reflection. "If you wore cosmetic cover, Mills probably isn't sure—and if he is, so what? He knows what you do for a living."
Quantrill narrowed his eyes, cocked his head at Lasser, sat up straight. "If he has the need to know, he's in my chain of command."
The two stared at each other a long moment.
Lasser said, "What's good for IEE is good for this country. But you are not, repeat
not
, to repeat that irresponsible notion." The flush across Lasser's cheeks said,
I've told you too much
.
Chapter 14
Quantrill was on his feet in a day, and in a sprint chopper a week later en route to Indianapolis. From the air he spotted two of the three old nuke scars, vast gray dustbowls with shallow lakes at their centers, that had all but killed Indianapolis in '96. Both bombs had targeted soft military sites, a Naval weapons plant and an Army post East of the city's center. The third strike had come during a later nuclear flurry, taking out the Municipal Airport after its conversion to a military base.
Slammed by airbursts, partly consumed by firestorm, the Hoosier heart of the city had refused to quit. Some of the of the old buildings still stood, monuments to an architectural style that had wasted energy when the stuff was cheap. Now, this very morning, one of those old structures had succumbed.
Dropping toward a parking area off Burdsall Parkway, Noah Laker banked their sprint chopper over the felled trade center, now no longer burning but smoldering still. Adams strained at her harness, craning her neck as Laker's deft work brought them over the collapsed edge of the structure. "One of those long-span deathtraps of the eighties," she said. "Rain load, you think?"
Quantrill shrugged. Heavy rains might have been the last straw, but Howell had told him to look for earlier straws. They'd found rebel arms along the border, but in Indianapolis? It'd been a deep cache, the kind you might expect in a region of heavy industry. So deep they'd excavated a bit too far under the old blast-damaged foundation. The acres-wide roof had collapsed only on one corner, kneeling into its parking lot, an obeisance toward Monument Circle in the center of town.
Three of the stubby black Loring sprint choppers were already at the site. Laker's group brought their strength up to nineteen, not twenty; they expected the rover, Quantrill, to disappear. He did not disappoint them.
He took his time, nodding at the fluorescent scrawls left by regulars at stairwells and ramps as he descended into the bowels of the structure. Some of the crews had been on the site for twelve hours, and you had to accept their cryptic signs as gospel even if the ferroconcrete swayed underfoot. "Going in, Control," he said. "Ramp three-ell. Somebody's been here with chemlamps. You copy?"
A moment's pause. "Copying, Q. Mirovitch set the lamps, ah, eleven hours ago, so you should have light for another twenty-five hours."
Quantrill came to a landing halfway down, saw an arm protruding from beneath the laminated girder which had slammed down through the walkway. He grasped the wrist, released it gently. Only one more level remained, but now he picked his way over shards of plastic rail and jagged hunks of concrete. The air below carried a pungent damp stink and
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