The loading bay door burst apart, and one of the tactical team’s four-by-fours came screeching through the rent. Wheels locked on full turn, and its back end swung around, tires howling as they left a U of scorched skid marks on the concrete floor. The front door opened. Jessika was gripping the manual steering wheel with manic strength. “You called for backup?”
A line of bullets stitched deep craters in the windscreen. The drones hurled grenades and super-velocity bullets in reprisal. Above everyone, the ceiling cracks multiplied like black lightning bolts.
Yuri snatched up Horatio’s limp form and lunged into the four-by-four. Jessika was already accelerating away before the door closed.
“Out out out!” he screamed. The tactical display showed him the paramilitaries moving fast.
Then they were outside, bucking across the wide parking lot, rain pounding the bodywork. A slender contrail streaked through the monsoon, moving so fast Yuri was still staring at it in bewilderment as it passed barely five meters above the four-by-four.
The hellbuster missile slammed into the collapsing building and detonated, obliterating it in a sun-bright plasma cloud. The blast wave punched the four-by-four with extreme force, sending it tumbling across the asphalt, every impact a hammer blow—
Yuri recovered consciousness amid a cluster of slowly deflating airbags that had completely filled the four-by-four’s interior. A lot of the flaccid white fabric in front of him was smeared with blood. The roof was below him, and the windows were all a mosaic of cracks, though amazingly they’d retained their integrity.
Horatio Seymore was sprawled on the roof beside him. Yuri watched for a few moments, checking that the boy was still breathing. Then he heard Jessika groaning. When he looked around, he saw she was hanging upside down in the front seat safety harness, blood dribbling out of her nose to run down her forehead.
“How are you doing?” he asked.
“Just peachy, thanks.” She dabbed at her nose and winced. “What
“I have no idea.”
JULOSS
YEAR 587 AA
Muncs didn’t normally have names. It wasn’t an infraction, but the clan’s grown-ups had always discouraged it; the cohort should be uniform, they explained, no favorites. Language was also considered a communication impediment. Muncs should know their master’s wishes without having to be designated and instructed; instinctive identification of any requirement or deployment was so much quicker. That also meant the boys had to learn how to communicate those commands at a subliminal level. The process was symbiotic.
Yirella had been five or six when she started mentally assigning her two muncs as Uno and Dos. They’d been studying old Earth languages at the time, and she’d liked the softness of classical Spanish. By the time she was seven, Uno had become Uma, because even Yirella rather enjoyed the idea of having a goddess as a companion, while Dos had become Doony—for no reason whatsoever except it sounded kind of fun. When she reached eight the names had become an ingrained facet of their association, and even Alexandre had given up asking her not to use them.
Now as Yirella leaned on the wall, staring through the big window into the treatment room, Uma and Doony had their arms wrapped around her legs in a loving hug. Her hands stroked their skulls, providing reassurance that she was all right and still cared for them despite leaving them behind for eleven days. When the rescue flyer had landed back at the Immerle estate, everyone’s cohorts had come charging out of the dormitory to greet them. They ran into a wave of emotion—the relief and stress her yearmates were radiating in the wake of their ordeal. The poor muncs, expecting a happy reunion, had reacted badly, demanding affection, embracing their masters and mistresses in unbreakable hugs. It had taken a long time to calm things down. Uranti, the munc-tech, was called to deal with Dellian’s semi-hysterical cohort, to allow the doctors to treat their injured master without having to constantly bat them away.
Yirella had watched the spray shot that was quickly administered to each of the creatures with interest. She was sure it wasn’t a sedative, as they didn’t become drowsy. Instead the drug seemed to banish their emotions. Then she realized Alexandre was studying her. For once in her life she didn’t bow her head or look away; she returned hir gaze levelly.
“Did we pass?” she asked belligerently.