Depths of Blue Page 17

  The other four reacted immediately, the two at the tollbooth ducking into the dubious safety of the small building. The other men were halfway back to the barracks and broke into a sprint for the larger building. Torrin opened up on the strip of ground between them and the barracks. The rifle thundered beside her head as bullets kicked up little geysers of earth where they struck the hard-packed earth. One of the men tried to keep running and was struck in the leg by a round. The force of the impact snapped his lower leg, and he dropped like a stone, blood fountaining in a scarlet arc. His partner came to such a sudden stop that he laid out on the ground in a long slide. Feet and hands scrabbling, he got his legs underneath him and bolted back toward the booth.

  The injured man lay in the open ground between the buildings, screaming. Even from her distance, Torrin could hear the thin wail of his voice. She divided her attention between the three men left in the tollbooth and the man lying on the ground. There wasn’t enough room in the small building for three men; she could clearly see a shoulder and part of one of the soldiers’ backs. At random intervals, one of the soldiers would stick a gun through the doorway and blindly fire off a few rounds. They must have seen muzzle flash from her rifle as they fired vaguely in her direction. None of the bullets came remotely near her.

  Torrin swung the gun back to check on the man with the injured leg in time to see him trying to pull himself toward the barracks. She fired a few more rounds into the ground near him, and he came to a stop and started dragging himself the other way. Checking on the bridge, she saw the fourth man from the far side had collapsed facedown just short of the near bank. A rapidly growing crimson pool expanded beneath his head.

  “Perfect,” Jak said, appearing right at her elbow. Torrin bit back a squeak. She kept her eye glued to the scope and her eye on the situation below though she really wanted to glare at the sniper. He was completely oblivious to her irritation and set up his own rifle. Faster than she thought possible, Jak lined up the shot and took out the man whose body was visible through the toll booth’s doorway. He tumbled backward out of the building with a crimson flower blossoming in the small of his back.

  “Keep the other two pinned down in the building. I’ve got to work my way around to line up a shot on them. Just fire down at the door occasionally, but really rain the bullets down if they try to make a break for it,” Jak instructed.

  “What about the wounded one?” Torrin asked.

  “Don’t worry about him. He’s done.” Unaware of the bomb he’d just dropped on her head, Jak disappeared back into the darkness.

  Torrin fired a few bullets into the ground in front of the small building and reloaded as quickly as she was able. Numb, she checked on the man she’d hit in the leg and saw that he had stopped moving and was lying on the ground just a few meters from where she’d last seen him. Quickly she slid the scope’s focus back to the doorway of the building. A hand snaked around the side and fired a pistol at her. They’d gotten a better fix on her position. Bullets whizzed over her head.

  She returned fire, shooting first into the ground as instructed and then into the side of the building. The hand and gun disappeared back inside with alacrity. She watched and waited, firing into the ground often enough to keep them from making a break for it.

  A short eternity later, another man tumbled part of the way through the doorway. She saw nothing else until Jak slunk into the scope’s range. He moved quickly, crouching low to the ground and fetched up against the side of the toll booth. Rounding the corner, rifle held in front of him, he disappeared into the structure. Moments later he reappeared, waving his arms over his head.

  Torrin exhaled slowly and leaned her forehead against the back of her rifle. She was glad it was over. The death and pain they’d rained down on the Orthodoxans had been way too easy. Death should never be that easy, she thought. Even for those who deserved it.

  She got up and collected the rifle and knapsack. Slinging each over a shoulder, she hurried down the hill to where Jak stood. As she got closer, Torrin could make out the iron-heavy scent of blood. There was a charnel house aroma in the air, with hints of human excrement. Some of the men’s bowels had voided where they’d died. It had been bad enough at the top of the hill but surrounded by their handiwork, Torrin wanted nothing better than to get across the bridge and away from this place of death.

  “Nice shooting,” Jak greeted her as she jogged up to him. “One of the slugs you put through the walls killed the eighth guy.”

  She turned a sick smile on him. “So glad you approve,” she muttered back sarcastically. “Let’s get out of here.”

  “Give me a few minutes to get what I can from inside the barracks. Stay out here and keep an eye down the road. Holler if anyone comes.”

  “Wait, what? Let’s just go!” Torrin didn’t want to spend any more time here than she already had.

  “I need to do this. It won’t take long.” He took off at a run for the barracks, leaving her with none but the dead for company. She had no choice but to watch the road. Her hands shook, and she was having problems actually seeing the road. The Orthodoxans probably could have driven a convoy past her and she wouldn’t have noticed. True to his word, Jak wasn’t gone long. He came back dragging the body of the man who had died as a result of the slug Torrin had put through his leg.

  “Help me get these guys into the water. I’ve muddied what happened here, best I could.” He passed her, headed for the river.

  Torrin looked over at the pile of bodies in and around the tollbooth. Swallowing a mouthful of bile, she pulled the top body out of the small structure. It was still warm to the touch and slick with blood. She had to hook her hands under the corpse’s armpits and pull it backward to get it into the river. She dragged the body slowly out onto the bridge and heaved it up on the railing before pushing it into the water below.

  The sun had just started to crest the horizon, lending the entire scene a soft light starkly at odds with the grimness of their task. Torrin toiled in silence, numbly pulling bodies to the bridge and tipping them into the rushing current where they were mercifully swept out of her sight.

  On her way back for the last corpse, she noticed smoke pouring out of the windows and doors of the barracks building. That must have been what Jak had meant. Not very subtle, but she hoped that everything they’d done there would buy them the time they needed to make it to the front. Otherwise, the deaths they—she—had dealt would be for nothing.

  The last corpse was over the edge and bobbing down the river where she watched it float facedown until it disappeared below the surface with chilling rapidity.

  “You don’t want to know what’s down there,” Jak murmured, suddenly standing next to her.

  “You’re right,” Torrin replied coldly. “I don’t.”

  Jak shot her a wounded look but didn’t push it. Torrin knew it wasn’t his fault they were in this situation and that she owed him her life. It was unfair, but she couldn’t let go of the feeling that he was somehow responsible for the distasteful task she’d just undertaken.

  When she didn’t respond to his look, he pushed himself away from the railing.

  “Let’s go,” he said shortly and strode off. Torrin let him get a fair way ahead before following him.

  Behind them, the rising column of smoke was silhouetted against the rising sun. Birds called back and forth while insects buzzed from stalk to stalk in the surrounding grasses. The grasslands around them buzzed with life, but none of it touched the stillness of the void that yawned within her.

  * * *

  They crouched at the edge of a ridgeline. Two days of hiking cross country had gone without incident, and they’d made pretty good time. Jak was relieved that they were so close to the front. When she looked to the night sky to the south, she could just make out the blue glow of the fence. The ground here was harsher than the rolling hills of the grasslands had been. It was broken here and there by jagged ridges cutting across rugged earth. The terrain was made rougher
by the crater holes that had been created by decades of artillery shells. Below them was a series of trenches. Beyond those were a narrow strip of no-man’s-land and beyond that Devonite territory. They were almost there. She could see the escarpment as an inky blot, rising into the stars. All they needed to do was get past the trench system and they’d be home.

  She snorted. Home. She wondered how long it would be before she couldn’t stand it anymore. Before she had to get out of the camp and back to the woods. The cycle kept repeating itself. She simply couldn’t stay in that place for long. The longer she was cooped up inside it, the more she felt the urge to go back to the forest, to search for her brother’s killer. Homecoming was a little different this time, though. Torrin was coming back with her. She had no illusions that the other woman would stay long, but she felt more at ease in Torrin’s presence.

  Torrin had been taciturn for the first day or so after the toll bridge. She seemed to be coming around now. After a day of responding only in monosyllables, if at all, she was now talking in full sentences. Sadness still clung to her, but the dark veil that had descended over her had mostly lifted.

  Jak had been impressed with how the smuggler had handled herself during their operation. She’d held herself together until after their task was over and she’d been very effective. She’d chalked up two kills, very impressive for someone who professed little experience with a long-range weapon. She knew better than to congratulate her, however. Torrin seemed content to pretend it hadn’t happened. Jak was happy to oblige her if it meant she got to talk with her again.

  Torrin was stretched out on her belly next to her, the night vision scope to her right eye. Jak lifted the binoculars to her own eyes and activated her implant’s night vision.

  “There’s a lot of them down there,” Torrin commented.

  “Yup.”

  “I don’t think we can kill all of them.”

  Jak disagreed but kept her peace. Disagreeing was a risky move with Torrin’s mood of late and she sounded like she had more to say.

  “We need a way to draw them off somewhere.” The smuggler spoke slowly like she was talking her way through an idea that was just taking form. “If we can get them out of the way, do you think you can get us through the trenches?”

  “Probably. I’ve spent enough time in Orthodoxan trenches to know how they’re usually laid out. What you thinking?”

  Torrin swept her scope out to the north where the ocean lay.

  “There’s no way we can make a trip out there. Our oceans have some freaking huge predators in them. The ones that took care of the corpses at the bridge?” Jak winced at bringing up the toll bridge. She took a deep breath and hoped Torrin hadn’t noticed the lapse. “Well, the ones out at sea make those look like thimblefish.” At Torrin’s inquiring look, she held up two fingers a few centimeters apart. “Little fish about this big. What’s out there would snap us up as easy as snacking.”

  “That’s not what I’m thinking.” Thankfully, Torrin gave no indication that she’d noticed Jak’s slip. “But if we can make them think something’s going on out there and they turn their attention to it, we might be able to sneak by.”

  Jak was intrigued. “It would have to be pretty big.”

  “I don’t think that’ll be a problem.” Torrin turned toward her, face lit up with enthusiasm. “The bullets that your people use, they contain an explosive charge, right?”

  Jak nodded.

  “So they’ll go off if they’re subjected to high enough heat?”

  “Yeah.”

  “So let’s make a raft, pile it high with our ammunition, set it adrift, then set it on fire. The fire alone should get them to notice it, but if they think they’re being fired on, they’ll want to take it out.”

  “It could work.” Jak mulled the plan over in her mind, examining it from all angles. “We don’t have that much ammo, which means we’d probably have to send all of it on your raft. If it doesn’t work, then we’ll be stuck without any.”

  “So we put in the Orthodoxan ammunition and you hold on to your own. I know you picked up extra at the bridge.”

  “I did and a few other surprises that might help us out.” In addition to ammunition and maps, she’d grabbed as many hand grenades as she could cram into the knapsack. It wasn’t a huge number but enough to set off a few attention-grabbing explosions. “We need to find a way to get down to the beach. There should be plenty of driftwood out there. If we time this right, we’ll be able to send it out when the tide comes back in and the water will pull it out into the middle of the bay.” Jak slithered away from the edge of the ridge and started retracing their steps. Torrin followed her quickly, and together they picked their way across the sharp rocks and gravel that littered the landscape.

  “We passed a ravine about thirty minutes back,” Jak said. “It heads the right direction, maybe it’ll take us out to the shore.”

  They traveled back along the path and down the ravine. It had a few more twists and turns than Jak had accounted for. She noted with some alarm that the high water marks along the walls of the narrow gully were well above both of their heads. If a storm came up and dumped a lot of water on them, they could be in some real trouble. She really missed having access to reliable weather reports. Not knowing what the weather would be like didn’t help her plans at all.

  Eventually the ravine came out of the rocky hills into a series of sand dunes.

  “It looks like the tide’s coming in right now,” Torrin noted, disappointed.

  “That’s perfect. It means that we’ll be able to launch this raft of yours tomorrow under cover of darkness. That gives us the morning to gather the supplies we need and the afternoon to build.”

  “I was just hoping we could get past them tonight.” Torrin sighed and ran a hand distractedly along the back of her neck, pulling her hair to one side. Jak thought she looked particularly fetching that way. The wind off the ocean tugged playfully at the loose curls. “I’m really tired of sleeping on the ground, out in the open.”

  “Just one more night. If we can pull this off, we’ll be home free.”

  “I guess.” Torrin looked ready to fall over. The excitement of her plan had worn away, leaving exhaustion in its wake. Without adrenaline to keep her going, she’d faded rapidly.

  “Let’s make camp here. The dunes will protect us from the wind and we’ll have the rocks at our backs. No one will be able to sneak up on us from there.” Jak looked around for some materials with which to build a shelter. A line of driftwood looked promising. “Stay here,” she instructed and went to gather building materials. She was able to find some longer sticks and used the length of rope from the Orthodoxan sniper’s bag to lash them together at one end. She leaned the tied ends against the rock wall and layered smaller sticks at right angles. Satisfied, she ducked into the makeshift shelter. The ground was soft, but not as loose as the sand of the dunes. Some stubborn grasses held the ground together.

  “Come on in,” she said, sticking her head out of the lean-to.

  Torrin stumbled in and lay down on her side. Jak settled herself next to the exhausted woman. As usual, Torrin snuggled up against her as soon as she fell asleep. The now familiar thrill ran through her, leaving fire in her veins and excitement in the pit of her stomach. She smiled and shifted until the smuggler’s head was pillowed in her lap. The feeling of arousal that Torrin’s touch brought no longer felt alien. It didn’t soothe her, but she felt alive in a way she never had before.

  Pulling the package of stims out of her pocket, she examined it closely. She had two left; one for tonight and one for tomorrow. They absolutely had to get across tomorrow night, because once the stims ran out, she would be useless. Given how long she’d taken them on this trip, she would likely sleep for days once the medication was purged from her bloodstream.

  Still, it had been worth it. Even if they got killed trying to make the border the next night, she’d had the best week of her life since her brother died. She poppe
d a stim pill into her mouth and washed it down with a swallow of water. The adrenaline rush hit her almost immediately. She resisted the urge to get up and move. Instead she stayed there with Torrin’s head in her lap until the sky started to lighten in the east.

  When there was enough light to see without the use of her implant, she carefully eased herself out from under Torrin’s head, taking care not to wake her. A long line of dried driftwood lay just on the other side of the dunes. She started combing through the detritus to find wood suitable for raft making. About an hour later, Torrin joined her, looking much refreshed.

  “Sleep well?” Jak asked as she dragged a bulky log over to her pile of raft materials.

  “Surprisingly, yes,” Torrin replied, stretching luxuriously. Jak tried not to notice how nice Torrin’s breasts looked pressed against the material of her jacket. “Apparently sleeping in the sand agrees with me.” She eyed Jak up and down, eyes critical. “I won’t ask how you slept, since you just medicate that particular need away.”

  Jak shrugged. “One of us has to stay awake, it might as well be me.”

  Torrin shook her head in response. “I’ll get breakfast,” she said, digging through the knapsack and pulling out two ready to eat meals. She mixed in some water and brought Jak the already steaming packet.

  “Oh boy,” Jak said with a decided lack of enthusiasm. “Pork or chicken?” The Orthodoxan ready-to-eat meals lacked serious imagination.

  “Not that you can tell by the flavor.” Torrin laughed. “They may as well be the same dish. No wonder the Orthodoxans are so cranky.”

  Jak smiled at Torrin’s sally and shoveled food into her mouth as quickly as possible. When she finished, she turned back to her pile of materials. Not only had she scavenged some large pieces of wood, but she’d also managed to find a fair amount of seaweed. It was dried in long strands and she thought it would work well to lash together the pieces of the raft.