Video cried. She wailed. It did no good. There was no way to block out the scene.
Like a movie stuck in a pathetic, awful loop, Video replayed the scene she'd witnessed:
The sound came first, a loud erratic whine, then as she turned to look, the chopper came careening across the foggy bay. The craft was obviously in trouble, tilted way over and out of control. She thought for a moment it was going to make it, but even as she glimpsed the frightened dark face in the cockpit, one of the rotor blades tore into the earth, and the chopper slammed itself into the Rox. It disintegrated and exploded, transforming itself into a rolling blazing hell that left a trail of burning fuel and scattered broken corpses like gory seeds. Then the entire glowing incandescent ball slammed into the makeshift homes near the docks. They went up like tinder, roaring and throwing sparks.
There was no way to tell the nat screams from those of the jumpers, and the burning bodies all looked alike.
… Eavesdropping on Chickenhawk, I could hear him giving Kien the tale about the Egrets' last shipment of rapture, but every time Kien opened his mouth to reply, strange discordant sounds came out: sirens, explosions, an insistent rhythmic pounding. Kien kept talking through the din, waving his hands as if he were really saying something, only now they weren't in Kien's office at all but out in a field somewhere, and helicopters were circling…
Hell! Those are real choppers! Damn, I've been asleep…
Chickenhawk, in his tower perch high above the Rox, rose cautiously to his feet and looked down at the Rox.
Omigod
The shock seared the images into his mind so that I saw them as well. Thunder roared from the jumper side of the docks. An impossible gout of orange and yellow flame tumbled into the dwellings there. The Rox was the set of a war movie, a night battle scene. Two helicopters had landed near the west wing, another in the front court; more were sweeping in from the bay. Flares dripped in the sky, searchlights tore bright holes in the darkness. Chickenhawk could see muzzle flashes and hear the chattering gunfire.
Choppers were landing on the jumper side of the island too… full-scale assault… makes sense. They'd've been told how the jumpers chewed up the cops. Best tactic would be to hit them fast, hard, and with lots of people… fuck, two more choppers coming in from the east… gotta see Bloat, see what he needs me to do…
Chickenhawk launched himself from his roost, but somebody below must have seen the motion and shot at him, for suddenly his thoughts were panicked and strange,… can't move the wing… falling… oh dear God, it hurts… all the wingbones snapped…
He fell most of the way.
Panic leaked like bitter syrup from Blaise's mind. There are too many of them. I can't control them all. It was a spoken thought, and I knew that he was talking to Durg, for I also sensed that odd emptiness that was the Takisian's mind. Blaise's shields had collapsed. His mind was spewing out glimpses of death, of soldiers firing on soldiers, of jumpers lying on a bloody floor, of Durg (my God, could the man really move like that?) flashing through combat like a well-oiled killing machine. Another troopship was landing by the medical building, more soldiers running crouched toward them. What do we do? What do we do?
Blaise was terrified.
Only a bit of Durg's reply filtered through the clamor in Blaise's mind. "… leave while we can… not safe here any longer" Durg was saying.
"To where?" Blaise replied, but then a thought interrupted his question. The image of a seashell flamed in his mind.
Suddenly I could sense resolution. "Kelly!" he shouted at Durg. "Find the bitch. Now!"
For several moments, I caught nothing else from Blaise. Then there was another brief flash… make you fucking fly this thing, asshole
… And then the image of one of the grounded troopships and its terrified pilot, his mind snared in Blaise's. Kelly was with them, stumbling along in Dung's grasp, half blind with fear.
Out of here. I'm out of here now, Blaise thought. The last image I caught from any of them was the sound of rotors screaming…
Kafka's voice brought me back. "You're the only one who can tell us what's going on, Governor!" he was screaming. "Where do we need to go? What do you want us to do?"
Kafka was gesticulating furiously in front of the Temptation, his carapace rattling like a bunch of tin cans. He was scared, and thinking that this was too much like the Cloisters when everyone ganged up on the Astronomer. Jokers crowded around him, armed with everything from baseball bats to Uzis.
Kafka kept shouting. "Bloat, come onl It sounds like the fighting's heading our way."
Kafka was right. I could feel it, like a dull scarlet tide rolling toward the building. " I didn't want to know them," I said. No, let's be fair-I was babbling. " I shouldn't have to know them."
"Bloat, man, jokers are dying out there!"
"They're just people. All of us." I was trying to blot out all the voices of the Rox. I couldn't. Behind Kafka, St. Anthony wrestled with demons and other fantastic creatures. They swarmed over him, biting and clawing.
"Bloat!"
I sighed. "There are three squads in the west wing already, coming up the side stairs. There's another group approaching fast from the east, near the water. In a few seconds, they'll be stuck in open ground. Forget the jumper side of the island; marines are everywhere over there. All the squads have orders to make for the Administration Building after they've secured their first objective. They'll all be coming soon."
Kafka was snapping orders as I relayed positions. Jokers scattered, howling like mad things. Guards fanned out to protect the lobby and the rooms behind where my body lay helpless.
I heard the gunfire rise and swell in volume. I felt the deaths continue.
I was staring, immobile, as my mind roamed my poor Rox, my embattled island. No one had ever told me it was like this. Nobody could have, I guess. I just wanted it to stop.
Chickenhawk half fell, half glided through an open window in the balcony. Blood splattered his feathers, and one wing was crumpled and torn. "Bloat-" he began.
" I know," I said as one of the jokers ran to tend to him. "You'll be all right, man. It'll be okay." One of those cliches that tumble out when you're not thinking. Frankly, I wasn't sure anyone was going to be "all right." I wasn't sure any of us were really going to live through this.
"It's hell, ain't it?" someone said, and I looked down to see the penguin. It looked worried.
Then hell came to pay a small personal visit.
There were screams from behind the doors leading into the lobby. Gunfire stuttered its lethal percussive speech. I felt Vomitus and Mothmouth die just outside. The doors kicked open, glass scattering across the tiles. Soldiers in riot helmets, fatigues, and Kevlar armor were spilling out: from the doors, from the balcony.
Theirs were not nice thoughts. Not at all. These people had seen their companions hurt or killed already in the fighting. They were only thinking of staying alive.
Well, that isn't quite accurate. Let me qualify the statement. The way they intended to stay alive was to make sure that The Enemy was dead.
"Move and you've had it!" one of them shouted, waving an assault rifle. I thought people only talked like that in the movies. It was almost enough to make me giggle… almost. He had a lieutenant's bar on his shoulder and a badge on his Kevlar chest that proclaimed him to be I. SHER.
The penguin moved. It looked at me. "Sometimes ya just gotta do something, Gov'nor," it told me.
The creature made a mocking sound halfway between razzberry and caw, and launched itself at the lieutenant. The officer-a boy really, not much older than me-didn't even hesitate.
The stream of bullets nearly ripped the penguin in half. Bright arterial blood splattered everywhere-over me, over Kafka and the other jokers, over the Bosch painting. Bits of feathered flesh stuck to the glass walls, trailing rivulets of scarlet. The carcass, most of it, lay half on, half off my dais, and the kid was still firing wildly; I know that some of the bullets hit me, though I didn't feel much besides a distant dull ache. Ricocheting slugs tore more glass from the huge panes. I couldn't even hear the sound of the glass hitting the floor over the gun. The noise was deafening, the smell of cordite and oil and blood overpowering.