Engineman - Eric Brown [113]
"We know he's in contact with Terran Enginemen, Hunter. I want their names!"
"Enginemen? I don't know. I've no idea. Please..."
Forster rushed to the window, hammered on the glass, then signalled. The guards by the blast-barrier motioned for Conchita and Maria to kneel. Ella watched the women lower herself slowly to her knees, her daughter clinging to her.
"Please, no..." Ella wept.
Forster rushed back to her. "Now, answers! Has your father left for Earth?"
"I don't know!"
"Who are his contacts on Earth?"
Ella was shaking her head, her eyes streaming. She swore that if they killed Conchita and the girl, she'd dive at Forster, tear out his eyes...
"I don't know! Please, listen to me..."
"Corporal!" Forster snapped. The guard appeared. "Take her out. Shoot the three of them."
The guard took her arm, almost gently, and brought her to her feet. He escorted her from the room and down the corridor, following Forster.
They passed outside, into the sunlight.
"Please," Ella wept. "Not the girl. Kill me, but not Maria."
Still pacing, Forster turned. "Answers, Hunter!"
"I don't know. I just don't know..." She looked up, then, and saw a line of fliers advancing across the tarmac.
Forster began, "Then the three of you-"
He never finished the sentence.
The explosion knocked them off their feet. Ella hit the tarmac painfully. Dazed, battered by the blast, she rolled over and pushed herself onto her hands and knees. She gazed about her in disbelief. One of the guards was dead, blood trickling from his nose and mouth. The other rolled on the ground, moaning. Forster was groggily picking himself up. Ella screamed and dived across the tarmac to the dead guard. She grabbed the incapacitator from the ground where he'd dropped it, staggered to her feet and ran at Forster. He was drawing his pistol, caught by surprise, when Ella slammed the weapon into his face. He yelled, fell to the ground. She collapsed with him, and brought the incapacitator down again and again on the side of his head. Forster spasmed, his back arching as he convulsed. Sobbing, Ella rolled away from him.
Explosions shattered the air. Across the airbase, the squad of militia beside the blast-barrier lay dead or dying. Ella looked desperately for Conchita and her daughter. She saw them huddling together behind the barrier. As she watched, a flier swooped down and two men bundled the girl and her mother aboard.
Vehicles burned all around the base, and everywhere Danzig militia-men fell. Fliers advanced across the tarmac, hitting anything that moved with shell-fire and grenades.
Ella hugged her legs and curled against the wall of the control tower, watching with terror and disbelief as Forster rolled onto his belly and clawed his way across the tarmac towards her. She looked around desperately for the incapacitator, and saw it - beyond Forster - where she'd dropped it. She tried to move, to summon the energy to pick herself up and run, but she was paralysed by exhaustion and the look on Forster's face as he crawled towards her. Ella screamed.
A battered, turbo-driven flier surged around the corner, came down heavily. At the wheel, a black Engineman casually raised a rifle, one-handed.
He fired, the shot opening a gaping hole in Forster's back. He spasmed, staring at Ella with wide, dead eyes.
"Get in, girl," the Engineman said. "Move it!"
Dazed, she picked herself up and staggered towards the flier. She threw herself over the side and onto the back seat. The flier sped off across the base, swerving erratically to avoid explosions and pockets of Danzig resistance.
A grenade detonated beneath them, bucking the flier. "Hold on tight back there," the Engineman said calmly. "This might be a rough ride."
They accelerated over the perimeter fence, leaving the airbase behind them, and screamed into the jungle. The E-man weaved his way through the trees, trunks flicking by on either side with a sound like rotor-blades.
"You sure don't say much, girl," the Engineman called to her. "You feeling okay?"
Ella wanted to tell him that she'd never