The Price of Conquest

A harsh pounding thumped from the door to Jamie's apartment, accompanied by a gruff voice identifying itself as Patrol Special Corps and demanding admittance.

"Follow me." Jamie picked up the dead woman's gun and stepped over her body into the next room.

Kressa glanced over her shoulder as another crash sounded at the door, and then hurried after Jamie.

The cluttered room beyond contained a rumpled bed and several pieces of mixed-period furniture littered with clothing and other items. The blonde woman lay sprawled on the floor at the foot of the bed. Dark blood seeped from a cut on her temple.

Jamie bent over her and felt for a pulse in her throat. He looked up at Kressa and shook his head. Another crash at the outer door brought him to his feet, but he continued to stare at the blonde's body.

"Which way?" Kressa let some of the urgency she felt creep into her voice and draw Jamie's full attention.

He gestured to a tattered tapestry on the wall to her right. She pulled the heavy cloth aside, and Jamie stepped up beside her. He cringed as another blow to the outer door brought the crack of a weakening jamb, and then he touched a spot on the wall.

A meter-square area of plaster slid back and to the side with a quiet hiss. Cool air poured through the dark, knee-high opening. Kressa ducked inside, and then straightened cautiously, one hand held above her head to ward against the possibility of a low ceiling. The air in the chamber smelled old.

Jamie slipped through the opening and let the tapestry fall behind him. A gentle nudge sent the door sliding silently back into place, leaving them in complete darkness, then a spear of illumination split the blackness, shining from a handlight Jamie held.

They stood in a narrow underground passage with walls of ancient brick reinforced by an occasional steel strap so rusted that Kressa doubted they could provide support should the need arise. The wooden ceiling was low; the top of Jamie's head just brushed the heavy, rotting slats. Four meters to Kressa's right, the corridor turned toward the front of The Edge; to her left, the passage continued as far as the light reached.

The snap of rending wood and plasteel came from inside Jamie's apartment; the Patrol had breached the front door. Jamie gestured Kressa down the right-hand passage.

As they started toward the bend in the corridor, sounds of the soldiers ransacking Jamie's rooms echoed down the narrow passage. Kressa feared it wouldn't take long for the Patrolmen to discover where their quarry had gone.

The passage ended three meters beyond the corner. Jamie passed the handlight to Kressa and gestured for her to keep it aimed downward. He tucked the gun he held into his belt and climbed onto a rickety wooden bench that squatted against the back wall. He unlatched a trap door set in the corner of the tunnel's ceiling and eased it up a few centimeters. The sound of voices and glassware drifted through the opening, and Kressa realized the trap door must open into the barroom.

After a brief study of the scene above them, Jamie hissed a curse, and then lowered the door silently into place.

"The place is crawling with Pattys, and they have Megan." He stepped off the bench.

"Does she know anything?" Kressa asked, swinging the light toward him.

"No, but—"

"Don't worry about it. They'll just question her, and then let her go."

"I hope you're right."

So do I, Kressa thought.

There was a crash around the corner behind them.

"Well, they found the door," Jamie said. "It won't take them long to get it open."

"Great escape route," Kressa said, and then swore to herself she would never again accept any of Halav's assignments to Terra… assuming she lived long enough to be offered another one.

Jamie flashed her an encouraging smile. "Hey, I've still got a few tricks. Aim the light down here."

He moved the bench aside and bent to begin prying at a small hatch set in the wall near the floor. Kressa returned her gun to its holster and crouched beside him. She held the light with one hand and helped Jamie with the other.

It was obvious the hatchway had not been used in some time, but together they were able to remove the cover, wriggle through the opening, and set the bench then the cover back in place before the Patrolmen found a way to open the hidden door in Jamie's apartment.

The short passage they entered led into one of the long-abandoned subways that ran beneath the city. The old tubes, their rails rusting, tiles and plaster falling from the walls in sheets, crisscrossed under most of the old city, serving the Territories' inhabitants as private passageways. Familiar with the subway system from the years she lived there, Kressa glanced around to get her bearings, and then hurried after Jamie as he lowered himself into the wide, meter-deep depression where the trains used to run.

They picked their way through the debris of fallen ceilings and the occasional collapsed wall, moving in a generally northeastern direction.

Jamie halted after about half a kilometer and turned to peer into the darkness behind them.

Kressa listened intently, but detected only the occasional drip of water and the distant hum of the city.

"Do you think we lost them?" Jamie asked, clearly skeptical they had eluded their pursuers so easily.

"That would be nice, but I doubt they'd give up so soon, especially if they're Special Corps."

Jamie nodded and turned forward again. "There's a station a little ways ahead. We should be able to reach the surface there."

They had gone less than twenty meters toward the station when Kressa noticed a pile of neatly stacked rubble on the ledge above the tracks. She swung the handlight toward it.

"What's that?" Jamie asked.

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"A warning. The station ahead is patrolled." She stepped closer to the ledge and swept the light over the pile of debris and across the wall behind it, noting the pale edges of the plaster and the scattering of fresh dust. "This sign's probably no more than a week old. If the Pattys knew about this escape route of yours, they may have started watching the exits as soon as they heard something was going down. That would explain why they didn't try to follow us down here."

"You know these tunnels better than I do," Jamie said. "Got any bright ideas?"

Kressa studied their surroundings. "This line leads farther north into the Territories. We should be able to find a safe route into the city from there, and the Pattys'd have to be suicidal to follow us."

"If they're suicidal for following, what does that make us for going?" Jamie asked.

"Desperate. Come on."

She retraced their route for perhaps a hundred meters, and then followed a series of service corridors north for close to a kilometer before leading Jamie down a flight of concrete stairs onto another level of tracks.

"We're in what used to be Wolfpack territory," Kressa said, turning south again.

"That was the club you ran with?" Jamie asked.

Kressa nodded. "But club boundaries change, and it's been a long time, so who knows which group controls it now. It may not matter, anyway. A Pack patrol might not treat us differently than the members of any other club."

The sound of voices and running feet echoed suddenly from behind them.

"Damn!" Kressa spat. "The Pattys must've got suspicious when we didn't walk into their trap."

"How do you know it's not the local gang coming after us?"

"They wouldn't make that much noise." She pulled herself out of the track gully and ducked through a doorway into another service passage.

For a full two minutes, she led Jamie through a series of dark corridors and stairwells, letting instinct and old knowledge choose their route, taking them back toward the south and closer to the surface. Eventually, the sounds of pursuit faded.

Kressa stepped through a door into yet another tunnel, this one only a single level below the ground. "I think we lost them."

"I sure hope so." Jamie followed her as she dropped into the track gully. "I know I'm lost."

A shrill whistle shattered the silence before them.

Kressa froze and held up a silencing hand.

Thirty meters ahead, evening light filtered down the wide stairway leading into a station. The dim illumination revealed a boarding platform and the remains of benches and schedule boards. A short sequence of whistles echoed through the tunnel.

Kressa listened carefully, automatically translating the language she had used for years to communicate long distance with members of her gang. Within the cavernous tunnels, the whistles reverberated from wall to wall, making it nearly impossible to pinpoint the position of the callers, but she knew they were somewhere near the station. She climbed out of the track gully on the station side and crept forward along the narrow ledge, motioning for Jamie to follow.

They reached the station, and Kressa gave her own whistle, announcing her and Jamie's presence and assuring anyone listening that they meant no harm.

Like ghosts, six figures materialized from the surrounding shadows. Slowly, Kressa swung the light toward the rough-clothed pack of youths. They ranged in age from early teens to twenties. All of them carried guns. She released an uncertain sigh of relief when she noticed the blood-red strips of cloth they wore tied around their upper arms; she had worn one for years.

"Keep your head," she whispered to Jamie, and then lowered the light and passed it to him.

The oldest of the figures—a muscular, pale-haired boy Kressa assumed was the leader of the small group—stepped closer. The others spread out to surround her and Jamie.

The leader swept his gaze over Kressa, head to toe, appraising.

"Why're you here?" he demanded. There was no hint of tolerance in his voice or in the challenging expression on his face.

Kressa extended her left arm, wrist forward, to display the patterned scars that marked the flesh on the inside of her wrist: three triangles joined to form a stylized wolf head, the sign of the Wolfpack.

The leader's eyes flicked briefly to the mark, and then returned to Kressa's. His expression did not change.

Kressa lowered her arm and nodded over her shoulder. "There are Pattys after us. They're yours if—" Light flashed in the tunnel behind her. "Get down!"

She dove to the side, knocking Jamie from his feet and sending the handlight flying. A blaze of pulse gun shots filled the station, and the bright beam of a laser rifle split the air where one of the Pack members had stood, but the youths were gone, again a part of the shadows.

Kressa dropped back into the rail corridor and rolled for cover beneath the ledge that overhung the tracks on the station side. Jamie found similar refuge on the opposite side of the gully.

Kressa drew her gun and peered over the ledge. She counted three Patrol soldiers in the open and assumed at least another five out of sight. She fired as one of them noticed her position, but he slipped into shelter behind a tunnel buttress. A shot exploded into the pavement beside her from the station entrance above, and she ducked back into hiding.

Jamie popped up and fired above her. A heavy thud shook the ledge over her head.

She looked across at Jamie, barely able to make him out in the dim illumination. She gestured up and behind herself with a questioning look. Jamie shifted position and peered out. He drew back as a pair of laser shots crossed before him, one from soldiers behind them, the second from somewhere ahead. He caught her gaze and shook his head.

Kressa considered their options. They were surrounded and separated, and there was no way to know if the Pack members had stayed to help or—

A series of whistles echoed through the tunnels, and relief flooded Kressa. Not only had the youths remained, but reinforcements had arrived. She took a chance and peered out again.

Two armored Patrolmen were making their way down the stairs into the station, probably Special Corps officers depending on their partners to cover their advance. As they melted into the shadows, another pair appeared, moving in from behind them.

A quick set of whistled comments passed between the newly arrived youths and the members who knew the situation. Kressa added her own assessment, telegraphing the positions of those Patrolmen she had seen go into hiding and warning about the deadly abilities of the Corpsmen and the fact that they worked in pairs.

Another series of whistles pierced the still air as the Pack leader moved his people into position. Kressa smiled grimly as the last whistled message faded to silence. Corpsmen or not, the Patrolmen were doomed. They just didn't know it yet.

She waved her hand to attract Jamie's attention. "Get ready," she mouthed, and then pointed south down the tunnel. "As soon as it's clear, move."

He hefted his gun and gathered his legs under him.

Moments later, the whistled signal came.

"Go!" Kressa stood and began to fire at the Patrol soldiers closest to her. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Jamie turn his weapon on any uniformed figure that appeared.

The battle was over quickly; the scream of pulse gun and laser fire ceased abruptly to echo through the tunnels and then die away to silence. The handlights some of the soldiers had carried rolled slowly back and forth on the uneven ground, their beams tracing arcing paths along the walls and crumbling ceiling.

Youthful figures stepped from hiding to still the weaving lights and take them as their own. Others moved forward to search the fallen soldiers and relieve them of equipment they would no longer need.

Jamie stood in the center of the rail gully. He had retrieved his light and was watching the activity around him.

Kressa started south along the track. "Come on," she whispered. "Let's get out of here."

He glanced at the gang members. "What about them?"

"Don't worry," Kressa said. "They can take care of things. Let's just get the hell out of here." She glanced at the platform where the youths continued their work. "Unless you want them coming after us next for bringing the Pattys here in the first place?"

Jamie swung his head in a quick, suspicious sweep of the busy youths. One burly boy returned his gaze, his look hard and unfriendly.

"No," Jamie said. "No, let's go."