Urbis

The explosion was felt rather than heard. A tremor ran through the earth, and news of the disaster was received through the soles of the feet, tidings in basso profundo. As if viewed in slow motion, a pillar of pitch black smoke rose above the power plant, and then began to spread steadily across the sky like a bruise. The wind was blowing the cloud southward, towards the main part of the city.

Tana watched its approach for a moment, mesmerised. It changed everything. She had scant time left to achieve what she had waited for so long to achieve.

She picked up the communicator lying by the window and selected a preset channel. “Herrscher? You’re Davis’ man, aren’t you? Good. Bring me Shah, in one piece. If you get rid of his men he’ll be too craven to put up much of a fight on his own.”

As she waited, she chafed at Elizabeth’s parting shot. She would indeed have dearly loved to bid farewell to Cath and Frances, but settling the score with Shah was her first priority. Larry would surely be able to get her lover and her child to her before things got too hot.

After a few minutes, Shah was hustled into Tana’s presence with blasters pressed against his ribs and his skull. His face was puce with rage. “Tana, if this is a joke...”

Tana met his gaze slowly, and with icy calm. “This is no joke, Shah. I was instrumental in arranging all this.” The sweep of her hand took in the mayhem beyond the window.

Shah seethed. “You what? You stupid bitch! But you can’t hope to win!”

“Oh but I do,” said Tana. “But we don’t have time to chat about it. Take off your clothes.”

“What?”

The weapons pressed against his flesh reminded Shah that he had no choice but to comply. Sullenly, incomprehendingly, he removed his shoes and his suit, and stood in his underclothes. With irritation Tana indicated that he was to remove these too, and he did so.

“Up against the column.”

Shah backed slowly to the nearest column until he felt its cold metal against his spine and his buttocks.

“Herrscher,” Tana snapped. “Cuff his hands behind him.”

Herrscher snapped the handcuffs round Shah’s wrists.

“Give me a blaster,” said Tana. One of Herrscher’s men handed her a weapon. She set the control to minimum power.

“Tana,” said Shah, “what are you doing?”

“It is fortunate for you, Shah,” Tana said grimly, “that circumstances do not permit me to take the time over this that I would have liked.”

Shah was trembling. Tana gripped the butt of the blaster with both hands and pointed it at the floor at Shah’s feet. With deliberation she raised it to the level of his knees and fired. Shah yelped as burns appeared at his knees and he spread his feet apart. Then Tana smiled a wicked smile and raised the blaster higher, until it was pointed at his groin.

Shah saw her intent. “Tana, dearest, no! Nooo!”

“This is for Greta,” she said softly, and pulled the trigger. Shah screamed piercingly, echoingly, arching his back in supreme agony and straining against the handcuffs as Tana seared his manhood into blackened necrotic gristle.

He was still thrashing and moaning when Meecham ran into the room. The newcomer stared open-mouthed at what had become of his former boss.

“Meecham!” Tana barked. “Where’s Brandt?”

“Tana,” Meecham gasped, unable to take his eyes off the raw angry flesh of Shah’s emasculation. “We were just bringing him to you when we were met by Dashwood and the woman. They saw Brandt’s pilot’s insignia, and when I told them we were bringing him on your orders, they said it was to fly them and you off sector one. There were too many loyal men around. If we’d tried to fight, it would have been suicide, and Brandt would have surely been killed.”

“Have they escaped?” said Tana, repressing her anger.

“Not yet,” said Meecham. “But...” His communicator bleeped. “Yes?” he demanded from it.

“Sir, they’re making for a chopper,” the voice on the communicator announced.

“Don’t let them get away!” Tana commanded. “I’m coming!” She turned to Meecham. “Brandt will no doubt convey to them his suspicions that I’m in with the Underground. I don’t imagine Elizabeth will be hanging around to wait for me.”

She turned again to Shah and chucked him under the chin with the barrel of the blaster. “Shah? I’ve got to go now. But this is something for Jameson.” She stepped back a pace and switched the control on the blaster to full power.

Shah saw that his time had come. Tana half expected, half hoped, that he would beg for mercy. That would have further sweetened the moment for her. But in spite of his pain, Shah held himself straight, determined to face his executioner with dignity. Tana was impressed, in spite of herself. In truth, Shah was a relatively minor offender compared with Brandt, but she could no longer be sure of catching up with Brandt. The bird in her hand would have to suffice. She raised the gun to Shah’s chest and fired.

Before his scream had died away, Tana and her supporters were racing out of the door.

Brandt relayed to Elizabeth and Dashwood all that he suspected of Tana as they made their way through the middle of the sector, taking a sometimes circuitous route to avoid the fighting now raging on two fronts, with the Forgotten Ones swarming in from the main gate and the Underground fighting their way up from below. Twice the three of them had to crawl on their stomachs past windows which reached almost to the ground, outside of which bloody hand to hand combat was taking place.

The strategically vital helipad was still held by Security forces loyal to the Presidium. A small four-seat machine and two ten-seaters waited on the tarmac. Brandt, Elizabeth and Dashwood ran the last fifty metres down a corridor to where eight Security officers stood watchfully in the exit.

Their leader levelled a high-powered laser rifle at the three. “Halt!” he commanded. “Access is reserved for Members of the Presidium.”

Elizabeth reached a hand inside the neck of her tunic, and instantly eight weapons were aimed at her. Slowly she produced a chain bearing her insignia of office. “I am the Leader of the blasted Presidium,” she spluttered. The officer looked at her questioningly, and she returned a gaze that brooked no contradiction.

“Let us pass,” she insisted. The officer lowered his weapon, and his men followed suit.

Elizabeth led Dashwood and Brandt down the ramp to where the machines stood, and they clambered into the four seater, Dashwood and Brandt in the front and Elizabeth behind.

They were scarcely aboard when the sound of firing erupted from both sides of the pad. The loyalists guarding both access doors were holding off rebels, but it was clear that they would not be able to hold them off for more than a couple of minutes.

“Get us out of here!” Elizabeth ordered. Brandt did his best to comply, and in moments the rotor blades began to slice through the air. The pitch of the motor increased to a whine. The three occupants of the helicopter watched in anguish as guards fell bleeding onto the ramps.

Then as the machine began to rise, some thirty men and women burst through the doors and ran towards them, led by Larry the kitchen hand. Elizabeth fully expected them to shoot the helicopter down, but they dropped their weapons as they approached, and flung themselves at the aircraft’s landing struts and runners, now shoulder high, scrambling on and forcing the machine down again with their combined weight.

When the machine was on the ground once more, the fighters surrounding it gathered up their guns and pointed them at the three occupants. They raised their hands, but knew they could expect no mercy. But their captors did not fire, they simply waited, some glancing anxiously towards the doorway through which Elizabeth, Dashwood and Brandt had come.

After a few tense minutes, the crowd surrounding the helicopter let out a cheer as Tana emerged with Meecham, Herrscher and their troops.

The crowd began to chant. “Ta-na! Ta-na! Ta-na! Ta-na!”

The sound of it rebounded of the surrounding walls, and came back to Tana’s ears distorted. These people, her supporters, were enthusiastically repeating her name, but the chant she heard was a sinister memory: “Na-ked! Na-ked! Na-ked! Na-ked!” For a moment, her eyes met Brandt’s, and she knew that he too recalled that other crowd she had faced.

Tana fired her blaster into the air, and there was silence. She made her way through the crowd and stepped up onto the door sill of the helicopter. She turned to face them.

“Friends, people of Urbis, today we have scored a great victory. The woman you see in this chopper is Elizabeth Grant, sister of your late Leader, Edward Grant.” The crowd began to murmur. Tana waved her blaster to quieten them. “She has been operating as Leader for three months now, since the death of Edward. And the fact is that she is essential to the rebuilding of Urbis. However there is no time now, because of that.” And she gestured towards the distant smoke cloud. “We must regroup when the danger is past, and build Urbis anew. In the meantime, save yourselves as best you can. Make for the bunkers at the heart of the sector. My love to you all.”

Tana leant over Larry and kissed his cheek. “Larry, that woman, Cath...” she whispered.

“It’s all right,” he reassured her. “I took her a couple of shooters, like you said. She said to send her love.”

“No, Larry,” said Tana, almost frantic, “I want them here. Get them here. I’ve got to get them out.”

Larry shook his head. “No chance. That whole area is blocked off now. But they’ll be safe till it’s all over. Safer from radioactivity there than anywhere in the city.”

Tana squeezed his arm. “Larry, that baby,” she hissed. “She’s my child!”

Larry’s eyes swelled in their sockets. “Tana, it’s hopeless. But believe me, they’ll be safe. Now you get out of here, before the cloud gets any closer. And be careful with this parcel of rogues.”

With the profoundest reluctance, Tana let him push her into the machine and close the door. The cheers resounded as she seated herself, the muzzle of her blaster pressed firmly into the nape of Brandt’s neck. The rotor blades began whirring again, and the helicopter rose swiftly into a benevolent summer sky.

When it was gone, Larry turned to the others. “Okay, people, torch the ten-seaters. No one else from the Presidium is leaving.”

“Where to?” queried Brandt, sounding like a taxi driver.

Tana marshalled her thoughts. There seemed to be but one choice available. “Head across the city. Towards the mountains.”

“The mountains?” Brandt exclaimed. “But...”

Tana jabbed the gun against his vertebrae. “Do it!” She looked at Dashwood, casting edgy glances at her over his shoulder, and at Elizabeth, who seemed to be trying to squeeze herself into the furthest corner possible away from Tana.

“Let’s get this clear,” said Tana. “Brandt is flying this machine. If anyone tries anything at all, he dies instantly, and then the rest of us do so very soon after. So if you value your lives, Dashwood and Elizabeth, you will keep still and keep your hands in your laps, where I can see them. And you,” she added, jabbing Brandt again, “will not diverge from my instructions in the slightest. My first instruction is to go higher, my second is to go faster.”

The helicopter sped over the sparkling waters of the bay, rapidly gaining altitude, and accelerated into the city. They quickly achieved the level of the noxious smoke coming from the north, and were soon above it.

Tana watched its advent, her emotions a shredded mess. All she valued in the world had been snatched from her by events beyond her control. Her husband, her lover and her child left behind, doomed. Her revenge on Shah one part of her had hoped to savour, while another was relieved that it had been curtailed. And even a clear-cut victory in the battle was now impossible, for now both sides would seek to escape from the nuclear fallout. When he had served his purpose in securing their escape from the city, she would, she determined, wreak sweet vengeance on Brandt, trying, now, to put her torture of Shah behind her. And Elizabeth, the captured queen, would bring her bullies to an armistice table.

Below, the city was strangely silent. People had remained indoors when the city had ground to a halt, and now they were no doubt shielding themselves in whatever way they could from the effects of radiation.

“Tana?” Brandt’s troubled voice broke into her thoughts.

“What?”

“We are low on fuel. Very low.”

Tana peered past Brandt’s shoulder at the instruments. “Show me,” she commanded.

Brandt pointed to the fuel gauge, where the needle was indeed close to its leftward extremity. “There’s not enough gas to get over the mountains,” he assured her.

“Just keep going,” she instructed. “And keep climbing. As we near the mountains, look for a pass.”

“This is madness,” said Elizabeth. “If we aren’t killed in the crash, we’ll all freeze to death.”

“I haven’t asked for your opinion, Elizabeth, dear,” Tana remarked coldly.

As the serrated mountain chain came closer, Brandt veered to the right and began to make for a shallow col. Below, the city finally gave way to open country, and the land soon began rising to meet them. The fields were quickly replaced by thick forests, and then the tree line was crossed, and they were above open snow. They continued to ascend, but the terrain below was ascending faster.

The fuel gauge had been on `empty’ for some time when the engine began to splutter. Tantalisingly, the landscape beyond the mountains was glimpsed, but it was too late.

The engine died. The rotor ceased turning, and the helicopter dipped in silence towards the white waste below. Elizabeth shrieked as it plummeted into the snow at the very crest of the col, skidded some metres and came to a jarring halt.