"No. I want prisoners," Valentine said.
One of the smaller helicopters swooped in and landed, even as tracer fire began to appear from the positions at the base of the garage, where gun slits had been clawed through the concrete weeks ago.
Ahn-Kha shifted his aim and began to send 20mm-cannon shells into the tail rotor of the rescue helicopter.
The concrete to the left of Ahn-Kha exploded into powdery dust. "Down!" Was that my voice? Valentine wondered as he threw himself sidways onto Ahn-Kha. Cannon shells tore through the gap between the floors of the garage, ripping apart the van. The Arkansan fell with a softball-sized hunk of flesh torn away from his neck and shoulder, and Valentine dully thought that he'd have to learn the man's name in order to put it in the report, and then the cannonade was over.
Lewis stared stupidly around, still kneeling next to the van, in the exact same position he'd been in a second ago, still holding the field phone to his ear.
Valentine heard the first BOOM of shellfire landing on the field. The artillery had come at last.
* * * *
Valentine stood between the shell holes on the overgrown, cracked landing strip and surveyed the mess.
What was left of the attackers from the vehicles and the defenders of the garages had encircled the two holes and the downed helicopter. Valentine had seen Post borne away in a stretcher, but couldn't do anything but touch a bloodily peeled hand as the bearers rushed him to the medical unit.
The mysterious air raiders had rocketed their own helicopter before leaving, blowing what was left of the double-rotor airship into three substantial chunks-pilot cabin, part of the cargo area, and stabilizing tail.
The odd, green propane-tank capsule remained in the wreckage. Flames slid off it like oil from Teflon.
The Bears kept watch from the overturned earth of the Kurian wormhole. Valentine had poked his head in-the three-meter-diameter tunnel was ringed with strands of whitish goo about the thickness of his thumb, crisscrossed and spiderwebbed like the frosting dribbled atop a Bundt cake. Whether the digging worm creature (someone called it a "bore worm" but Valentine didn't know if the term came from Hitchen's Guide to Introduced Species or if the would-be zooologist had thought it up on the spot). The Bears also watched a pair of wounded prisoners, survivors of the transport helicopter who hadn't made it to the rescuing craft. A medic dressed a cut on one pilot's scalp just below the helmet line. The stranger submitted to the ministrations with something like dull contempt. The aircrew were lean, well-tanned men with oversized sunglasses and desert scarves. Both wore leather jackets with a panel stitched on the back, reading in English and Spanish:
NONNEGOTIABLE $10,000 GOLD REWARD
for the safe return of this pilot unharmed and
healthy to Pyp's Flying Circus YUMA
ARIZONA/AZTLAN. Negotiable traveling and
keep expenses also paid in trade goods.
CONTACT PROVOST FT CHICO OR NEW
UNIVERSAL CHURCH-TEMPE
DIRECTORATE FOR INFORMATION
AND DIRECTIONS
Each also had a patch reading PYP'S FLYING CIRCUS, featuring a winged rattlesnake, flying with mouth open as though to strike.
So the question of who the hell are these guys was answered. With another question.
But Valentine's mind was on that tank in the center of the wreckage.
Some of the men theorized it contained a nuclear bomb. Valentine suspected that the contents were a good deal more lethal to the human race long-term.
And everyone was looking at him.
Valentine paced at the edge of the wormhole.
"Nail, I want three Bears ready with demolition blocks. I don't know if it'll dent that thing, but it might rattle them."