Alien Landscapes 2 by Kevin J. Anderson Page B

he saw that Arviq had broken his left leg in two places and had sprained his right ankle. His helmet visor was cracked and damaged—yet still Arviq had pulled himself along to find the Enemy. He certainly had.
    Though severely injured and at an extreme disadvantage, Arviq had slaughtered both of the Enemy soldiers. . . .
    From their missions together, Barto knew that his comrade was utterly relentless, feeling no pain and no fatigue. Nothing would stop him from escaping the underground enclave. He would never give up.
    And neither would Barto give up. He was the only thing that could keep this civilian paradise protected and intact.
    He strode out and moved briskly along the corridors. His bootsteps ricocheted off the metal walls. Arviq had smashed windows and thrown loose objects from side to side, leaving a painfully clear trail—until he had learned better and sensibly stopped his rampage.
    Then tracking him became more of a challenge. Barto called up a detailed implanted map of all the underground corridors, which Juliette had added to the information systems in his helmet.
    Arviq was running blind, by instinct, just trying to escape, but his movements displayed a pattern. On the map gleaming inside his visor, Barto could see the best paths, learn where to go . . . where to intercede.
    Arviq didn’t have a chance against a fully armed, fully outfitted soldier, like Barto.
    He marched along, his senses tuned to a high pitch. He moved carefully in case the other soldier had set up some kind of booby-trap or ambush. That was to be expected. Arviq must know Barto would come after him.
    Because the other soldier was without his armor, his bare feet left a trail of infrared images on the clean floorplates. The marks were old and fading, but still identifiable with Arviq’s genetic signature: droplets of sweat, skin particles, even stride length gave evidence of his passage. The other man was still bleeding from one of the cuts he’d inflicted upon himself in escaping from the room; occasionally a telltale crimson droplet reinforced Barto’s tracking.
    The control voice returned, insistent and self-confident. It comforted Barto, who had lived his conscious life hearing the words: “KILL THE ENEMY! KILL THE ENEMY! KILL THE ENEMY!” He no longer felt so alone.
    According to the map display, Arviq had made it to within several hundred meters of the long access ladder that led up a shaft to the outside—the battleground where their squad had been killed.
    But Barto also knew he had cornered his quarry.
    At an intersection of the dimly lit corridors, a framework of girders and support beams held up the ceiling. The place had been long-abandoned by the underground civilians.
    Barto’s visor-sensors detected a large smear of blood at floor level in a corner, as if Arviq had rested there . . . or as if he had encountered an Enemy, and they had struggled, hand-to-hand. The blood was fresh, wet, warm in IR
    —like a sign emblazoned there to draw his attention.
    Too late, he realized the ambush. From the shadowed support girders above, Arviq let out a loud cry and dropped on top of him. Though he had no armor and no weapons, the other soldier crashed down upon him with brute force. Barto might have found the conflict absurd if Arviq hadn’t been so determined, so passionate—if the other man hadn’t been his own comrade for so long.
    Arviq wrapped his left arm in a vice-lock around Barto’s neck, trying to wrench the helmet off his head. With his other hand he tried to grab one of the ID-locked weapons sealed in armored holsters on Barto’s hips.
    Barto rose up like a tank, as if his armor gave him stimulus and energy, though Juliette had told him his artificial adrenaline pumps were disconnected from the suit.
    Inside his ears, the helmet commanders shouted, ‘KILL THE ENEMY! KILL THE ENEMY! DON’T LET HIM ESCAPE!” With a weird disorientation, Barto thought the voice sounded like Gunnar’s.
    Without letting go, Arviq