Shadow of the Eighth by Justin D Hill

Author:Justin D Hill
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Published: 2023-06-15T14:54:02+00:00

III

Blanchez had seen the sniper shot hit. Not properly, but in the corner of her eye. It gave her a rough idea of where it had come from. She settled in and waited. They were bound to move. She let her gaze relax as she took in the cluster of windows from the hab along the way.

It had been a good shot, which meant a good sniper. She rolled her shoulders to keep herself alert. Scrolled the range of her sights to roughly the distance.

She could hear Lady Vengeance opening fire. The frozen rockcrete rattled with the noise.

Come on, she thought. Out you come.

She waited nearly ten minutes before she saw him. He’d camouflaged himself well, obscured behind a cracked window. The reflected glare had hidden him until he moved, crawling backwards from the broken glass.

She had only a few seconds, but lined him up, guessed the difference the distance would make, and fired a quick salvo of las-shots and then ducked back out of the way.

Blanchez crossed the road, keeping under the stilt-habs until she reached the bottom of the building. She crept forward to get a closer look. The drifts reached halfway up the window panes. The plex-glass had broken under its weight. She paused at the top then carefully slipped forward, falling soundlessly into what had been someone’s bedroom, once.

The place was filthy. There were stains on the walls – she did not know what – and the bed had been turned over. A cardboard chest of drawers had got damp and half collapsed into itself.

Blanchez slipped across the room to where the shattered pressboard door stood. Something had smashed it open. As she avoided the broken glass on the floor, she stopped.

A child’s doll lay in the corner – a Militarum doll, one eye missing, the stuffing coming out where one of the arms had torn free.

Blanchez had a sudden vision. This door had been barricaded. And something had smashed its way in. It all made sense now, and in her mind’s eye she could see a child in there, terrified as the door was splintered.

She bent and picked the toy up, slid it into her flak jacket, and moved on through the hab. There were more stains on the walls. The smears a body made as it slid down.

The corridor was long and empty. A scrap of paper pinned to a noticeboard fluttered in the breeze.

Blanchez kept going, passing hab door after hab door, all of them smashed through.

The building seemed to have one stairwell. She paused there, listening, but she could hear nothing. She crept forward, and saw it. A drop of blood, glistening red. It stood out from the grime. She put her finger to it. Still warm.

She moved up to the banisters. Nothing. But on the landing below she could see another drop.

Blanchez shifted the long-las, started down the stairs. It was hard to stop blood, she knew, once it started flowing. The drips got closer together as she went down the stairs, which meant they were going more slowly.

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