Messiah by S. Andrew Swann Page A

looked up at the sky. Motion was now visible past the Wilson skyline, small specks of aircraft visible in the gaps between buildings. The sirens had stopped, leaving a disturbing stillness to the air. The edge of the safe perimeter was marked by a spray of glowing orange paint that traced a line across dirt and rubble alike.
    Their guide stood on the safe side of the line and said, “You’d all be safer back in the building. The PSDC shouldn’t attack it, we’re keeping—”
    “We know,” Kugara said.
    “If they do take the city—”
    He was interrupted by the sound of roaring aircraft that shot by above them so low that Kugara could have counted rivets. The fighters banked around the skyline, headed toward the PSDC invaders. When the echoes died down enough for him to be heard, he continued, “If they take the city, that building will be the safest place in town.”
    “Look, we have other concerns than the PSDC. Or our safety, for that matter. Start moving.”
    He studied the rubble ahead of them, and after taking a few deep breaths, took a couple of steps over the orange warning line. He called back, “The safe corridor is only a few meters wide, so stay close behind me.” He pointed to a burned-out shell of a building about a hundred meters away. “We’re headed there.”
    She followed him, with Parvi behind her, followed by Flynn, Dörner, Brody, and Nickolai bringing up the rear. Their guide led them through a series of ninety-degree turns past piles of twisted metal and broken ferrocrete. The whole area smelled of a fire not long dead, something still smoldering and toxic.
    More aircraft rocketed past above them, and as the wind shifted, they started hearing pops and rumbles from the east. The noises were muffled by distance, but clearly the engagement had begun. There was a whole city between them and the battle, but Kugara was afraid it wouldn’t be enough.
    It only took a few moments before that fear was realized.
    A painful whine cut though the air above them, and she heard Nickolai yell, “ Incoming! ”
    Kugara dived for the ground, tackling their guide under her. She glanced up and saw a twisting contrail tipped with a spiraling out-of-control missile. It seemed headed straight for her. She shoved her face into the small of their guide’s back and covered her head with her arms as an explosion ripped the air. The sound was like a spike though her skull and she felt the impact in the thrum of the ground beneath her. A burning wind scorched the hair on her neck, and dirt and gravel peppered her back, burning where it touched exposed skin.
    Stray missile, she thought, missed us . . .
    She pushed herself up from their guide, who raised his head and spat out a mouthful of dirt. “Shit!”
    Parvi called out from behind her, “Everyone all right?”
    A chorus of assents followed, muffled in Kugara’s shell-shocked ears. She didn’t look at the others. She was more focused on the rubble around them.
    From out of nowhere it seemed, a half-dozen machines had risen from spots in the rubble. Lean, ovoid things about a meter across, hovering on small contragravs, rotary cannons dangling beneath their chassis. The hunter-killer drones, jarred awake by the explosion. The only reason they hadn’t swarmed them already was because they stood in the preprogrammed safe zone.
    She stared at one, and it stared back with a single blank mechanical eye. It was the first good look she had at one of these things. They weren’t military spec, which she probably could have guessed from the improvised nature of the Wilson militia. These were commercial security drones, designed for patrolling warehouses, not war zones.
    It didn’t make them less intimidating.
    “That was close,” she whispered.
    In front of her, their guide repeated, “Shit!”
    She turned to him and asked, “Are you all right?”
    “Yes. No. We’re screwed!”
    “What is it?” Parvi asked from behind her.
    “Just look!” He waved ahead of