Free Vengeance by Brian Falkner

said.
    “Barnard, what are we facing?” Price asked.
    She already had a pretty good idea, but wanted Barnard to focus on something other than The Tsar.
    Barnard stared at her for a moment, then took a deep breath.
    “There’s a ready reaction force in Canberra; they’re the closest,” she said. “But they’re part of the capital’s defences. I doubt they’d send those. We’ll probably get a couple of scout ships real soon, or they may just redirect other rotorbots if they have them in the area.”
    “What about regular forces?” Price asked.
    “They’ll send teams from Melbourne, or Sydney, or maybe both,” Barnard said. “That’ll take them a little longer. But Wall’s right. We have to get out of here. It’s going to be touch and go, even if we leave right now.”
    “Can you move him?” Price asked.
    Monster looked up and nodded. “Too dangerous to extract needle. Will tape needle in place and bandage. Can move.”
    “How are you going to move him?” Barnard asked. “You can’t …”
    Monster could, and did.
    He reached down and hoisted The Tsar up in a fireman’s lift.
    “Jeez, Monster,” Price said. “That can’t be good for him.”
    “Worse is staying here,” Monster said. He lurched into a run, doing his best to give The Tsar a steady ride.
    “Okay, Angels, we are Oscar Mike,” Price said. “Move, move, move!”
    Wall picked up something off the road. It had been lying under The Tsar’s body. His scope. Wall showed it to Price. The screen was cracked and dead.
    “Damn,” Price said. She ran to the dead rotorbot.
    “Give me a hand with this, Wall,” she said.
    Wall took one side, lifting it easily. Price struggled with her end, but managed to raise it and together they eased it over the side railing. It hit the water and sank with little splash, only a stream of bubbles indicating the location. Even as it was sinking, they were running.
    “Left or right, LT?” Brogan called. She was first off the bridge.
    To the right a road led into a residential area. To the left was a small, overgrown park and parking lot. Behind it was an area of forest.
    “Left,” Price said. “Better cover in the trees.”
    “Everybody down!” Brogan yelled.
    Price had heard and seen nothing, but dived into a nearby bush, wrapping her camo sheet around her. A second later, two fast movers roared overhead, low and fast.
    “That’ll be just an initial recon,” she said. “As soon as they’re out of range, get moving. We have to get to that forest before the slow movers get here.”
    The jets made a second sweep before disappearing off to the north in a blaze of noise and afterburners.
    A narrow dirt track through the park led up a rise towards the wooded area. It was densely overgrown, and they had to push through it.
    Although only minutes, it seemed like hours before they reached the comparative safety of the trees. Price found a fallen tree branch and went back to erase their tracks, scratching out boot steps and straightening stalks of grass. She caught up with the other Angels, gathered around The Tsar, who was on the ground at the base of a large tree. Its heavy branches and leafy foliage gave good cover from any overhead watchers.
    Barnard held an IV bag, which was dripping clear fluid into an opening on the arm of The Tsar’s combat suit. Bzadian suits had automatic IV tubes at the elbow for exactly this kind of situation.
    Monster was using the mediscope to examine The Tsar’s neck. He clearly didn’t like what he saw.
    “Monster?” Price asked.
    Monster shook his head. “Needle has nicked carotid artery. He lose a lot of blood. If I leave it there, he die.”
    “And if you pull it out?”
    “He die quicker,” Monster said. “Needle stem blood flow.”
    There was a long silence as the team considered the implications of that.
    “Gotta leave him,” Brogan said.
    “Get puked, Brogan,” Barnard said. “You and the horse you rode in on.”
    “We leave no one behind,” Price