by Tim C Taylor
“I have made my decision,” Arun told the group of Legion commanders. “We make a sneak attack along the Rainbow Bridge from Ceres. I’m designating L-Day to be June 16th, 2739 Terran Standard Calendar. Today is L-1827. The Hardits hear nearly every thought we make. They must not learn this one. Keep your Hummer shields close at all times. Compartmentalize your teams. Control every word that passes your lips. The lives of our comrades and the freedom of our civilian peoples depend upon our secrecy.”
Arun glanced guiltily at his Wolf bodyguard. Sometimes it felt like he was drowning in secrets. The day would surely come when someone would see through them and his world would crumble around him.
All he required of his secrets was to survive another 1827 days.
After that, he would be beyond caring.
— Chapter 24 —
L-Day.
“You know,” said Springer, “an intellectual bad-ass once told me that the worst part about invading a planet is the boredom.”
Springer watched for the reaction behind Arun’s visor and felt a flutter of affection when he stuck out his tongue. The old Arun she had cherished as a cadet – that adorable cheeky frakker – wasn’t entirely dead.
“I know,” he grunted, and added a slow tumble to his vector. “I admit it. I might have uttered those words at some point.”
“Endlessly.”
Arun thrust with his combat suit, narrowly avoiding kicking a nearby Marine, and matched vector with Springer with his visor in front of hers and oriented upside down. “I may have repeated them once or twice, for the benefit of the slower-brained among us.”
“Until I found the cure, you spent every off-duty moment on Ceres moaning about the boredom.”
“You found the cure? I thought that was something we enjoyed exploring together.”
“Whatever!” She grinned. “Either way, Umarov would have been proud.”
A wry smile came across Arun’s face. Carabinier Umarov had grumbled continually about life in first the Human Marine Corps, and then the Legion that replaced it. No food had been too tasty to complain about, and no rack too soft nor order too sensible. But when the shooting started, you could not want for a stauncher comrade.
Springer had to look away, suddenly overcome by the memory of Umarov’s last battle: the close quarters void combat at Khallini. The old Carabinier had died in her arms.
She felt a hand on her shoulder and looked back at Arun’s face. He was back to his usual demeanor: careworn. Detached.
“I don’t mind being bored,” he said, “so long as it’s with you.”
Yeah, cute words, Arun. But he was faking them, which meant she had lost him again. His stare was a light-year long, dislocated from the people around him. Even from the woman he said he loved.
Maybe the pain in his legs was flaring again.
Whatever her personal feelings for the man, her sworn duty in her new identity as Lissa was to protect General McEwan, and she took that seriously. Even though they’d finally broken down the walls they’d built around their hearts and admitted their affection for each other, there remained a diseased part of Arun’s spirit that compelled him to charge into the most heavily defended enemy position and allow the Hardit gunners to take his cares away forever.
Every night she held his hand as he yelled out in his sleep, imagining his death at the hands of Tawfiq’s Janissaries. He didn’t sound frightened; he sounded resigned.
That wasn’t happening on her watch.
Perhaps try the sex thing again? suggested Saraswati. Our recent experience is that it usually perks up his spirit for a while. He is a male, after all.
With the best attempt at a grin on her face, Springer took the AI’s advice and closed the distance to Arun so that their visors kissed. This was how they’d spent much of the past two days: flying through the inner arc of Rainbow Bridge with the assault divisions, while telling each other what they wanted to do when they were finally unpeeled from their combat suits. Helmet sex. That was how Springer was keeping the officially dead strategic leader of the Human Legion sane.
“You won’t have time for boredom when this is all over, mister. Have you forgotten what I said when we left Ceres? You will be on rack duty from dawn till dusk. Endless sex until I say I’ve had enough.”
His gaze sunk low, bringing her heart down with it. They’d spent hours talking about what they would do to each other afterwards, but in his heart Arun didn’t believe there would be an after for him. He’d convinced himself that there was a bullet with his name on waiting for him at the end of the bridge.
She punched him in the arm. “Suck up your demons and get your head in the game, Marine. You’re going to survive this if it kills me. I love you too much to lose you now.”
There… across his face, she saw a glint of hope. Almost a smile
She saw him glance away and take in their surroundings as if only just remembering that they weren’t alone, that they were in the midst of two divisions of Marines and about to start a new combat zone. He pivoted around so he was oriented the same way as Springer, and joined her in regaining their proper position in the formation.
The Rainbow Bridge was an enormous and gently curving tube, pivoting on the generator deep inside Ceres and providing a concealed tunnel through space. Other than the feint rainbow shimmer that revealed its outer skin, it was invisible from the inside – and more importantly its interior was invisible to outside observers. According to the outline painted into her visor by Saraswati, the end that they were now approaching flared out significantly. Even so, the Marines were still bunched horrendously. That was a frightening enough prospect for the lead elements, but Arun had attached himself to Void Division’s HQ company. The honorary baggage, Arun called himself.
Despite Arun having many faults, megalomania had never been one. As a field commander, he was adequate, but the Legion demanded more than mere competence. One of the most important tasks he had faced inside Ceres was picking leaders from the mess of thawed Marines. It wasn’t easy with troopers trained in the pre-Legion era, when to even suggest a human could ever serve as an officer would lead to swift execution for insurrection.
“Stealth!” ordered the woman Arun had picked to lead Void Division.
The two of them complied instantly. Although the divisional commander possessed charisma, and tactical nous matched with inventiveness, the sound of her voice filled Springer with foreboding. Her name was Major-General Karmella Horden, and she claimed to be a descendant of the bastard who’d sold their ancestors out as slaves – the major-general’s too, of course.
I hope you didn’t screw up when you picked that corporal to become a general, she said to herself.
If she is to be a problem, said Saraswati, it will be after the invasion.
Thank you so much. I’d forgotten what it was like to have no privacy inside my head.
I imagine it was a period of woolly thinking, confusion and utter ignorance. L-200 seconds. Our wave jumps on L+205 seconds.
The gorge rose in Springer’s throat and her breathing grew fast and ragged.
Relax, dear. You been through all this before. You’re just out of practice.
I don’t want to do it. I can’t. I’m scared.
It’s him, isn’t it? You and your ridiculous ‘Oh, look at me. I’m in love.’ I told you he wasn’t worth it.
Help me. Please?
Shall I put your battle face on for you?
Yessss.
You know it will dull your mental sharpness.
Just, frakking do it!
Already underway.
Springer listened to her heart rate slow and felt the calm spread through her. Was this the result of combat drugs, or was Saraswati lying – her words just a placebo? Then the warmth of her calmness chilled and hardened into cruel barbs. She needed to kill.
Now, tell me, Saraswati checked, what’s waiting for us at the end of the bridge?
The enemy. Hardit vecks.
And what’
re you going to do, dear? Lay down a blanket and break out the sandwiches and lemonade?
Kill them. Kill them all.
That’s better. Kill the enemy. And if you can keep your general alive too, that will be a bonus, but don’t sweat too much over him. Kill! Kill! Kill! That’s all you need to care about for the next few hours. Anything else you can leave to me.
But that wasn’t true. She had more on her mind than killing. Springer reached out to feel the back of the invisible general’s combat suit. Saraswati painted his outline, interpolating from the feedback through the gauntlets. Springer gradually crawled her hand along his arms till she gripped his hand.
He squeezed back.
She growled at Saraswati when she gave the virtual equivalent of rolling her eyes.
The two of them were going into battle one last time, hand in hand.
Saraswati started the countdown. L- 5… 4… 3… 2… 1.
Void Division’s lead elements deployed into space, high above Earth. The rainbow shimmer grew stronger. So did Arun’s grip on her hand, which would have crushed it to powder if not for her gauntlets.
All this was happening in silence and most of it was invisible. Three days’ journey behind, back on Ceres, the Night Hummers were vibrating the pivot point of the Rainbow Bridge. At this distance, the endpoint of the bridge was gyrating wildly, its aiming point subject also to the rotation and relative orbits of Ceres and Earth. The Marines were like pellets, shot out of a blunderbuss waved about by a drunken giant.
Twenty seconds to go.
Springer worked her hand free. As she readied her carbine, messages began passing through the Local Battle Network, and her visor lit up with a tac-grid display, showing position, health, and ammo states of the unit lumbered with the honorary baggage.
What LBNet couldn’t tell her was the position of the enemy.
What would she face on the far end of the bridge?
What were the Hardits doing?
With Arun by her side, her suit motors shot her out of the Rainbow Bridge and into the battle for Earth.
— Chapter 25 —
“Lieutenant Frienchan-Ullx, run sensor diagnostics one bank at a time while keeping others active.”
“I obey,” said the junior officer and rushed to implement her commander’s instruction while trying not to betray haste.
Commander Gulyeen-Hooh, Sector Leader 13 for Earth orbital defense, watched her underlings occupy themselves with their tasks while she herself checked every muscle was relaxed, her mind smoothly balanced, and the straps securing her to the command seat were untwisted.
In some ways, this was the most difficult phase of the battle about to commence. The supreme commander’s spies inside the Legion fleet had been broadcasting its progress for months now. The enemy was coasting along a course that would intercept with Earth in less than an hour. The fools were running in full stealth mode, with communications blacked out, engines shut down, and pitiful prayers to their barbaric alien gods to keep them hidden from the New Order.
As if any of that would work!
Waiting for the enemy’s arrival was bad for discipline. Gulyeen-Hooh had kept the crews of her defense platforms running drills and equipment checks to keep their minds occupied, but however hard she worked her underlings, they were willing the seconds away until the enemy vanguard was close enough to press the firing studs of what Supreme Commander Tawfiq had informed them was the largest concentration of guns in the history of warfare.
Gulyeen-Hooh jerked out of her reverie and sniffed the air. Why had it filled with the pungent stink of an alert scent?
“Report,” she growled.
“Sir, enemy Void Marines deploying below us.”
“Below us?” she roared incredulously at Frienchan-Ullx.
“Yes, sir. About a thousand miles below. Emerging in close formation from a demarcation point that is itself moving very quickly.”
“Any movement along the Legion’s projected approach route?”
“Nothing, sir.”
Gulyeen-Hooh closed her eyes and sealed off her snout. The supreme commander had assured them of the time and route of the human assault, the last confirmation coming from planetside sector HQ less than an hour ago.
Every second she delayed strengthened the enemy surprise attack, but the need to embrace the supreme commander’s plan was literally wired into her genetic code and re-affirmed by constant conditioning. She first had to fight a mental battle before she could disobey.
If she turned the attention of the defense platforms away from the projected approach route, it would amount to a repudiation of Tawfiq’s plan. To do so would invite a humiliating and agonizing execution, even if Gulyeen-Hooh made the correct decision from a military point of view.
She took a deep breath and dug her claws into the arms of her command seat. She was a Janissary. A superior soldier. And soldiers sometimes had to make the ultimate sacrifice.
It was time for Commander Gulyeen-Hooh to make hers.
“All Marine companies, deploy for close defense. First and Fifth Claws, keep targeting the projected Legion approach path. All other forces turn and face this new threat. Come on, you maggots, turn those guns around or I’ll flay your hides and force you to explain to your supreme commander how easily you let the humans get the better of you.”
She felt the powerful throb of motors through the arms of her chair as the outer layers of the platform rotated, bringing the main armament to bear on this sneak attack.
They might be anti-ship guns, but if the humans were as densely packed as the initial reports were showing, they would make fine targets indeed.
— Chapter 26 —
Cork screwing, jinking, random walking, squit jiving – Arun had heard it called many names, but they all amounted to the same thing: moving like crazy so you get to shoot the other guy before he shoots you.
Arun was a Tac Marine, and that gave him an advantage, because his mind had expanded to become a gestalt intelligence comprised not only of himself and Barney, but also the more limited intelligences inside his carbine and his combat suit.
But this squit jiving wasn’t like flying his cozy X-Boat. His body was hardened against brutal acceleration, but his head still rang from the abrupt changes in vector, his gut lurched constantly, and his balls ached at the punishment inflicted on himself by flying his body around the battle zone.
He ‘saw’ the squad of Janissaries headed toward HQ Company – probably having detected the density of signal traffic and concluding it meant a high-value target. Strictly speaking, he couldn’t see the invisible Hardits so much as register anomalies in the radiation signature of a supposedly empty patch of space and interpreted the rest.
A quick word across LBNet to Springer, and a frantic dance through the void had led to this moment: an entire second in which he and Springer matched the average vector of the anomalous patch that might potentially be the enemy.
Arun let rip, releasing his SA-71 carbine in full automatic fire.
For a moment, he was a cadet again, winning shooting contests in the Scendence Championship; he was once more a young Marine, impressing a pretty purple-haired space-rat in the range aboard Beowulf. This was the very same SA-71. He’d carried it with him all these years, a more integral part of his body than the legs he had lost to Tawfiq’s torturers.
At this fire rate, the gun’s recoil dampener couldn’t completely soak up the enormous reaction forces, requiring his suit thrusters to push hard to counter the recoil and preserve a stable firing platform.
Arun knew he could aim full automatic fire for about three seconds before his aim would become wild, and about five seconds before the ammo bulb would be exhausted. But his combat instructors had taught him long ago that life expectancy for a Marine sticking to a predictable vector was only two seconds.
Arun allowed himself just a single second of fire – an age in void combat, but he had little respect for Janissaries as void fighters.
All o
f this data, this carefully calculated risk, he didn’t just know it at a deeply ingrained level through his training, he thought it through fully. In the void combat that both human and AI were designed for, the blurring between the two meant that Arun could think at speeds far in excess of anything biological evolution could produce. Perhaps these accelerated thought processes were an illusion, but that was the point of the intimate link between Marine and AI: it didn’t matter where one ended and the other began so long as he could outthink and outfight the enemy.
In slow motion, Arun watched the anomalous area explode into a debris cloud of shattered armor, fur, and Hardit blood. It was a beautiful sight, glittering in the glow of Earth light from the planet below.
“High-value that, you monkey-vecks,” yelled Springer.
Arun laughed. She was so in tune with him that her words could have been plucked straight from his head.
Long before the Hardit blood stopped exploding into the vacuum, Arun dodged away, but as he did so he found his suit was already reorienting on a bearing he hadn’t expected, the arms of his combat suit bringing his carbine to bear on an enemy he had not yet seen.
Arun knew what was happening and didn’t fight it. He pushed down on the thrill of terror and tried to keep calm. Barney and Arun were a composite intelligence, but Arun was in charge. If Barney was taking control, then there was a frakking good reason. Arun surrendered his mind as four flashing red dots appeared in his tac-grid display.
He had fatally underestimated the Hardits. Their tactical formation was more sophisticated than he’d assumed and now they had gotten the drop on him.
He had seen them far too late.
The monkeys opened fire.
There was no sound, of course, and the bullets seeking Arun were moving too fast for his eyes to see, but Barney could see them. He could even identify the munition type: hypersonic, armor-piercing kinetic slugs, specifically designed to pierce the ACE-2 series combat suit he was wearing.
