by Lucas Marcum
With a sour grunt, Naga commented, “Ok. Count them out. Is it spreading?”
Yamashita shook his head. “It doesn’t look like it, but that’s actually a bad thing.”
Raising an eyebrow at this, Elizabeth asked, “How is that a bad thing?”
Moving his finger to another place on the map to the west of the circled area, the chief responded, “Because this here is an air exchange station. It should be blowing scrubbed, reoxygenated air to the central part of the city. The fact that the fire isn’t spreading means it’s offline.”
Elizabeth leaned forward and asked, “So the air scrubber is down?”
Nodding, the chief replied, “The central one is for sure. The other two probably aren’t, or we’d be feeling it already. It’s designed for two of the three to fail under normal circumstances.” The chief’s finger tapped the circled red area and he said, “This is the problem. The fires are pumping so much shit into the air, the other two can’t keep up. With the fire department offline, they’re gonna have to burn out.” He paused, and then added, “But we can’t wait that long.”
Elizabeth replied, “Don’t the buildings have redundant life support?”
Chief Ikaika broke in and answered, “Some of them do, yes. But remember, this city is old, and was settled when the megacorps were shipping people out here by the tens of thousands for the mines. Cheaper to have municipal life support, with the individuals buying home life support systems if they could afford it.”
“Shit.” Elizabeth frowned and added, “So of course they didn’t because they couldn’t afford it.”
“Correct,” Ikaika replied. “We’d be fine down in the tunnels, as this place was built to UEA spec and has life support backups. We’d be hungry, but now that we have water, we’d last quite a while.” He gestured at the map and added somberly, “The people in the domes, though…”
Elizabeth tapped the table with her index finger and declared, “We’re not going to let that happen.” Turning to Naga, she asked, “Do we have any engineers?”
Pulling out her datapad, the slim naval officer tapped rapidly for a moment, then replied, “Two. One’s a hydrodynamic engineer, and the other is a transportation systems specialist.” She looked up and added, “If your idea is to send a team to get the plant back online, they aren’t the best, but it’s better than nothing.”
With a determined tone in her voice, Elizabeth declared, “That’s exactly what we’re going to do. We joined up to defend the Earth Alliance, and goddammit, that’s exactly what we’re going to do.” She turned to the senior enlisted and ordered, “Get those engineers and tell them what we need. They can take anything from this depot, and what personnel they need, to make it happen. Go.” Ikaika nodded and pulled out his phone to start getting the team assembled.
McCormick spoke up from the dim room, “Colonel, permission to lead the security detail.”
Elizabeth jerked her eyes up from the table to look at the lanky redheaded sergeant. The young man said quietly, “It’s getting nasty out there, ma’am. As brave as your sailors are, you need a soldier and an NCO to lead this.”
She regarded him for a moment, then sighed. “Permission granted. Live ammunition, as much as we can spare. Take four more enlisted as well.”
The young man came to attention, saluted, and said quietly, “Never die, ma’am.” He turned and disappeared into the darkness after Chief Ikaika.
Elizabeth wiped her mouth with the back of her hand and looked back down at the map again. From her left, she felt a strong hand on her shoulder. She looked and made contact with Naga’s intense brown eyes.
The woman said softly, “Stay focused. He’s doing his job, Elizabeth. You do yours.” She gestured at the map, and with one final squeeze of Elizabeth’s shoulder, stepped back to the table.
With a firm nod, Elizabeth looked at the map again, then back up at Yamashita and Major Carson, and asked, “Where are we with the forklift? We need to get those CHUs loaded.”
Yamashita replied, “The field reactors are the old Tokamaks. They take a while to warm up. Five, six hours maybe? Then we gotta get the others online, warmed up, and linked together to power the depot before the elevators will work.”
Considering this, Elizabeth responded, “So. Twelve to fourteen hours or so?”
“Assuming nothing goes wrong, yeah.” The chief shrugged. “Can’t really speed it up. They’re finicky pieces of shit.”
Suddenly Major Carson said, “Can we send a convoy of people to the hospital to assist? We don’t need everyone here. We’re tripping over each other. I’ve got the medical officers tucked in the tunnels just to keep them out of the way.”
With a frown, Captain Naga replied, “The hospital’s at capacity, and the fires and riots are close. They might not even be able to operate out of there for much longer.”
With a frown, the army officer responded, “I don’t think …”
A sailor poked his head in the door of the improvised command post and said, “Colonel, the team is ready to leave for the scrubber plant.”
Elizabeth nodded and moved briskly out the door. In front of the gate, she could see the ten soldiers and sailors gathered. She walked up to the group and, seeing Sergeant McCormick, said, “Sergeant, I’d like to talk to them real fast.”
McCormick turned and said, “Pipe down, people. Valkyrie Six wants to talk to you.”
Pausing slightly at the callsign, Elizabeth shook her head, looking at the ragtag group of sailors, soldiers, and the two engineer officers.
After a moment, she said, “I know this is a tough job. I don’t know what’s wrong with the plant, or what you’ll need to fix it. All I know is there are fifty thousand people out there depending on us. Do your best, use your heads, and be careful. Good luck.” She looked at McCormick and said, “They’re all yours, Sergeant.”
McCormick turned to his ragtag group and said, “Ok. You heard the Colonel. Let’s move. Two by two, three meters between groups, keep your eyes open, and call out trouble.” The group began to move out of the massive steel mesh gate, with the Spaceborne sergeant bringing up the rear.
As they moved out the gate, Delgado reached out a closed fist to McCormick and said, “Fuck ‘em up, Spaceborne.”
McCormick tapped his own fist against Delgado’s and replied, “You know how we do, Sergeant. Never die!”
“Goddamn right.” The man disappeared into the dim light of the street, and Delgado motioned to the sailors on guard to close the gate.
Watching the group leave, Elizabeth turned and went back into the operations center. Captain Naga and Major Carson were still discussing something in quiet tones but stopped upon seeing Elizabeth enter.
After a moment, the naval officer said, “Major Carson has an…unorthodox proposal.”
Elizabeth laughed tiredly. “What about this shitshow isn’t unorthodox? Let’s hear it.”
The plain-faced woman smiled slightly and responded, “That’s true.” She looked at Naga again, and then said, “We don’t need to send people to the hospital. We have the hospital here.”
Cocking her head, Elizabeth frowned, raised an eyebrow, and gestured for the woman to continue.
The woman continued, “We can set up the hospital units here. We have room inside the walls in the motor pool, and we have power coming online with the tactical generators.” She gestured at the map and added, “Most of the rioting seems like it’s further north, but even if it makes it down here, we have the depot walls.” She looked up from the map and added, “It’s not perfect, but it gets the people the help they need sooner than we could by taking the CHUs to them, plus it keeps the hospital containers secure, and our people safe.”
With another rare smile, she added, “Isn’t that what they teach us? Tactical flexibility in the field?”
Thinking it over for a moment, Elizabeth asked, “How fast can we get them up and start taking patients?”
Carson replied, “Since we have all the people, and the sup
plies are inside, we can probably begin tailgate medicine immediately. The Triage Emergency Unit can be up in four hours, and the rest…” She shrugged. “Depending on getting the power on and the containers deployed…twenty-four hours, maybe a bit more.”
Nodding, Elizabeth ordered, “Ok. Let’s do it.” Turning back to Captain Naga, she asked, “Since we have no communications with the hospital, can you get up there, link up with whoever’s in charge, and start coordinating? Take the trucks, and you can bring a load of patients back.” She paused and added, “I’d send an Army officer, but I don’t have anyone else. Major Carson is going to be needed here to get the hospital set up.”
With a tight smile, the naval officer responded, “Colonel, I commanded a starship. How hard can a convoy be?”
Elizabeth grinned back and replied, “Wiseass. Get moving.”
Suddenly from outside they heard shouting and a series of popping noises, followed by the familiar throaty bark of the M44 assault rifles returning fire.
Elizabeth moved to the window and looked toward the gate just in time to see one of the figures on the improvised platforms struck in the face with something and fall backward off the platform, clutching his face. The other figure turned to see his comrade had fallen off the ledge, then turned back and ducked another projectile. The sailor then popped up and fired several aimed shots into the darkness.
Turning to Naga, Elizabeth said, “Get up there. See if they can spare some cops. We’re gonna be in trouble if they make a serious push on this place. These Mars Firsters are no joke.”
Naga nodded and pointed at a nearby staff sergeant, who was working on getting a tactical display unit functional, and said in a commanding tone, “You. Do you have convoy training?”
The sergeant shook his head and replied, “I’m a biomedical maintenance NCO. I haven’t done that since I was junior enlisted.”
With a tight smile, the naval officer replied, “That’s more than I have. You’re with me. Let’s go.”
The man set down his tools and dusted off his hands. “Yes, ma’am. Guess no time like the present for a refresher. Give me thirty minutes to get drivers and prep the trucks.”
Yamashita, who had been on the phone in the corner, turned and reported, “Scouts are back from the west. Looters, not many cops. More of the same, basically. Those shots we heard were the red masks chasing them in and then testing the guys on the gate.”
Elizabeth nodded and replied, “Tell the gate guards to be damn careful. We can’t shoot civilians, but they can respond with lethal force if they’re threatened.”
Yamashita nodded, picked up his phone, and said, “Main gate, this is the operations center.”
****
At the main gate, Sergeant Michael Gagarin picked up the phone. “Gate, Sergeant Gagarin.”
The rumble of Chief Yamashita’s voice came through the handset. “Sergeant, Valkyrie Six says to hold the gate. Don’t shoot any civvies, but you’re authorized to use lethal force if you have to.”
Gagarin looked over the wall at the body lying in the street with a pool of gently burning flames flickering and dancing around the dropped Molotov cocktail and shook his head. He keyed the radio. “Roger that, Chief.” He paused, then replied, “I only got one magazine left. We’d better get more, or I’m gonna have to hold the next group off by throwing rocks at the fuckers.”
Yamashita replied, “We’re working on it. Do what you have to.”
The phone went dead, and Gagarin set it down. He shook his head again and checked his watch. It was nearly nine at night, and the only difference was it was even darker. There was only the occasional wail of sirens in the distance, and the occasional popping of gunshots, which seemed to be growing louder and closer every time he heard them.
He said quietly, “Fuck this shit.”
Below him, Delgado replied, “Amen to that.” He fell silent, then chuckled. “At least our leave is extended.”
Gagarin laughed and replied, “I guess there’s that…Wait.” He froze, suddenly staring into the darkness. “Did you hear that?”
Delgado was on his feet now, peering through the mesh gate. “Yeah, I did…” The noise came again now, a rhythmic, crashing thump that was rapidly growing louder. The two sailors on the gate with them trained their empty rifles into the darkness. One of them said, “Sergeant…”
Delgado snapped, “Shut up. Mikey, call it in.” Gagarin nodded and picked up the phone. As he dialed, there was a final crash, and then the street in front of them lit up with a blaze of brilliant white light. Shielding his eyes against the glare, the sergeant could see that the lights were about thirty meters down the street, seemed to be five or six meters in the air, and coming from a massive, shadowy shape. Behind the looming bulk were other shapes, all illuminated the same way. Several seconds of silence later, there appeared a slight figure with the light behind him. He moved very slowly and held his arms out to his sides as he approached. After a minute of agonizingly slow walking, the man came into view, now no longer obscured by the brilliant light behind him. He paused and called out, “Ahoy the depot!”
Delgado looked up at Gagarin, who just muttered without moving his eyes or rifle barrel off the man, “Ahoy? Who the fuck does this guy think he is?”
Shaking his head, the NCO replied, “Who the fuck knows.” He raised his voice and called out through the mesh, “This is an active UEA facility. Step forward slowly and identify yourself.”
The man took several more steps forward and became clearly visible. He was dressed in plain, dark green uniform fatigues, and the silver arms of a mechanical exoskeleton were visible, supporting his limbs and back.
The man carefully kept his arms spread and called in a clear, accented voice, “I’m Commander Piotr Mierzejewski, commanding officer of the 151st Naval Construction Battalion. We’re here to offer our assistance.”
Gagarin looked down at Delgado and said, “Well?”
Delgado replied, “How the fuck should I know?” He raised his voice again, “You got any ID?”
The man grinned, turned, and pointed, “How’s this for ID?” He turned and gestured behind him. The lights blinding them from the street shut off, revealing the massive shape of a Naval construction mech. It stood fifteen meters tall and was bristling with equipment and various attachments.
Turning back to the gate, he indicated the body on the ground and remarked drily, “It looks like you need all the help you can get.”
Delgado shook his head and gestured at a nearby sailor. “Get Chief Yamashita, now.”
****
Thirty minutes later Elizabeth exited the improvised command post, stepped into the motor pool, and stopped dead in her tracks. The massive motor pool was abuzz with activity, with the containerized hospital being set up, and personnel everywhere busily engaged in the hundreds of tasks it took to get the field hospitals deployed. In the middle of it all stood four massive construction mechs. As she watched, one of the mechs, carefully guided by someone on the ground, picked up an entire hospital container and set it down in a better location.
“Colonel,” Chief Yamashita’s voice attracted her attention, “this is Commander Mier...Meirze…” He paused, and then added, “I can’t really pronounce it. I’ll let him introduce himself.”
The cheerful man stepped forward and offered a hand. “Call me Commander M, Colonel. I don’t take it personally. We were on the train on our way to the Cimmeria Highlands for some training when we heard the ‘take shelter’ warnings. When we came up from the subway, the trains were out of service, and the power was out. We then sort of mucked about for a bit, until we heard your broadcast and decided to pop over and lend a hand.”
Shaking the man’s hand, Elizabeth replied, “Genuinely glad you did, Commander. We can use all the help we can get.” She tilted her head at him and asked, “Australia?”
The man grinned and replied, “Poland, by way of New Zealand.” He laughed and added, “Most people ask about the exoskeleton before th
e accent!”
Elizabeth laughed and replied, “My mother taught me it was rude to ask personal questions like that.”
The man shook his head and replied, “Not rude at all. It’s what makes us CyBees, instead of regular Seabees.” He tapped the silvery exo brace on his arm and said, “I had the Martian variant of demyelinating central encephalitis as a kid. Left me with flaccid paralysis until I was twenty, despite neuronal regeneration therapy. The exoskeleton helps me get around, and this,” he tapped the implant barely visible behind his left ear, “controls that part of my body.” He gestured at the mech sitting some distance away, the cockpit sitting open and empty. The big mech raised a massive arm with an excavator bucket on it and waved.
The man laughed and continued, “We were a trial unit that worked out well, so we’re the first CyBee battalion of twelve currently active.” He gestured at the other mechs. “That tiny little thing in M-Twelve over there is Maraliza. She was in a shuttle accident when she was eleven and lost her limbs. She has some sort of rare genetic thing that makes her unable to accept grafts or synthetic limbs.” He pointed at another mech looking over the gate, playing its powerful lights menacingly up and down the street. “That’s Eduardo. Spinal cord injury on Desolation, and he couldn’t get evac’d fast enough to repair it before it was permanent, so he was paralyzed. Turned out he also has some sort of rare genetic thing that prevents neuronal regeneration therapy.” Turning slightly, he pointed again. “That one over there,” indicating the last mech, which was standing next to the elevator while a team of sailors ran a power cable from the mech to the elevator, “that’s Rocky. She’s a normie. She had augs as part of an experimental mech unit that was shut down a few years back. She enjoyed it and didn’t want to get them removed, so went to basic heavy construction school, and ended up here.” The massive elevator hummed to life as the mech fed power into the system, its internal power cells acting as a generator.
Elizabeth nodded. “Very impressive!” She watched for a moment, then turned and said in a low, matter-of-fact tone, “Listen, Commander. We’re in trouble here.”
