Lover

by Valerie J. Long

  Except he was watching in the ultraviolet range—but why should one of them do such? Nevertheless, I made a mental note on that method, so that I wouldn’t fall victim to it one day.

  “Once the target is spotted this way, we need a lasting target marker. For that we’ll use the sticky nets, too. They can’t stop an armor suit, but they remain visible when stuck. This will be complemented by paintball markers with fluorescent paint. Thereafter our sharpshooters can take the patrols out.”

  “Won’t the marking give the suits too much time to react? And to raise alarm?” Alan objected.

  “This is to be expected. We will not be able to pull this mission through noiselessly. Once we’ve applied the second target markers, we’re playing with an open hand. That’s why the attack on the stationary guards must happen simultaneously. Again thanks to the excellent reconnaissance”—he nodded at me, while the Major kept a straight face—“we can deploy our teams past the patrols, so that we can synchronize our approach. Here we’ll apply markers, too, before the suits can activate their camouflage.”

  “This sounds risky,” Alan remarked.

  “It won’t be a walk in the park, and the timely coordination is critical here. Thereafter, it’s ordinary business. Of course, the distraction that Lieutenant Willard mentioned may only happen after our strike.”

  I had a question on the tip of my tongue, but I restrained myself—this was military business. However, Alan had recognized the same problem. “Ordinary business against fully equipped armor suits?”

  “Yes, of course. Infantry against tanks is ordinary business. It’s surely not easy to defeat an armor suit, but possible. That’s what we’ve acquired the plasma weapons for, and there are further means to reduce a suit’s effectiveness—blinding with a laser, for example.”

  “Okay. Go on.”

  “The rest is comparably easier. The assault into the building goes through the gates. We won’t need to consider the surveillance anymore. We’ll take out the Ironstorm machine gun turret that Johanna has spotted with grenades. Thereafter, we’ll try to salvage as many finished suits as possible. After taking out the active suits, we’ll quickly bring vehicles forward for the haul, and we’ll appropriately cover them.” Captain Stokes nodded at Alan. “The next question is—what kind of resistance do we have to expect for the transport, and how can we escape their observation?”

  “There we’re coming into play. We must use several tricks to deceive the police, which is mostly in the Cartel’s hands—most importantly, we can’t allow police helicopters. We’ll change the cars and the route several times. In the end, we’re successful if at least a part of the suits and preferably the production line can be salvaged.”

  “Fine. Then we’ll revisit the details with the individual teams now, and tomorrow we’ll strike.” The Major glanced around. His gaze only briefly rested on me. No, he didn’t like me.

  Chapter One-Hundred

  Twenty minutes before the mission started, he dropped the bomb. Just before, he had gathered the command team for the central strike—namely Alan, Fiona, the Captain, and a Gunnery Sergeant—for a last briefing at the curb.

  “The decisive factor for our success is unconditional discipline,” he lectured. “The chain of command must be absolutely clear. So, for the operation’s duration, I must insist on all civil persons submitting accordingly.”

  He focused on me with a not very friendly face.

  “Forget it,” I advised him. “I know my task and will fulfill it, but I’m not under your command.”

  “Jo,” Alan began, but the Major interrupted him.

  “At this point in time, I can no longer give you a choice in that.”

  Alan gaped.

  I didn’t know how to respond to this insolence, either. I only realized that our cooperation for this mission had ended before it truly had begun.

  I gave Alan and the Captain a quick apologetic glance, briefly met the Major’s gaze—then I made a big leap from standing into the trees and became invisible.

  “Hey!” the Major called after me and followed, but in vain. He could no longer find me. “Curse her!” he ranted, looked around once more, and trotted back. “Bitch.”

  “Congratulations,” Alan welcomed him back. “You’ve just driven our most important ally away. Your skills in leadership are remarkable.”

  “I’m the leader of this mission,” the Major insisted. “I can’t use such unreliable people anyway.”

  “I’ve chosen you as the leader for this mission,” Alan corrected him. “I’ve also voluntarily submitted under your lead, because my skills in leadership are not sufficient for military operations of this scale. I do not agree with the way you’re changing the collaboration parameters just before the start, and we will discuss that after mission completion. Sadly, it’s too late now to relieve you, so I expect no further botches of this kind happening, clear?”

  “What does that mean?” the Major snarled.

  “I will eventually tell you in private. For now, I’m expecting your signal to start.”

  A pity, I’d have liked to hear what Alan had to tell him. But it was probably right not discussing that in front of the Captain and the Gunnery Sergeant. It was bad enough that Alan had mentioned his relief. On the other hand, the faces of the two soldiers who had watched me in action still clearly showed their disagreement with the way the Major had treated me. The man surely was a good officer, but he simply couldn’t get along with an anarchist like me—that didn’t match his view of the world. Could you blame him for that?

  In a secret operation like this—yes. Here, more than military qualification was in demand, here it also was about mental flexibility, diplomatic appearance, about pragmatism. Our common bad luck was that we had to do with the people who were currently available and willing to stand up against the Cartel’s repression.

  As an expendable and unappreciated civil resource, I couldn’t put trust into such a man. Unluckily, the team now lacked the only person who could spot a camouflaged armor suit anytime. The plan was still good, perhaps still applicable without me, only the odds would have been much better with my help. This way, it was highly dangerous for the team who should take out the surveillance.

  This also affected Alan and Fiona. I couldn’t simply leave them alone. I had to follow them, just in case.

  Chapter One-Hundred-And-One

  Close to a summit, still out of sight for the guards in Palmdale, the vehicle column stopped. The individual teams left their cars and formed up. The troops checked each other’s camouflage paint, their equipment—nothing should flash and twinkle, clatter or groan—and applied last fixes.

  Their leads repeated the check but didn’t find anything.

  This rest came at a convenient time for me to catch my breath. Although I was used to running forty kilometers and more, and I was used to running faster than ordinary people, an average speed of fifty miles per hour was a true challenge. Several times, I had feared losing sight, but bends had each time allowed me to catch up.

  The bigger challenge was not to breathe too loudly after such a strain, but I mastered this task with little effort, too.

  From here, the easy part began. The individual teams had to move quietly and inconspicuously and thus were slow. To follow them as quietly and as inconspicuously was a walk in the park for me, even without my camouflage.

  From the car, I cheekily helped myself to a few of the cereal bars that would have been part of my gear before I left.

  I even found enough time for a quick dip into Lake Palmdale to significantly cool my outer skin down. Before the leading team approached the plant area, I already had checked the patrol routes—all according to plan—and caught up via the next building’s rooftops.

  If everything continued to go according to the plan, I could make myself comfortable here and quietly watch people shooting at each other. What a cursed world!

  No plan survives first contact with the enemy. Where did I have this quote from
? Ah yes, I had been interested in who my hometown Wiesbaden’s Moltkering had been named after. Sadly that man, even if already dead for one-hundred-and-fifty years, was proven right.

  I noticed the invisible suit almost too late myself—one of the four patrols must have cut his route short, as he quickly came down the road along the sides of which the lead team had taken cover. I smelled him before I heard or saw him. He must have accidentally met a skunk, who moreover hadn’t cared for his invisibility. How could that have happened? When stepping behind a bush for a personal need? It didn’t matter—he was here, unmarked, not detectable for the team, and approached their cover from the wrong direction.

  How attentive was he in his current situation?

  And most importantly—what could I do? As long as he didn’t notice anything, I shouldn’t do anything. Once he did, I had no time left. I had to plan now.

  It would almost have gone well. But he paused on his way, turned to one side, probably to have a closer look, and then leveled his lower arm to point at a cowering female shape. Fiona!

  On the construction hall, a siren began to wail.

  Chapter One-Hundred-And-Two

  He shouldn’t have raised the alarm first. If anything, it should have been a silent alarm. The siren also warned our team that our cover was busted.

  This didn’t help Fiona, because she didn’t know that her opponent was so close and aiming at her. Only I could help her.

  Without a firearm, I was left with close combat. Against a man in a fully equipped armor suit, with fusion-energy-driven actuators at his joints, this was an almost hopeless task. Wrestling was futile, and boxing and karate strikes couldn’t even tickle a suit.

  I had the moment of surprise on my side, when I jumped from the roof down into him, because I was invisible myself. And I commanded a weapon that even Frostdragon armor suits weren’t immune against—my claws.

  At the moment of impact, I severed his underarm cannons’ ammunition feed and thus deprived him of his most dangerous weapon. At the same time, my toe claws painfully pierced his calves, and he lost his balance.

  Ugh. Reduce sense of smell.

  His entire technical equipment couldn’t help him against this moment of puzzlement, when he tried to comprehend his situation. Impact, pain in the legs, but no enemy in sight? Yes, there are other invisible people, too, but for you, this realization comes too late! My finger claws cut his upper arms’ tendons.

  Only now he came up with the idea to roll around, to simply bury the unrecognized opponent under himself. His actuators didn’t need tendons to work, but only his will. The pain in his arms and legs impeded him severely, though. Moreover, I couldn’t be as easily nailed down as ordinary humans. Before his reinforced limbs could grab and squash me, I firmly pushed him away with my legs.

  I had no choice but shutting him down completely. Once the connections from his reactor to his suit were cut, he was left with just his own muscles and tendons. So his knees were my next targets.

  His camouflage would only last little longer, until the nanos in his suit shell had used up their reserves—and they were busy closing the cuts I had caused.

  Or was there another way?

  I poked his shell once again, this time armed with a nano manipulator. Deactivate, I commanded.

  His camouflage immediately faded.

  Crap, it’s so easy?

  Surprised calls from the roadside reminded me of not being alone now. Naturally, the team could now see the single guard, too. Before someone came up with the idea of shooting this way, I had better get away.

  Moreover, battle sounds came from the general direction of the plant. Painful cries of the injured mixed into the linear rifles’ and cannons’ silent buzzes and plops, the ugly splashes of steel bullets’ impacts on hard and soft targets, and the plasma rifles’ hisses.

  This battle could only end badly.

  How could I help? The marking of armor suits around the factory had to have highest priority. With the patrols, I could only hope that the respective teams found cover in time, in case they had no longer been able to apply their marking.

  So I had to get forward, first across the rooftops, always wary of not catching a stray bullet. What was the situation?

  The main gate guard was mostly invisible, lying in the gate pillar’s cover, but had caught a few paint spots and sticky threads. The assault team only had to assume a better shooting position to deliver an effective hit on the armor. At the right gate, the situation was comparable, and the guard was clearly visible.

  To the left, it looked worse. The unmarked suit was already on its way to take out the attackers one after another, and they had no chance to spot him. From the distance, I had to watch him simply execute two marines in quick succession.

  No time for subtleties.

  I jumped down from the roof and sprinted toward the problem zone at top speed. I simply had to hope for not catching a chance hit.

  The guard was just about to shoot the next trooper, when their team lead ordered a blind barrage. Several shots came close enough to the suit to make him turn away. Good idea, only this also cut off my own way.

  I stopped next to the team lead.

  “Give me your gun,” I whispered into Nick’s ear.

  “Jo?” He turned around and saw nothing. Nevertheless, he gave his weapon away when I pulled at it. “Holy Dragon blood!”

  Level—aim—shoot. The suit dropped, and his camouflage flickered where the plasma round had struck and went black. This sufficed for the team.

  Nick grabbed the weapon now floating in the air before him. “Thanks, Jo!” I heard, already on my way to the rear gate. I couldn’t care that Nick knew about my camouflage now. Should I have allowed his entire team to be wiped out?

  Chapter One-Hundred-And-Three

  The guard at the rear gate was in trouble, as the attackers’ plasma rounds came closer and closer to him in his shallow ditch. But he relied on the protection of his mostly functional suit and aimed at one after another plasma rifle shooter. This was those weapons’ disadvantage—their rounds showed brightly where they came from.

  While I was approaching, another trooper, who hadn’t found a new cover in time, died in the hail of steel bullets. Poor bastard!

  At the same time, his end marked my way—a direct assault on the armor suit under friendly fire was out of the question, so I needed a weapon. The dead soldier no longer needed his.

  The guard was too busy with the team’s survivors to watch for a rifle hovering in the air. Standing upright, I had a better shooting range than the other low-cowering attackers. My plasma bullet burned one defender’s arm away, so his fire fell mute.

  The situation at the two other gates might have improved or worsened, but the most pressing issues for me were the patrols. If these suits hadn’t caught an accidental marking, they could hit the teams’ backs anytime.

  My Analogy calculated for me at which point of their tour they’d have received the alarm and which way they could return fastest—and with their muscle amplifiers they could arrive any moment!

  Or was I too late already?

  Almost. Aside from all the animosities between us, the Major wasn’t dense. From the moment the alarm had wailed, he had had to count on trouble from this side. With the marking material he had been left with, he had improvised in his back and also deployed a cover there. This strained his tight staff resources even more, but it had just saved his ass.

  The second patrolling guard had just arrived, stepped into a paintball bullet and thus given himself away. I just saw the rear cover firing a volley into his general direction, saw the suit jump sideways, thereby catching multiple hits, and take cover behind a house corner.

  The trooper who had shot was already assuming a new cover. That was good, as the armor suit just stepped into the street again with intact camouflage and started to perforate bushes and walls of the spot from where he’d been attacked. Then he jumped across the next roof.

  Dragon
piss, yes, that suit could jump bloody far! And he could also run fast if he wanted—within seconds he could be at the team’s flank. That couldn’t happen! I ran on at top speed, rushed through a bush—fuck the camo—guessed several barrels training my way, searched for signs of the enemy. There, the fine flicker of the contours, where the suit’s nanos reached their limits for camouflaging, there, where two underarms were just searching their targets, about my direction. What would hit me first—my own people’s bullets or those of the Cartel guard?

  With the momentum I had, I tore the surprised defender around, bringing him between me and my people, poked my nano manipulator into his suit and commanded Off.

  Visible, effectively disarmed and without his joint amplifiers, I left him standing. I already heard my next victim approaching and dashed away.

  This one had decided to bet on his speed and simply break through by shooting blindly forward. Not really a bad idea, as it didn’t leave the team any time to aim.

  Subtlety wasn’t asked for now. First, I had to jump up once to dodge his volleys, then I spread my gliding membranes under the arms and steered into him. I hit, my toe claws found a foothold, my finger drilled into his suit. While his arms were beating at me in a reflex—Ouch!—I deactivated his gear, too.

  Why weren’t there any more sounds?

  Chapter One-Hundred-And-Four

  No, that wasn’t entirely correct. I heard a lot of noises—the whimpers and moans of the injured, quiet rustling and tapping of humans in motion, brief status reports from troopers near me, whispered into their neck microphones.

  Only the battle noises had fallen mute. The silence appeared treacherous to me, because first, one patrol was still missing, and second, I didn’t know anything about the results of the deception maneuver at the Air Base.