by Nick Cole
What would become of the Little Girl now?
“Orion.” It was the Monarch on our private channel. I passed Scooch fireman-carrying Duffy, two Dog soldiers, as I ran forward toward the wounded crawler. “You absolutely need to make sure I get the contents of Box 88. Otherwise, all this was for nothing.”
“Goin’ the wrong way, Sergeant Orion!” said Duffy, who seemed to have been shot in both legs. I ignored and kept moving, passing more wounded evac-carrying teams. Cradling the shotgun as I ran.
Overhead Cook’s dropship was coming in to stabilize the line of battle to the rear of our advance onto the airfield, hovering and taking fire, both gunners dumping all they had to keep the Ultras back for just a few more minutes. A missile streaked up from across the starport, and Chief Cook popped flares. Smoking star clusters rocketed out from the aft fuselage of the drop as the rocket lost tracking and ran off into the sky, detonating just above the battlefield seconds later.
Ahead, I saw the First Sergeant on this side of the crawler, pistol out, moving low and getting the carry teams staggered for evac under fire away from the wounded crawler.
One machine-gun team went black on ammo. Commotion there as the Ultras pushed hard. The other team over-cycled their weapon despite needing a barrel change, the gunner just picking it up and shifting his cone of fire almost onto the first team as he cut down more Ultras when they tried to surge. Rounds smacked tarmac and exploded across the Ultra attack wedge. Some were down. Some were continuing to move forward under fire and engage. Both sides were just throwing everything they had at each other now. Someone in the black-on-ammo team lobbed a grenade out there. It erupted, blowing debris and bodies across the tarmac. Still the Ultra Marines continued to close through withering fire.
Chief Cook swiveled the drop above as Hoser drew a bead on that force and unloaded. Someone had popped smoke to cover the retreat but the drop was blowing it everywhere.
Twenty meters to go and I sprinted hard, rounds whistling through the air past my head. I saw Chungo on top of the crawler, working a robomortar and dropping rounds everywhere as fast as he could heave them into the tube.
One round went up, divided into eight and hung there, then ignited burst rockets and showered the line forward of our position with shrapnel.
I didn’t know how much that would do against Ultra armor, but every bit helps.
“First Sergeant…” I’m gasping for air as I come up on him and hunker down next to the crawler.
Chief Cook was in my ear. “Sitrep. We got inbound monkeys coming from the tube station and within the city. Streakers moving in among the Ultras. This looks bad, kids.”
“Copy that, Voodoo Two,” said the First Sergeant.
I could see that the First Sergeant had been hit in the chest armor. It was fractured through the rig. No blood. His teeth were bloody though, as he smiled at me and said, “Bad day, Sergeant Orion. But hey, that’s why they pay us the big bucks, eh?”
There weren’t many wounded left. But there were dead we’d be leaving behind. I counted the faces I recognized.
“First Sergeant, where’s the package?”
“Sergeant Hannibal’s got it, son. Pinned down with Team Three that way. His comm went bad. He took a frag in the bank and I think that did it. We’re gonna lose him out there if I don’t do somethin’.”
He knife-handed toward our nine o’clock. I could see another Dog team out there fighting from a small maintenance hub they’d turned into a bunker. I irised in and saw my worst enemy directing fire there. Keeping us from being overwhelmed and overrun to the rear. There were only three of them out there.
“First Sergeant, you need to pull back to Hauser. I’ll go get them.”
He looked at me with a look of pure hatred. I’d committed the mortal sin of indicating I was better suited to do what needed to be done. That I was young and a warrior. And that he was just an old man.
“Sorry, First Sergeant. Company needs you more.”
He hissed and swore.
“Nah, they don’t, Sergeant Orion. I need ’em more’n they need me. But you’re right, son. I’ll get Chungo to drop IR smoke all over that area and you go pull ’em back. Dodgeistan no longer seems all that interesting.”
Then he turned and bellowed to both machine-gun teams and the remaining riflemen. Ignoring the dead, for these problems were no longer theirs.
“We are leaving, Strange! Pull back by twos now and get a hustle on. This show’s about to be over.”
Chungo dropped smoke rounds that would make it easier for me, and harder for enemy targeting. Thirty seconds later I raced out through the fog to get Hannibal and his team back to our lines.
And to get the package.
The package that would ruin all our plans if she was right. A package I hadn’t told anyone about. If she was right it would save the galaxy. And Strange would be broke.
I reached Amarcus Hannibal, sliding into the bunker. Hannibal looked like a bloody mess. His Frankenstein patchwork face was even more ruined by viscous blood. He was crouched down and holding his shorty, pointing where he wanted fire. As I assessed the fight from his perspective it was clear he was keeping the Ultras back and off the company. Without this team we would have been flanked and murdered easily. All his men were hit.
He was a great soldier. A lousy human being.
“First Sergeant says pull back, Amarcus. We got cover from the smoke rounds and the drop is on orbit clearing the way. Time to move.”
Hannibal looked at me, clearly surprised to see me here. Some light going on in his eyes about the reality of the situation. He nodded to his men, made them grab the heavy gun, and then the four of us were running back to the wounded crawler. Chungo had leapt down off the top, ahead of us, and now the chubby indirect specialist was waddle-running for all he was worth to reach Hauser at the cover behind the ore hauler.
I let myself believe for a second that we were almost out of this.
Overhead Chief Cook’s hijacked drop came in hard, both guns rattling lead in every direction. Another rocket streaked up, bounced off the hull, and exploded. The ship went sideways as one engine went offline. Chief Cook fought the spin and had it under control a second later, its engine bellowing like a wounded prehistoric beast.
“We’re hit,” he grunted over the channel. “Gotta pull out now or we won’t make it to the rendezvous. Sorry, Strange!”
I heard the captain over the comm.
“Cleared to depart, Voodoo Three. We have the transport under control. Loading finals and waiting on stragglers. Liftoff in the next five.”
Amarcus sent the two men toward Hauser. Then he dashed into the wreck of the crawler.
“Orion!” he shouted, like he’d just remembered a secret. “We got the high-bit mem in a clamshell from the bank. This stuff is worth millions. Help me.”
And now, later, I realize he was smart to stack his shorty near the entrance to the burning crawler before going in to get the high-bit mem that would make the company rich if the Monarch didn’t use her doomsday delete-all-the-currency weapon. Signaling to me he was unarmed. Deceiving me.
I ran after him. I would tell him the mem was worthless. Once the Seeker, she, the Monarch, got that package he had, she was going to do something that would make everything, all that mem, meaningless. All across the galaxy.
If you believe that, Amarcus.
If you believe. That.
Do you believe it, Sergeant Orion?
Believe things can be different? Believe in freedom.
But it was too late. I was just inside the crawler when he jumped me. Smashing me in the back of the head with something heavy. I never saw what. I broke out into a cold sweat as I stumbled forward knowing with cold-water clarity Amarcus had chosen this moment for his revenge. To murder me. That I was about to die after coming through all this. To be free of me so he c
ould take over the company someday. Make it something petty and small. A band of thugs terrorizing his own perfect little fiefdom on the edge somewhere. An homage unto his own brutal self.
Which is why I’d always known I’d need to kill him fast when the time came.
Someday.
If just to save the company.
If just to save even myself.
I let go of the shotgun because I couldn’t get it around and on him in those tight smoky quarters of the burning crawler. He was coming after me now with whatever he was going to crush my skull with a second later.
I pivoted, index finger going into my karambit’s ring as natural as the thousand or more times I’d done it. Practicing for this moment. Knowing it was coming all along.
I got my feet under me.
If that hadn’t happened nothing would’ve in what came next. I dragged the pop-knife, felt the blade lock open. Wrapped my hand around the hilt and threw a savage swipe at his throat. Low and away from the carotid arteries as I then dragged it up across one of them.
He was dead then.
Maybe he knew it. But he kept coming, slamming into me and bleeding more than he already had been. I gave two steps as my right knife-holding hand drew back over my left shoulder. Then jackhammered into his xiphoid process just beneath his plate carrier.
To save me.
To save the company.
Twice was enough. The third time I hit plate and broke the blade because my hands were shaking so bad and the funnel was consuming my vision. Like I was gonna have a heart attack. Everything was going dark. Real dark.
He was on his knees, grabbing his upper stomach and trying to breathe as I tried to realize what I’d done. I knew where he’d keep the package. Inside his carrier. I reached around the webbing, found a memory device, and pulled it out. It said something about Project Zephyr Recover. And some numbers. I stumbled over him, picking up the shotgun and leaving the vehicle. Stumbling across the airfield, through the smoke and gunfire.
I saw the Wild Thing one last time. In the smoke and the mist. Going from Ultra to Ultra like some angel of death, standing over them and passing by as he shot the ones still left alive. I paused to watch him, even though there was the sound of other gunfire coming from all around. Elements not us were still fighting. And he turned, standing over a dead Ultra, and stared back at me. The faceplate of his future armor was a dark mirrored lake and distantly I thought I saw a face in there. I shivered like something had just walked over my grave.
Then he turned and walked off into the mist, disappearing into what remained of the battle once more.
The ghosts came next. Apes like wraiths were racing through the smoke that smelled of cordite and chemicals, tackling the Ultras and dragging them down as more racing monkeys and apes swarmed the field all around. I didn’t care in that moment. Knowing I was kind of invisible to them. Hoping I was, really. Too tired to care anymore as I stumbled forward. Satisfied with accepting a lie that let me keep picking my feet up and putting them down to get a little closer to salvation.
I missed Hauser, but he found me in the smoke.
“Sergeant Amarcus?” he asked. His computers needed to reconcile the numbers.
I just stared at him as we trotted for the looming armored security transport ship somewhere ahead. I felt hollow. Empty.
And like the galaxy was going to be a better place now.
“I understand, Orion,” he said.
The monkeys came now. Like fast missiles. I drew a bead and fired. Clearing our left flank. I could see the ghost image of our rescue dropship ahead. Landing lights on. Engines spinning up. The Monarch in the cockpit. Hauser fired on the right. We weren’t gonna make it. The monkeys were everywhere now.
Ahead of us was a downed Ultra. Struggling on the ground. Wounded. The apes would take him.
I stopped.
“Help me, Hauser.”
We picked him up and carried him to our ship.
Why?
Because he was a human too. Just like us.
And the galaxy was different now.
The game had changed.
Humanity was becoming rare. Best to hold on to what we had.
Chapter Fifty-One
I made the flight deck. We were climbing through high atmosphere by then. Gears up, engines to full. We’d departed the starport battle turning into a slaughter of apes. The world below growing calm and peaceful as the details of its ruin lost all meaning up here among the clouds. Alarms ringing.
“Interceptors coming in!” someone shouted from the nav station.
I pushed forward toward the pilot’s station.
Handed her the memory device from Box 88.
She was flying the ship for the rendezvous with the Spider. We still had a few minutes to intercept. High above I could see some of the larger Monarch starships coming down through the atmo to cut us off.
She watched me. The Monarch. The Seeker who ruined the galaxy by making meaning meaningless. By bringing back truth. By making us believe if even just in ourselves.
She turned to the comm panel, inserted the memory device, and tapped in the docking signals array for the Spider. I watched her fingers moving across the number pad display, entering some secure login for something called Motherlode.
She turned to me.
“That’s the bank ship. Motherlode. They’re currently receiving all uploaded mem for transfer.”
I nodded. The algorithm she’d recovered from the ship would transmit in the packet. Then it would infect the upload. And in time, ruin the galaxy. And destroy the Monarchs.
If just to give humanity a chance against a new enemy.
Ahead I could see the Spider screaming through upper atmosphere ready to make the intercept. She’s a big beautiful ancient destroyer from when ships were made to stand up to fleet combat at broadsides. We got her for a song because she was derelict. Fighters were swarming but her point defenses were old-school good. Avengers were going down in smoke and flames at ten thousand feet.
She was from back in the days of the big carrier battles. Escalon. Darru Reef. Suntokur.
“This changes everything,” she whispered to me without words. Or whispered words in my head now. “No more safety net, Orion. No more Monarchs. But that doesn’t mean anything if no one believes.”
“I know,” I said. “I know that now.”
The sky was big and beautiful. We’d make the hard dock. Flee for the other side of the world. And then boost for deep space. They’d never find us in the interstellar dark. Not for twenty-five years. Things would be different then. I had a feeling, much different.
I believe.
Life. Liberty. The pursuit of happiness. Old words. Old words that never should have died, been taken away, or been traded for the lie of a sure thing. Human words that embodied humanity. Despite everything the Monarchs had done to us. If this was the way back… then I was cool with that now. I guess.
I nodded and walked off the flight deck. I had to find out who was left alive. Who’d made it.
“Who was he?” Preacher asked when I found the Kid’s body on the cargo deck just after departure off the hot LZ. We were nearing the Spider now.
“Just a kid,” I mumbled and closed his eyes. Watching that beautiful face. All that wasted youth. He would always be that way now. Whenever I thought about him, and I think about all of them, he would always be this young and not some old ruined merc getting older and more ruined. Always.
“Who was he, Orion?” Preacher asked a second time. Knowing. Demanding the answer I was supposed to give. The Strange Company answer.
Stinkeye came to stand over the boy and drink from his flask. He said nothing and then turned away, muttering, “Damn shame. Damn, damn, damn shame.”
But I couldn’t because I was choking. Couldn’t say the words that needed to be
said. I knew if I said another word, then…
Being a bastard about the truth. That was Preacher, who only showed up when they were dead. Our dead. We. Us. Always the truth when no one else cared to listen anymore. No one cared about the truth, I wanted to scream. The Monarchs got rid of that or we gave it all up a long time ago.
We don’t believe in it anymore.
“Who was he, Sergeant Orion?”
“Just some kid!” I shouted at our company holy man. Beginning to sob because I didn’t care anymore. “Just a boy. A boy who loved a girl who didn’t love him anymore so he became a soldier because he thought… hell, he thought he might make a difference like all the young who don’t know nothing about it. Like that might mean something to someone who doesn’t care anymore.”
In the distance the guns of the Spider could be heard echoing titanically through the atmosphere. Thundering out against those who would try to stop the company from reaching another world as we departed atmo. They didn’t stop. And neither did death.
“Who was he, Sergeant Orion?” asked our holy man, gently. And I could hear how tired and old he really was. As old as the galaxy. As old as war itself.
I hated Preacher. Hated the universe and hated the whole damn mess we’d become.
But Preacher was right.
And I hated him for it all the same. Because this is what we do when we die. When one of ours goes down on some foreign world in a fight no one’s ever gonna remember.
“I just looked over and some bullet had caught him near the landing gear,” Punch had said, beginning to cry. And then gone away, slamming his hand into a bulkhead because that was all he could do. Grieving. The Kid had held his position when it got close. Too close. We needed him there. And he did what needed to be done. Died next to a landing gear on a bad LZ so the company could go on and fight other wars for the Monarchs on other worlds.
Or maybe that would change now. Who knew.
“Who remembers him, Sergeant?” whispered Preacher in the red-lit cargo deck of a hijacked ship. Docking connectors coming online as we approached our salvation, the Spider.
