by Terry Mixon
The view showed her she had another problem. Her artificial eye wasn’t working. The only vision she had was through her natural eye.
She needed to get out of her armor and figure out why her implants and hardware weren’t working. She closed her eyes and tried everything that she could to access her implants. No dice.
Was there any way to force them to reset? That wasn’t something she’d ever needed to know. Her implants were always on. They’d never turned themselves off before. She hadn’t even suspected they could be turned off.
After having a lot of conversations with Ralph Holstead on board the destroyer, she knew that almost every piece of equipment had some type of reset. One could never count out having some type of critical error freeze everything in place.
There’d be something that would allow her to restart her implants. At least that’s what she hoped. As much as she loathed the things, she absolutely needed them right now. Their enemies were all over them, and if she couldn’t get herself back in motion, a lot of people were going to die.
While she kept thinking about that, she managed to roll herself over. Having her helmet off made that a little easier because she could see what she was doing. It took a supreme effort of will and force to get herself onto her stomach, but she managed.
Once she was there, she brought her hands to her torso and found the covers that went over the manual releases. Like the helmet, they weren’t easy to manipulate, but she managed to remember what needed to be done.
With a loud click, all the latches that held the various pieces of her armor together disengaged. They were mechanical and so allowed the torso to split apart in the back where she’d normally get inside.
Arching her back, she forced the panels apart and extracted herself from her dead armor. Finally, she sat on the ground, covered in sweat, and looking at the armor beside her.
What the hell happened? What had that flash been?
Probably some type of electromagnetic pulse or something. Whatever it had been, it had obviously been designed to work against Imperial technology that was hardened to stop that kind of thing.
Julia spent another ten minutes attempting to manipulate her implants and Raider augmentation but was unable to get anything to work. There had to be a way, but she didn’t know what it was.
Out of options, she rose to her feet and stared out over the plain where she’d been looking earlier. Before the blast, she’d been tracking a number of horses and riders. They were all gone now. However long she’d been out, it had been enough for them to leave.
If everyone in the party had had their implants affected this badly, it was a disaster. It meant that the horde had won. There was no way that Captain Beauchamp’s people could have held them all off.
And considering how bloodthirsty they’d seemed, her heart was filled with dread at what she’d find when she got back to the column.
Clumsy and lacking the strength that she’d subconsciously begun relying on, Julia made her way down the hill and onto the plain. It was going to take her at least half an hour to get back to Boske.
She wasn’t even wearing her marine fatigues or boots. Those were still in her saddlebags. She’d put them there when she’d gotten into the armor. All she was wearing was a skinsuit.
Her feet were going to be torn to pieces walking on the rough ground if she hurried at all. It might take her two hours to get back to the column, and that would certainly be too late to help, unless she could find her horse.
She prayed that everyone was still alive, but deep down she knew that was unlikely. She dreaded what she was going to find when she got there.
Resolute in spite of what she knew was coming, Julia began walking back toward where she’d last seen Boske. If the marines were still alive, maybe the group of them could still make a difference. Somehow.
22
Talbot woke groggy and disoriented. He immediately realized that he was riding, but the last thing he remembered doing was fighting. He blinked dazedly down at his hands, which had failed to move when he’d tried to raise them to his face. Someone had bound them tightly to the saddle horn.
His feet were similarly secured to the stirrups, when meant that any attempt to dismount would end with him being dragged by the horse. As he wasn’t a skilled rider, he’d be an idiot to even try to get his feet free before his hands.
It would be child’s play to use his Raider augmentation to break the rope securing his wrists, but he looked around to see what their situation was first.
A relatively small group of prisoners were being moved on horseback. There were dozens of enemy warriors around them, a number with bows out and arrows already nocked. Any precipitous action on his part would result in immediate bloodshed.
It felt like he couldn’t completely wake up, and he shook his head trying to clear it. That’s when he noticed that his implants weren’t responding to his mental calls. They were offline.
His blood ran cold. He’d never heard of anything like that before.
Surreptitiously, he tried to flex his augmented muscles and found that his enhanced strength was also gone. He didn’t know if that was because his implants were offline or if there was some kind of damage to the augmentation itself. He wasn’t precisely certain what happened.
The last thing he remembered was being thrown into the air by the explosion of an antiarmor warhead right at his feet. His armor must’ve saved him, but it was nowhere to be seen now. Someone had stripped it off, and he was only dressed in his skinsuit, not even having any shoes on his feet.
Giving up on the idea of an immediate escape, he focused on what he could see. He needed to know what the situation was so that he could create a plan of action.
His captors seemed content to allow him to look around, so long as he didn’t make any move they didn’t care for. Talbot craned his head around and finally got an accurate count of just how many of their people were with him.
There were thirteen horses being led in the center of a group of about four or five times as many armed and armored enemies. None of the prisoners wore armor—either Imperial or local. All of them were stripped down to their uniforms, if they had them, or their skinsuits if they’d been in powered armor.
Talbot was relieved to see that his wife was at the front of the group. She was unconscious, but she was bound upright in the saddle just like the rest of them.
He knew it wasn’t Julia, because he’d taken the precaution of memorizing their hairstyles. They were almost identical in appearance, but not indistinguishable, if one paid close attention to the details.
He also could see Admiral Mertz and Commodore Meyer directly behind his wife. A quick check ahead of him revealed Commodore Stone, Commander Cannon—the assistant tactical officer from Athena—and Chloe Laird.
A glance behind him showed Captain Beauchamp, Elise Orison, Olivia West, Austin Darrah, Ralph Holstead, and Carl Owlet. Only Beauchamp was semiconscious. From the blood and bruising on her face, she’d been brutally beaten.
Thirteen prisoners out of just over a hundred marines, Fleet personnel, and civilians. Whatever had happened, they’d lost the fight. The horde wouldn’t have all of the senior people if that weren’t the case. It worried him that none of the marines under his command and none of the regular Fleet personnel were present.
Were they being kept in separate caravans to prevent an uprising? He wished he knew for sure, but without his implants, he couldn’t see anyone’s status, contact the drone network, or even assess his own condition.
The next person to start moving was Admiral Mertz. His head came up abruptly and he also had weapons aimed in his direction, but since he wasn’t enhanced, he wasn’t going to try to break his bonds.
The other man blinked owlishly around himself before he turned in the saddle and his eyes locked on Talbot. They were separated by a couple of horses, and Talbot wasn’t certain that their captors would be pleased with them talking to one another.
He wished he could o
pen a com channel with the admiral and tell him to stay where he was, because they were in exceptionally dangerous circumstances right now.
The admiral was bolder than he, because he used his heels to urge his mount to slow. Their captors watched him but didn’t interfere. Perhaps they thought that the display of weaponry was enough.
After all, wasn’t it? They’d won the fight. No one here was in a position to resist them. If the prisoners made any kind of move, they’d be slaughtered. Without reins, they couldn’t even really control the horses they were bound to. Not that they had the skills to do so, in most cases.
Admiral Mertz finally made it up beside him. “What’s going on? My implants aren’t responding.”
Talbot shrugged slightly. “I was unconscious when whatever it was happened, so I’m not really sure.”
“It must’ve been that big weapon they fired up into the sky,” the admiral said quietly. “I think it was some kind of EMP device. Maybe one tailored to operate against Imperial equipment.
“My implants are offline. Maybe burned out. The last thing I remember was that weapon going off. It must’ve knocked everyone with implants out. We’re in deep trouble.”
“I’d say that’s something of an understatement,” Talbot said with a grunt. “Do we have any idea where everyone else is? I find it peculiar that the people here are mostly what I’d call our senior staff. There are a couple that are a little lower in the hierarchy, like Commander Cannon or Chloe Laird, and the science types, but everyone else is what I’d say is a major player. How did they get all of us gathered in one place? Hell, how did they get me out of my armor?”
The admiral shrugged. “I don’t know, but I think we’re about to find out.”
He gestured with his chin toward where Captain Beauchamp was edging in their direction. It looked as if she were awake enough to talk. She looked like hell. Whatever she had to say, it wasn’t going to be good.
Making her way across the grasslands barefoot and half blind wasn’t anything close to easy, but Julia managed to get back to where she left the marines. It took her a while to circle around the fire that her plasma shots had started. What she found when she got there was devastating.
Whatever had taken her down had also taken out the ready response team. Each of them lay where they’d fallen. Or at least where their armor had fallen.
Someone had removed their helmets and then slit their throats.
Julia went from person to person until she found Corporal Boske. The woman lay on her back, her eyes closed and her expression peaceful. She’d probably never even felt the cold kiss of death, which Julia supposed was a blessing.
She stumbled a few feet away and threw up as she sobbed. She’d known these people. She’d fought beside them. Now they were gone.
Julia wiped the tears from her face, found a canteen to wash out her mouth, and gathered what weapons she could find. The final tally was half a dozen marine knives, flechette rifles made for the armor, a couple of flechette pistols, and a couple of stunners.
None of the advanced weapons worked. They were just as dead as the plasma rifle that she’d left on the hill. That flash had to have been some kind of extremely powerful electromagnetic pulse.
That left her with the marine knives. Very old school, but they didn’t require any power source at all, other than her muscles. Not her strongest asset, but they’d have to do.
There were a couple of ration bars and a pair of maintenance slippers that someone had kept in one of the suits of armor. They weren’t very tough, but they’d slip over her bare feet and give her some protection as she made her way back to the column.
Julia took a small bag from another set of armor and stuffed the food that she’d recovered inside with the knives in their sheaths. Her skinsuit had no place to strap on a knife, so she carried the final one in her hand, still sheathed because she wasn’t an idiot.
She’d use it if push came to shove, but without her augmentation, any kind of confrontation was going to be heavily one-sided against her. Her very best option was not to be noticed at all.
With a final look at her dead comrades, Julia set out toward the column.
It took hours to get back into the general area where the column had been. She found it because a little bit of smoke smudged the clear sky in that direction. The smoke from the fire she’d started was a pall off to the side. Someone was burning something ahead of her.
Or maybe cooking something. If so, they were charring it badly because the smell of burnt meat was overpowering.
Julia moved as carefully and cautiously as she could. Where possible, she used grass where others had gone before her. It was helpful that she’d found the area that the invaders had come through because the grass there made less noise as she passed. She had no ability to do any kind of stealth, so every noise she made sent her heart bounding into her throat.
She arrived at what was obviously some type of hastily dug concealment pit with mats of grass that had been thrown aside to allow ambushers to attack the column. She didn’t know how the ambushers had known where the column was going to be, but they’d done damned well at placing them. The column was only about fifty meters away.
Rather, what was left of it.
Dead bodies lay everywhere. Based on the few people she saw moving through the carnage, the horde had won. It looked as if they’d killed everyone.
Taking slow, deep breaths to calm herself, she ducked into one of the pits and started counting the enemies that she could see, trying to figure out what they were doing.
There were seven people searching for things to load onto pack horses. All the horses that had come with the column were either gone or being held ready to leave. The people she was observing were perhaps making a final pass to gather anything that they considered worthwhile.
One of the men, a tall, powerfully built fellow with his dark hair drawn back into a ponytail, shouted at the others to mount up and get moving. They obeyed his orders quickly, finding their mounts and climbing aboard. They quickly tethered the cargo animals to them and moved out.
That just left the one man who waited patiently for them to leave. She wondered what he was doing. Why hadn’t he left with his friends?
The answer came when he seemed satisfied that they were gone and he moved over to a different area, bent down, and uncovered something.
When he rose, Julia recognized what she was looking at. Those were Kelsey’s swords. The ones made of the same material as the marine knives. The ones that could cut through just about anything. It looked as if the man intended to claim them for himself and didn’t want any of the others to know that he’d done so.
He had a horse nearby and started heading toward it. Julia knew that if she wanted to get a ride out of this place and not be completely unarmed, she needed those swords and that horse.
She dropped the bag with her food and spare knives, rose quietly to her feet, and moved forward as quickly as she could, hoping that he wouldn’t hear her coming. She unsheathed the marine knife she’d kept and made the best speed she could toward his back.
Sadly, she wasn’t good enough.
When Julia was about ten meters away, he whirled in place and spotted her. Before she could rush him, he dropped Kelsey’s swords, bent his knees, and grabbed a spear off the ground.
“Well, well, well,” he said with a grin as he hefted the probably more familiar weapon. “It seems we have one final survivor. You’re pretty. Perhaps I’ll save killing you until I’ve had some fun.”
With that, he stepped toward her, his weapon held ready to attack or defend. It gave him a lot more reach than she had. He could stab her or use the blunt end to beat her.
This wasn’t looking good at all.
23
All it took was one look at Clarice Beauchamp’s face for Jared to know that their situation was grim. She sagged in the saddle, her face badly bruised and swollen. Her hands and legs were tied like his own. If they hadn’t been, she might’ve f
allen off her horse.
“Tell me,” he said quietly.
“We fought as well as we could, but there were too many of them,” she said, her voice slurred. “We couldn’t stop them. Once they deployed whatever that weapon was, all of your people collapsed. It was just my warriors against many times our number when the enemy finally coalesced around us. I tried to get riders free to go for help, but the horde killed them all.
“The raid leaders questioned my surviving people and myself closely, since we were the only ones awake. They asked who the most important of your people were. I had no choice but to tell them. I enhanced the roles of a few of your people to save more of them. It was all I could do.”
Jared felt his throat constrict. “What happened to the rest?”
“Dead,” Beauchamp said softly, her head falling forward. “They killed them all, your unconscious people and my own survivors both. We few are all that is left.”
The news was like a kick to his groin. He was responsible for those people, and he’d led them to their deaths.
“What about Julia?” he asked when he could finally make himself speak again. “Or the marines that went with her.”
The local shrugged. “I don’t know. None of them were brought back, so I assume that whoever they were fighting killed them where they fell. I saw some of the people take your sister and her husband out of their armor, so they knew how to remove it. Nothing would’ve stopped them from getting to the people that went hunting them.”
“I don’t see Commander Roche,” Jared said. “Didn’t you give them his name as well?”
She shook her head. “He was killed in the fighting. I saw him go down with two arrows to the chest.”
In a way, Jared hoped that Julia was dead. He knew that if she wasn’t, the death of her friend would break her.
“What happens now?” Talbot asked. “Where are they taking us? What are they going to do to us?”
Again, Beauchamp shrugged. “Nothing good. They’re taking us to their capital city. It sits on the outskirts of one of the ruined megacities. They’re going to torture us, put us on trial, and then execute us.
