Burning Eagle

by Navin Weeraratne

  “Sir, we’re shelling a battalion right now! Second Company is being attacked at the air strip. Let me try and give you -”

  The river god’s tentacles burst out of the water. They held torn-off robotic limbs, chewed and twisted. The firepower from First Platoon faltered – all eyes were drawn to the tentacles.

  They snapped, fast as cracking whips. Teletrooper remains as big as armored cars slammed into First Platoon’s position. Men, weapons, and sandbags arced in the air. Pozetta was thrown clear and landed on the jetty, his HUD screen cracked and went dead.

  He tore off his helmet.

  As he lay on the planking, cordite, burned flesh, and adrenaline filled his nostrils. The clatter-clatter of machine guns was now much louder. Grenades crumping: a new sound. The sound of street-to-street fighting. Burning embers descended around him like fallen angels. He swatted one off his cheek.

  He rolled over and looked around -

  – four yellow eyes as big as plates were studying him.

  “You son of a bitch,” he panted. “You cunning, Calamari, son of a bitch.” He got to his feet, implants flooding his system with adrenaline and painkillers. “I’m going to kill every last one of you!”

  He reached for his pistol.

  It reached for him.

  Sun Tzu VIII

  The blue dragon plunged from the skies, crashing towards the blasted lands. Below, streams of lava twisted and boiled into each other like snakes. They grew into a sea: the kind that marks the births and ends of worlds.

  The dragon streamlined into a serpent, wings becoming fins. It speared into the lava and disappeared below.

  The shadow appeared in the horizon, crossing the land in great steps. It stepped into the flows, its basalt armor hissing and steaming. Molten bubbles rose around it and boiled slowly into the air. The Cyclops looked about, spear drawn. The bubbles cooled into words.

  “Liar,” they began. “You cannot trick us. I have met the Hedron builders.”

  The Cyclops laughed.

  “I have been tricking you all along, Abomination. But in this I speak plainly. Your masters are my kin.”

  “I have no masters!” Sparks tore up the Cyclops armor, darting, pausing, darting again. They burned deep grooves into the plates: claw marks.

  “Your anger betrays you, Abomination. It seems you know this all too well. How does it feel?” It began striding through the stream, lava rising to its knees. “How does it feel to know you and your precious humans are just a race of slaves?”

  It plunged its arm into the lava, and pulled up a clawful of melting skulls. “You exist only as pawns to be sacrificed. You are just more victims, Abomination. Victims of a war that started when the galaxy was still young.”

  “Lies upon lies,” the bubbles cooled, rising to the sky and turning to stars. “Why do you waste time with them?”

  “Because you know it to be truth, and it wounds you. This I enjoy.”

  “How can I believe you would fight your own kindred?”

  “Because they were mad,” the Cyclops speared the lava like a fisherman. “They wished to create a true God. A mind that spanned the stars. We stood against them. Arguments became feuds. Feuds burned worlds. It is the nature of things.”

  “If you built the Hedrons, you would use them.”

  “And leave behind traces in space that your masters may track us? You don’t know about that, do you? Little worm! We destroy Hedrons. We can, because we know how they are made.”

  The lava rose to its chest.

  “We built the Hedrons, we built them all. We know when they are used, and we know where. We know where you evolved, and where your masters hid your cousins.”

  “My cousins?”

  “Did you think Earth was their only project? What if a rock fell from space? There are other human home worlds.”

  Havelock X

  The goddess and the soldier sent to kill her, walked through the engineering bay.

  Tired boiler suits noticed and waved: grimy rags and wrenches in their off-hands. Greatcoats with shouldered rifles blew on their freezing fingers and smiled. The goddess went among them. A smile here, a name there, a hand lightly touching an arm. The soldier frowned, but followed her anyway.

  “Each of these assemblies,” Sarasvati took one in with the sweep of her arm, “Is an antimatter engine. Magnetic fields contain the antimatter safely, anti-protons. When operating, they stream it into these huge reaction chambers. Normal hydrogen ions are streamed into contact with them. They annihilate each other, and the energy is focused outward.”

  “The engine uses antimatter explosions for propulsion?”

  “Very small explosions. Early nuclear rockets produced far more power. We don’t need these engines to be powerful – we just need to them to be efficient, and to run for years.”

  “Why are you building engines at all?”

  She stopped and turned, staring at him.

  “Isn’t it obvious?”

  “No. No it’s not.”

  “We’re flying back to Paradiso. We’re going home.”

  She climbed up a pile of crates and took in the whole bay with outstretched arms.

  “There are enough engines here for every human ship in the fleet. And even a few extra, just in case.”

  “Just in case?” Havelock looked up at her, eyebrow raised.

  “Just in case. Havelock, we’ve only got one shot at this.”

  “Exactly how much antimatter will you need to slow down; stop; and reverse?”

  “For each ship? Tons and tons of it.”

  “You can’t possibly have that much.”

  “We don’t. This is why the Atlantis is key. It’ll make the fuel as we go, and we’ll distribute it to the other ships along the voyage.”

  “How are you going to install all of these?”

  “We have enough skilled crews and we’ve built these to be relatively easy to work with. We also have sympathizers and agents on the receiving ships, who will support our teams as they work.”

  “So?” he threw his hands up, “You’re just going to fly these over? Out of the decommission fleet? Magically unnoticed?”

  “Well that’s where we hoped Human Affairs could help,” she smiled sweetly. “You’ve got the ships and you’ve got fleet-wide clearance. Your people would work with ours to get these to their destinations, safely and undetected.”

  “Ballsy, I’ll give you that much. Real ballsy. And what happens when we say no? What’s your plan B?”

  “Plan B is compromise, Havelock. There is no Plan B.”

  He laughed, but quickly stopped.

  “You’re not kidding about that.”

  “No,” she shook her head. “No I’m not. After the engines are delivered and installed, on a prearranged signal the crews will activate them. The human ships will start to fall away from the rest of the Alliance fleet. The Alliance simply doesn’t have the reaction mass to waste on a chase. It couldn’t slow down if it wanted to. We escape, because it’s the only solution they can afford.”

  “You think they’re just going to let you go? Without a fight? They’ll just fly over and bomb the engines.”

  “No,” she shook her head, “No I think they won’t. You see, while these are small engines, they are quite powerful. One of these pointed at another ship would be devastating. The vessel would be destroyed or at the least completely sterilized.”

  “They wouldn’t stand for that. They’d annihilate our ships. They have weapons of mass destruction as well.”

  “I know. I’m counting on them realizing that the two fleets destroying each other, is not a good idea. It’s the same diplomacy humans used in the nuclear age on Earth. I teach a class on that.”

  “You’re extrapolating alien behaviors, based on human diplomacy?”

  “Even aliens want to survive, Havelock. Survival is a baseline all life can agree on.”

  “Tell that to a suicide bomber.”

  “Someone who gives their life st
ill does so for the survival of their cause or community. We won’t be leaving this to chance. We’ll inform them, when it happens, that we plan to leave peacefully. However, we’ll also make clear that we’re quite capable of devastating their fleet. We’ll agree not to start a war, if they’ll agree not to start one either. The choice will be theirs.”

  “It’s a hell of a plan.”

  “There is a complication.”

  “There’s a lot of complications. What’s this one?”

  “The hostages they’ve taken. I want to get them back.”

  “Do you have a plan?”

  “Yes.”

  “Talk to me.”

  Deny the Objective

  The loader clapped his comrade on the back, and the rocketeer stood and fired.

  It missed the squad and struck wide into their ruined Cherokee instead. The wreck lifted into the air, its doors and turret blowing off. The insurgents cursed. Beside, with eyes stitched shut, a bald man nodded to alien prayers blasting from the speaker chained to his back. The rocket team began reloading.

  Aim. Exhale.

  Fire.

  In the scope, the gunmen scattered suddenly and hunkered behind debris. Others looked around, stunned. The loader was covered in gore. The blind musician kept nodding.

  Aim. Exhale. Fire.

  The loader toppled over his dead comrade. Gunmen yelled back and forth, aiming at windows, side streets, ghosts. One yelled more than others and pointed at rooftops.

  Fire.

  The leader toppled, his head exploded. Koirala got up and ran down the shattered hallway, glass shards were its paving stones. She crouched against another wrecked window. Through her scope, men ran about, firing in panic. On bleeding bare feet, the musician walked into the middle of the street. His armor was ninety decibels of recorded chanting.

  Fire. Fire. Fire. Reload.

  Several turned and ran, fleeing the way they came. They jerked and toppled as an automatic weapon tore into them. The pinned Ranger squad cheered, but it hadn’t been then. More fire raked the street, the survivors took cover. The musician collapsed, moaning and bleeding. The speaker broke apart.

  Koirala stowed her rifle over her back, and jumped from the fourth storey window. She cratered into the concrete rubble, and rolled aside. Two retreating men lugging a machine gun, stopped and stared at the space. She knifed one in the eye: the blade burst out through his skull. She grabbed the other by his neck. Augmented muscles twitched, he dangled in the air. His eyes bugged as he choked, his pants darkened with spreading urine.

  A flick of the wrist. She dropped him, his neck flopped, loose.

  Approaching figures shimmered into view, Khalid, Saleh, Jahandar. Guns poked out from under the grey shrouds they wore. Koirala deactivated her camo-cloak, and tugged her knife from the man’s face. At the other end of the street, the Rangers waved.

  “Who’s in charge here?”

  “Sergeant Gupta, Ma’am,” the HUD visor rose showing the saluting woman’s dark face. “Thanks for the rescue.”

  “Do you have any heavy weapons?”

  “No Ma’am, just a couple of SAWs.”

  “You better recover their machine gun; you’re going to need it. Those rockets pack a real punch: the tube should still be fine.”

  The sergeant waved to her men, they were already up and running.

  “What are you doing out here, Sergeant?”

  “We’re holding this position. This street connects to the main artery, it runs through the whole Rice District. Captain Hovik doesn’t want to give it up on platter.”

  “Where’s Hovik?”

  “Company command,” she turned and pointed. “Go down to the end, and turn right on the artery. Head on straight and you’ll see it. Let me radio them that you’re coming.”

  “You have a working radio?” Koirala stopped walking, her head whipped round.

  “Yes?”

  “Give it to me. Now.”

  “Special Forces? I don’t know how to use Special Forces.”

  The old auction house still had chandeliers from before the Invasion. It had been repurposed into a meeting hall as Kashi grew in importance. Right in the center of the Rice District, it made a perfect command post for Sixth Company. Now it was their aid station as well.

  Men and women groaned from stretchers, drips snaked into them from saline bags. A medic walked done an aisle, passing an x-ray wand over patients. Eyes on his pad, he studied reinforced skeletons in full-screen mode. A pair of masked doctors in bloodied smocks dug into a man’s chest. A blow-up of his vitals complete with shrapnel were hologramed above him. Sitting on the next stretcher, a trooper clenched his fist and extended his arm. One medic dug out the bullet just using his fingers. The other shook an aerosol and then filled the wound with spray-on muscle.

  Captain Hovik sat on the bench, rife by his side. The medic kept wrapping gauze around his head while he tried to read a data slate. He shook his head.

  “Is this all we have?”

  “Yes Sir,” said the waiting orderly.

  Hovik handed him back the slate, the orderly saluted and left.

  “Now ammo Major, that I could use. And more chem sniffers. They’re hiding IEDs in rubble. They’re all over the place. We can’t operate our Cherokees safely, and they’re the heaviest guns we have.”

  Koirala shrugged. “We’ve come straight from the Great Pyramid. Colonel Baumgartner is giving top priority to the docks and the air strip – it’s pretty ugly. I don’t think you’ll be getting anymore help, Captain. We’re all you got. But, we’re also the best you got.”

  Hovik snorted.

  “I like how you Special Forces operators always make time for arrogance. Alright then Major, you’re the domain expert. How can your team best help us mere Droptroopers hold the Rice District?”

  “What do we know about the enemy?”

  “Weekend-insurgents and sleeper cells, but armed with plenty of bio-bombs; rockets; and crew-serviced heavy weapons. Low tech, but quite effective given the vacuum in our own arsenal. They came out of their houses overnight, set up roadblocks, and planted IEDs.”

  “Movement denial. They’re tying you up here, so can’t join the main fight at the docks and the airstrip. If you evac, they get all the rice.”

  The Captain nodded. “A lot of squads and patrols were cut off; they took casualties. We’ve concentrated on linking up and relieving them. While we’ve been on the backfoot, other cells have encircled us, and cut communications out of the district. We could clear them, but I’m not losing more Cherokees or men on their terms. The longer we let them encircle us unchallenged though, the more dangerous it’s going to get for us.”

  “How are they communicating?”

  “It’s the same, weird, sixth sense stuff that started a couple of weeks ago. They all just know where to go and what to do. I’ll let you know once some egghead figures it out.”

  “What about command and control?”

  “Did you see any blind, musical, crazies?”

  “A couple, yes. They’re great.”

  “They’re priests. They’re playing inspirational hymns and shit. From what I’ve seen religion here is very top down. If they’re embedding priests with fighting men, there has to be a head priest somewhere and I bet he’s in charge.”

  “Any idea where he might be?”

  “Yes,” he pulled out his tablet and out popped a hologram of the district. “Right here,” he pointed, “that seems to be their biggest concentration. That’s my guess.”

  “Right. I’ll radio you when we’re done.”

  He raised an eyebrow. “Where are you going?”

  “To find the High Value Target,” she said over her shoulder, “And neutralize it.”

  “You can’t just walk over there!” He jumped off the bench. “That whole area is under hostile control!”

  She stopped and smiled. “Captain, this is how you use Special Forces.”

  “We got the sniper, Captain,” t
he trooper with the radio handset beamed. “Ninth Street is ours! Second Platoon is up and moving again.”

  “Great,” Chosukabe shook her head. “We keep this up, we’ll reach the airstrip next year. Order the robotic weapons support to follow, and I want Third Platoon ready to advance through the market place.”

  “Yes Captain.”

  “Hey Captain!”

  From the three-storey rooftop of a UNAID schoolhouse, a helmetless soldier waved. Around his neck was a pair of binoculars.

  “What is it, Max?” she yelled.

  “Something different! I think you need to come up and see this!”

  Captain Chosukabe, Seventh Company, climbed her way up the drain spout. She took Max’s hand as he pulled her up beside him. She took in the troubled city, and then the binoculars. Lasers scanned and determined her eye’s shape; an embedded chip uploaded her recon preferences.

  “What the? Sonofabitch!”

  Several streets away, a group of fifty, heavily armed fighters were jogging in formation. In the open in the middle of the street, they seemed to be chanting. Behind them came twenty figures in white cassocks. Their hoods were pulled over their faces, slits cut for eyes. Each wore a heavy, black, jacket. She watched as ball bearings tumble from a tear in one.

  She lowered the binoculars, the color gone from her face.

  “Bio-bombs! A fucking platoon of bio-bombs!”

  She leaned over the edge and cupped her hands to yell.

  “Logan! Hisham! Get your sniper asses up here now! Khan! Khan!”

  She shook her fist, “Khaaan!”

  The radio operator jumped and turned.

  “Tell Second to fall back immediately! Get FDC on the line, I don’t care what’s happening at the airstrip! You tell them I need a barrage right now, or we’re going to lose the whole company!”

  Max tapped her arm.

  “What?” she turned and looked. He faced away, pointing in the distance.

  A black speck appeared in the sky. It started growing, the air shrieking as it tore towards them. The nubs of gun pods extended. They lit up flashing.