Anya was caught completely off-guard as Mina slammed my elbow into the bug’s face. The queen staggered back from pain and the force of the blow as, without breaking stride, Mina drove the first knife into the thing’s gut. With the ease that it split through Anya’s exoskeleton, I knew that Mina had splurged for the Class S Molly-Lolly Wire upgrade, edging each of her knives with a monomolecular edge.
With that same supreme grace, I spun again under Mina’s control, throwing a boot into the dagger and driving it into the bug’s body completely.
“This,” I began as Mina took the second dagger and used it to slice the bug’s throat. “Is what I call …”
She then drove the dagger down, digging it into Anya’s foot and trapping her where she stood. Bending my body backward, Mina dodged Anya’s Warhammer, a last-ditch effort by the queen to smash me into pudding. Snapping back to a vertical base, Mina gave the bug a hell of a headbutt with my decidedly larger cranium, stunning Anya but not driving her back, not with that tent peg in her foot. With a quick spin, the last knife was in my hands, ready to go for the kill. With my heart in my throat, Mina drove the last dagger into the center of Anya’s skull, piercing her brain and sending her to the ground.
“… a catfight,” I finished, huffing for breath as I looked down at the dying queen on the ground. “That’s what I call a catfight … is what I was saying.”
“Very funny,” Mina hissed through what had to be grit teeth. I could feel how much pains she was still in, how hurt she must have been.
“Mina, what the fuck is going on with you?” My heart was in my throat as I cut the bull. “How bad are you hurt?”
“I took a talon,” she lied. “It’s not a big deal.”
I was already turning around, concentrating on the linkages to figure out where the rest of Artemis Squad was. “It feels like a big deal, Mina.”
“It’s fine,” she shot back, steel in her voice. “We have bigger things to worry about. The fight spilled out into the fusion plant here, and the generators have been compromised. This entire place is going to blow. You have to get to Rayne. You have to get her to safety.”
As much as I wanted to countermand that order, I knew that Mina was right. “On it,” I said, leaving Anya on the floor to die like the animal she was and taking flight.
Rayne’s last known location fed into my brain through our symbiotic link and I was there within seconds, thrusters burning and shields at max, my Warhammer already back into my suit’s inventory. I arrived almost, but not quite, too late.
The doctor was curled up into a ball on the floor, huddling under the protective dome of the barrier shield. Though she was still protected for the moment, bugs surrounded her, chipping at the shield with claws and other assorted implements of destruction. It was just like when I found her, a thin wall protecting her from certain death. Well, a thin wall and Mark Ryder.
“Bring down the shield in exactly two seconds, Annabelle,” I said.
There was no time for her to give me her patented ‘Affirmative, Lieutenant Ryder.’
The shield went down, and Rayne yelped. Certainly, she thought she was going to die as the bugs poured in toward her. I had her though. I wasn’t leaving her behind, not after all we had been through.
I snatched her up into my arms as I flew by, scooping her up against my chest a blink before a bug was to rip her apart.
“Miss me?” I asked, looking down at her.
“You son of a bitch!” she yelled, slapping me hard on the shoulder. “I was scared to death.”
“Good,” I growled, probably a little harsher than I intended. “You should have been, but we’re okay. We’re going to get out of here.”
“How?” Rayne cried, barely audible over the whipping wind as we ascended. “Everyone thinks we’re dead, and the commissioner -”
A quick glance behind me and a mental check through our entire network of sensors let me know we were momentarily safe. “The commissioner, honey, has been ousted. Earth loyalists are fighting back, and Della is back at the reins. Unless I’m mistaken, she’s got a transport on the way for us.”
“Thirty seconds out actually,” Della clarified over the comms, a savior when I needed it.
“Thirty seconds,” I passed on to Rayne. Over my link with the others, I beamed, “That means we’ve got to move. You hear that?”
Before they could respond, Della added in, something I could feel was going over our whole network, “There’s a mountain three clicks to the east. The transport will meet you there, but there’s no time to waste. Reynolds is coordinating with Acburian ships to try and cut you off. The old man wants you all the way dead this time. With all that interference, if you’re not there when the ship comes into view, they’ll have to leave.”
“We’ll be there,” I answered. “Right, ladies?”
“Affirmative,” Jill and Claire responded in near unison, though I couldn’t help but notice I didn’t hear Mina’s voice.
I landed on the top of the mountain, letting go of Rayne.
“We can’t leave,” the scientist said, shaking her head. “The virus. I have to implant the virus.”
“I’m sorry,” I answered. “I’m afraid that’s not going to happen tonight.”
“Don’t tell me that,” Rayne sneered. “This is my life’s work! Do you understand that? It’s everything I’ve been working for. I won’t just leave it!”
“We’ll come back, Rayne, but for now, I’m afraid you’re going to have to do just that.”
“No, she won’t,” Mina’s voice finally came through in my head. Looking over, I saw Jill and Claire holding either of Mina’s shoulders as the trio landed next to us. Her face was white and gaunt, her suit covered with blood and not just that of the bugs she had butchered.
“She took it for me,” Jill cried, tears streaming down her face harder than I’d ever seen anyone cry. “The blow was coming for me. I wasn’t looking. I wasn’t looking, damn it, and she took it for me.”
“Oh God,” I muttered, rushing to catch Mina as she crumpled to the ground. “You’re okay,” I said, breathing heavy. “You’re going to be okay.”
Mina smiled up at me. “You’re sweet.” Her voice was weak, almost a whisper. “But we both know that isn’t true.”
My sadness was more than made up for with raw anger. After everything I did, every spent coin and dead bug, we were still going to lose a Marine. “The ship, it’s almost here. If you just hold on, we can – “
“Even if it was here, Mark, we both know I wouldn’t make it through transport.” She reached a weak hand up to me. “It’s okay. I’m okay with this.” She nodded. “So long as it means something.” She coughed, blood mixed with phlegm as she wiped at her chin. “Give me the virus. You need human DNA to inject it in. I’m here. I’m as good as dead anyway. Let that death mean something. Let me be the one who takes them down.”
“Mina,” I said softly, determined to give even my objections all the dignity a Marine, a lover like Mina John deserved at this moment.
“It’s a gift, Mark. It’s an honor, and I deserve that honor.” Her hand dropped to mine and squeezed. “You take care of my girls, Mark. You swear it to me. You swear it right this instant.”
I saw the lights of the Resistance bullet ship and knew we were out of time. There was no other choice. This had to happen.
“I swear it, Mina. I swear.” I leaned down and kissed her. “It’s been the honor of my life. You know that, don’t you?”
She smiled at me. “I had a feeling.”
I looked back at Rayne and nodded to her.
She rushed forward, a syringe materializing on a minute actuator arm from her tool-band. Jabbing it into Mina, Rayne injected her with the virus, with what we hoped would be the salvation of the world, of our world.
“Thank you,” Mina whispered, her eyes and bloody smile locked on me.
I stood, blinking down at Mina as the tractor beam took hold of me. “I wish it was me, Mina. I wish it were-�
��
And then she was gone.
35
“It’s bullshit,” Della said from beside me, her arm on my shoulder. It had been nearly two weeks since our awful trip to Turan, two weeks since I left Mina John there to die on an alien moon, two weeks since I came back to a shattered Alliance.
“It’s what I expected,” I muttered.
On the viewscreen, the coverage of a statue being erected in Mina’s honor rolled on. It was lifelike, larger than her, and when people walked by, it spoke the code of the Alliance. This statue would stand for all eternity, speaking words that never came from Mina’s mouth and urging more young men and women to march to their deaths against the bugs. It was something she never would have wanted, but there wasn’t a damn thing any of us could do about it.
Now more than ever, Earth needed its heroes.
“I’m sorry. I know she was important to you.”
I shook my head with a soft sigh. “She was important to everyone, but that’s the way it goes, I guess. She always knew this was how it would end for her. She knew she’d be a martyr.”
“I suppose we all did,” Della said, looking around at the blast-marred walls of her office. Two weeks and we were still scrambling to recover from all the damage Reynolds did on his way out. “We gave our lives to the Alliance, the best years of our youth, and our deaths will be put on propaganda posters. A story as old as war itself. Of course, this is all ultimately because of one man.”
“Because of him.” I pointed at the picture of Former Commissioner Reynolds, staring up at us from the open file on Della’s desk. ”He’s the cause of all of this, Della. We have to take him out.”
“And we will,” she agreed. “Both the Acburians and his faction of bug sympathizers are weak from their losses. We’ll get them.”
“Damn straight we will,” I growled. Anger pooled inside of me. I was aggravated to my core, sour in my soul. Every part of me wanted to suit up, commandeer a Bullet ship, and drive it right into Reynolds’ living room, wherever that currently was. But to do this right, I needed to pack my patience in spades. I couldn’t let my anger get the better of me. Mina deserved more than that, and she was going to get it.
“We’ll get him,” Dell said as if reading my mind, “especially if the virus works.”
Steeling myself, I took a deep breath before adding, “We can’t bet on that.” The thought of Mina dying the way Rayne described, in so much pain, was too much for me to bear. “We have to assume it failed.”
I didn’t believe it had. I had faith in Rayne Garmin, but at the same time, it was simply smarter to assume that your enemy wasn’t keeling over dead from an engineering disease. No matter how small Reynolds’s defecting faction looked on paper, he had taken a significant portion of material, armaments, and men from the war effort. He was stronger than anyone wanted to admit.
“Then we will,” Dell said, “until we have proof.”
“Until then,” I said, running hands through my hair and turning away from the transmission of the statue ceremony. “I need to take a nap or something.”
“Of course,” Della said, patting me on the back. “Take all the time you need.”
I didn’t go to take a nap straight away. I had other things to do, another person to check on. I wrapped on the door to Jill’s room lightly, wondering if this was even a good idea.
The thing was slightly ajar, and when I knocked, it pushed open further. I saw the purple haired girl sitting on the edge of her bed, looking at the live stream of the statue dedication with her head in her hands. Her hair was in a messy bun, and for the first time since I’d known her, the woman’s lips hadn’t been painted purple. She wasn’t okay, and I knew why.
“Mind if I come in?” I didn’t wait for an answer. It didn’t matter what she had to say about it. One look at Jill told me she didn’t need to be alone right now. Maybe none of us did. We had all lost so much, but Jill might have been the only one who thought those losses were on her.
“Do you think they’d have even shot a photon rifle in salute if it would have been me who died?” she asked. She didn’t bother to look over at me as the ceremony for a woman the talking heads described as ‘one of the greatest Infinity Marines this world has ever known’ continued in the background.
At least that was the truth, even if a lot of the propaganda they were spewing wasn’t.
The streets of Washington D.C., where the ceremony was taking place, was jammed to the gills with people, all paying their respects. Some of them had posters with kind words about Mina on them. Some girls were wearing her haircut. Some had even gone so far as to have drawn her beauty mark on their faces.
“I’m not sure that matters,” I answered honestly, not wanting to say that Jill hadn’t done enough to warrant a sendoff anywhere near as elaborate as this. “The point is that you’re alive.”
“Alive when I shouldn’t be,” Jill turned to me with tears in her eyes.
They were familiar tears, the same tears she’d cried when we left Mina to die on that planet, the same tears I hadn’t allowed to form in my eyes since we got back from the moon. Oh, I grieved, but everyone needed Mark Ryder, the legend, not Mark Ryder, the man. What tears I had for Mina’s death were private, a covenant between me and her memory.
“Who the hell are you to say that?” I sat on the bed next to her. “Are you God now, Jill? Do you get to say who lives and who dies?”
She scooted a little away from me on the bed. “Stop. This is my fault, and you know it. I wasn’t paying attention. All of it was so much. We were all so connected, so together. I couldn’t make sense of all the voices in my head, all the sensations. I let it overtake me. I let my guard down, and in that moment, I screwed up.” She shook her head. “Mina paid for it with her life.”
“It’s what she wanted,” I said with a firm nod.
“What?” Jill stared at me with wide eyes, wiping fresh tears from her cheeks. “You think Mina wanted to die? You think she did that on purpose?”
“No and yes, in that order,” I explained. “Mina was a smart woman, a tactical genius. She knew what a blow like that would do to her. She knew the chances of her survival after she took it, and she decided to take it anyway. No, I don’t think she wanted to die, but I think she weighed her options and she made the choice that she knew was the right one for her.”
Dropping her head, Jill stared at her knees, her head slowly shaking. “But that choice was because of me. If it weren’t for me, she would be alive today. She wouldn’t have had to choose between her life and mine.”
“And if Santa Claus were real, we’d all have brand new star yachts,” I shot back. “Life isn’t about what could be. It’s only about what is. If Mina, as smart as she was, thought your life was worth more than her own, she must have seen something in you. Maybe it’s something you don’t see yourself, and maybe that’s because you don’t look at yourself the way the rest of us do.” I nodded again. “But you should start, Jill. Because, the truth of the matter is, you might be the smartest person I’ve ever met in my life.”
“What?” She snorted. “Don’t be ridiculous. Even my big breakthrough mini sun didn’t save Mina’s life. I’m not smart.”
“You’re a goddamn Einstein, Jill. Your invention was amazing. The fact that it didn’t solve all our problems is a ridiculous thing to base its worth on. It killed that landshark and saved our asses, after all. You have to keep the faith.”
I stood, taking a deep breath. “You have something special inside of you, something that could very well save us all one day. You owe it to yourself to see that through. You owe it to Mina too. She gave her life so that you could live. Don’t make that a bad trade, Jill, because Mina sure didn’t think it was.”
“Okay,” she said, balling her hands into fists on her lap. “I’ll do what I have to do, whatever I have to do. Mina was my hero and not this golden idol they are worshipping right now. The real woman was the best person this or any world had ever known.” Jill
looked up at me, her face lighter somehow. “I’m going to make her proud, Mark. I’m going to make that woman proud.”
“I know you will.” I smiled at her, and I didn’t doubt her pledge for a second.
I made my way to my own room after that, intent on getting some sleep and putting this awful day behind me. Oh yeah, that was new too. I had my own room, my own bed that wasn’t a cot, and I didn’t sleep next to the machinery anymore. Needless to say, the last few weeks had been ridiculous. They had been different and strange. They had been busy and a whirl of change. That was, in a way, a blessing.
Reynolds had, to my surprise, been in league with a lot of the old guard of the Alliance command. While it left us in a rocky spot in more ways than one, there was a chance to create something better, an Alliance that gave two shits about its Marines, an Alliance that could actually honor the memory of Mina John. I was going to be key to that, at least in Della’s eyes, because I was the last hero left. The ultimate survivor in some eyes, but to most everyone else, I was the beacon of hope they looked to.
I might be called on to fight a different war now, a war for the hearts and hopes of humanity. Fortunately, I was damn good at wars. If I had to speak in front of every man, woman, and child on planet Earth to spur them to act, to get over the betrayal of our own leaders, I would. Now more than ever, we were going to win this damn war, if I had to put all of humanity on my shoulders and carry them across the finish line.
Knocking at my door pulled me from my bed a few minutes later. I wasn’t asleep. I was too worked up for that, too intense. Walking to the door, I pulled it open to find Rayne standing there, hair pulled back, looking at me from over black glasses.
“Can I come in?” she asked sheepishly. ”I wouldn’t ask, but I don’t know where else to go.”
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