Victory on Terra

by Terry Mixon

  He was about to turn away when he spotted another sword stashed behind the others. It wasn’t a pair in shoulder harnesses but a single blade. Carl carefully picked up the scabbard and drew it.

  The blade was made of the same hull metal as Kelsey’s, so it would hold its monomolecular edge forever. Unlike her shorter blades, this one was long and had a gentle, elegant curve. It was very similar to the type of weapon that Clarice Beauchamp favored.

  He immediately vowed to see that she got the weapon should they gain access to the cache. It was the least they could do for the woman who’d helped them survive this terrible planet.

  Everything else in the room was crated supplies and weapons: handheld plasma grenades, regular explosives, and a wide variety of equipment that might prove useful in a guerrilla war. There were also selections of clothing and unpowered armor that would be useful as well.

  Whoever had stocked the cache had done an extremely thorough job. With everything here, the Raiders could’ve continued fighting for a long time.

  He wondered what had happened to them. Obviously, they hadn’t taken their powered armor. It had probably been some type of scouting mission, and they’d been ambushed. Even Marine Raiders could be killed if one was willing to spill enough of their own blood to do it.

  Having completed his circuit of the room, Carl returned to where Jebediah stood near the door.

  “I think a fair bit of this could be useful,” the scientist said. “The question is, what will you allow us to use?”

  The large man smiled like a shark. “I’m quite certain that we can come to an agreement. You probably won’t like the terms for some of the more potent items, but my father will be willing to deal.

  “I can tell you now that the most significant thing on his mind—other than throwing the horde out of our city—is getting the fusion plant returned. That may be beyond the scope of what you’d been prepared to offer, but we each have something the other wants. You are perhaps in a better position to negotiate with the thieves, and we have all this equipment that might be critical to the ultimate success of your mission.

  “You want it all. I can see that in your eyes. If your admiral is willing to negotiate, you can have it. My father is no fool. He knows that if there’s a chance to destroy the artificial intelligences that wrecked the Empire, he must assist in whatever way he can, yet he has to serve our people as well.

  “A balance must be struck. My guess? Convince the thieves to return the fusion plant and shielding, restore it to operation, and provide assistance in keeping it running, and you may have everything in this cache.”

  Carl nodded. “Then let me see if I can negotiate a down payment. If I were to manipulate the life-support system and power that’s coming from the maglev system so that it was easy to get people down to those lower levels without having to breathe with air bottles, that would allow you to retrieve everything that was stored there.

  “Right now, that’s within my power. Everything I need to make that happen is in this room. You just have to give me access to it.”

  Jebediah nodded at once. “That sounds fair to me, but my father will need to agree. Having seen the vast amount of scavenged equipment already boxed below, I feel quite certain that he will approve of this interim agreement. Come. Let’s go find out if I’m right.”

  Kelsey and Talbot made their way down into the tunnels again. Once there, they set off toward the enemy camp. The key was going to be getting close enough to be seen without being immediately engaged. It was going to be a delicate balancing act of enraging the enemy while not being killed by the rage they’d provoked.

  Once they reached an area where she felt comfortable going back up for a good look, they crept up the stairs and peered out from the first floor of the new building. Off in the distance, she could see the edge of the camp and the sentries posted there.

  She focused her ocular implants on the sentries and looked them over carefully. They were armed with swords and bows. Kelsey saw no signs of rockets or other advanced weaponry. Specialized groups deeper in the camp might have had them, though.

  They might even have one of those EMP weapons, which would be a disaster, but she really doubted it. Those would only be useful against things like powered armor, from the enemy’s point of view. They also had to be damned difficult to make. They wouldn’t just waste them. They’d save them for some type of last-ditch defense against a large force that had high-technology weapons. Not against a dozen people.

  At least that was what she told herself.

  Talbot hunched down next to her, looking around the corner of the building. “How do you want to play this?”

  “I think we should just step out into the open. They’re going to see us right away and send someone to deal with us. That’ll give us a chance to get them really riled up before we dodge back out of sight.

  “It may take several attempts to draw them out completely. I’ve never done anything like this before, so I’m not really sure.”

  “Well, what’s the worst that could go wrong?” he asked with a wry smile.

  They stepped out of the building together, walked to the center of the open area, and turned toward the sentries. At this point, they were about two hundred meters away from the warriors.

  The men on guard saw them and shouted for them to halt.

  Kelsey laughed as loudly as she could for her audience. “You expect me to stand here and turn myself in after I blew up your leaders?” she shouted. “You’ve obviously lost your minds. And now that you’ve invaded this city, I’ve killed even more of you. You’re powerless to stop me. You can’t even catch me.”

  That started several of the men jogging in their direction.

  She made a motion to Talbot, and they ducked around the corner of the building and back down into the tunnels again. By the time the guards arrived, she and Talbot were long gone. Their new hideout was in another building a short distance away.

  With the maze of tunnels under the megacity, it was going to be hard for the horde to figure out where they’d gone. That would remain true unless the enemy flooded the tunnels, looking for them.

  Once they looked back at the enemy camp, she saw that the sentries had returned to their post. It looked like they were arguing. There was a lot of gesticulating and finger pointing.

  She allowed them time to summon some officers to deal with the situation. The higher the rage went into their command structure, the better.

  They waited about half an hour for the enemy to settle down before she and Talbot confronted the camp from a different direction. This time, the warriors tried to race after them at once, and more people moved into place to back them up.

  That was a heartening response. This might work after all. She was pissing them off, and they wanted to make her shut up. They wanted to kill her.

  Time to make the pot boil over.

  She and Talbot retreated to the building that they’d used as an observation post, grabbed the dozen rockets they’d brought with them, and moved to the next area she’d designated to confront the horde camp. This time, they didn’t say anything at all after they’d revealed themselves.

  Kelsey fired her rocket while Talbot did the same. The paired explosions blew up a lot of people and set the rest of the crowd that had gathered scattering in different directions.

  It turned out one of the people in the crowd had a rocket of his own. He fired it back toward her and her husband. Sadly for him, it must’ve been difficult to aim because it missed by a wide margin.

  Or perhaps it was just of a lower quality than the ones they were using, or he was a terrible shot. With the speed of the weapons, they could hardly have evaded if his aim had been good, but they could certainly make sure he didn’t fire any more at them. Talbot fired a rocket that blew the bastard up, along with some of his closest friends.

  The two of them raised their aim and began sending rockets into the main camp. The long arcs dropped the warheads into the larger concentrations
of people gathered around the tents that the horde warriors had brought with them.

  By the time they’d expended their supply of rockets, there was a general movement in the camp toward their position and a lot of shouting. Almost a roar, really.

  Yup, they’d seriously pissed them off.

  “Let’s go,” she said, turning to jog away from the disrupted camp.

  Retreating from the area was a tricky proposition. They wanted to keep the enemy in sight to troll them but not let them get close enough to where they’d be a threat.

  Unfortunately for them, the enemy had other plans.

  To her dismay, Kelsey found out that the scouts the city had sent to observe the camp had failed to see about half a dozen horses. Worse, the concealed horsemen had circled around behind Talbot and her and were now blocking their escape.

  Now she had to choose between facing the mob behind her and the mounted warriors ahead. That choice wasn’t even particularly difficult.

  She used the submachine gun she’d brought along to open fire at the horsemen as she charged forward. Several of the riders and their horses went down, but even more of them began pouring into the area ahead. The count was now up to a dozen.

  Obviously, the scouts had missed significantly more horses than she’d imagined possible—or, more likely, the horsemen had arrived between the time the scouts had reported, and Kelsey and Talbot had taken up their position near the camp.

  Arrows from the pursuers began falling around them, zipping past like angry bees. Kelsey turned on her heel and emptied her weapon at the warriors behind them, trying to make them pull back.

  They ignored her fire and rushed forward, ignoring their own casualties. From the number of people that she could see, she might just have succeeded in emptying the camp. That was good if they could get to the ambush site. Not so good if they died right here.

  “We’re not going to be able to stop them,” Talbot said as he switched magazines and continued firing at the horsemen. “What’s the plan?”

  “We go forward,” she said. “Take one of my swords, and when the time is right, just start cutting a hole right through them.”

  They’d brought a lot of ammunition, but it took a surprisingly short time to empty the last of the magazines. When that happened, they let their guns fall onto their straps, and she drew her swords, handing one to Talbot.

  Using their Marine Raider augmentation, they charged into the surviving horsemen, slashing and using their stronger muscles to leap farther than the enemy expected. To add to the chaos, the bowmen behind them didn’t even slow their rate of fire, killing and wounding their comrades and horses with wild abandon as they tried to take her and Talbot down.

  All she and her husband needed to do was get to the far side of the horsemen and haul ass. If any of the mounted warriors survived, she hoped the chaos would delay their pursuit.

  That hope proved to be beyond reach, as the surviving horsemen turned to pursue them as soon as they broke through. Kelsey turned and charged them again, drawing her pistol and firing it with one hand as she prepared to use her sword with the other.

  Talbot turned with her, covering her with his pistol. Those were meant to be last-ditch weapons, but she supposed it was all or nothing now.

  Then the inevitable happened. An arrow struck Kelsey in the upper thigh. She grunted in pain and continued firing. Seconds later, the last of the horsemen was down.

  The wound was deep and bleeding fast. Her medical nanites would handle that, and her pharmacology unit dumped painkillers into her system to allow her to keep moving. The wound wouldn’t stop her, but it would slow her.

  Under these circumstances, that would be deadly.

  “I’m not going to be able to run with this,” she said. “I have to get into the tunnels, and you’re going to have to lead them on to the ambush. I’m sorry.”

  “Bull. Keep covering me.”

  With that, he tossed her over his shoulder and ran, dodging to try and avoid being peppered with arrows. She used her pistol to engage the enemy, but with all the bouncing around, her aim was crap. Luckily, with that many targets, a miss was difficult to achieve.

  In a way, the situation was almost funny. Maybe she’d laugh about it someday.

  If she survived.

  22

  “Holy crap,” Julia muttered under her breath as she stared at all the equipment stashed around the room, her eyes wide. “You’ve hit the freaking jackhole, Carl!”

  “Jackpot,” he corrected absently as he moved a small crate and started searching another.

  “Whatever. Neither one of those words means anything to me.”

  He turned to stare at her. “Kelsey routinely cleans everyone’s clocks at cards and has more than passing familiarity with other forms of gambling. How can you not know what jackpot means?”

  She frowned back at him. “Damned if I know. Where could she have learned all that stuff? You know? Never mind. Let’s focus on what we have here.”

  The two of them were inside the room containing the Marine Raider cache, with only a single guard at the door. Not because they were under watch to make sure that they didn’t escape but because their hosts wanted to make sure that nothing walked off from the stash without being properly accounted for.

  They’d made a preliminary agreement to allow Carl the use of some of the gear to aid him in turning the life-support system in the lowest levels back on. The items that they were taking now were simply on loan to make that happen.

  “None of it’s powered,” Carl said. “It’s just been sitting here for five hundred years. Even the most cursory understanding of Imperial tech would tell someone that there’s not any juice left.

  “That said, if we can get some of this down to the maglev station, it won’t be a problem to plug it in and start charging it. The magazines for the flechette pistols, for example, are virtually indestructible. In all the testing that I did with the magazines that we recovered from the battlecruiser Courageous, only a couple of them failed to charge. The Old Empire really knew how to build their stuff. We’ve probably got enough ammunition here for a small war, and if we can find half a dozen magazines that fail, I’ll eat them.”

  “So, what do you want to do first?” she asked, smiling at his joke. “It seems like getting the life-support system down below up and running would be a big help. I know there’s still a lot of air bottles scattered around the lower levels of the city, but we’ve been lucky thus far. Any of them could fail without warning because they were never designed for this kind of neglect. We need to start being more conservative. We’re overdue for an accident.”

  The young scientist nodded. “Agreed. The thing is, I’m going to have to work inside that environment for at least a day. It’s going to involve a lot of going from place to place and fixing things. I may even have to move equipment from one location to another. That’s going to take a group of people—or someone very strong.”

  “So, me.”

  He nodded. “It also means that we need to adjust one of these suits of armor so that I can wear it. The suit reserves are still full, and we can easily swap out with some of the spares that are here in the cache when we run low on air.

  “The suit will also provide me with enough strength to do some of the work. It’s made to work with your augmented muscles, but it’s got enough built-in enhancement to help carry out some of the tasks that need to be done.”

  He put his hands on his hips and stared at the racked armor. “The only problem is that we’re going to have to get them down to the maglev platform so that they can be charged before we can do anything. That means carrying them down while wearing those dinky little air bottles.”

  “I can carry them down,” Julia said. “I’ll use up the air reserves faster, but hoisting both sets of armor over my shoulders and hauling them downstairs is going to be within my capability. Barely.”

  He didn’t look convinced. “You might be able to handle all the weight, but that’s a lot
of bulk. Plus, it’s going to be as unwieldy as hell. I think you should probably just take one at a time.”

  She ignored his suggestion and started unhooking one of the suits of armor. She hefted it for a moment and then tossed it over her shoulder. It was unwieldy but nothing that she couldn’t handle.

  Hell, if push came to shove, she could grab it by one leg and drag it down the stairs. It might scuff up the exterior, but this was powered armor. She could beat it with a club, and it would still be operational.

  She grabbed a second set of armor off the rack and turned toward him. “I can handle it. How do we adjust one of these to fit me? I’m a little shorter than your average girl. Even you’re going to have to shorten some segments to fit your height, mister ‘I’m so average.’”

  He grinned at that. “And there you were telling me just the other day how above average I was. You’re lucky I don’t tell my wife that you’ve been hitting on me.”

  She froze for just a moment and then grinned back at him. “I like the mouth you’ve got on you. You really can give as good as you get. And I’m not hitting on you. Your wife is safe, and so are you.”

  His eyes narrowed slightly, and she could see his lips pressing together a little as he considered her. “If you weren’t hitting on me, then I can only imagine that this flirting means you’re giving me a test drive to see whether or not you might like my doppelgänger.”

  Shocked at his unexpected insight, she considered lying, but the man was damned perceptive, and it really didn’t matter. Why lie when the truth would serve her just fine?

  “That’s exactly what I’m thinking,” she said honestly. “In my universe, Carl Owlet never left Avalon. He’s still a graduate student there. Hell, he’s probably a PhD by now. Angela has been serving in Talbot’s place as my senior marine officer, so the two of you never met.

  “Without the events that drew you together, there isn’t going to be a relationship between the two of you. I don’t feel like I’m stealing him from Angela, so yes, I’m giving you a test drive.