by Ken Bebelle
Some of her guys were in it for the money, but not Mack. Maybe he had been before, but not now. When talk turned to his squadmates, he got really intense, and she could feel the heat coming off him. The other night she had watched Mack go off with Keenan and get shit-faced on some of the lab rats’ finely distilled moonshine. Sasha’s lips twisted in dismay. Mourning Cam, no doubt. They all were, of course. But for Keenan...Sasha shook off the sad thoughts.
The interior lights switched to red. Ace’s easy voice sounded through their comms. “Two minutes out. Drones away.” Two metallic thumps sounded as he launched their surveillance drones.
Beside her, Simmons tapped on his gauntlet. He twisted around to give Sasha a thumbs up as the drone data started scrolling up.
Sasha stood and called out over the buzz of the rotors. “Button up!”
The rustle and swish of seven bodies securing gear and weapons. Helmets went on and visors came down. The light painted their winter armor a garish arterial blood red. Sasha secured her own helmet and reviewed the data displayed on her visor. An aerial map of the outskirts of Vancouver appeared.
“Zoom in.” The map jumped up towards her, bringing her close enough to make out roof details. The streets were covered in uniform white. “Go north.” The view veered abruptly north, gaining speed. “Stop.” The view showed her the city center. Several buildings were still smoking, and a party of Hunters ranged through the streets.
“Ace, put us down ... here.” She found a deserted grocery store parking lot south of the city center, sent the coordinates to his visor.
Sasha secured her own helmet and grabbed the nearest ceiling handle. These tiny helicopters were nice. “Ok, mission objective is to sweep and clear. We have to break down that encampment of iceboxes and give our Canadian cousins a breather while they evac civilians. Clear?”
Heads bobbed and she saw her sergeant tap his gauntlet twice. That’s right, Sasha needed to remind them of one last thing.
“No one moves alone, everyone watch each other’s backs. Your gauntlets will give you team readouts only when the drones establish the local network. No guarantees. Pick your targets carefully and engage only when you have the advantage. I want this clean and neat and I do not want to have to save your ass again, Linc.”
Chuckles all around. Sergeant Lee popped Lincoln on his helmet and Linc tried to duck. Good, she wanted them loose and ready for anything. She launched into a review of the approach.
“Lee, take Whiskey, go three blocks east, then turn north. I’ll take Victory straight north. Swing wide as you get closer to their beachhead and come in from the east.”
Lee gave a grunt and a nod. The gray skull and crossbones painted on his helmet leered at her in the crimson light.
Ace’s voice broke in, “Clench up, everyone. Dropping in three, two, one.”
The Raven’s forward momentum slowed and Ace began to drop them the last 400 feet in the space of heartbeat. Sasha felt her feet lifting in her boots. Adrenaline surged as her blood pounded to a crescendo in her ears. She keyed open both doors and they swept wide. The pent up heat inside puffed out in a cloud of white mist. Arctic air crashed in from both sides of the chopper, bringing flurries of thick, fat, snowflakes.
Her feet slammed back into the soles of her boots as Ace pulled up hard on the stick. The downdraft created swirling vortices of snow around them. She felt the increased gravity ease off and she launched herself out of the door, jumping the last ten feet to the ground. Dirty snow gave way beneath her boots. She landed in a neat crouch and stood to see her team landing in tight formation behind her.
She wanted to open her mouth and suck in the freezing air but her suit and full helmet warmed the air, depriving her of its bracing bite. She couldn’t keep the grin out of her voice. “Good hunting! Victory, let’s move!” And she took off at a run to the north.
From her comms, Ace’s voice piped in. “Slow the fuck down, Tiny. Drones can’t get a good read on your surroundings.”
Sasha reined in her exuberance, coming to a halt. “Big uglies ahead?”
“Undetermined.”
She turned to Carmichael, Linc, and Akins. “You heard Ace.” She jerked her head to the building lines and they hugged the edges. With their white suits and the snow flurries, their movements were masked but they had no way of knowing how Ringheads tracked them. Beaufort and Abbé hadn’t been able to figure out how the aliens saw them or smelt them or had radar or fuck knows what.
She looked up, scanning the cityscape above as they moved steadily north. Hard to see what was going on. Mostly evacuated. No human heat signatures. Sasha drew in a slow breath, holding it for four beats and exhaling the same way. Ringheads showed up as dark spots on thermal imaging, a negative space. The problem was, human brains tended fill in negative spaces, glossing over blank spots. After more box breathing, she continued her scanning. Nada.
A burst of static, and Lee checked in, his slow Southern drawl a welcome sound. “LT, we are rounding the corner, over.”
“Roger that. ETA three minutes, out.” Sasha replied.
With every step, the relentless snowfall filled in their footprints. They trudged on, their footfalls getting more difficult with each step. At least, it felt like that for Sasha. Probably not so much of an issue for Carmichael, who was pulling up the rear. Carmichael was built like a bulldozer, nearly as wide as he was tall, hence his call sign of “Box”. Even his fiery red hair was shaved in such a way that his head resembled a cube. If she tried, Sasha could probably fit her entire leg in the footprint left by Box’s size fifteen kicks.
To his credit, Box was quiet for big man and kept up easily with his trimmer squad mates. Box checked behind them regularly, his silent vigil a good sign. After several quiet blocks his low baritone rumbled into the comms. “Aerial contact! On our six!”
Shit. Sasha turned around, automatically looking up into the featureless gray sky. A Ringhead jumper was headed straight for them. “Ace, Lee, we have incoming.”
Sasha ducked into the nearest doorway and planted herself in the rising snowfall, which was now nearly to her knees. Akins took the next doorway, and began methodically opening his vest pockets, getting his RPGs ready to go.
Her comms crackled. “LT, we can cut over to your position, over.”
“Negative, continue mission. I repeat, Whiskey--continue mission.” Sasha barked at Lee.
“Roger, charlie mike, Whiskey out.”
Linc and Carmichael hustled across the street and took cover in their own doorways. Sasha hugged the wall and edged her head out, one eye scanning the skies to the south. The jumpship was lumbering along, seemingly on patrol, drifting slowly north towards her position.
She kept her eye on the jumpship. “Linc, gimme a sitrep from the drones.”
In her periphery she saw him drop back into the shadows, tapping away on his gauntlet. After a moment he looked up at her from across the street. “Just the jumpship, boss. No signs of any Hunters for five blocks around. The ones in the city center are maintaining their positions.”
Sasha ducked back in. She crouched low and looked up, scanning the surrounding buildings again, searching for the telltale darkness of a Ringhead body. The buildings were clear, and the beginnings of an idea percolated through her mind.
“Hey guys, I’ve got an idea. Let’s see if we can bring home an extra present for Stan.”
She may have heard a groan or two over comms. She chose to ignore them for now. The jumpship was still hovering a block south of them, a fat, inviting target.
“Lee, what’s your position, over.”
Lee’s reassuring drawl came through the comms. “We’re a hundred yards east of the plaza. I can see the iceboxes they’ve set up, there looks to be half a dozen. There’s also half a dozen Hunters standing guard, but none of them look iced up yet. What do you want to do, LT?”
Sasha trusted Lee to finish out the mission. “Hold your position for now. We’re about to make a lot of noise down here, which
should draw them out. Make your move after the music starts. Over.”
“Roger that, holding steady for now. Out.”
Sasha turned her attention to getting the party started. “All right, gentlemen, let’s bag this turkey. Linc, Box, sticky grenades, target propulsion. Akins, we’re going to watch the street and cover them. Lee, send me one of the bugs.”
The four of them hunkered down, getting down to business. Sasha drifted back in the doorway, bracing the butt of her railgun on the building, covering the street to the north. Bitsy hummed quietly as her capacitors charged up. Sasha brought up the drone’s video feed on her visor so she could watch the street and keep an eye on Linc and Box.
From above, she could just make out their weapons edging beyond the building’s cover. The jumpship drifted into range, still seemingly oblivious to their presence.Their chances couldn’t get much better.
Sasha cracked her neck in preparation for Bitsy’s debut. “Light it up.”
Hollow thunks! rang out as the boys leaned into the street, peppering the jumpship from below with Zooks. On impact, the grenades’ outer shell shattered into a quick setting, tenacious glue that adhered their ordinance in place. Bright pink goo splattered and set, covering the rear of the jumpship in a split second.
Box ducked back into his doorway. “Fire in the hole!”
The rest of them ducked as well as the grenades detonated, sending shock waves into the street, knocking snow off every building on the block. A hot rush of air, smoke, and debris howled down onto them turning the formerly pristine snow drift into dark, soot-covered ice.
Sasha slid along the wall again, wiping dirty slush from her visor and looking both to the north, and at her vid feed from the drone. The street was still clear, and the jumpship began to list as it veered to the south, smoke emanating from the rear of the ship. It slowly lost altitude, engines laboring loudly in the cold air. Metal screeched and groaned as the ship caught on a fire escape and tore the rusting staircase away from the building, ripping massive chunks from the wall. Snow and rock rained down into the middle of the street.
Lee chimed in. “LT, these guys are on the move. Headed your way, over.”
“Roger that. Get in and plant your explosives. Then get down here and join the party. We’ll try and leave some for you. Out.”
Sasha backed out into the street, still covering to the north with Bitsy. She waved her arm, pointing south to where the jumpship had disappeared behind a building, a thin trail of smoke rising above the rooftops. “Move out!”
They ran south. Box dropped back to cover their tail and Sasha sprinted to catch up to Akins. A bone-jarring sound of rending concrete and metal came from ahead of them. Sasha hauled up at the next intersection and checked around the corner. The jumpship had come to rest in a school playground, shearing through a large metal play structure. Smoke continued to pour out of the rear of the craft. Even from this distance, Sasha could tell the ship was in pretty good shape. Stan was going to owe her huge for this one.
“Akins, Linc, take positions and cover the north. Linc, tie into the drone feed. Box, you’re with me. Let’s open this can of spam.”
Sasha slowed as she neared the ship. It had gone down nose first, crashing through the jungle gym. The playground structure groaned in protest under the weight of the alien vessel. Oily smoke drifted off listless fires that burned over the aft section. Her helmet helpfully informed her of the various toxins in the smoke, and advised her against opening her visor. Behind the ship, the two-story school sat empty, black scorches marring the brick face of the building, most of the windows shattered and gaping.
Box lumbered up behind her as she made another check on Bitsy. They circled the ship until they came to the side door of the craft. The only sound she heard was the metal popping and ticking underneath, and the fitful sputtering of the fires.
They both stopped, partially crouched, looking at the ship before them. Up close, Sasha saw the outer hull resembled every other piece of alien tech she had seen. It was deep blue-black in color, with winding ropes and biomechanical tubes writhing along the surface. She was barely twenty feet away. This might be as close as any human had ever gotten to a jumpship. The wind kicked up, blowing sparks and dirty snow over the top of the ship.
Box growled, a low booming rumble in his chest. “Don’t say it.”
Sasha looked the ship over. No lights, no sounds, just the occasional crunch of metal as it settled further into the icy landscape. She looked behind her and saw Linc and Akins digging in, each behind an abandoned car. Linc flashed her a high sign and returned to watching the street to the north.
Another grumble. “Don’t--”
Sasha narrowed her eyes. “It’s too quiet.”
Box sighed. He yanked up his helmet with a quick jerk, pulled his left earlobe twice and spit to the left.
Sasha grinned in amusement at his superstitious antics. “Did you bring your can opener?”
Box snorted and put his helmet back on. He slung his Repeater 55 into a thigh holster. On Box’s leg the massive Repeater looked like a dainty pistol. Box reached behind him and pulled out a wicked arc of dark metal mounted on an actual Louisville Slugger. He admired the curved blade and hefted it in his big paws. “That is not what we are calling this. No way.”
Box had liberated the piece of jumpship debris from an earlier mission and spent some time in the shop affixing it to the baseball bat. The alien metal -- or whatever it was -- wouldn’t take an edge until they had tried putting it in the smelter in the metal shop. Box had hammered it to a keen edge and now brought it on every mission, eager to try it out on a live Hunter. He said it was poetic justice.
Sasha took aim at the side door of the jumpship and braced. Bitsy felt alive in her hands, humming with lethal potential. “All right, batter up! Let’s see what’s inside.”
Box wound up, and swung the axe in a wide arc, a streak of midnight black in the gray daylight. The axe struck with a ringing clang and bit into the door.
Sasha dug her feet into the snow, her breath coming faster now as Box strained on the axe handle, dragging the door open one painfully slow inch at a time. She tightened her grip on Bitsy, hugging the stock tight to her shoulder, feeling like she was about to leap off a cliff. She caressed the trigger, riding it down to the edge.
Box bellowed and strained, and the door slid open.
The jumpship was empty.
Sasha blinked, her grip on Bitsy loosening in surprise. What the fuck?
Comms crackled. “LT! Contact!”
Sasha turned to see half a dozen lanky Hunters making their way slowly towards them, coming straight down the street. Linc and Akins crouched behind their cover, weapons trained on the advancing aliens. She judged the distance but it was too far. She and Box would have to stay put. She slipped around the nose and into the shadow of the downed ship.
Box yanked his battle axe out of the ship and stowed it, pulling his Repeater back out. Box wasn’t one for subtlety. Rather than try to hide his massive frame behind the marginal cover offered by the ship, he opted to stay out in the open. He set his tree trunk legs and waited for Sasha’s signal.
Sasha trained her sights on the lead Hunter, a particularly tall Ringhead wielding one of their alien rayguns. The main group was nearly in range for Linc and Akins. She focused her aim at the neck of the Hunter and took a deep breath. She really wished she could feel the cold air. She exhaled slowly, feeling her tension flow into the rifle.
“Lee? Party’s starting. Get your butts down here.”
She pulled the trigger.
Bitsy kicked her hard in the shoulder, throwing a chunk of supersonic lead across the plaza in a microsecond. The electric whine of the gun was still just registering to her ears when she saw the Hunter’s head disappear in a fine cloud of atomized green blood. The body took a last shaky step before collapsing onto the snow like a felled tree.
As one the remaining Hunters broke into a run, quickly covering ground with thei
r strange, undulating movements. The rest of her team opened up, splintering the morning stillness with the symphony of blaster fire. Box laid down suppressive fire at full auto, blanketing the distance from himself to the Ringheads in a cloud of supercharged gas. The snow and ice on the ground around him melted into a gray sludge under the sustained barrage from his plasma cannon.
Bitsy hummed again as her capacitors topped out, ready to rock and roll again. Sasha sighted the next Ringhead running towards them. She needed to time this one better now that the enemy was moving faster. As she silently counted, the Ringhead slipped past Linc and Akins, barely even pausing to glance at them or even return fire. It was now between their positions, and barreling towards her. In fact, they were all running, seemingly ignoring Linc and Akins.
She looked up, verified Box’s position.
Yeah, they were all running directly at her.
Thirteen
Ready the Torch
Mack
Mack placed the last of the V-10’s against the base of the icebox, and strapped them down with conductor tape. He wasn’t the demolitions expert that Garcia had been, but Lee was giving him a chance to prove himself here. Right up close to the iceboxes, the bitter cold pulsed in waves that he could feel even through his suit. The quicker they were done with this, the better.
Mack turned to check out Simmons and Lee and they were finishing up their charges as well. That was good. Mack was all for hitting the Ringheads where it hurt, but right now he wanted to shoot something. Repeatedly. He double-checked his work and made sure the wiring was five by five. As he jogged away from the iceboxes his comms crackled to life with a hiss of static.
