The Drift Wars

by James, Brett

  “You better watch out for those things, sir,” Saul said. “Get yourself killed and they’ll try to make me the new sergeant.”

  Peter whirled on Saul, ready to be angry, but saw the smirk on his face.

  “I wish they would,” he said with a weak smile.

  The ground shook as the two asteroids came together. Ramirez, standing on one leg, hopped to keep his balance and fell over. He laughed like he was drunk, and soon they were all laughing.

  “Thanks, Sarge,” Ramirez said as Peter helped him up. “Man, I need a new foot.”

  Ramirez’s missing foot outlined on Peter’s visor. It was annotated with a dozen details—his estimated top running speed and how much weight he could support, as well as a list of which painkillers and mood enhancers his suit was administering, the latter explaining his good mood. Peter turned to Saul and saw similar data.

  Must come with my promotion, he thought. He looked at the bullet wound in his arm, but nothing appeared.

  “So what’s next?” Saul asked, clapping Peter on the back.

  Peter shrugged. His map was blank—he had no connection to the battle computer and no idea where the Riel outpost was. He turned in a circle, taking in the nothingness. Even the stars had abandoned him, blocked out by unseen asteroids.

  — — —

  “When I’m Sergeant,” Ramirez said, “I’m gonna have all my men carry a spare gas tank.”

  “You’ll never be a sergeant,” Saul said.

  The men were still on the asteroid with no idea where to go and no way to get there. Peter paced the rock’s perimeter; the asteroid was still moving, and he hoped to pick up a signal from Command. Ramirez sat in seeming thin air, having bent his leg and locked his artificial muscles. Saul was sprawled out on the ground, which in zero gravity was more of a statement than a comfort.

  “Why not?” Ramirez asked.

  “Who ever heard of a sergeant with a missing foot,” Saul replied.

  “They’ll give me another one,” Ramirez said. Then, to Saul’s dubious look, he added, “A better one, like what the Gyrines get.”

  “With a gun?”

  “Sure. Why not?”

  “You ever seen anyone with gun feet?”

  “We’re recruits,” Ramirez protested. “We just got here.”

  “What about you, Sarge?” Saul called to Peter.

  Peter ignored him at first—this was the third time they were having this conversation, even though they’d been stuck here only a few minutes. But then he was struck by a thought. “Mickelson has a limp,” he said, and then corrected himself. “That is, he had one.”

  “No, he didn’t,” Saul replied, firing a look at Ramirez.

  “I never saw him limp,” Ramirez said, thinking. “Not in Basic, anyway.”

  Peter thought about it, but then his visor flashed; it had found a connection to the battle computer.

  “Hang on,” Peter said. “I’ve got the location of the outpost.”

  Both men got to their feet.

  “Where?” Saul asked as the asteroid slowly rolled down, revealing a battle in progress.

  “There,” Peter said, raising a finger.

  — — —

  Not a hundred yards away, a platoon of marines advanced over an asteroid the size of a small mountain. Peter had an overhead view of the men as they moved over the rough surface, trading shots with what he assumed was the Riel outpost—from this angle, all he could see was a steel base at the top of the rock.

  Peter, newly crowned Sergeant Garvey, had orders to take charge of the battle, but had no idea how to do so. His map showed eight blue dots on the face of the asteroid, as well as four red ones—unidentified Riel clustered at the outpost. The battle computer scrolled through possible attacks, filling his screen with lines and arrows mixed in with confusing code names. It was beyond comprehension. Peter was about to pick one at random when three Riel fighterships shot into view.

  The fighterships were perfect spheres, fifteen feet in diameter, gleaming of polished steel. An assortment of armaments dented their smooth surfaces, both guns and rocket launchers. They moved in a tight line arcing out from behind a far asteroid and heading straight for the other marines. Machine guns strobed as they approached, and through the green trapezoidal cockpit window, Peter saw a Gyrine sneering with pleasure.

  The ships streaked past, curved away, and disappeared into the belt. The screech of their engines came to them in the gas from their exhaust, and then all was silent. Across the expanse the eight marines floated lifelessly.

  “That your new command?” Saul asked.

  “Yeah,” Peter said, “my very first.”

  — — —

  Peter had known from the start this was a suicide mission, but that abstract idea was now spelled out in three concrete, and equally hopeless, options. They could wait for reinforcements, which were unlikely. They could retreat to the edge of the belt and call for evac, but with no gas for their rocket packs, that would take days and they’d run out of oxygen long before they got there. Or they could attack the outpost by themselves—an idea well past the line where courage becomes stupidity.

  “So what’s the plan?” Saul asked.

  “I’m open to suggestions,” Peter replied.

  “Right,” Saul said, whipping his giant multi-pulse cannon up to his shoulder. “We know those fighterships saw us, so I vote we start this attack before they circle back.”

  Saul was right. Peter nodded. He backed up to get a running start and leaped into the void.

  — — —

  Peter dove for the asteroid’s bottom, staying below the enemy’s line of fire. He doubted they would leave the safety of their outpost to come get them. Bother to leave, he thought, might be a better way to put it.

  They sailed past the lifeless marines from the other platoon. Ramirez grabbed one to check its rocket pack.

  “Empty,” he reported.

  “Just keep on cheering me up,” Saul replied.

  — — —

  Peter’s boot magnets locked to the asteroid, and he took off at a full sprint. He had a scavenged general infantry rifle in one hand and a grenade in the other. He kept an eye on his scope, matching his pace with Saul’s, who was racing up the far side of the asteroid. They would attack the outpost from both sides while Ramirez, with his limited mobility, would draw their attention to the front.

  The outpost appeared on the shallow horizon. It was three stories tall, covered with opaque crystal blocks, and held together by a steel framework. It was round and narrow, like the turret of a castle.

  Ramirez opened fire, and machine guns replied from the high walls, their bullets tearing through his chest and drawing red strings of blood out from his back. His blue dot disappeared from Peter’s map, leaving only Saul’s and his own.

  Peter leaped up, flying through the air and firing at a thin slit in the wall. A thick steel leg swung over the wall, taller than the entire outpost. It was triangular in cross-section and had several joints that tapered down to a spiked tip. The first leg was followed by a second, then a third. It was a Typhon.

  The Typhon was the other species of Riel, a monster so large that, even with the legs right in front of him, the top half was still hidden over top of the outpost. Peter had seen diagrams, pictures, and even full-size holograms of the beast, but nothing had prepared him to meet one face on.

  He dropped the rifle—it was useless—and cocked the grenade back. The Typhon’s battery of machine guns blazed high above, knocking Peter down and flattening him to the ground. The grenade slipped from his hand, floating just over his head, its three-second fuse counting in Peter’s visor.

  Everything went black.

  [14.08.2.13::3948.1938.834.2D]

  White light pulsed like a failing fluorescent tube, jarring Peter fro
m sleep. Something hot clamped to his wrist, searing the skin. His eyes popped open; a nurse leaned over him, her hand on his wrist. Her thumb dug into his artery, its short nail biting his skin. She counted silently, her face hidden behind a surgical mask.

  The room was covered floor to ceiling with white tiles, and a hose was coiled up in the corner. Medical equipment was stacked along one wall, piled haphazardly, looking long out of use. Peter tried to lean over to get a better look but was strapped to the bed.

  “There you are,” the nurse said, noticing him stir. “You had me worried.” She didn’t sound worried; her tone was flat, efficient. She tucked his wrist gently against his side and used a pencil-size light to inspect his eyes.

  She peered into one ear, then leaned on top of him to look in the other. Her body was scorching, even through the fabric of her shirt. She must be burning up, Peter thought. He reached to touch her bare arm. Linda recoiled, glaring, but not at him.

  “Everything seems normal,” she said finally. “What’s the last thing you remember?”

  Peter thought back: He was in full-dress uniform, standing with Saul and Ramirez in a hanger full of marines. A general spoke on a distant stage. Was that only yesterday? Peter wondered.

  “Graduation,” he said. “Basic Training.” But if that was yesterday, what about…?

  “Good,” the woman said. “Anything else?”

  There was something else.

  Peter reached deep into his memory, searching. Then it leaped out at him.

  “Typhon,” he gasped, adrenaline chilling his blood.

  The woman frowned, crossing her arms. “That’s not right,” she muttered, turning to the monitor over Peter’s head.

  “Typhon!” he shouted, jerking against his straps. “I’ve got to warn Saul.”

  “Careful now,” the nurse hissed. She clamped a hand under his jaw, locking his head to the steel bed. “Hold still.”

  Peter wrenched back and forth, but she was too strong. His strength withered and he lay still, panting, his heart racing. A door opened behind him.

  “Everything okay, Linda?” a man asked.

  “Everything is fine,” the nurse replied, irritated. She jabbed a finger at the video monitor and electricity crackled in Peter’s ears. The room shrank away, retreating down a long tunnel.

  Black.

  — — —

  The white light jarred Peter awake. A nurse inspected him, her face covered by a surgical mask.

  “What’s the last thing you remember?” she asked.

  Peter thought back. “Graduation,” he said. “Basic Training.”

  “Anything else?”

  “No,” he said, shaking his head. “Just Basic.”

  “Good,” the woman said, her gunmetal eyes smiling.

  [84.3.4.3::4843.4534.345.2L]

  “The one thing you children need to keep in the forefront of your feeble little minds,” Sergeant Mickelson said, shouting in a strained voice, “is that what is back there is back there, and back there doesn’t matter anymore. All that matters now is what’s out there.”

  Peter had just arrived at the Marine Training Orbital. It was a flat disk, several miles across, in low orbit over one of the Livable Territories’ rim planets. A clear dome covered the top, rising to a half mile at the center, encasing buildings and roads that could have been in any town on any planet. Except there was no sun, just the permanent green twilight of the orbital’s plasma shield.

  He stood with twelve other recruits, all facing a large, grass-covered parade field. Sergeant Mickelson paced the ramshackle line, scrutinizing them with increasing disdain.

  Mickelson was a short, thin man with feline strength. His face was flat and weatherworn, and his eyes had a distant squint, as if you were standing in the way of what really interested him. Peter had only just met him as he left the shuttle. The sergeant had ordered him to stand at attention, though Peter wasn’t exactly sure how.

  The sergeant had been lecturing for twenty minutes, most of it insults and threats. Peter’s attention wandered to the base around him, which would be his home for the next five months. Though it was supposedly a small orbital, its size overwhelmed him.

  Beyond the wide field, buildings stretched down long roads. It dwarfed the town Peter had grown up in, and unlike the mismatched buildings and shambling farms of home, everything here was uniform and modern. Even the marines, marching around as if by interlocked gears, looked freshly minted.

  Peter had never seen a real marine before, aside from the recruiters back on Genesia. “population control experts,” as Saul called them.

  He and Saul had grown up just three towns apart but had only met on the journey here. At least, Peter didn’t remember him. And Saul wasn’t someone you forgot.

  Saul was big. Bigger than a linebacker. Bigger than two. Peter was tall himself, but his head barely reached Saul’s shoulders—shoulders so wide that he had to step sideways through most doorways. He had large black eyes, skin like cream in coffee, and a pencil-thin beard traced around his wide jaw. His smile revealed a monolith of white teeth, and Saul was nearly always smiling.

  This trip had been Peter’s first in space—his family was too poor to vacation off-planet—and he was entranced. He spent almost the entire three-week journey in the observation lounge at the back of the transitship, watching the stars through a half dome of windows.

  It had never been his plan to join the marines. He didn’t want to leave Amber or his family, but he had bet everything on a football scholarship—ignoring his schoolwork and pretty much everything else—and it hadn’t arrived. Then the war started.

  Like the other men in town, he had wanted to defend his planet against the Riel. But that wasn’t his main motivation. What he was really after was a way to start a life with Amber. For that, he needed money. Enlisting seemed the best of his limited options.

  It hadn’t been an easy decision, and it haunted him from the moment he signed the papers. But he found comfort looking out at the stars. There were so many; his own troubles seemed insignificant. His worries faded as the days passed.

  For most of the trip, Peter had the back lounge to himself—the other recruits preferred the bar amidships. Then one day, as he sat watching a red-and-blue nebula float past, Saul wandered in.

  Saul had a half-empty bottle of beer encased in one hand and a full one in the other. He walked a full circuit of the room and—even though it was both large and empty—dropped into the seat next to Peter’s, his bulk forcing the shared armrest into Peter’s ribs. Saul stared at the nebula for a few minutes, then said, “Now that’s something.”

  Peter murmured, quietly hoping the intruder would lose interest and leave. But instead Saul offered him the full beer, popping the cap off with a flick of his thumb.

  “No, thank you,” Peter said.

  Saul was incredulous. “You do know the drinks are free, right?”

  Peter shook his head; he didn’t.

  “They’re free the whole trip, but on the orbital they’ll cost four times what they do back home. So allow me to suggest, with great humility, that you drink up.”

  “Okay,” Peter said, taking the beer. “Thanks.”

  Saul tapped the neck of his bottle to Peter’s and they drank. A few minutes passed in silence, both men watching the nebula. When it reached the back of the warp envelope, it stretched like putty and was sucked into the bright spot that floated in the ship’s wake.

  “Now that is something,” Saul said. And Peter couldn’t help but agree.

  — — —

  Mickelson gave the recruits a quick tour of the orbital, assigned them to barracks, and allowed them six hours to themselves before training. Most of the men, ragged from weeks of drinking, fell immediately to sleep. But Peter lay on his bunk, fondling the locket of hair that hung from his ne
ck and thinking about the night the war started. It was a week after his seventeenth birthday, and just a couple hours after dark, when the Riel invaded the Livable Territories.

  A blackout had been ordered for the entire planet; light made an easy target for the Riel bombers. Amber and Peter were in town and took shelter in the feed store basement, along with a few dozen other people. But after sitting on dusty grain sacks for a couple hours, Amber grew restless.

  “Let’s go outside,” she whispered to Peter. “I want to see what it looks like.”

  Peter resisted, but Amber pushed, arguing that the cellar wasn’t going to protect them from a high-powered bomb and that she couldn’t think of a more dismal place to die. So they slipped out.

  Downtown was small, a few short blocks of Craftsman-style buildings lost in a sea of wheat. They wandered out to the fields, stopping at the deserted general store to borrow a blanket and two bottles of wine.

  It was fall, and the wheat was thick and tall, whispering in the wind as they followed a rutted tractor path. Amber’s hair billowed like a soft brown cape. Her white skin glowed in the quarter moon, and Peter stole lustful glances at her neckline, where deep cleavage rolled with her every step. Amber was as pretty as any girl he’d ever seen, in real life or otherwise, and just looking at her made his heart race.

  They reached a grassy rise in what had once been a cemetery. The bodies might still be down there, but the headstones were worn to nubs. They settled onto the blanket and realized they didn’t have a corkscrew or glasses. Peter pushed in the cork, and they drank right from the bottle.

  The invasion wasn’t much to see. A few lights traversed the sky, but that was normal enough. Peter guessed they were navy ships, instead of the usual cargo freighters, but he had no way to be sure.

  “Would you like to go up there someday?” Amber asked as they lay hand-in-hand, staring at the sky. “To see other planets?”

  “I like it here fine,” Peter replied.

  “I think it would be amazing. Some of those luxury liners have clear bubbles where you can float out in the middle of space.”