The Drift Wars

by James, Brett

  Manzenze squinted at Peter, as if questioning his honesty. “I’ve seen your record, private. You didn’t fight in the Peirescius Belt.”

  “No?” Peter was sure that he had but knew better than to argue. “Must’ve been in the simulation, sir.”

  Manzenze held his squint, scratched his nose again, then smiled. “I told you to stop calling me sir.”

  “I’m sorry, sir. I mean…” Peter flushed, feeling like an idiot.

  Manzenze laughed warmly. “It was good soldiering,” he said. “No matter where you got the idea. But speaking of the Sims, I noticed that you were doing a fair job with them back in Basic, but you haven’t touched them since coming on base.”

  “There hasn’t really been time,” Peter said, biting off the “sir.” Formality was a habit easier learned than broken.

  “That changes now. I’m spacing out your combat cycle, and I’ll expect you in here every other day. I sense talent in there somewhere. Let’s see if we can’t find it.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  Manzenze motioned to the terminal. “You might as well show me your stuff,” he said. “Unless you have something more pressing.”

  — — —

  Peter practiced the Sim Test for the next six hours, with Manzenze looking over his shoulder. The sergeant had some good advice, but Peter still didn’t manage a single win.

  Peter shambled to the barracks, stopping by the bathroom to brush his teeth and his interface port.

  Six months, he thought, staring at the mirror. If every day is this long, it’ll be like living forever. He bent over the sink, cupped water into his hand, and swallowed his sleeping pill.

  The medicine had kicked in by the time he reached the barracks, and he was so tired that he could barely climb to his bunk. Below him, the snoring hulk of Saul vibrated the bedsprings. Peter found it comforting, a constant reminder that his best friend was near at hand.

  He closed his eyes and joined him in sleep.

  [14.08.2.16::3948.1938.834.2D]

  A white flash popped in Peter’s head, jolting him awake. “Saul!” he screamed, wrenching against his straps, trying to tear loose.

  The memory was so clear: floating behind a large rock in the Cylides Asteroid Belt, explosions strobing on the other side. Saul was in his giant combat suit, repeating some old story to the new recruits, grinning like the whole war was some big joke. His back was to the battle, so he couldn’t see the rocket that swung around the rock. Peter shouted into the comm, but the rocket was too fast—the explosion engulfed Saul.

  “Stop, stop, stop!” Linda yelled, racing across the room. She leaped up, landing on Peter’s chest and slamming him to the bed. She clamped his wrists under her knees. Her mask was off and her face was wild with anger.

  “What the hell are you doing?” she yelled, throwing a strap over his forehead and ratcheting it to the bed. Peter struggled, but she had him pinned.

  Linda checked his other straps, jerking them tight, then collapsed on top of Peter.

  Her breathing slowed and she sat up. She sat cross-legged on his chest and untangled her hair.

  “I’m too old for this,” she said with a dry laugh. She freed her ponytail and shook it out. Peter had never noticed how gray her hair was.

  “You’re early,” she said, sliding to the floor and straightening her uniform. She walked to the top of his head and tugged. Peter felt something slide from his skull. Linda dropped it in the tray with a metallic ping.

  “What happened to Saul?” Peter demanded.

  “How would I—”

  “Tell me,” he said, angry.

  The phone on Linda’s desk buzzed. She raised a finger, warning him to be quiet, and went to answer it. “Yes?” she asked, then listened.

  “Yes,” she repeated. “I’ll tell him.” A pause, then, “I do understand. Yes, sir.”

  Linda set the phone back in its cradle and leaned on it, staring at the wall. It was several minutes before she returned to the bed. She moved with determination, opening a drawer and filling a needle from a small bottle. It was a clear liquid, different from what she’d used in the past. This needle was thin; he didn’t even feel it.

  “I’m sorry,” she said, tossing the needle away. She wiped her hands vigorously and threw the towel in the trash.

  “During your last mission,” she said, “your entire platoon was killed by a rocket attack, including Private Saul Graff. Your leg was severed, so your Life Control System put you into hibernation. Your body was recovered and your leg reattached.”

  Saul is dead, Peter thought. The injection worked through his blood like steel splinters. His muscles trembled and then grew numb. He clenched his jaw as hot tears spilled down his face. Then came anger—at the Riel, at the generals, at everyone in this goddamn war. His mind raced furiously. He opened his mouth to scream but had only the strength to moan.

  Linda bit her lip and turned away, walking out the back door.

  — — —

  Peter remembered it vividly. Saul was shredded by the explosion. Then another rocket took out Ramirez and Manzenze. Explosions were everywhere; all of space was burning. The men dodged and ducked, but there was no escape. They died in twos and threes, and then a rocket came for Peter. There was a flash, then nothing.

  As Peter played it back, the memory grew thinner, less real. It was as if he’d seen it on video or heard it in a story. Finally, he lost interest altogether. His mind turned to a bigger problem.

  According to Command, Peter had been on base for only two weeks and fought in just eight battles. Yet he could remember dozens of missions—six weeks’ worth of near-constant fighting. But if he mentioned these other battles, he got only blank stares. Saul hadn’t remembered them, and Manzenze had insisted they never happened. Either they were lying or Peter was going mad. And now there was no one left to ask. Everyone he knew was dead.

  Everyone except her.

  — — —

  It was several hours before Linda returned. Her mask was off, her face grim. “I’m very sorry about your friend,” she said, laying a warm hand on Peter’s arm.

  “Thank you.”

  “We can wait longer, if you…”

  “No. I’m okay.”

  Linda almost said more but changed her mind. She freed his head and loosened the other straps, then dug her thumb into his arm and injected the oily liquid.

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

  “Fighting in the Cylides Asteroid Belt,” Peter replied. “There was an explosion and then… I must have blacked out.”

  “Good,” Linda said, nodding. “What else do you remember?”

  Peter felt his resolve slipping. He looked her in the eye and took the plunge.

  “I remember the other times that Saul died,” he said. “That both of us died.”

  Linda stepped back.

  “Every time I survive a battle,” Peter continued, “I wake up on my bunk. But every time I die, I wake up here with you. You tell me the story of my narrow escape from death. My shuttle has failed eleven times, but—miraculously—everyone on board was only knocked unconscious.”

  Linda’s eyes were wide. Peter continued.

  “If I die in combat, I find my whole platoon waiting in the barracks. But if I live, like I did this time, then everyone that I saw die stays dead. Like Saul.”

  Linda retreated but Peter whipped his arm out, grabbing her elbow. As thin as it was, his hand wrapped all the way around. Too rough, he thought, but he held tight, twisting to keep her back to the camera.

  “I know I’m not supposed to remember any of this. What I don’t know is what happens if they find out I do. So I’ll keep my mouth shut, but first I need you to tell me something.”

  There was long silence.

  “What?” Linda asked.
<
br />   “Can I trust you?”

  Linda shook her head, looking away. Peter squeezed, Linda winced.

  “Look at me,” Peter said, but she didn’t. “I know you’re lying, but do you? Are you making up these stories, or are you just taking orders?”

  Linda straightened up and turned. She locked eyes with Peter. “I only know what they tell me,” she said. “I had nothing to do with your friend’s death. I don’t even know who he is.”

  Peter was dubious, but Linda stood firm, defiant. He had no way to know if she was telling the truth.

  “Okay?” she asked.

  “Okay,” Peter said, releasing her arm. “Ask me again.”

  “Ask you what?”

  “Ask me what I remember.”

  Confused, Linda asked, “What’s the last thing you remember?”

  “The battle in the Cylides Belt,” Peter said loudly, angling his head at the camera.

  “Anything else?”

  “Nothing else.”

  “Nothing?”

  “Absolutely nothing.”

  They both fell silent, neither sure of the other. Linda turned sharply as the door opened, and Peter stepped back. Colonel Chiang San strode in.

  “Sergeant Garvey,” he said. “I understand you know something about fighting in asteroids?”

  [16.97.4.84::8233.2759.501.6D]

  Peter watched as Private Tagomi drilled a pencil-size hole in the ship’s hull. He pushed through and then unlocked the bit, leaving it sticking out from the hull.

  At the top of the bit was a small plunger, a mechanical gauge that measured the pressure inside. Cramped beside Tagomi, Private Sabot opened the valve on a tank of compressed air. It hissed loudly; the dome-shaped plastic tent around Peter’s platoon stretched tight, straining the three-inch-wide tape that sealed it to the hull. The plunger began to sink.

  Peter linked to the camera that had been drilled through first, making sure that the hallway below them was still empty. He knew he was being compulsive, but he was nervous. It was his first mission as a sergeant, and he didn’t want to make any mistakes. He was responsible for more than just his own life now.

  It had been a busy month since Chiang San had promoted him; Peter had trained both for his new job and this mission.

  It was a massive assault, with forty divisions of marines storming the largest Riel base in the Drift. But that was just a distraction. The real job was here, twenty-five miles away, infiltrating the Riel flagship beneath Peter’s feet.

  Sabot closed the air tank as the plunger flattened to the hull. The pressure inside the tent was now the same as the inside of the ship, which should circumvent the ship’s breech sensors. That was the theory, anyway. This was the first time anyone had put it to the test.

  Peter did a final check through the camera and motioned for Tagomi to start cutting.

  — — —

  It had been pure luck that Peter’s platoon was leading the mission. The plan, concocted by the Great General personally, depended on the Riel’s bringing in a flagship to oversee the defense of their base. They knew the flagship would hide at the periphery of the battle—the ship was too valuable to expose to open combat—but the question was where.

  Several days earlier, the UF scouted the area, then placed ambush teams of six platoons at each of the most likely locations. Each colonel had been asked to provide a platoon of his best men, and Peter was as astonished as anyone that Chiang San had picked him. By chance, the flagship stationed itself beside Peter’s platoon, inside a hazy mass of gas and rocks that had either once been a planet or was on its way to becoming one. The ship moored so close that the men just leaped over.

  — — —

  Cutting their entry was taking too long; the assault on the Riel base was going to last no more than an hour, and they’d already used half of that. The saw was meant to be stealthy, with microscopic teeth and sensors that reduced power at the slightest vibration. But its designers had erred far on the side of caution, and the thing barely worked.

  Peter swore quietly, fighting the urge to take it out on Tagomi. It’s beyond his control, he told himself. The best thing is to act confident, to set an example for my men.

  The saw finally completed its circular cut, and two marines lifted the middle out with suction handles. Peter dipped his head into the ship and looked both ways. All clear. He slung a polymer strap—two inches wide and as thin as dental floss—down the hole and secured it to the hull with a square foot of tape. He rappelled in.

  It was a long drop. The hallway was cavernous, large enough to drive a commercial EMV through. Peter hopped to the floor and stepped clear of the others behind him. He motioned his men into two rows, back-to-back, to cover the hall in both directions. More holes appeared in the ceiling, and the other platoons streamed in. Peter motioned them into formation; their radios were disabled to avoid detection.

  Seventy-two men was a sizable force, but they barely spanned the hallway.

  — — —

  Peter was already familiar with the ship’s layout—they had practiced the mission on a holographic model that had been pieced together from fragments collected during previous battles. So he knew exactly where he was going and what sort of resistance he could expect when he got there. The team’s objective was to disable the ship, allowing it to be recovered intact. That meant both crippling its engines and cutting all communication to keep it from calling for help.

  Sergeant Garcia, the section leader, took four platoons forward to the bridge to take out communications. The other two, including Peter’s, were to head aft under Sergeant Windham to cripple the engines.

  Windham had a tall, sagging body and an undersized head, making him look like a giant from a children’s book. His soft face was made softer by a thin beard. Non-coms weren’t allowed to wear facial hair, but Windham had assured Peter that, because he held the top score on the Sim Test, he was all but promoted.

  Windham motioned Peter’s men down the left wall, then followed his own down the right.

  — — —

  The hallway was lined with structural arches, which the men used as cover, advancing in stages. It was a playbook move, but as far as Peter was concerned, the wrong one. Their principal concern should be speed—if they were spotted, the mission was blown, no matter what their cover.

  Peter had said as much back in practice, but that had only irritated Sergeant Windham. Now, on the ship, the minutes felt like hours, and Peter had to throttle his own platoon to not outpace Windham’s. Peter was the junior sergeant, so he had no choice but to defer to the other’s judgment.

  — — —

  They had only fifteen minutes left by the time they reached the portside engine room. Garcia would have assaulted the bridge five minutes earlier, so the Riel onboard would already know about the invasion. Windham motioned Peter to the door, giving him the lead. Peter’s men formed into a half-circle, standing just beyond the range of the door’s motion detector.

  The engine room was one of the most critical areas on the ship, but the door required no special authorization—it opened automatically when approached. In fact, there were no restricted areas on the entire ship. The Riel, unlike the United Forces, seemed to trust all their soldiers equally.

  Windham’s plan called for Peter to run through each man’s orders again to be sure they were fresh, but they had practiced this assault a dozen times in simulations so real that they might as well have been. His men knew exactly where the Riel were stationed and which was his target. It would be embarrassing to go over it again, not to mention a waste of time.

  He bounced his arm, counting down with his fingers: three, two, one…

  — — —

  The fight was over in an instant. Within seconds of the door’s opening, all five Gyrines were dead in their seats. S
abot confirmed that no alarm had been triggered, and by the time Windham led his men into the room, the bodies were piled in the corner. Peter posted two men at the inner door, which led to the engine itself, and was arranging the others when Windham approached.

  “I’m impressed, Garvey,” the senior sergeant said though the speaker in his helmet. Peter nodded absently, signing instructions to his men. He inspected each of them using the information provided by his suit, checking their status. They were fine.

  “I’m tempted to give you a stab at the other side,” Windham continued, louder, trying to get Peter’s attention. “See how your beginner’s luck holds out.”

  He wants me to volunteer to assault the other engine room, Peter thought. Their orders assumed that whichever platoon had taken the first assault would suffer casualties; therefore, the other platoon would handle the starboard. Peter’s platoon was intact, so technically it didn’t matter who went. But radio silence also meant no connection to the battle computer, without which Windham lacked the authority to override the mission parameters. Unless Peter offered.

  “You’d better hurry, sir,” Peter said as the timer dropped below ten minutes. “We’ll get this room wired up.”

  Windham nodded, giving Peter a you’ll-regret-this look, and lined his men up at the inner door to cut through the main engine compartment. As they moved out, two of Peter’s men closed the door behind them, then stepped back and leveled their guns at it.

  — — —

  Peter’s men set the explosives—the plan was to blow both rooms at the same time. As a precaution, Peter was wired to a dead-man’s switch; if he died, his suit would trigger the charges automatically.

  After that, they could only wait. Peter barked orders nervously, grouping his men at the exterior door, which seemed the most vulnerable. But as the minutes ticked by, he shifted more of them to the engine-room door, worried that Windham had failed. Then a piercing shrill filled the air.

  Someone had triggered the alarm.