Indomitable

by W. C. Bauers

  “Ma’am, you need to relax.” Kathy was seated to Promise’s right with a bowl of snacks in her lap. Unlike Promise, Kathy had reclined in her chair and propped her feet up on the copilot’s panels. “The colonel’s got this,” Kathy added.

  Deploy whiskers. You need eyes in the sky, Staff Sergeant. Promise winced when she bit into her cheek. Why haven’t you deployed your whiskers? She was now on the edge of the pilot’s seat.

  Tanner reached the opening and took a knee at its mouth. Her left hand rose and made a fist, which signaled an all-stop for the boots behind her. Her right arm swept her field of fire with a tri-barrel pulse rifle. “Jazz, give me a full-up scan of the chamber.” Jazz was Tanner’s AI, and it spoke a moment later in a voice as smooth as glass. “Negative contacts, ma’am.”

  Now do it again. Promise willed her thoughts to Tanner’s ears. She inhaled and her eyes grew wide. Tell your AI to do it again.

  “Whiskers are away,” Tanner said as a tiny swarm of probes flew into the chamber, and mapped its length and width and height, and then split toward eight different exits.

  “We’ve got tree branches everywhere,” Tanner said, swearing under her breath.

  “So unfair,” Kathy said. Now she was squirming in the copilot’s seat. The pilot was in the back using the head and the copilot was up top manning the primary turret. They’d offered their seats with their sympathies. Both warrant officers were on loan from the Navy and had told Promise and Kathy to help themselves to the caf and the view. Promise had taken the liberty of using the comm and the seat warmer too.

  Promise held her breath as Tanner circled her hand and pointed forward, and then held up two fingers and pointed left, and then another two and right. Then the staff sergeant was on her feet and moving. Promise saw Marines spilling into either side of Tanner’s peripheral vision. Tanner’s beams went to high but didn’t dent the darkness.

  No, no, no … she didn’t scan again. Promise was about to comm the staff sergeant and make it an order when she heard an audible click over the feed.

  Tanner jerked to a stop. “I’ve snagged something.” She looked down and flashed her lights on the ground, back and forth, and back and forth again. There. Midway through a third pass she caught sight of a thin strand of wire snagged on the instep of her right mechboot. “Wire! Get ba—”

  The holotank erupted with light, and the link to Tanner disappeared. Promise threw her hands up without thinking, spilling hot caf all over her slick armor. She rose out of her seat, rapped her head on the panels overhead. Slammed back into the pilot’s seat. “No, no, no.” Her hands raced over the holopanel, shifting the screen to the next senior enlisted Marine. Promise’s heart sank. She was looking through PFC Karol Makkes’s HUD; two Marines were down and a third appeared to be limping. The darkness lit up with muzzle flashes and Makkes fell sideways. There was no sign of Staff Sergeant Tanner anywhere.

  “Contact. Multiple signatures.” The wump wump wump of launching Horde missiles filled the cockpit, and Makkes’s HUD momentarily whited out. A nearby explosion pelted her with debris and her HUD actually cracked. “There’s too many. I’m falling ba—” Her voice cut out in midsentence as her icon turned crimson on Promise’s display. Crimson like Staff Sergeant Tanner’s entire platoon, which shifted from the center of the screen to the bottom of the roster with the mounting list of casualties.

  The cockpit erupted with chatter. “I’m hit” and “I can’t see them … I can’t see them” and “On your six, get down!” An icon turned red from Third Platoon and then another from the Fifth. Two from the Second turned orange with critical damage. It took a moment for Promise to locate Second Platoon on the map.

  Second Toon was guarding the exit, and they were all that stood between the volcano and the LAC. Promise’s hand flew to the small panel on the arm of the pilot’s chair. She pinged several nearby whiskers and slaved them to her controls. They immediately adjusted course and headed for the LAC’s position. Promise split the center screen into three separate windows. Her eyes in the sky closed on the LAC and she saw lifeless fields of rock and large boulders and …

  “There. See them?”

  “Looks like unpowered armor.” Kathy pulled her feet down and leaned toward the screen. “Wait a minute. What’s that?”

  Promise blinked in surprise. “It’s a Clydesdale.”

  “A what?”

  “Clydesdale Combat Suit,” Promise said. “CCSes were the battle armor of the RAW-MC fifty years ago. They’re big and clunky and about twice the mass of one of ours. They were melted down for scrap.”

  “That one isn’t and it looks pissed. That thing’s a monster.”

  Promise sent a whisker in for a closer look. The Clydesdale suit grew until it filled most of one of the center windows. It was big and black and splattered with war paint. Its name was stenciled on its massive chest. STOMP. The mercs by its side wore unpowered armor and barely came to its waist. Promise counted two Clydesdales and six mercs altogether. “Make that seven,” Promise said. “There’s another one.” Through the cockpit door behind them they could hear the overhead turret swing around, its dual miniguns spinning up, and then the unmistakable scream of hundreds of hypervelocity penetrators per second flying downrange.

  Kathy pushed out of her seat and ran toward the back of the LAC. Promise turned around and hesitated as staccato fire broke out across the battlenet. She heard the colonel issuing orders. He’d reached the same chamber PFC Makkes had died in but from a different access way. More weapons fire, more explosions, then silence. The silence told Promise the hostiles either had been neutralized or had fallen back themselves. “Clear” and “Clear” and “Clear,” said three Marines she didn’t recognize. A mass of icons including the colonel’s had come to a stop at the mouth of the cavern. She breathed a sigh of relief as the mass shifted, and fanned out so as not to present such a large target. Then they were moving again. Fifth Platoon split left and down a previously mapped passageway while the rest stayed with the colonel. It took her a moment to realize where the Fifth was headed—back toward her, back to the LAC, back to deal with the mercs on the beach.

  Promise muttered under her breath as she ran after Kathy. I don’t know how we’re going to get out of this one. Then she addressed Bond. “Get me the LAC’s equipment manifest.”

  “I told you the helmets would come in handy,” Promise said as she reached Kathy and her seabag. Kathy already had hers slung over her shoulder, and then she was headed for the forward hatch. “Got to get more throw weight,” she yelled as she ran. Promise had her seabag on the deck plating and her collar and helmet out in record time. The collar was more a pair of shoulder pads with an articulating ring. The pads settled over her traps and the tops split open, and the ribs folded down to hug her upper back and chest. The pressure plates beneath them inflated and made the fit snug. Then she pulled her helmet on and rotated it. Click.

  “Lock confirmed,” said Bond. “But not sealed.”

  “Noted,” Promise said. Not sealed meant she couldn’t dive underwater without her helmet filling up, or deploy in a vacuum, and if the mercs used chemical weapons she was a goner.

  Near the forward hatch was a rack of spare weapons designed to be fired in mech. The minigun was calling Promise’s call sign but she knew she couldn’t hope to hold the thing, let alone fire it without her armor, unless she got help, fast. Kathy was busy checking out a tri-barrel pulse rifle and grabbing extra cells. Without her mech’s fusion plant to power the weapons, Kathy wouldn’t get many shots out of it. And the weapon was nearly as long as her guardian was and weighed almost fifteen kilos, which was on the light side for a heavy weapon but still awfully heavy for a close-quarters fight. It was going to be a beast to lug around and fire, and it had a voracious appetite.

  “It’s got four spare cells, maybe five shots each. Tell me again why we left our armor?”

  “Those things are designed for battle armor. It’s going to vent a lot of heat. Watch yourself or you
’ll get burned.”

  “Do you have a better idea? Nothing else has a chance of taking down one of those monsters.”

  A list of gear began rolling across Promise’s HUD. “I’ve got the LAC’s equipment manifest … and an idea.” Promise’s eyes locked on a tier of data, second column over and third row down. She sent the file to Kathy’s HUD. “Rack that wep and follow me.” Kathy looked insubordinate and muttered something under her breath. They were running again, this time with Promise in the lead, through another bulkhead door and toward the rear of the craft. They passed beneath the overhead turret and Kathy had to cup her ears against the onslaught of blistering rapid fire. They ran past the engine room and into a small maintenance locker. A wall of shelving housed translucent bins of spare parts, all sealed and bolted down in case of turbulence or a loss of artificial gravity. On the opposite wall were two service bays, and each housed a yellow exosuit.

  “You’ve got to be kidding me,” Kathy said.

  “We’re improvising.”

  “They’re not even half mechs. They’re not even armored.”

  “They’ll do.”

  “They’re exosuits, Promise. Just metal bones and actuators. We won’t last long in those things.”

  “Actually, exosuits are quite robust. They can absorb some damage. At least a little.” Promise bit her lip. “Maybe. Stop worrying or you’ll make me nervous.”

  “Just remember who’s guarding your backside.”

  “Saddle up, Marine. You want to live forever?”

  Promise approached the nearest exo and turned around. She double-checked her web vest and her pistols to make sure they wouldn’t get caught or crushed by the exo and smirked as Kathy unstrapped both of her ankle holsters. You backed into an exosuit just like you did your armor, except it wasn’t nearly as form-fitting and its performance left a lot to be desired. It was like a two-dimensional skeleton without a head. You had to bring that with you. There were ribs and metal bones for arms and legs and powered joints and a pair of metal boots that looked pretty good, all things considered. She slipped her feet in and frowned when nothing happened. Her armor always greeted her with a warm hug and moisture-wicking hospitality. This was nothing but a pile of junk. But it didn’t come with a built-in head, fore and aft connections that rubbed you raw. She reached across with her right arm and pulled a small control panel from the bulkhead, which swung outward on a cantilever. “Let’s see.… Mr. Bond, I’m in need of your expertise.” She pulled up the exo’s subroutines. “Can you link with this thing?”

  “You know full well what my capabilities—”

  “Shut up, Bond, and make the link. While you’re at it, check the manual, see if Kathy can plug the tri-barrel into her exo’s fusion plant. She’ll need power to run it if we want to live long. If this thing has a governor, disable it. I mean to kill terrorists, not load cargo.” She heard a muffled explosion from amidships, which shook the deck plating beneath her feet, and then the turret fell silent. “How long?”

  “Stand by.”

  Promise appraised the exosuit with impatient eyes. She was strapped into a powered skeleton, and the thickest bone couldn’t be more than three centimeters at its thickest point. She doubted that was going to blunt a direct hit from a heavy pulse weapon, let alone protect her from missile fire. She jerked upright as the insides of the boots molded to her feet. About time. A bit tight but it would do. Her head snapped left as metal hoops closed on her arm like the rings on a casket of beer. She got a wicked pinch on her thigh as the loops closed on her legs, all the way down to her calves, and she was pretty sure the suit had just claimed its kilo of flesh. Finally she was in. The chestplates locked into place last, covering most of her torso. The gauntlets were hanging nearby. She pulled them on and flexed the fingers one by one. The touch felt pretty good. Promise tried to take a step and nothing happened.

  “Why isn’t this thing working?”

  “I’m still initializing, ma’am. You aren’t authorized for the stevedore. I had to hack its net and upload your biometrics. Stand by.”

  The exosuit began to hum and Promise felt a strange sensation ripple through her torso and extremities.

  Another explosion rocked the hull.

  “There’s no time. How long?”

  “Stand by.”

  “You already said that.”

  “Now, Lieutenant.”

  Promise was pushing against the exosuit’s dead weight for all the good it was doing, because the exo was still tethered to the bay by clamps, so when the power kicked in and the clamps let loose her right leg leapt forward and she stumbled out of the bay, and nearly crashed into the opposite bulkhead. She pulled herself upright and turned around to face an amused Kathy Prichart.

  “Ready yet?”

  “Half mike, ma’am,” Kathy said over her externals. “I’ll catch up.”

  Promise dashed out of the maintenance room, up the length of the LAC toward the forward hatch. She reached for the minigun as the LAC took another hit. “Better test the feel first.” It was a good thing she did, because the pulse rifle she tested on got crushed in her hand. “Right. Let’s try this again.” She switched hands and cracked the rifle’s stock. “Hmmm.” She tossed the broken weapon in the air and caught it like an egg. “Better.”

  Promise reached for the minigun and carefully wrapped the exo’s hands around the barrels, slowly squeezed until she had a solid grip. She lifted and wrapped her trigger hand around the grip and stock, and tapped the trigger carefully. Promise strapped into the specially made ammo pack, activated the ammo feed, and toggled the safety to fire.

  “Bond, patch me into the LAC’s externals. I need to know where they are.”

  Her HUD split into two windows. The upper showed a 360-degree wraparound, while the bottom displayed a shot of the port and starboard sides of the LAC, just forward of the engines, and a shot to the rear of the craft. A hostile in unpowered armor was placing something on the side of the LAC, at about where the starboard engine began. The armor was thick and blocky and made the wearer look like a high-tech gladiator. The rain slick Promise was wearing wasn’t going to hold up long against armor like that, which said nothing of the Clydesdales out there. Promise clenched her jaw and keyed the forward hatch on the starboard side just as Kathy bounded into view.

  “Lieutenant, wait one. I just need to grab a wep. I’ll cover you.”

  “There’s no time.” The hatch flew open and Promise leapt through.

  Fifty-seven

  MAY 25TH, 92 A.E., STANDARD CALENDAR, 1952 HOURS

  THE KORAZIM SYSTEM, PLANET SHEOL

  SOMEWHERE IN THE RAHAT MOUNTAIN RANGE

  Promise rotated forward as she fell, and she didn’t have the boosters or stabilizers to autocorrect that. A black blur broke her fall as she came down. She heard a sickening crunch over her externals, and a woman’s voice let out a bloodcurdling scream. With the exosuit on Promise figured she probably weighed north of one hundred kilos. Getting to her feet, she checked on her victim. The woman’s screams were now a drunken sort of moan and she was barely conscious. Part of her helmet was missing and an awful gash ran down the side of her face. Blood spurted from where her shoulder and hip had been only moments before. Had there been time Promise would have pressed a hypo to the woman’s neck, and only then moved on.

  “Three o’clock,” Bond said. “Three contacts, fifty meters out, rounding the nose of the LAC, and they’re moving toward us. The lead element is a Clydesdale.”

  Bless.

  One last glance at the wounded mercenary and she was running toward the fight. She started counting. One. And that kill didn’t really count in her book because she hadn’t meant to kill her. Neither was she sorry for it. The Clydesdale wouldn’t go down so easily.

  Three red icons blipped on her heads-up display, moving in formation. Her HUD labeled them Echo-One, Echo-Two, and Echo-Three. Promise reached back and grabbed the stock of the pulse rifle that was slung to her back as the trio came into
view. She tapped the panel situated forward of the trigger assembly and activated the rifle’s self-destruct sequence, set the countdown for a seven-second count. Then she increased her speed and hurled the rifle with three seconds to spare. It slammed into the hostile to her left as it blew. One red icon disappeared from her HUD. Promise took a running leap just as the Clydesdale fired at her. Sailing through the air, she kicked the stevedore’s boots out in front and realized the moment she did so that her trajectory was off. Instead of a solid hit she caught the merc across the jaw with her bootheel. The merc went down, which left the Clydesdale. She rolled into the crash to blunt the fall and came up running as fast as her exosuit would carry her toward a nearby boulder. The Clydesdale was slow to rotate. It got off a shot and her shoulder took the hit. Burning pain followed, but not enough to slow her or the shoulder down. She reached the boulder and came around its other side to more trouble. Instead of a right arm the Clydesdale had a massive cannon, and it was pointed at her.

  That’s three, she said. And you’re going to be four … as soon as I figure out how …

  “You’re target-locked, ma’am,” barked her AI at the same moment her HUD registered the launch.

  Promise spun to her backside and around the boulder as the shell shrieked past her and detonated in the background. She juked to the other side as the Clydesdale recalibrated and fired again. Then she was out in the open and moving laterally, angling in to close the distance. Back and forth in no discernible pattern while her minigun vomited hundreds of hypervelocity darts. The mini’s barrels started glowing red-hot, but Promise didn’t let up on the trigger until the Clydesdale’s arm was ground down to a useless stub of metal. The Clydesdale took a step backward and raised its maimed limb. She charged the overgrown mechsuit as two shoulder-mounted missile pods spit out their payload at near-point-blank range. Promise was out in the open and on a berserker charge, so there was no way to dodge them all. Her minigun strafed the air, cutting down two missiles. More went wide and exploded in the dirt nearby. Two birds struck her in the chest and shoulder. The exo’s feeble frame and Promise’s suit of nanospheroidal body armor shrugged off the worst of the blows. Blistering heat seared her neck and chest as she flew through the air. She did her best to roll into the fall as her minigun broke away and spun end over end, far out of reach. She slammed into a smaller boulder and slid to the deck.