by Richard Fox
“Nineteen, but I only need one.”
“The cold’s frozen your brain,” Booker said.
Duke exhaled slowly, wishing for the hundredth time since they started down from the summit that he had another can of dip. What he did have in his kit was carefully rationed and he had gone a bit over already. “What did you notice about those Rakka? Other than them being deader than usual?” Duke turned far enough toward her to give her the look.
Booker shivered. “They were colder than I am.”
Duke wagged his finger at her. “Their armor is just dead weight. Unpowered.”
“No heat layer,” Booker said.
“What else? How is our field of fire?” Duke asked.
“Damn good. They’ve been cutting down trees. Burning them for firewood, looks like.”
Duke nodded, liking his plan more than ever. “There…center of the camp. See that heat plume? That’s their generator.”
“So?” Booker asked, studying the scene for tactical options.
Duke moved his binoculars along power lines that ran from the generator to tents and vehicles and saw a stack of power packs covered with tarpaulins next to the generator. The big Sanheel officer from the bridge battle came into view, walking slightly off-kilter with his cybernetic front leg.
“There you are,” Duke said. “That’s a senior officer, whatever rank structure they use. Look how they all jumped when he said boo.”
“Take them out?” Booker asked.
Duke shook his head. “I’d like to. I think this one is trouble. Probably holding a grudge after I blew off his hoof. But take a look at those lines on the ground near the generator.”
“Yeah?”
“Shields. Which are off-line to save power in the storm. We hit ugly down there, they’ll pop the energy walls and ugly’s the only thing we’ll hit.” Duke pulled his gauss rifle to his shoulder. “But you see that battery stack? The one with all the wires running to it from the heaters?”
“What about it?” Booker’s question was lost on the wind as Duke slipped into concentration.
The wind died down. Booker’s tension mounted as she thought conditions were right for a long-range shot, but Duke held perfectly still. Down in the valley, antennae on the back of Kesaht vehicles waved slowly in the breeze. Loose snow gusted across the camp, then settled to the ground.
Duke pulled the last tiny bit of pressure on the trigger and sent a gauss round downrange.
The battery stacks popped and fizzled. Sparks arced into the air. Rakka ran around like in a panic. The metal-legged Sanheel shouted and beat any Rakka he could reach about the head and shoulders.
Shields hummed to life, distorting the air.
“Great,” Booker said.
Duke lifted his head from his weapon sights.
The shields flickered and went out as battery stacks melted down one by one in quick succession. The load transferred until the generator exploded and slagged the other power packs. Lights went off across the camp, swallowed by the blowing snow and approaching dusk.
Duke smiled. “Mission accomplished. Time to displace.”
For the first time since they began this mission, Booker finished packing her gear first. She was getting better than Duke was willing to admit. He liked working with her. She led the way up the goat trail, or whatever animal came this way frequently enough to scar the landscape. As soon as they were at the summit, they descended into a parallel valley and stopped to check their gear and drink from helmet tubes.
“Think it’ll work?” Booker asked.
“If they run their vehicles for heat, they’ll drain them in hours. The storm will last another day, at least. They’ve already used up most of their firewood. There’s going to be a lot of dying of exposure down there,” he said.
He looked through his visor into hers. They were close enough to see each other despite the tempests devouring the mountains. He smiled and pushed one of his power-up buttons. Heat seeped into his extremities.
Booker laughed. “Oh yeah, that’s what I’m talking about. Warm armor is good armor.”
“Let’s blow this popsicle stand.” Duke led the way into the storm that swallowed them and all evidence of their passage.
****
Two hours later, they were well away from the Kesaht camp enveloped in a storm Duke couldn’t quite describe, even to himself. It felt like three or four storms stacked on top of each other.
“Right here. I’ll dig first. You hold security, then we’ll trade,” Duke said.
Booker gave him a brief thumbs-up. Even with the heating elements at full strength, she was bouncing up and down on her toes to stay warm.
“Honestly,” she said, “if they can find us in this mess, we should let them kill us out of respect.”
Duke looked up at her and froze.
“Kidding. Kidding,” she said.
Duke covered his weapons, set them beside his work area, then popped loose an entrenching tool and started to dig. He made the shelter long enough for both of them to fit inside and almost deep enough to crawl into. Then he signaled her and she took her turn. He stared into the night with his patrol rifle held close to his body to keep it out of the driving ice and snow as best he could.
“That should do it,” she said. “Let’s get toasty.” She climbed in and pulled her gear after her.
Duke checked their tiny perimeter one last time and then crawled in with his gear. Inside, he pulled the tarpaulin even tighter and fastened it down with small stakes from his kit.
Booker put down a heat pack and turned it all the way up. “My favorite part. Love my armor, but a girl needs downtime.”
Duke broke apart his sniper rifle and cleaned it. Booker cracked her armor and leaned back with an instant cup of soup.
“Surprisingly quiet in here. Or I’m going deaf from all these explosions.”
Duke continued to clean.
“It’s not bad,” she said.
“What’s not bad?”
“Shooting aliens. Not like putting crosshairs on a human, I mean. That seems like it would be a hell of a lot harder,” she said.
“Have you ever shot a human?” Duke asked.
“Nope.” She hesitated, busying herself with her soup. “I’ve been wondering about that. You have any trouble shooting that Ibarra sniper back in the city?”
“Yeah, but only because he tagged me first.” Duke touched a welt on his hairline. “There was a moment when I debated beating feet out of my hide, but then the sniper would’ve picked you all off one by one. Besides. He caught me square in the dome and couldn’t kill me. Figured his next shot wouldn’t get me either. Saw him re-aiming to the park and took him. Easy shot. Things got a little fuzzy after that.” Duke finished his sniper rifle and put it away, then took out his patrol carbine and started working on it.
“So it was easy to kill him?”
“It’s never easy. I just got through the resistance quick—which is easy when your life, or your squaddie’s, is on the line.”
“Never thought of that. All my training was against Xaros. Vish. Kroar. Not humans.”
“So?” He pushed a brush through a port on his patrol rifle but looked at her as he raised one eyebrow.
“Do you think we’re going to fight the Ibarrans? They’re all proccies, but they’re human.”
He finished his rifle in several quick motions, put it away, and took out his pistol. “I’m worried about the Kesaht right now. You should be too.”
Wind tugged at the tarpaulin, straining the eyebolts buried deep into the ice walls of their shelter. The howling sound grew louder and Booker shifted closer to the heat pack. Duke finished cleaning his pistol, decided the hell with the tough-guy routine, and moved as close to the warmth as he could get.
****
Trace amounts of heat came with the dawn.
“This planet is a harsher mistress than the irradiated steppes of Santarra,” Thran’Ul thought.
The Ice Claw had turned Koen itself
into a weapon against the Kesaht. Rakka and Sanheel bodies lay strewn across the valley. The lesser Rakka had crawled to freshly dead Sanheel and burrowed under them for warmth. The bizarre tangle of bodies was obscene and Thran’Ul wished he could burn the nightmare away, which brought on a fantasy about warming himself near a fire.
Some of the corpses had blood iced to their faces—from clawing themselves in a ritual to retain lost honor before death. He would never understand the Rakka. They were good only for fighting and dying.
He came across Shin’lon, an old officer, one Thran’Ul remembered seeing in a parade before he was old enough to join the martial service of the Kesaht. The old officer had burned Rakka for warmth before he died with a Rakka half-spear in his back.
Thran’Ul scratched at frostbite on his face until dead tissue peeled up. He picked it off. All around him were dead Rakka. None of the frozen bodies had died with honor. He hated the Rakka scum. Their bravery came only in large groups, and only when they were driven to a battle frenzy. Not one of the lesser race could take honor from a universe ravaged by human murderers.
Something changed in the air. A pinpoint of light appeared in the upper atmosphere and descended toward his position. A Kesaht lander, he thought, more appealing to look at than the Terran Mules but less durable and slower. He didn’t know what a “mule” was but sensed it was a mundane creature. One of the Ibarran humans he had captured and then stomped to death had called him a mule and laughed. But not for long. None of the human murderers were brave under the hooves of a Sanheel.
The lander did nothing correctly. If his people could fly the machines, they would sweep grandly around the area and see enemies or other threats before touching down to the surface. The Ixio pilots were often foolish, but their skills and reaction time made them superior to the Sanheel as pilots, and the Ixio served the Kesaht union in that role well.
A ramp lowered from the back of the lander and the Ixio named Dorsaria emerged, his face covered with contempt and disrespect for the warriors who had died here.
Dorsaria walked to a pile of Rakka and contemplated the bodies. Folding his hands behind his back, he pretended to ignore the biting cold and Thran’Ul
Thran’Ul didn’t like his expression of disdain or his posture.
“I must inquire as to the delay,” the Ixio said. “Some manner of equipment failure, perhaps?”
“A sniper. One of unfortunate talent.”
“The ones the Rakka called the Ice Claw? Curious the sniper manages to thwart each of your advances. The Risen grow impatient with your lack of results.”
Thran’Ul listened but was distracted by how his own junior officer had called the sniper Ice Claw. He had even found himself thinking of the human murderer in such terms. It was a disgusting weakness to give his enemies such honor.
“The war in the void has stalemated. We desire the human city to surrender as the fleet must follow suit. The threat of mass execution has that effect on humans,” Dorsaria said.
Thran’Ul stomped one hoof. “Then we move on the city now.”
“The casualties will be—”
Thran’Ul kicked a frozen corpse, breaking its arm off at the shoulder. “They serve the Kesaht. Their sacrifice will be remembered.”
“Lord Bale does not measure success by the trail of our dead. If becoming Risen and joining the ranks of the immortals is your goal, this is not how to do it.”
“If I fail to capture the city, then I will never be Risen.”
The Ixio evaluated him in silence for several moments. “Your choice.”
Thran’Ul shifted his weight from hoof to hoof as the energy for combat grew too intense to resist. “Take me to the forward division. The time of caution is over.”
Chapter 17
Wind howled up the narrow canyon and down from the summit. Swirling blackness reached up from hell. Snow and ice pelted Hoffman’s visor, screaming like banshees all around him, slamming his team with gale-force winds focused in the narrow spaces of the Koen Mountain Ruins.
“Reel out your entry cords and tie off with the person in front of you! We have to stay together!” King yelled. “If one person falls, we all fall!”
“I volunteer not to fall!” Garrison shouted. “Still can’t get my cord latch to unfreeze. Tired of junk armor and crap equipment. Stupid utility belt.”
“You have the best gear in the Terran military, except for the Armor Corps maybe,” King said. “Grab on to Medvedev. Opal, tie on to Medvedev.”
Hoffman clipped the carbon-fiber cord normally used to swing from rooftops into windows on to the back of Masha’s belt. Her environmental suit felt thin; it was just a temporary covering meant to augment a breathing apparatus while the wearer sat near a crash site and waited for rescue.
His body ached with fatigue. His mind felt like it was under water with a hurricane booming above the surface. “We need to find a place to rest. There isn’t room for mistakes up here.”
“Agreed,” King said.
“Masha. Find a place to stop,” Hoffman said.
“OK, Lieutenant. Just don’t let me fall.” She paused, looking at her route. “We need to go upward for a bit. Find a spot to rest, then start down the next section.”
He pushed her onto a ledge, then released her so he could climb steps so old he wasn’t sure they were artificial. She thrust her hand down and he took it. She pulled, and he clambered over a difficult section.
“Opal can’t see! Opal hate mountains!” He turned to Medvedev, tying a thick cord from his belt to the Ibarran’s enviro suit. “Don’t fall.”
“I’m not the one who fell last time.”
“Opal didn’t forget,” Opal said.
“How much farther?” Hoffman asked.
“Almost there,” Masha said.
Hoffman shivered as though he’d been dunked in a river of ice and hung up to dry in the harsh wind. It wasn’t the first time the cold of Koen had touched him. He waited for heat to radiate from tubing inside his armor. Nothing happened. “Hoffman for team, check your battery reserves.”
They sounded off one by one and the news wasn’t good.
“The armor plating will be useless once we’re down to trace power. I’d rather not wait too long and lose comms,” King said. “Short-range, line of sight is better than nothing.”
“Even that will be gone before we make the city,” Hoffman said.
Cold seeped into the joints of his armor and through linings around his neck and underarms. His elbows stiffened and his fingertips ached as though struck by hammers. A shiver ran up his spine, causing him to tremble head to toe. For a minute or an hour, the discomfort would be bearable. He didn’t want to think of all the miles yet to travel before they reached Koen City.
As Masha climbed downward, wind caught her and yanked her sideways. Hoffman wrapped both of his arms around her waist and pulled her back, and the storm swallowed them both for a moment. His only connection with reality was his numb feet touching the hard surface below his boots.
“King for Hoffman, are you good?”
“Hoffman, here. We didn’t fall.”
“I’ve got maybe two minutes of battery assist left. Will need to keep moving to maintain body heat. In the short-term, I think we’ll be OK.”
“It’s climbing down the mountain and then fighting our way through hordes of Rakka to get into the city that will be the problem,” Medvedev said. “You should give me a weapon. I can help you.”
“I’m sure there’s some just lying around here. While you’re at it, can you grab some heat packs for the team?” Hoffman said. “I understand your argument, Medvedev. No need to belabor the point.”
“I hear you,” Medvedev said. “And I will continue to ask. It is my duty.”
“At least I’ll know you haven’t died.” Hoffman signaled a halt. “All right. King, you have security while we ditch the armor plating.”
“Yes, sir.” King stood with his weapon ready, head on a swivel as he scanned the cram
ped area. Visibility remained poor. Sheer cliffs loomed around the ladder-like trail they had been navigating for hours.
“Let me help you, Opal,” Garrison said.
The doughboy complied, his expression tense and slightly confused. “Opal wants to keep armor.”
“It’s not as dumb as it looks,” Medvedev said. “We all want armor.”
“I’d settle for a stack of blankets and a fire,” Masha said.
Hoffman didn’t disagree with her. He carefully removed the plates to his armor, stacking them off to the side of the trail. The pseudo-muscle layer against Hoffman’s body would keep him warm even with a trace charge and would recycle his body’s kinetic energy into heat as he moved. So long as he was walking, he wouldn’t freeze to death. Without the plates and without power to the strength-assist systems, his capabilities became distressfully average.
Garrison finished helping Opal and quickly removed his own plates, balancing them on a rock. “I’m going to miss you. Good times, bad times—you were always there for me.”
“It’s only armor,” King said. “Take security. It’s my turn.” The gunnery sergeant removed the heavy plates and stacked them, then stared at them in private communion.
“Isn’t so easy, is it, Gunney?”
“I’ve worn this gear for a long time,” King said. “I’m ready when you are, Lieutenant.”
Hoffman moved as he issued the command. “Let’s get this over with. Masha, how much farther?”
“The maze will take time to navigate, but we are near the bottom,” she said.
“Stay together. Keep moving. The wind should die down once we emerge from the maze into the foothills,” Hoffman said.
Masha hesitated at a fork in the path. One way led out onto a rock causeway, the other down into a deep crack less than a meter wide. “Neither of these looks familiar. It’s hard to see in this weather.”
“Pick one and let’s move,” Hoffman said. He followed her without broadcasting the decision to the rest of the team. The weather didn’t improve, but they found their way onto more level ground. When he looked up, he was amazed by how far they’d descended from the summit.
