“I’ve been through it four times, yeah. Don’t worry about it, those RedCorp bastards aren’t going to get me, not again.”
If the enemy gunfire punched into his body for a fifth time, chewed through the vital organs, he’d be finished. His lifeblood would leak out over the broken, unyielding ground, and there’d be nothing. No help, no techs rushing to bring him back. Just…nothing.
“Dammit, Lt, we gotta stop these bastards! You gotta get some help.”
In a savage gesture, Romero leaned out from behind his rocky cover and opened up with the XM330. The chaingun tore apart the ridge, chewing through rock, even hitting some of the soldiers hiding out of sight. One man slipped and fell, and when the broken body collided with the ground, the Lifers whooped.
"Bring ‘em on!" one man shouted.
Romero gave Noah a triumphant grin, but it faded as four drones raced past the ridge and began circling overhead. Cage instinctively ducked as threat indicators lit up inside his helmet, and he began to tag new targets. He was working out how to take them down, when another wave of drones appeared over the ridge.
“Stand by, there’s more coming in again. I’ll call HQ while there’s still time.”
It meant leaving cover and exposing himself to the enemy. Romero grabbed his arm to hold him back. “Stay down, Lt. We can handle this. Don’t take the chance. This ain’t a job for a Lifer.”
He pulled away. “Rob, I’ll make it.” He grinned, “Besides, you can’t live forever. They’ll come through. I know they will. I’ll bet they’re waiting for our call. I’m not gonna die, not today.” He pointed to the circling robotic aircraft. “Cover me, and get rid of those drones.”
“I’m on it.”
“Copy that. Take over.”
He snaked across the ground, following the faults in the terrain to stay clear of the drone’s direct line-of-sight. The discreet electronics package built into the guidance systems was both fast and accurate. Martian tech. He made it without attracting attention and pulled the communications module from his armor. Legs extended outward as the equipment settled on the ground, and an articulated dish rotated into position. Status lights flashed in his helmet, and Noah breathed a sigh of relief. He’d connected with the dropship, their temporary HQ.
“This is Lieutenant Cage, 3rd Battalion, Mars Recon II. We’re outside the Chasma Boreale Refinery and about to come under heavy attack. The enemy has us outnumbered, and we need urgent air support and reinforcements.”
It took several long seconds before the reply came, the first intact response in days. A reply that chilled him, “Jesus Christ, are you still there?”
Still there, what the hell!
“You’re damn right we’re still here. We were ordered to hold our position in readiness for a new attack, and that’s what we’re doing, buddy.”
A pause. The voice sounded uneasy, “We’ll get back to you, Lieutenant Cage. Await further orders.”
He forced back his rage. “What do you mean await further orders? Are you sending in air support or what?”
“We’ll be in touch.”
The radio went dead, and there was just the mocking noise of static. He tried to get them back.
Either the equipment has malfunctioned, or they’ve blocked my transmission. No, they wouldn’t do that. Why do they make us put up with outdated, crappy equipment? Why can’t they match the RedCorp technology?
As he fumed, he knew the answer. The scientists, the technical wizards, the men who made it happen, were on Mars. The money was on Mars. Although the Mars Recon II assault troops had a single advantage over the flabbier, weaker Martians. They were all Lifers. Soldiers augmented with artificial limbs and fighting with skills learned over multiple lifetimes. Able to carry heavier loads, run faster, wear heavier armor, and mount more powerful weapons. It wasn’t enough.
If those armchair warriors back on Earth got off their butts and gave us the support we need, we could end this war in a matter of weeks. Take back the Martian wealth we rightfully claim as our own.
A blinding flash interrupted his thoughts as it lit up the landscape. A missile had detonated above his men, an airburst. Something was wrong. RedCorp didn’t use airburst weapons. Regarded them as primitive compared to the chilling power and accuracy of their weapons.
Mars Recon wouldn’t target our own men, so who did?
He tried to clear his head, stunned by the blast wave that almost fried his brain. He knew they were all dead, beyond any new life - Romero, his friend, Arnaz, the rookie, Tyson, Eaker, Mason, Martinez, and the others. All gone. A second, huge flash with the thunderous impact of the blast wave, pitched him into oblivion. There was nothing, save blackness. He had a final thought before his conscious brain switched off.
Last life.
Part One – Earth
Chapter One
Westbank, PanAmerica, Earthside
Four Years Later
Noah made slow progress, feet moving with dull precision. He was tired, exhausted, and his body ached, as if he'd yomped fifty kilometers in one day. His powered limbs were already reaching the limits of their powercells, but he ignored the warnings, for now. Even on low power they were tougher than any natural bone or muscle. He had other concerns, a promise to keep.
With each step, he remembered the pain and misery of his time on Mars. After the defeat, he’d spent three years in hell. Three years in a stinking Martian prison, beaten, starved, tortured, and abused. There was never enough air, never enough water, and never enough food. After a short time, he thought he’d die. Thought he was a cert for last life. It should have ended when they wiped out his unit with two airburst missiles. By some fluke, he was still alive when they came upon him, the sole survivor of his veteran Lifer unit.
The brutal RedCorp contractors should have killed him. Taking prisoners was not SOP for the company mercenaries. He never found out why they’d spared him.
Spared me for three years in hell, why?
That’s the question he asked himself every minute of every hour, of every damn day.
Why did they let me live, when the others died?
Ever since he recovered consciousness, shackled to an iron ring in the squalid cell, he’d asked himself the same question. The answer never came.
He’d reached one of those towns that appear out of nowhere. A man could drift through Main Street and out the other side, and it was like it never existed. This one was named Westbank, situated in the Appalachians, a hick town like so many other hick towns in PanAmerica. Not like the communities of bygone America they showed in old movies, or not so old movies. It had been four years since he’d last seen Earth, and the changes were like an open wound.
There was little traffic in Westbank, and what there was, dilapidated and with rusting paintwork. Some vehicles even belched gas fumes. Retrofitted with hydrocarbon engines, decades after they’d said fusion energy was the future. They’d been proved wrong. At least, going to war with Mars had proved them wrong. Changed everything, and made it much worse.
Cage glanced from side to side as he entered the outskirts. The hopelessness was written on every building, like a painted sign of despair on the rutted tarmac street, on every tree and blade of grass, and on the faces of the inhabitants. Lined with despair, their future soured. If they needed to know why, they could look up to the night sky. To the bright planet that was Mars. To the ruination of politicians’ dreams and naked ambition that was Mars.
The Martian Wars had ended in defeat, and that defeat meant the long, slow slide into decay would continue. Fusion, once promised to be the savior of Earth, was a dirty word. For fusion technology to work the miracles they’d promised, it needed skilled techs to maintain it. Qualified and experienced men to develop the processes, streamline the systems, and invent the hardware to maintain the production. It started to go bad when the best of them took passage to Mars.
They were tempted by the lure of the NewDollar, the universal currency that so many countries of the o
ld world had adopted; dollars, pounds, and yen all little more than an economic footnotes in the history of the modern world. The new elite bought homes in the luxurious, secure compounds built around such economic powerhouses as Tharsis. Where the structures built for the precious techs were mansions, their neighbors were the same kind of people, with the same skills; working for such as RedCorp, or another of the other four giant corporations who ruled Mars. Corporations that’d allowed PanAmerica and the other nations on Earth to do the hard work, to invest the billions and billions of dollars, and then taken the best of their brains. Taken the cream of their population and slammed the door shut. Declared independence overnight, and upped the price of the minerals and technology of which they’d cornered the market.
The First Martian War had been rushed and ill prepared. Over thirty thousand perished in the first week. The disaster led to the collapse of three governments, and a worldwide stock market crash. Three years later came the Second Martian War, and it failed just as miserably. They’d sent in Lieutenant Noah Cage’s unit halfway through the Third Martian War. As the war blazed to yet another defeat, their reward was death to every man in his unit, except for him. They gave him a one-way ticket to hell, and each day he wished his life had ended with the others.
Noah's mind was elsewhere as he walked on, and he failed to see the police cruiser until it stopped a meter behind him. Electrically powered and almost silent, when it stopped the faint grind of the power unit made him turn his head. Thirty years ago it would have been a gleaming machine, charged with electricity from the Grid, courtesy of the cheap energy provided by the state's fusion power stations and solar collectors. The unit was way past time for replacement, its battery cores worn down it now used a secondary internal combustion generator to run the motors. Access to the Grid was expensive, and now focused on the few in the major cities able to afford it. Out here, few could afford such a luxury, even for local law enforcement. But oil, like everything else low-tech, was still cheap in PanAm.
The voice was arrogant, peremptory. No room for argument. “Hold it right there. ID, feller.”
He glanced at the livery painted on the side of the electric cruiser. Westbank Section, a subsidiary of Dawson Public Facilities Inc.; another private outfit jumping on the bandwagon, with private security employees to cut costs for the Sheriff’s Offices. The brand had worn away, but chrome lettering showed it to be an Aircruiser, a vehicle in common use by law enforcement. So common was the model, similar vehicles had now taken on the moniker, much as Band-Aids and Hoover vacuum cleaners had done in the past.
There were two cops inside, and the bigger man in the passenger seat leaned through the passenger window, waiting for him to hand it over. When Cage pretended to fumble for it, he climbed out from the car. He stood before him, feet planted on the ground, knees slightly bent, one hand hovering over the holster on his belt, a shooting position. The other, the one in the driving seat stayed in the vehicle, watching him with a grin playing on his face.
The big cop’s body language was confident. He had a nametag tacked to his shirt with steel pins that said, ‘Harrison Vos, Sheriff.’ Underneath, in much smaller letters, ‘Here to serve.' As if it were a secret he didn’t want too many people to know.
He was big, beefy, and red-faced. Like a linebacker gone to seed after too much booze and too little exercise. Forty kilos overweight, or maybe fifty. The unkempt state of his crumpled uniform told of a man who’d lost much of his sense of pride. Although at six three, he was tall enough to physically dominate most men. He stood waiting, and so far, the gun was still in the holster. The butt was shiny, and Cage had no doubt it was maintained with meticulous care.
The gun was a vintage weapon, a Colt .44 Magnum. All dull, faded blue iron and hardwood. It had little in common with the exotic smartguns of the military, or even Stryker rifles and carbines now the de facto standard for security and law enforcement. These compact polymer automatic weapons supplied to most employees of Earthside security companies were cheap, and easy to maintain and operate. At first glance they looked like futuristic ray guns, but in reality little different to the firearms of old, just updated with modern materials. They utilized reliable and accurate digital optics, and the tried and tested 7mm hybrid bullets.
No smartgun here, Noah thought.
Everything seemed so old-fashioned, so run down and low tech out here. During his time in the military he'd got used to the smartguns as they were known, and anything lesser seemed like a toy to him. These weapons used special smart munitions, a large caliber bullet giving them their distinctive name. Known simply as ‘smart rounds’ by the press, or sometimes the more aggressive ‘smart bullets,’ they gave the modern shooter selective fire ability. Using an unlocked military weapon, the firer could choose whether to disable or kill a man, and the weapon would simply choose a different form for each shot. The intelligent bullet could break upon firing to create a mist of pellets like a shotgun, remain compact in an armor-piercing slug, or explode on impact.
Some law enforcement units were able to procure them, but had the solid slug option removed from their firmware, something any decent hacker could remove. The .44, of course, had a single option. The killshot. Noah knew that, and his body trembled at the anticipation of a fight.
Cage knew he resembled a hobo. Wandering from town to town, hitching rides when a driver stopped; which was seldom. Even after his incarceration, he looked dangerous. Despite the ravages to his body, and the lines of pain etched deep into his lean, handsome face, his cybernetic limbs suggested a powerful man, a dangerous man.
Three years in prison drained the energy from the systems that amplified the power in his arms and legs, and he was weak when he managed to escape. He’d stowed away on a freighter, a lighter about to take off and rendezvous with a Cycler ship bound for Earth. He was lucky; the Cycler was still fitted for military transport. He’d searched for and located the energy transfusers, and regained his strength during the long journey. Now he was here, on Earth, about to complete the final act of his life, here in Westbank, to keep a promise to a dead friend.
“Uh, Sheriff, I can’t seem to find it. Hold on, I’ll look harder.”
The cop scrutinized him, and his hard expression suggested he didn’t like what he saw. “You a soldier, Mister?”
“No.”
“Uh, huh. You look like a soldier, one of those bums that got their asses kicked up there."
He lifted his eyes to the sky, though Noah knew the only celestial object up in that direction was the Sun.
"Not that it makes any difference. Dawson Public Facilities takes a hard line on anyone traveling without ID. I doubt you’d have the money to pay the fine.” His gaze drilled into Cage’s eyes, as if looking for something he was hiding inside his head, “One thousand NewDollars. Cash.”
He had the sum of one hundred and five NewDollars stashed in his boot.
Cage tried the Sheriff with humor. You never knew. “You have a payment plan?”
The sneer was cruel. “Sure do, three months’ hard time. You can work the road gang to pay off the debt.”
“I’ll find the ID, Sheriff.”
“Makes no difference to me; the roads around here need repairs. Most of ‘em need resurfacing, but the machinery’s been broken for years, so plenty of potholes to fill, and no engineers to fix them. I’d hurry with that ID if I were you. I ain’t got all day.”
Cage was calculating the angles, readying himself for a sprint to the nearest cover. The Sheriff would be a crack shot, for sure. In this one horse town, he’d have time to spare. Time to sit on his ass and fire shot after shot all day long, until the company accountants refused to stump up for more ammo. He sure wouldn’t catch a suspect by running him into the ground, not carrying that amount of lard around his middle.
He estimated the distance to the nearest cover as forty meters. He might make it, but he’d have to divert Sheriff Vos first. He continued to fumble in his pockets, and the man grew impati
ent.
“I’m about done with you, feller. Do you have it or not?”
He plastered a smile on his face. “Sure, it’s here.”
He pulled a card out of his pocket, an outdated security pass he’d picked up off the road a few klicks back.
“Here you go. Shit!”
He let if fall to the ground and bent to pick it up. His hand grabbed a fistful of dust and grit, and as he straightened, he threw it. Vos was fast, already reaching for his gun when the debris filled his eyes. Cage took off, despite his strength being weakened from years of living under the lower gravity of the Red Planet. He wouldn’t make it. His back tensed as he waited for the stunning blow from the bullet.
It didn’t happen. He reached the thick scrub at the side of the road and dove inside. He was invisible to the road, and when he looked back, the Sheriff was driving away, lights flashing, the siren sounding its eerie wail. An emergency call had saved his life. It had been close, and he chided himself for allowing the peace officer to stop him.
Stay out of sight. Keep moving. If you keep moving, they won’t get you.
They’d drummed it into him during his training. So many years ago that the faces had blurred, but not the mantras.
Keep moving and they won’t get you.
He kept running. He had to locate Rose Romero and keep that promise made to Rob all those years back. It was all he had left. After he’d talked to her and fulfilled his promise, nothing else mattered.
He had to explain what happened to her husband, give her closure. Tell her how an unidentified missile wiped out his unit, tore them apart with the massive blast, leaving their remains abandoned on the dry Martian dust. He couldn’t tell her at first, couldn’t keep his promise to Rob. Not for three, long years, when he languished in a Martian hellhole, long after the Third Martian War was over. The return to Earth was endless, wedged into a tiny space in the vast hold of a Cycler ship. All he wanted was to deliver on a promise. Except someone, somewhere wanted him dead.
Last Life (Lifers Book 1) Page 3
