Messenger

by James Walker

  “This would seem to reinforce the theory that SLIC has spies among the security personnel,” Koga said.

  “Perhaps.” Falsrain drummed his fingers on the arm of his chair. “Still, this is what the military gets for relying too heavily on mindless toys. We let our machines do all the killing for us, and now we've grown soft.

  “Besides,” his mouth widened into a cold smile, “it's far more effective to shackle a mind in chains than to craft dolls with no will of their own.” He cast a sidelong glance at his executive officer. “Wouldn't you agree, Koga?”

  Koga was nonplussed. “Um. I'm not quite sure what you mean, Commodore.”

  Falsrain's smile turned disdainful. “No, I don't suppose you do.” He waved his hand in a lazy gesture of command. “Contact the ready room again.”

  “Sir.”

  Koga stepped forward and keyed the code for the ready room into the central console. As the screen flickered into existence, he stepped aside to give Falsrain an unobstructed view. Lambda's scarred, emotionless face appeared in the screen, staring blankly at the ground. Af­ter a moment, she looked up into the screen with empty eyes.

  “Lieutenant Lambda,” Falsrain said. “It seems we've stirred up a hornet's nest in Port Osgow. The enemy's strength is far greater than initially believed, and the situation has spiraled out of control.”

  Lambda waited expectantly.

  Falsrain said simply, “Take your Ghost and clean up the mess.”

  Lambda stood up straight and gave a sharp salute. “Yes sir.”

  *

  As soon as the screen vanished, Lambda sprang into action. Moving with mechanical efficiency, she donned her flight suit and strode purposefully out of the ready room. She rode the elevator to the hangar deck, standing still as a statue until the effects of the artificial gravity vanished, leaving her floating in midair.

  As soon as the elevator doors opened, Lambda pushed off the back wall and launched herself into the hangar. Her trajectory took her past several mechanics, toward a piece of scaffolding. As she passed the scaffolding, she reached out with one arm and grabbed hold of one of the support beams. Her inertia carried her in a partial orbit around the beam, then she let go, flying straight for the far corner of the hangar.

  Her destination loomed above her—the AS530 Ghost, a cutting-edge military exosuit. Larger than civilian models, the Ghost sported a rounded, almost organic design with a thick torso and shoulders con­nected to spindly limbs. Atop the torso sat a sensor suite in the shape of an elongated bulb. The suit's features gave it the presence of a giant humanoid crossed with a cybernetic flower.

  As she drew near the Ghost, Lambda pushed off the floor, launching herself toward the open cockpit. She grabbed hold of the canopy, vaulted inside, and twisted around to land neatly in the pilot's seat. Once inside, she fastened the restraints into place, inputted the startup sequence, and closed the hatch. A score of readouts activated in sequence, illuminating the darkness with a prism's worth of lights, when the communication system alerted her to a transmission from the bridge.

  Commodore Falsrain appeared in the viewscreen. “Are you ready, Lieutenant?”

  “Yes,” Lambda answered. “What is my mission?”

  “Omicron is still somewhere in the station, status unknown. Lend him support if you see him. Aside from that...” Falsrain paused. “Kill anything that moves.”

  Lambda looked puzzled. “You mean the rebels, sir?”

  Falsrain's eyes narrowed. “I meant what I said.”

  “But...”

  “That's an order, Lieutenant.”

  Lambda's eyes glazed over for a moment, then her face hardened into an expression of single-minded purpose. “Understood.”

  Falsrain's transmission window vanished. Lambda entered a series of commands in the console, mumbling, “Well, if the rebels are hiding among the civilians, I guess it would be hard to tell them apart.”

  With launch preparations complete, she contacted flight control. “Ghost One to flight control. Launch status?”

  “Ghost One, this is flight control. All systems are ready.”

  “Clear the flight deck. I'm heading to the catapult.”

  “Roger, Ghost One.”

  The hangar's alarm blared, sending the flight crews scurrying to get clear. Lambda pressed a button on the wrist of her flight suit, which responded by injecting her with linkage fluid. Almost at once, a burning sensation flowed up her arm and propagated through her body, while her senses sharpened to almost painful levels. The fluid contained a mix of chemicals to enhance aggressiveness and reaction times and, most importantly, to strengthen the body against inertial forces. Be­tween the Ghost's mechanical countermeasures, the anti-g properties of the flight suit, her artificially augmented body, and the effects of the linkage fluid, she would be able to withstand g-forces many times in excess of those tolerable to unprotected humans.

  Once the flight crews had gotten clear, Lambda guided the Ghost across the hangar. She waited while the airlock doors groaned open, then moved into the launch catapult and waited again for the gates to cycle. After a moment, the infinite ocean of stars appeared at the end of the tunnel.

  “Course clear,” the controller's voice crackled over the comm. “All systems green. Ghost One, you are cleared for launch.”

  “Ghost One, launching.”

  Lambda ignited the Ghost's rockets at full power, sending it blazing forward. The launch catapult's electromagnetic rails further accelerated the suit, firing it into space at high velocity. As the Ghost flew clear of the Onyx Down, Lambda activated its stealth module. In re­sponse, a cloak of invisibility emanated from the exosuit's torso and spread across its fuselage until it had completely vanished. Only the tiny flashes of its propellants gave a clue to its existence as it flew toward Port Osgow at top speed.

  8

  Vic followed the rebels out of the tunnel into the city proper. Once free of the tunnel, Vic saw that their forces consisted of a full squadron of exosuits, several squads of infantry, and a single armored personnel carrier. The rebel forces fanned out and proceeded cautiously through the ruined streets, keeping the Cage and its porters enclosed in a protective circle.

  “Are we going the right way?” Vic asked. “I thought you said you were trying to get the Cage off the station. This route won't take us to the port or the elevator.”

  “The Therans undoubtedly have the port and the elevator locked down tight,” Pierson replied. “We've got a different way off the station.”

  “What's that?”

  “You'll see.”

  As the rebel force continued its advance, Vic was struck by the eerie quiet. The streets were deserted now, all the civilians having either evacuated to the emergency shelters or gotten killed in the cross­fire. After the frenzied din of battle, the silence seemed foul and threat­ening.

  “What happened to all the battle drones?” Vic wondered.

  “We've taken care of most of the spiders,” Pierson said. “But there might still be a few lurking about, so be careful.”

  “What about the bombers?”

  “Probably returning to base to rearm. The Slayers can't carry a heavy loadout,” Pierson said. “Now be still for a while. Keep unnecessary transmissions to a minimum.”

  “Right, sorry.”

  Vic glanced at the readouts on his console. Through the wall of static, he could nonetheless identify nearby geographical features and several points around his position corresponding to the rebel vehicles. A small message flashed in the corner, “Main sensors offline—lidar operative.”

  This was instructive. So, some kind of powerful jamming had rendered most forms of long-range electromagnetic propagation useless, but optics-based technologies still worked. Except for line-of-sight, they were deaf and blind to everything beyond a couple hundred meters. But who was responsible for the jamming—Spacy or SLIC?

  A burst of automatic fire caused Vic to jump. He looked to his right and saw a ruby beam flash from behind
a building. Then another burst of gunfire, followed by the sound of an explosion.

  “One spider down,” the rebel pilot reported.

  “Good work,” Pierson answered. “Stay alert.”

  The rebel force continued advancing. Vic glanced at the left side of his viewscreen, where the exosuits assigned as porters were carrying the Cage. The macabre sculptures and scrawled ancient writings still gave a fearful impression, but out here in the open, the Cage seemed less threatening. Vic could detect no trace of the mental pull he had felt earlier. Had his experience in the tunnel really been a stress-induced hallucination?

  A shrill whine from the sensor readout interrupted Vic's thoughts. His gaze flicked to the console and he saw that one of the rebel readings had vanished, replaced by the text, “Signal lost.”

  “Ling, are you there?” Pierson asked. “Ling, respond.”

  Silence.

  “Ling's dropped off the sensors,” Pierson said. “Kramer, go see what happened to him.”

  “Yes sir,” came the reply. There was a short pause, then, “What the f—”

  The whine of another lost signal punctuated the incomplete curse. Vic stared at the sensor's pitiless report, a feeling of dread creeping into the pit of his stomach.

  Pierson stopped and raised his suit's left hand. “Everyone stop,” he ordered. “Unidentified hostile at bearing 150. Amon, Franks, Walther, fall back to the right flank. Tighten up that line. We can't let them reach the Cage.”

  The two suits holding the Cage set it down gently and doubled back. They were soon joined by a third. All three suits took up a rear guard position, spreading out to cover the streets to either side. Vic readied his rifle and spun around, staring down the empty street behind them. A tense silence descended.

  “I can't see anything,” Amon reported.

  “I found Kramer's suit,” Franks said. “Or what's left of it. Looks like someone took a giant can opener to it. And... Hey, there's Kramer. Looks like he got out OK.”

  “Tell him to fall back to the center of the formation,” Pierson said. “Any sign of Ling?”

  “I'm looking now. Wasn't he last seen around—oh shit. Oh shit!”

  The now-familiar shrill beep signaled the termination of Franks' signal. Vic stared at the “Signal lost” message in trepidation. A bead of sweat formed at his brow and dripped down the side of his face.

  “What's happening?” Pierson demanded. “Walther, did you see anything?”

  “No,” Walther exclaimed, his voice high with fear. “I mean, I—I saw Franks' suit just fall apart, but I don't know how. There's no sign of the enemy. It's like he just disintegrated!”

  “It's a stealth field,” Pierson said. “Infantry squads, we need your support. Move to Franks' last known position and deploy smoke gr—”

  “It's too late,” Walther's terrified cry cut off Pierson's orders.

  Walther's suit rocketed backward out of an alley about a hundred meters distant, sweeping its rifle in wild arcs, spraying its surroundings with fire. Suddenly its rifle arm came free of the body and clattered to the ground, weapon still firing. Its head flew off next, and finally something ripped the torso free of the legs. The severed remnants fell to the ground in a pile, sparking and smoking.

  “What the hell is doing that?” Vic shouted.

  A tense edge crept into Pierson's voice. “Microfilament. It's a nearly invisible wire that can cut through matter at the molecular level. Vic, watch out. It's coming for us next.”

  Vic swept his rifle from one side of the street to the other, holding down the trigger. As he sprayed fire at random, he caught a shimmer closing on him from the right and activated his suit's leg boosters, rocketing in the opposite direction. The next instant, the exosuit's rifle came apart in its hand, then erupted in a fireball as a misfire caused a chain reaction in the magazine.

  Vic drew the molecular cutter and swept his eyes desperately across the viewscreen. Something glinted directly in front of him. He stepped aside just as the ground where he had been standing erupted, spewing debris like a geyser. Then he ducked as a coiling shimmer whipped out from the right. A line of windows in the building on his left exploded, raining glass and dust.

  Vic continued his narrow dodges, barely able to keep pace with his foe's attacks. His breathing accelerated to the brink of hyperventilation while his heart threatened to pound out of his chest. The enemy was lightning fast, its movements only visible as faint flickers. It was taking every ounce of his strength just to defend himself.

  The air directly in front of him shimmered. This was different from the glinting spindle of the microfilament—thicker, more substantial.

  “There you are,” Vic shouted.

  He fired his leg boosters and dashed forward, knife held back for a swing. As he reached the point where the air had fluctuated, he lashed out, only to have his knife slice through empty space. The enemy had moved.

  Vic watched in horror as the right arm of his suit broke apart into half a dozen pieces, sending the molecular cutter flying out of his grasp. Then a tremendous force struck him from behind. His exosuit crashed into the nearest building and tore a hole in it before bouncing off and skidding across the street. The series of impacts caused his head to whip forward, then back into the seat.

  He sat stunned, hanging at an odd angle, still pinned to the seat by the restraints. A warm fluid flowed from the back of his head onto his face, then dripped onto the viewscreen in front of him. He watched the dripping blood through blurry eyes, barely aware of his surroundings. His head swam, the world spun, and he had to suppress the urge to vomit. Stunned as he was, he could do nothing but turn his head to watch the side of his viewscreen as the unseen assailant moved to engage Pierson next.

  Pierson opened fire with his rifle, cutting a tight arc on the side of the building where Vic had fallen and continuing across the street. The rounds kicked up a thick cloud of dust, which whirled around something standing nearby. A vague shape appeared in the cloud, its silhou­ette like that of a looming plant monster.

  Pierson trained his rifle on the silhouette and fired. A light flashed in the center of the silhouette and the incoming rounds veered wildly away from their target, spraying the street and surrounding structures with deflected shots.

  Vic's fear mounted still further. On top of everything else, the enemy could deflect bullets?

  Pierson dropped his rifle, drew his molecular cutter, and charged. Several brilliant azure rays burst from the flower of dust and arced toward him. He fired his leg boosters to clear a beam aimed to sweep through his legs, then spun to the side to avoid a second beam dropping from above like an axe. Clear of the attacks, he applied a single full-power burst to his rockets, dashed forward, and stabbed.

  With lightning speed, the enemy sidestepped and spun behind him. Pierson whirled around and swung again, but his foe had already backed out of range. Pierson went airborne with a burst of his thrusters and descended on the target when the wall to his left exploded, pouring debris over him. A chunk of rubble struck his suit and sent him fly­ing off course. He hit the ground hard and skidded across the street. A blue glow from the swirling dust that signified the enemy exosuit warned of another impending beam volley.

  Despite Pierson's obvious skill as a pilot, he could not bridge the chasm between his suit's capabilities and those of his enemy. Vic knew that if he did not intervene, Pierson would be overpowered and the rebel force would fall here.

  Drawing upon another reserve of strength that he would not have believed himself capable of, Vic pushed his damaged suit to its feet, used his remaining arm to sweep his molecular cutter off the ground, and hurled it at the source of the azure glow. The knife struck its invisible target, and the glow from the enemy's weapon faded with a shower of sparks.

  Taking advantage of the opportunity, Pierson brought his suit from prone to full-on charge in a single movement and lashed out with his own cutter. The blade sliced through an unseen armor plate and cut deep into the del
icate machinery underneath.

  With a sparking flash, the enemy exosuit appeared before them—huge, menacing, crouching like a wild animal ready to spring. The suit stumbled back, sparks raining from the dual wounds to its chest, its head sensors flashing. Its engines roared like a monster's scream, and with a flood of propellant, it took to the air and disappeared around a distant bend.

  Pierson's voice sounded over Vic's speakers. “You're tougher than I thought. I was afraid you'd been knocked out by the impact.”

  “I nearly was,” Vic panted. “Seems like we managed to drive it away. What the hell was that thing?”

  “Sixth-generation Spacy combat suit,” Pierson replied. “Far superior to these refitted civilian models. But never mind that. I've never seen anyone go toe-to-toe against a microfilament whip like that before. Where did you learn to fight like that?”

  Vic's reply came between ragged breaths. “Nowhere. I was just desperate.”

  Pierson took a long time to answer. “That's rather hard to believe,” he said finally.

  A sardonic smile appeared on Vic's bloodstained face. “What? Don't you trust me?”

  “Let's just say that either a miraculous boon has fallen into our laps,” Pierson replied, “or I'll soon be dealing with you personally.”

  Vic frowned. “What's that supposed to mean?”

  “If you really don't know, there's no problem.” Pierson's suit turned from side to side, surveying the carnage, then he ordered, “All units, check in.”

  One by one, the reports came in. Half of the rebel exosuits had been destroyed, but most of the pilots had escaped serious injury. One of the infantry squads had come too close in an effort to provide supporting fire and had taken casualties from stray shots. The rest of the unit was unharmed. Considering the caliber of their opponent, Vic thought they had gotten off lightly.

  “Amon, help me with the Cage,” Pierson ordered. “We're falling back. If we can't reach H.Q. by the time the enemy launches their next attack, we're finished. Oh, and Vic?”