Escape Velocity (The Quantum War Book 1)

by Jonathan Paul Isaacs

  Laramie smelled a sudden whiff of ozone. She glanced up and saw Maya on the stairs, Vector trained on the steps below them, blasting away with the enhanced accuracy of a CORE helmet.

  A sharp crack reverberated from below. The booming of enemy fire momentarily ceased.

  How? Laramie thought. There was no way Maya could have taken out assault armor with a Vector.

  “Staff Sergeant, come on!” Maya yelled.

  She pushed up and saw a splash of red against Finn’s vest. Laramie grabbed an arm and dragged him up the stairs, crawling on all fours to keep her balance. Maya grabbed Finn’s other side. The Marine tried to stand and move under his own power and almost fell over.

  Laramie caught a glimpse of the Heavy. He was assessing his weapon, now a fractured tangle of metal with a smoking hole in it.

  Good shot, Maya.

  The three of them staggered upward. Laramie felt a faint, desperate twinge underneath the shell of concentration that kept her in the moment. She had to get her squad mates out. If Dr. Bell could stop this outbreak of … whatever it was … if they could get some alternative underway that didn’t involve this insane, police-led massacre, then she could feel like her family would be safe.

  Her family. How she would have loved to see them again. Would she ever get another chance? Were they living on borrowed time? Were they even alive?

  I have to get my squad mates out.

  They reached the last landing before the topmost floor. Kenny was leaning against the railing and burning through chem mags as he lay suppressing fire. Maya, the smallest one of the them by far, was somehow manhandling them forward. “Roof exit! We need to get to the roof exit, Staff Sergeant—”

  One level below their feet, a blinding flash filled the air as Finn’s rigged explosives detonated across the stairs.

  The world turned strangely and suddenly silent. Laramie blinked repeatedly but couldn’t quite make sense of what she saw. A gaping, charred hole where the stairs used to be. A bulky assault suit with no legs, tumbled into a heap. Her own hands, pushing herself up and hauling Finn to his feet. Every movement felt surreal and disconnected, as if Laramie was watching through someone else’s eyes as her body and her troopers moved of their own accord.

  She reached the top of the stairs and tumbled onto the uppermost landing.

  Kenny was waving at her from the walkway by the end of the footbridge. He was shouting something that couldn’t make it past the ringing in her ears.

  “What?”

  Kenny pointed down a hallway at a fire door.

  Get to the door. Got it.

  She gave him a thumbs up and looked back to Finn and Maya. They were pressed against the railing, Maya training her Vector on the staircase behind them, Finn looking around as if he had lost something. Laramie realized he no longer had his weapon.

  “Get moving!” Laramie yelled. “I’ll cover!” Her own voice sounded muffled, like she was holding a blanket around her ears.

  Finn nodded and staggered away, holding the side where Laramie had seen the blood.

  Laramie and Maya hurried along the footbridge, weapons up, covering their withdrawal. Her vision seemed extra sharp. But why couldn’t she hear? She thought she should know, but thoughts came slowly to her brain, and she couldn’t put her finger on it.

  They reached the walkway that encircled the top level of the atrium. Kenny stood by himself, covering the landing with his Vector.

  “You okay?” he yelled, barely audible. His face contained a strange grimace, as if holding back pain.

  “I’m fine.” She did feel good. At least, not bad. Maybe numb. Or euphoric? “What about you?”

  Kenny gave her a nod that didn’t jibe with his expression.

  “Do we have an ETA on our ride?”

  “Nine minutes—”

  Laramie saw movement the same time Kenny started firing. A group of police crouched near the top of the central staircase. They must have jumped across the hole from the explosion.

  An explosion. That’s why she was deaf. She had been lying right next to it, on top of Finn.

  She dove to cover as return fire snapped into the wall by her head. On impulse, she reached up to her earpiece and turned the comm volume all the way up.

  Wyatt’s voice filled the air around her. “Chris, coming up behind you from the stairs, we’re coming in hot!”

  “Copy. We can’t get on the roof.”

  A flurry of snaps from the Vectors covered the top of the stairs, forcing the police to keep their heads down. Laramie’s trigger locked on her next pull. She dropped to her stomach and fished out a fresh chem mag from her vest.

  “Say again?” Wyatt barked.

  “We are not on the roof. The access door is motorized and the power is still cut.”

  “Can you get it?”

  “Working on it.”

  Laramie didn’t hear any more as she shot at the police. She really didn’t need to. The police obviously had a response plan for this location. Swarm the regular doors with personnel. Cut the power on any other exits. Trap your prey and hunt them down. All she could do was focus on her job, which right now was to hold off enemy combatants and trust that Wyatt would earn all that fancy officer pay and not let them all get killed.

  Laser bolts popped chunks of plaster and ash out of the wall to her left. Laramie tried to return fire but another barrage forced her to press flat against the floor. Dust from more impacts swirled around them in a white cloud, obscuring their attackers.

  “The lock is free,” Chris said on the comm. “Come on, Finn … push …”

  More blasts. Laramie tried to locate their origin, but a quick peek was met with an electric zing that almost shot her in the face again. For some reason, she found herself laughing. Why imminent death seemed funny, she wasn’t sure. But it seemed to pair well with the ringing still in her ears from the explosion.

  Kenny’s voice filled her ears through her comm earpiece. “I’m on my last mag.”

  Laramie managed to tug her Vector a few centimeters off the floor. “Maya, can you see them?”

  “No. I can’t get a shot.”

  A laser blast hit a nearby potted plant, exploding it into a cascade of clay fragments that showered them in debris.

  “Roof door is open!” the comm said.

  “Move!” shouted another voice.

  But all Laramie could do was stay flat. She and Maya were hopelessly pinned. A tiny voice told her that more police were flanking them while the first group kept up the suppressing fire.

  She shrugged up her Vector anyway. If she was going to get waxed, at least she was going to go out shooting. Curiously, she didn’t feel bothered by this.

  “Laramie, get your team to the roof!” Wyatt said on the comm.

  “We’re pinned,” Laramie said.

  She glanced at Maya, lying flat on the other side of the hallway. She couldn’t see Kenny. A barrage of shots eviscerated the rest of the wall.

  Laramie’s hand slid off her Vector. She readied her body to push herself up. She was sure she could get off a couple shots, just enough to the others Maya retreat. That was all she needed to manage. It would very likely be the last thing she ever did.

  “Maya, Ken, when I say, shoot and fall back. Got it?”

  “Got it.”

  Another blast electrified the air over Laramie’s head.

  “Ready?”

  Before Laramie could commit herself, multiple laser shots ripped holes in a seemingly random pattern on the wall in front of Maya. At first she thought the police must be shooting through the wall at them. But that wasn’t right. The shots had come from behind her.

  One of the hostiles, a body in black tactical gear, rolled face-down at the end of the hall with a large hole in his shoulder.

  “To the roof! Now!” Wyatt shouted from behind them, his face red from exertion.

  He had come back for them.

  The corridor was literally disintegrating. Laramie scrambled to get to the cover w
hile Wyatt laid down suppressing fire from the fire door, snapping his trigger as fast as he possibly could. A picture frame filled with corporate art shattered from a laser blast and sent a fine glass mist into her face just as she crossed the threshold of the fire stairs.

  They turned and ran. At roof level, the top of the fire stairs exited into a wide landing with stacks of cargo crates in front of a nonfunctional freight elevator. A large metal door sat ajar at the far end, pushed open just wide enough for a person to squeeze through.

  Wyatt ran for the door. “Friendlies coming out!”

  Maya followed, then Kenny, then Laramie. Her ARC vest felt loose as she ran. She glanced at her chest and saw pieces missing. One of the ablative pucks was completely gone. When had that happened? She tugged on a loose piece of fabric just before she wiggled through the open door.

  Then they were outside.

  The fresh air felt overpowering. Rain fell from a dark sky, pushed sideways by gusts of chilly wind that raked across the roof, yet streams of orange sunlight peeked past the edge of the storm cell to cast a surreal glow from the horizon. A raised, reinforced carbon-fiber platform occupied the middle of the area and was clearly some sort of landing pad. Large metal boxes, transformers, and HVAC ductwork filled the remaining space around the platform.

  “Keep moving!” Wyatt shouted. “Get to cover and get your guns on that door.”

  Laramie scrambled behind a large metal evaporator painted in an industrial gray. Wyatt tumbled past her a split second later, just before a laser bolt ticked off the edge of the box by his head.

  “Contact, five o’clock!” Maya said. Her CORE helmet would easily pick up the invisible light of the laser shots. “By the freight door.”

  Four Vectors went up. Four Vectors released a volley of death. When an empty magazine froze her trigger again, Laramie thought for a moment that surely the police knew they better leave them alone.

  She slapped the fresh mag in her weapon and peeked around the edge of the evaporator. The freight door stood silently in its track, a spray of pockmarks on the outer face around the opening.

  Laramie almost didn’t see the streak of the rocket motor.

  “Incom—”

  The evaporator exploded. Laramie and Wyatt flew backward from the force of the blast. Laramie’s head hit the roof surface, filling her vision with stars.

  “Contact—multiple Heavies!” Kenny was shouting. “Repeat, multiple Heavies moving on your position. Lieutenant, displace!”

  Wyatt had rolled onto his side and was trying to get up. “Copy,” he replied, his voice groggy.

  Another exhaust trail from a sleeve-mounted rocket streaked past them.

  Laramie blinked hard to clear her vision. Somehow she had gotten herself into a kneeling position. Her mind raced to catch up with events. But for some reason all she could think about was the explosives Finn had set back on the central staircase. He always had a lot of explosives.

  “Finn …”

  “Say again? Didn’t copy?”

  “Finn. We need help.” Her voice sounded alien to her own ears.

  “We’re pinned!” came the reply on the comm. “You need to displace, they’re advancing on you!”

  “This is Savage Echo One, inbound. Someone say they needed help?”

  Wasn’t that their Javelin’s call sign?

  “Teo!” Laramie blurted. She frowned, trying to focus. “We’ve got … multiple contacts in assault armor … on the roof.”

  “Roger. Turn your strobes on. Coming in hot. ETA thirty seconds.”

  They had to find a way to last half a minute. She glanced at the next evaporator a few meters over.

  “Wyatt!” she yelled, pointing.

  “Copy,” Wyatt said. He shot at several shadowy shapes near the freight door. “All teams, turn your strobes on. Repeat, strobes on.”

  “Wyatt, we don’t have strobes,” Chris said.

  The Lieutenant paused. “Where are you?”

  “West corner, next to the vent—”

  A hollow foomp announced a Heavy firing another rocket. Laramie weaved around several knee-high air ducts and saw Chris and Finn taking cover behind a low cement reinforcement. The rocket streaked past them and into a power transformer, creating a brilliant explosion that sent a shower of rock and metal into the air.

  One of the other Heavies—there were three—was shooting an autocannon as he moved from the other side of the landing platform. He was advancing on the Marines’ position, flanking. A stack of four officers in helmets and ARC vests trailed close behind, using their armored comrade as cover.

  “Chris, say again, what is your position, over?” Wyatt said again.

  Static.

  “Fifteen seconds,” Teo’s voice crackled.

  Still wrapped in a cloud of muffled sound, Laramie watched as the police moved closer to the Marines. Yet her mind screamed at her that the real threat was something else.

  Why was her mind so slow?

  She knew the answer. It seemed like it was just out of reach though.

  Then it hit her. Teo’s Javelin was coming in with guns blazing. RESIT ARC vests all had strobe beacons for locating positions in deep space, but the Marines’ vests didn’t. Chris and Finn would get waxed along with the hostiles.

  Laramie’s instincts made the call for her.

  “Wyatt, cover me!”

  His head turned in alarm. “What?”

  She didn’t wait. Laramie launched herself from cover, her feet finding the edge of the roof and carrying her at full speed around the ledge that traced the perimeter. The ground taunted her from ten stories below and threatened to pull her off balance. A part of Laramie’s brain reminded her that she hated heights. She was supposed to be afraid. What if she slipped? What if a gust of wind pushed her sideways? She would plunge to her death in a stupidly terrifying end.

  Yet, curiously, the idea of smashing into the ground as a crumpled pile of bones didn’t frighten her. Neither did the hostile gunfire. All she could think of was counting the seconds left to reach the Marines before a RESIT Javelin obliterated them along with the enemy.

  So she ran.

  The wet air turned crisp near her face. Someone was shooting at her.

  She turned the corner, leaning away from the vertigo caused by the sudden change in direction. Her foot landed in a puddle of water and she almost slipped.

  Five seconds.

  Laramie saw two figures huddled behind the jagged remains of an air conditioning shroud. Hostile fire had them completely pinned down.

  She raised her Vector and took a few wild shots. Two of the police trailing the Heavy hit the deck. Another thumped the armored officer on the shoulder and pointed at Laramie.

  “Friendly!” she shouted. She dove at the two Marines.

  A distant rumble suddenly transformed into the thunder of four rocket engines. The Javelin screamed past the edge of the rooftop, and a split-second later the chin turret blazed a shower of death.

  29

  The chemical reaction that powered the laser blasts in small arms was loud. The Javelin’s proved to be deafening. Even with her muffled hearing, Laramie had to cover her ears from the screech of venting gas as laser bolts raked the rooftop. Multi-megajoule bursts vaporized the flesh and equipment of the advancing enemy.

  The Javelin circled above for a few moments and searched for hostiles. Teo finally came on the comm. “Roof is clear. I’m setting down on the pad. Get ready to move, we’re tracking hostile air assets inbound.”

  Laramie pulled on the back of Finn’s collar. “You okay?” she shouted.

  Finn gave her a thumbs up. But when she turned to Chris, she saw him grasping his arm instead of his weapon.

  “What happened?”

  “One of those rockets hit our cover. Threw a chunk into my elbow.” He pointed at the twisted metal of a nearby evaporator unit.

  Laramie saw blood streaming down the green tattoos of his forearm. “Is it broken?”

  Chris g
rimaced and gave her a nod.

  Laramie helped him up. A cloud of dirt raged over their heads as the Javelin’s engines set it down on the landing pad. As they moved, she couldn’t help but glance at the remains of the advancing police squad. Pieces of bodies lay strewn about, charred and sizzling as they cooked in haphazard locations. What a terrible way to go. Laramie knew those police troops were just doing their job, even if that job had been to try to kill her companions.

  The comm crackled with Teo’s voice. “Lieutenant, we need to dust off now.”

  Wyatt waved everyone to the vehicle and they clambered through the side access hatch. A moment later the Javelin abruptly lifted into the air, sending Laramie to hold on for dear life.

  She fought to keep her feet on the deck. The Javelin accelerated, and the next thing she knew, she was practically dangling in freefall. She looked to the crew chief to ask what the hurry was, but the seat across from Wyatt was empty.

  Her eyes darted around the compartment. Chris and Finn sat next to Elton and the girls from the safe house, both of whom had death grips on their safety harnesses. Toward the front, an unconscious Izzy lay strapped against the deck with a medical immobilizer around his neck. Next to him was a figure with heavy bandages covering his face and hands. No, strike that—not hands. Stubs. Red soaked through portions of the gauze around his neck.

  The realization had just dawned on her that she was looking at the crew chief when another figure caught her attention.

  “Gavin!”

  The trooper sat on the other side of an aerobike lashed to the deck. He flashed a smile behind his dark beard. “Hey there, Staff Sergeant. You like the limo?”

  “Yes, I do!” She saw that his face looked like it had been dragged across rough pavement. “What happened to you?”

  “Long story. It’ll require alcohol.”

  “And the short version?”

  He frowned, fumbling for words. “Groundhogs with big teeth and no head.”

  “Hopper nest? Oh, no.” She shook her head at the dumb luck. A nice, big field might have looked like a good LZ, but the Javelin’s engines would have certainly stirred up Juliet’s most notorious predator. “I’m glad you found them, Gav. It could have been a lot worse.”