Killzone, Ascendancy

by Sam Bradbury

  Killzone

  Ascendancy

  SAM BRADBURY

  PENGUIN BOOKS

  PENGUIN BOOKS

  Published by the Penguin Group

  Penguin Books Ltd, 80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England

  Penguin Group (USA) Inc., 375 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014, USA

  Penguin Group (Canada), 90 Eglinton Avenue East, Suite 700, Toronto, Ontario, Canada M4P 2Y3

  (a division of Pearson Penguin Canada Inc.)

  Penguin Ireland, 25 St Stephen’s Green, Dublin 2, Ireland (a division of Penguin Books Ltd)

  Penguin Group (Australia), 250 Camberwell Road, Camberwell, Victoria 3124, Australia (a division of Pearson Australia Group Pty Ltd)

  Penguin Books India Pvt Ltd, 11 Community Centre, Panchsheel Park, New Delhi – 110 017, India

  Penguin Group (NZ), 67 Apollo Drive, Rosedale, Auckland 0632, New Zealand

  (a division of Pearson New Zealand Ltd)

  Penguin Books (South Africa) (Pty) Ltd, 24 Sturdee Avenue, Rosebank, Johannesburg 2196, South Africa

  Penguin Books Ltd, Registered Offices: 80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England

  www.penguin.com

  First published 2011

  Copyright © Killzone®3 © 2011 Sony Computer

  Entertainment Europe. Developed by Guerrilla. ‘Killzone’ is a registered trademark of Sony Computer Entertainment Europe.

  Licensed by Target Entertainment Limited

  The moral right of the author has been asserted

  Except in the United States of America, this book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, re-sold, hired out, or otherwise circulated without the publisher’s prior consent in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition including this condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser

  ISBN: 978-0-24-195604-5

  Contents

  Prologue

  PART ONE: Six months earlier

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  PART TWO

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-one

  Chapter Twenty-two

  Chapter Twenty-three

  Chapter Twenty-four

  Chapter Twenty-five

  Chapter Twenty-six

  Chapter Twenty-seven

  Chapter Twenty-eight

  Chapter Twenty-nine

  Chapter Thirty

  PART THREE

  Chapter Thirty-one

  Chapter Thirty-two

  Chapter Thirty-three

  Chapter Thirty-four

  Chapter Thirty-five

  Chapter Thirty-six

  Chapter Thirty-seven

  Chapter Thirty-eight

  Chapter Thirty-nine

  Chapter Forty

  Chapter Forty-one

  Chapter Forty-two

  Epilogue

  Acknowledgements

  Prologue

  It’s early morning when I get the call from Bandit Recon and because I’m napping I think for a second that a bug has crawled in my ear, before I remember I’m on comms duty – me and Kowalski. I sit up on the bedroll, already shivering in the jungle’s morning chill. Reach to adjust my headset.

  ‘Base?’ he says.

  ‘Go ahead,’ I reply, voice rough with sleep. And just where in the hell is Kowalski?

  ‘Base, this is Bandit Two.’

  It’s Gedge and he’s whispering. I picture him lying in the damp light camouflaged by undergrowth, looking down the sights of his sniper rifle. Barely twenty-four, he’s a short, wiry kid. Grins easily, eager as a puppy, hasn’t let himself get demoralized like others have. I think I can tell by his voice what he sees in his crosshairs. More than anything I want to be wrong.

  I’m not: ‘I have a visual on an enemy drone,’ he says.

  Shit.

  ‘Is it moving towards the uplink?’

  ‘Negative, sir, it’s moving towards your position.’

  Shit.

  ‘Copy that, Bandit Two,’ I reply, my voice low as I get to my feet, snatch up my M82 and cross the clearing to the comms room, stepping over sleeping grunts as I go. Around me are the sights and sounds of the jungle: the whisper of trees in the canopy and the rustle of the monstrous carnivorous sawtooth plants, the never-ending chirrup of insects and scuttle of petrusite spiders in the undergrowth. A light blanket of scarlet mist skirts the camp, bubbling luminously; clouds of fireflies dance among dangling plant fronds.

  I brush through the tarp opening and into the comms room, silent apart from the hum of processors and the soft snoring of Kowalski sprawled asleep in a chair, his face bathed in the blue light of the DMS screens. His is the only seat so I park my butt on a stack of upturned ammo crates to check our perimeter readings. Clear.

  But for how long?

  ‘Status?’ I ask Bandit Two.

  ‘This thing’s in sweep mode, Base,’ whispers Gedge. His voice is so low now he sounds strangulated.

  ‘Copy that,’ I say. My fingers dance on another console. I glance to check for air traffic and the screen’s clear but the Higs use cloaking anyway – only the infantry show up. I check that the trip switches are intact. Now I turn my attention to the screen showing Bandit Two’s position, five klicks due east, halfway between us and the uplink. His blip on the screen winks patiently and at least I’m able to confirm that his drone doesn’t have back-up. The drone itself, though – cloaked.

  ‘This ain’t like any usual drone,’ Gedge whispers in my ear. ‘Must be a new model.’

  ‘Speed?’

  ‘It’s still scanning right now. Wait, it’s moved. Stopped. Now it’s scanning again. Okay, moving. It’s moving due west of my position, Base. I don’t like this.’

  Neither do I, kid, I think.

  There’s a pause.

  ‘Permission to engage,’ he says, and I catch my breath because what Gedge wants is permission to die. If he takes down the drone, they’ll bomb its last known location within seconds, figuring that the drone’s either found the camp or been disabled by a recon team, and that either way they bag themselves some ISA. When the smoke’s cleared, they’ll send infrared probes to determine a body count. Then they’ll send more drones.

  I kick Kowalski awake. ‘Get Captain Narville online now.’

  Moments after he’s scrambled away there’s a click in my headset and I toggle to Narville.

  ‘What is it, Sev?’ He’s just woken up. He sounds even more exhausted than usual.

  ‘Bandit Two has visual on a drone, sir. Wants permission to engage.’

  ‘Christ. We need to begin immediate evac.’

  ‘Copy that, sir, but priority is the drone. I say we let Gedge take it out while it’s still outside our position.’

  ‘Then Gedge will die,’ he says, like I hadn’t thought of that.

  ‘We all die if it locates us, sir.’

  ‘It might not.’

  Narville’s right. The drone might not find us. By some miracle it might sail on by. By some miracle we might be excluded from its hunt radius or outside its range.

  But failing those miracles it finds us, and if it does that we’re dead. The Higs will
bomb and strafe the area and everything in the killzone dies. And we’re shit out of miracles in the jungle.

  ‘It’s too much of a gamble, Captain,’ I say. ‘We need to immobilize that drone – as a matter of urgency.’

  ‘Negative.’

  ‘With respect, sir …’

  ‘I’m not sacrificing a man, Sev.’

  ‘The risk is too great otherwise, sir. You’ll be sacrificing us all. You want that to be on you?’

  There’s a long pause.

  ‘Wait,’ he says, ‘just … wait.’ The pain of doubt is in his voice.

  I toggle back to Gedge. ‘Bandit Two, this is Base. Hold your fire.’

  ‘Say again, Base?’

  ‘You heard, Gedge. Order is to hold your fire.’

  ‘Sir, the drone has now moved approximately a quarter of a klick due west. You’ll have company if I don’t engage soon …’

  ‘I understand, Bandit Two, but those are your orders.’

  ‘Sir, permission to track the drone?’

  ‘Do that, Bandit Two, but stay out of sensor range.’

  ‘Copy that.’

  I stand, go to the tarp and look through to the other side of the camp, where Narville appears from within a metal lean-to. Like everyone else he sports an outgrown crop and a beard. He’s pulling on a tactical vest, walking to the centre of the clearing where a bunch of grunts are huddled on bedrolls, either still sleeping or just waking up, shivering and wearily preparing for another day of survival. They’re extra cold because sick soldiers get the sleeping bags, and of the twenty-seven men we have in camp eleven of them are in the sick bay suffering with fever, lung burn or combat wounds. We’ve got two medics left: Doc Hanley, who has a lazy eye and a tattoo of a red cross on his upper arm, and a junior MO we call Junior. Both of them appear now, to hear what Narville has to say.

  ‘Okay, listen up, gentlemen,’ he says. Soldiers pull themselves into sitting position. ‘Recon reports a drone possibly heading towards our position.’

  Heads drop.

  ‘The Higs will be using zoning to try and pinpoint our location, so even if this drone fails to locate us we can expect more, and one of them will find us sooner or later. Gentlemen, we’re going to have to move, at the double.’

  There is no sudden scramble to evac. There is no such thing as at the double any more. These men are so tired they would rather die.

  ‘Sir?’ a weary grunt raises his hand, ‘is Recon neutralizing the drone?’

  Narville’s eyes go across the clearing to where I’m standing at the door to the comms room.

  ‘No, Recon is not neutralizing the drone. We don’t want to alert the Higs,’ says Narville curtly, watching me at the same time. Grunts look worried. Some shake their heads while others start reaching for body armour, rolling up their bedrolls.

  ‘Base, this is Bandit Two,’ comes Gedge’s voice in my headset.

  ‘Roger, Bandit Two.’ I duck back into the comms room.

  ‘Sir, it’s still making straight for your position. My hunch is the Higs have gotten a thermal reading overnight, maybe because of the temperature drop.’

  Narville comes into the comms room.

  ‘Sev,’ he says, acknowledging me.

  ‘Captain.’

  ‘What’s the status on the drone?’ he sighs.

  I tell him that Gedge is moving like a wraith through the jungle tracking it, and that he sees it closing in on us. ‘We need to take it down, sir.’

  Narville looks at me with tired, haunted eyes. Says nothing. He can’t do it, I think. He can’t give the order.

  So I patch him in to the comlink with Gedge. ‘Bandit Two, this is Base. I have Captain Narville online. You’re our eyes out there. Tell us what you see and what you advise.’

  ‘A whole shitstorm coming down on your heads if you don’t let me take it down, sir. And you better make it fast because the way it’s moving you’ll be in the killzone and it won’t matter a damn if I take it down or not.’

  ‘You’re a brave man, soldier,’ says Narville. His eyes are glistening. Shit, he’s coming apart here.

  ‘You need to give the order, sir,’ I whisper to him.

  ‘It’s getting closer, sir,’ chips in Gedge. ‘Pretty soon there won’t be a thing I can do about it. Give the order, sir. Let me take the shot.’

  Narville looks at the floor and says nothing. When at last he looks up at me, his eyes are red-rimmed and swimming. ‘Assume command, Sergeant Sevchenko,’ he says at last, and he turns and sits heavily on the crates, his head in his hands.

  I stare at him.

  ‘Sir?’ prompts Gedge on the comlink. ‘Gonna have to hurry you, sir.’

  My mouth works. ‘Okay, Bandit Two …’

  ‘Sir?’

  Gedge has a wife and two kids back on Vekta. He squeezes that trigger and his wife’s a widow, kids grow up without a daddy.

  ‘I want you to hold your position,’ I say suddenly. ‘I’m coming to get you,’ and I snatch up my M82 and a mobile tracker, ignoring Narville who’s shouting at my back, ‘Sev,’ as I burst out of the comms room and into the jungle.

  ‘Say again, Base,’ says Gedge in my ear.

  ‘I said hold your position – I’m on my way.’

  The phosphorescent mist on the jungle floor billows disrupted beneath my boots and vine tendrils whip my face as I hurdle tree roots.

  ‘Negative, sir,’ Gedge is saying in my ear as I run. ‘I’m taking the shot.’

  ‘You hold your fire,’ I bark into the pick-up. ‘That is an order, soldier.’

  ‘Sir, permission to speak freely.’

  ‘Permission denied.’

  He speaks freely anyway. ‘Sev, this is suicide. You can’t make it to me in time.’

  ‘I can draw the drone away from you,’ I say. The jungle is a blur around me. I see a burster plant just in time and jump it.

  I know what Rico would say right now. He’d say, Why you doing this, Sev? He’d say that Narville should have given the order and because he was too much of a pussy to make the call he’s put it all on me. That I’m gonna die because Narville is a pussy, and that me dying like this is bullshit. Bullshit, Sev, he’d say.

  But Rico’s not here. Rico’s dead. And I crash on, heading towards Gedge’s position. I can do this, I think. Soon as I’m within sensor range of the drone it’ll start tracking me. It’ll identify me as humanoid but I’ll still be moving while it does its biometric scan. And I can lead it away from camp. Away from the uplink. Away from Gedge. I can move the killzone.

  ‘We’re out of time, sir,’ insists Gedge.

  ‘Hold your fire,’ I gasp.

  ‘That’s a negative, sir. I’m taking the shot.’

  ‘Don’t you fucking dare, soldier.’

  ‘Up your ass, sir.’

  I hear the gunshot.

  I stop. Touch a hand to the earpiece. ‘You motherfucker,’ I shout at him. ‘You insubordinate asshole.’

  Gedge sniggers. ‘Down in one. It may be new, but it ain’t tougher. Better turn your ass around, sir. Shit’s about to get warm.’

  I squeeze my eyes tight shut.

  ‘You asshole, Gedge,’ I say. ‘What did you do that for? You got a fuckin’ family. I got no one.’

  That’s not true. I’ve got Amy. But Amy doesn’t know her own name, let alone mine.

  ‘Sir, the high-speed, low-drag soldier around these parts is you,’ says Gedge. ‘The grunts need you more’n they need me.’

  And before I can argue there’s a whooshing sound that I hear clearly over the headset – except it’s not the sound of a battleship, cruiser or fighter. It’s a Hig dropship.

  ‘Shit,’ says Gedge. ‘Looks like they sent a capture squad.’

  Capture squad?

  I take off again, checking his blip on the handheld.

  ‘What’s happening, Gedge?’ I bark. ‘Status report.’

  ‘Enemy is dispersing. Five grunts: capture troopers and assault troopers. I think they’re looking for
… Sir, I think they’re looking for me. Permission to engage.’

  ‘Copy that,’ I shout, tearing along now.

  I hear shots, and not just over my headset, the firefight coming from closer than I thought so that in moments I’m almost on top of the first Hig I see. He’s got his back to me, crouching with his StA-52 at his shoulder, squeezing off a couple of shots at Gedge’s position. In one fluid movement I let my M82 drop to its sling, reach for my combat knife and I’m on his back before he has time to react, taking him in a knifeman’s embrace with the blade at his respirator. I grunt and pull and he falls, gurgling, blood arcing from his slashed throat. Another Hig sees me and opens fire and I dive for cover, reach for the assault rifle and squeeze off a reply.

  I crane round the side of a tree and see no dropship but figure there must be a clearing nearby. Then I see two Higs carrying Gedge and a covering fire opens up, ripping into the tree, showering me with splinters and forcing me to scuttle round out of sight, waiting for his clip to empty before daring a second look. They’re almost out of view. I find one in my sights and take him out with a head shot. Another returns fire and then they’re gone, into the undergrowth, still carrying Gedge.

  I’m on my feet after them, slamming in a fresh mag as I go, but as I come up on the clearing the dropship’s already hovering above the ground and even as I’m wondering how come it bears the logo of Stahl Arms and not the Helghast military I’m having to take cover again as it engages its boosters, frying the ground below. One last attempt to take me out. That fails, assholes.

  I look at the tracker. Gedge still bleeps, alive. Until the ship goes out of range and the signal winks off.

  I drop to a crouch and in the moments of silence that follow put my head in my hands and wait for an air attack that never comes and more dropships that never arrive.

  And it slowly dawns on me that it’s over. The operation is over.

  Which can’t be.

  Six months they’ve been looking for us. Six months. They get the closest they’ve come so far, and – what? – no back-up, no concerted attack? All they had from the engagement was a prisoner. I contemplate what they might do to Gedge – and why. Because they must know any information will be out of date just as soon as they get it out of him. It doesn’t make sense.

  The dropship belonging to Stahl Arms. That doesn’t make any sense either.