The Long March (The Exiled Fleet Book 2)

by Richard Fox

  “Stay chill, James,” Morton said.

  “No, you stay chill. Can practically hear you quaking in your boots,” Seaver said.

  Sergeant Hagan shushed them both.

  “Least it’s not our turn to poke the bear,” Morton whispered. The angle from the red searchlights changed as the drones floating through the street beyond meandered from side to side.

  The snap of rifle shots broke through the air. Light from a searchlight swept through the windows as the drone carrying it tumbled out of the air. Red vanished from the windows on Seaver’s floor and twisted toward the source of the attack.

  A smattering of shots filled the air. Seaver heard the tink of bullets against armor and the other drone’s engine stuttered but stayed alive. A siren began blaring in the street.

  “They missed.” Seaver rolled onto his knees and popped onto his feet. The drone was a few yards away, its segmented round body and sensor arms giving it an almost crab-like appearance. He brought the holographic sights on top of his rifle level to his eye and shot the drone three times, breaking an armor plate and ripping through the engine.

  The siren cut out and the drone went into a tail spin. It bounced against Seaver’s building several times before it crashed onto the street.

  “Seaver!” Sergeant Hagan dared a look through a window. “What the hell are you thinking?”

  “Drone was locked on the other team.” Seaver pulled the magazine out of his rifle and pressed new rounds into it. “No way it saw me.”

  “We need to run,” another soldier said. “It sent up our location and—”

  Faint thumps carried down the street.

  “Incoming!” Hagan fell to the floor and slapped his hands over his helmet.

  Seaver did the same. The Daegon artillery was deadly accurate and the next few seconds would tell him if he’d managed to save his squad or doom it.

  Explosions ripped through a building a few dozen yards away. The overpressure from the shells shook the floor. Dust and ceiling tiles came loose and filled the air with a thin haze. Seaver stayed pressed to the floor even after the echoes died away. When a second salvo didn’t target them, he coughed and shook dirt off of his rifle.

  “Think the other squad got out?” Morton asked.

  “There was barely a minute from when they took down the first drone to the strike,” Seaver said. “Normally takes the Daegon three or four minutes to respond.”

  “You think they’re getting better or that was a fluke?” Morton stood, his shoulder pressed against the wall.

  Seaver peeked through the window and caught a flash from a handheld mirror down the block leading toward Daegon lines. He read the code as it came in.

  “Enemy infantry coming,” he said to Morton. “Ten soldiers…one golem.”

  Curses rose from the squad; more than one looked at Sergeant Hagan with fear-filled eyes.

  “Stay put,” Hagan said. “Enemy’s coming for their drones. We open fire after the other team uses their grenades. Not the first time we’ve done this.”

  Seaver ducked down as the soldier in the observation post down the street stopped flashing his mirror. He heard boots against pavement. The thump…thump…thump of something much larger than a normal soldier.

  It had taken time, and a number of lives, before the Albian defenders learned that Daegon weapons were deadly to any non-Daegon that touched them, but the enemy’s other equipment could be recovered and studied. Every time a seeker drone was destroyed, the Daegon immediately sent troops to recover it…after they’d pulverized the source of the attack with artillery.

  Ambushing the recovery teams had been one of the few successes in the fight for Ludlow.

  He heard the Daegon voices as they spread out around the fallen drones, the commands of a leader close to Seaver’s side of the street. He’d shoot that one first.

  He gripped his rifle tightly, hoping that the other team opted to spend one of the militia’s last anti-armor weapons and let the Daegon retreat with their broken drones. But if they did get into a fight, Seaver and his squad wouldn’t have long before Daegon reinforcements arrived. That meant walkers. That meant little to no chance of surviving.

  The clomp of massive footsteps grew louder. There was the squeal of metal against the street as the golem picked up a broken drone. Seaver put his finger on the trigger and squeezed his eyes shut.

  There was a sharp hiss and a bang that rattled Seaver’s teeth.

  “Open fire!” Hagan shouted.

  Seaver stood up and pointed his rifle out the window. An eight-foot-tall Daegon golem was in the street. Its mound of a head and massive shoulders slouched forward; one arm clutching the remnants of a drone lay in the street, and smoke billowed out of an empty socket.

  Enemy soldiers huddled against rubble between them and the other squad—that had launched the anti-armor rocket—their heads down to avoid the sudden onslaught of rifle fire coming at them, leaving them exposed to Seaver and his fellow militia.

  Seaver didn’t see the leadership stripes running down the arms and legs of the enemy soldiers, and aimed at one furiously pecking at a screen mounted on his forearm. He fired, and the bullet hit the Daegon just above the collar and burst out of the man’s back, splattering blood against a wall.

  Morton fired quickly, not even using his rifle’s sights.

  Seaver looked for another target and found the Daegon were rushing straight for his building.

  “Climbers!” someone shouted.

  “Oh no they don’t.” Morton leaned out of the window, his rifle pointed straight down.

  “No no—” Seaver reached for his friend and grabbed him by the shoulder. He pulled him back as blue bolts from Daegon weapons shot up the side of the building. Morton grunted and collapsed. His chin bounced off the window and he pitched back, a smoking crater where his forehead used to be.

  “Grenades!”

  Silver disks flew up through the windows, one bouncing off the ceiling near Seaver and wobbling against the floor. Without thinking, he dropped down and grabbed Morton’s body. He pulled the corpse over himself as the grenade exploded into a flash of white light and a concussion that knocked his hearing into a high-pitched ring. Searing heat from the device ignited small fires around the room.

  Seaver pushed Morton’s smoking body off of him, trying not to gag on the smell of burnt hair and singed clothing. Militia who hadn’t taken cover in time languished on the floor, exposed skin burnt, clutching at abused eyes and ears.

  He saw his rifle just as a Daegon’s claw-tipped glove clamped down on the windowsill. Seaver grabbed his weapon, the grip burning his palm and fingers. An enemy soldier’s head and shoulders rose into view and Seaver shot him in the face, the sound of his weapon barely coming through the ringing in his ears. The Daegon’s head jerked back with a red mist, then he fell back.

  Something hit his shoulder and sent him sprawling, another militia man, his stomach a blackened ruin.

  Three Daegon had climbed through other windows and were fighting with Sergeant Hagan. Seaver pushed himself free of the dead man and tried to find a clear target through the melee.

  Hagan ducked a bayonet swipe and jabbed his rifle into the enemy’s chest. He fired twice, knocking his assailant back and to the ground with two neat holes through his breast plate.

  A Daegon with yellow stripes running down the length of his arm charged Hagan from behind, light glinting off the blade fixed beneath the enemy’s rifle.

  Seaver shouted a warning and fired from the hip. His shot missed and the Daegon leader speared Hagan through the spine. The blade ripped through the sergeant’s chest. The sergeant looked down at the bloody tip, anger still on his face. The Daegon lifted Hagan off his feet and hoisted him into the air.

  The Daegon’s war cry pierced through the ring in Seaver’s ears. Seaver switched his weapon to full auto and opened fire. The Daegon dropped Hagan and rolled toward the window, evading Seaver’s every shot. The leader sprang up and dived out of the wi
ndow. The others followed him a heartbeat later as what remained of the militia squad fired on them.

  The whole building shook and the wall collapsed. Seaver lurched away as it crumbled.

  “Golem! Golem, run!”

  Seaver made for the stairwell that led to the basement and the maintenance tunnels that would lead to their next rally point. Sergeant Hagan’s orders still stood, even if he lay dead.

  A massive hand burst through the floor, collapsing a section beneath the feet of a fleeing soldier. The soldier lurched forward and fell onto a sturdy section, his legs and waist hanging over the edge. He reached to Seaver for help. The golem grabbed his quarry by the head, huge fingers closing around his face. The golem crushed the man’s skull, sending gray and red viscera and bits of scalp flying through the room.

  Seaver tripped over a broken chair and fell against a support beam. The beam shook as the golem one floor below struck it.

  “Oh no.” He looked up and found a gap in the roof. Seaver jumped forward and landed well short of his goal. He pulled himself forward by his elbows as the golem struck again and broke the beam.

  The floor gave way and Seaver fell into dust and darkness as the whole building collapsed.

  He tumbled, brick and glass pelting his body as the avalanche of debris carried him away. He came to a stop against a broken wall and a landslide of dust and broken furniture piled on top of him. He had his face next to the crook of one arm, and he could still see and breathe.

  Seaver lay still, ignoring the pain in his legs, the blood dripping down his face. He waited, listening for the Daegon, trying to keep his breathing as shallow as possible.

  He waited, every bump he felt from the settling building feeling like the approach of an enemy soldier come to finish him off.

  He waited until sunset and the sound of gunfire and explosions faded into the distance. Then he worked his way out of the debris. The cloth over his armor plates was ripped and torn, but he’d escaped any serious injury.

  Back on the road, members of his squad lay in line, blood from their slit throats mixed into a single pool.

  Seaver looked south, to the thick forests just beyond the city’s edge, and ran.

  Chapter 5

  Gage paced along the edge of the shuttle’s closed ramp and smoothed out the front of his dress uniform. The Commodore’s epaulets on his shoulder felt far heavier than usual, and the fleet command pin on his chest dug into his chest. He glanced at his ribbons and medals, most earned fighting pirates across the frontier of wild space. Why Albion’s diplomatic corps carried out its business in civilian dress suddenly made perfect sense to him, but even if he’d arrived in mufti, there was no hiding who he was to Loussan or his ilk.

  Two bangs sounded against the hull.

  Thorvald, standing next to the ramp controls, turned to Gage.

  “We should keep the engines running,” the Genevan said through his visor.

  “You saw the air defense emplacements during our descent,” Gage said. “Let’s not have any illusions about flying away if our hosts take issue with the idea. Bertram, ready?”

  Bertram stood up and buckled a pistol belt around his waist.

  “Wish you’d take a shield unit, sir,” Bertram said.

  “Shields do not convey confidence.” Gage drew his pistol and slapped a magazine into the grip.

  “We’ve reason to be confident?” Bertram asked. “I mean, of course we’re confident…because…”

  “We have Thorvald.” Gage nodded to the bodyguard.

  Thorvald flicked a switch and the ramp lowered. Hot, humid air blew through the widening gap, triggering memories of Siam and the steaming jungles around the shattered cities. The bodyguard hurried down the ramp, ducking beneath the hull and dropping to the ground before the hydraulics stopped.

  On the scorched tarmac, Gage saw a single slate-gray ground car. A slight man in a red-frocked coat opened a rear door, his face severe as light glinted off a single monocle built into his right eye socket.

  Thorvald held up a hand and passed his palm across the car. His other hand tapped two fingers against their thumb, a signal the bodyguard had taught him during their flight from Siam—caution.

  Gage ignored the warning, strode down the ramp, and nodded to the man holding open the rear door. Skyscrapers surrounded the spaceport, casting long shadows from the setting sun. A few air cars moved between the structures, some linked by enclosed walkways. Holo text in a half-dozen languages wrapped around some of the buildings. An ad for a gun emporium featuring a scantily clad woman wielding a pair of needle pistols played on a loop along the edge of a stadium dome.

  “Commodore Gage, I presume,” the man in the red coat said. “I’m Derringer, the driver.”

  “Correct. Is there a problem?” Gage asked Thorvald.

  “There’s another person in the car,” Thorvald said. “Something…off about him.”

  “He’s for your protection,” Derringer said as lines of text ran across the driver’s monocle.

  “I’m all the protection he needs,” Thorvald said. “Bring the other man out.”

  “Lord Moineau and the others are waiting,” Derringer said. “I know you’re new to Sicani; best not to try their patience.”

  “Since when do clan lords lend additional protection during a parley?” Gage asked. “The word of a lord carries all the weight of his sword, does it not?”

  “Oh, it does, you Albie,” the driver said with a sneer. “Just that the whole rock’s on edge ‘cause your fleet came in out of nowhere. Scared people do stupid things. Lord Moineau would rather not have to rip apart a hab-block looking for whatever down-on-his-luck sod decided that taking a potshot at you was better than living. Derna City has a few desperate types.”

  Gage looked at the car, then put his hands behind his back and waited.

  “Damn uptight bunch of…” The driver whistled quickly, the front door opened, and a robotic leg stepped onto the tarmac.

  Gage edged backwards. His hand clamped down on his pistol, but the weapon remained in the holster. A creature from old nightmares seemed to flow from the car. Light warped slightly around the humanoid figure as it raised over-long arms, the fingers tipped with thin spikes. Gage saw his reflection in the bullet-shaped helm, black as polished obsidian.

  A Katar, a cyborg designed for one thing: killing.

  Thorvald stepped between Gage and the Katar, the Genevan’s armor flowing from his back and redoubling the protection between the pirate Katar and his charge.

  “That’s right…you tussled with a Katar on Volera II back when Loussan made his play,” Derringer huffed.

  Gage’s heart pounded in his chest, remembering when another Katar had ambushed them in an alleyway and ripped open two of his sailors during a running gun battle though a city under pirate attack. He and the rest of his security team had blown the Katar to pieces…a Katar that looked identical to the one standing before him.

  A mechanical croak came from the Katar.

  “Says he’s never fought a Genevan before,” Derringer said.

  “Must be why he’s still alive,” Thorvald said. “Does he want to stay that way?”

  The Katar let off a monotone laugh.

  “In the interest of time,” the driver said, “how about I send Ruprecht here on his way to the dome. Should be a fine drive, what with the curfew and the roads cleared for you.”

  “No.” Gage dropped his hand from his pistol. “We’ll not turn away such a gesture from Lord Moineau. Let’s be on our way.”

  “Sir,” Bertram said from behind the Commodore, “if we could not have the murder-cyborg in the car with us, I’m sure…Thorvald would appreciate it. Yes, that’s the ticket.”

  “As you like.” The driver stepped away from the open door.

  Gage grabbed Bertram by the shoulder and guided him toward the car, the steward mumbling as he hurried inside. Gage walked up to Ruprecht and peered into the blank faceplate, his every instinct demanding he shoot or flee
from the monstrosity. He made out a skull and a jumble of wires just beneath the dark glass, then got into the car.

  Gage’s heart pounded in his ears as the smell of spilt blood and echo of screaming men amidst gunfire seeped into his mind. The interior was spacious, sealed off from the driver’s compartment. The seats were made of ivory-colored leather and creaked as Gage sat down.

  Thorvald followed him in, the bodyguard snapping his fingers with metal clicks.

  “No listening devices or cameras,” Thorvald said. “Not sure if I should be impressed or insulted they didn’t bother to try. My armor’s projecting a privacy field. No sound we make will go more than a few feet. We can talk.”

  Gage rubbed his nose, covering his mouth, and said, “Well done.”

  “Why bring that abomination with us?” Thorvald asked.

  “They sent it just to unnerve me,” Gage said. “If I send it away, I look weak, afraid. If we’re attacked without the Katar, Lord Moineau escapes the blame, as we refused his protection.”

  “Bloody hell…I sometimes wish we were just dealing with the Daegon,” Bertram said. “We shoot at them. They shoot at us. None of this intrigue-at-court bollocks.”

  “Welcome to Sicani,” Gage said.

  The limousine drove off.

  Several minutes later, Tolan and Wyman came down the ramp. Tolan hooked around the shuttle and slapped a hand against the hull twice, signaling the pilots to button up. Tolan made a beeline to an open gap in the fence, where signs flashed in the streets beyond, promising alcohol and other comforts to spacers on shore leave.

  “I’m sure we’re being watched,” Wyman said.

  “What part of ‘dimwitted-nontalking-help’ did I stutter?” Tolan wagged a finger at Wyman. “Of course we’re being watched. Good thing people come to this city just to disappear and I happen to know a few tricks to duck surveillance. Sure hope you remember where we parked, just in case we get separated.”

  “Why would we—”

  “Talking!”