"Consolidate!" I barked into the comm.
"Green on this side." Mcgovern said. "Ammo and men."
"Yellow on this side." Chief said. "One casualty."
My stomach turned. "Who is it?" I said.
"Its me." Hunter said. "Fuck. I'm sorry, Corporal."
I ran to the other side. Hunter was resting against the wall. His right hand had melted into a liquid-like mess, that bled in places.
"I activated the Medic program." Griswold said. "He's on painkillers and stim."
"How far up is the damage?" I asked.
"Elbow." Griswold said, quietly."
"Lucky break." Hunter said. "Im getting out of this shit, while you dumbasses are getting shot to hell."
"Hell yeah, dog." Chief said. "Plus you get to stay stoned for like, a couple days."
"Thats whats up." Hunter said. "Someone take a picture. Im going to upload this shit to my profile."
I opened a comm channel to higher. "Third squad to Battle Leader."
"This is Battle One." The first sergeant said. "Go ahead."
"Have engaged Tangoes at the LZ."
"Whats your status?"
"Seven Tangoes down. One Tango Bravo down. One casualty. Requesting immediate evac how copy."
"I copy." The comm crackled. "Thats a negative, Third Squad. No evac. We've got a real nasty shitstorm on our hands over here."
"We've got incoming!" Chief said. Bullseye fire raked over our heads.
"Fuck!" I shouted. "Stay with Hunter." I told Griswold. "Third squad, lets clean up this mess!"
I bounded out into the street. The warrior was running behind a shelter. He was wounded, and left a blood trail. Behind me the kid was running, rifle at the ready. The Chimera ran into a building. The kid was quicker than I would give him credit for, throwing the grenade through the window. The explosion kicked up broken glass and dust. We were quick through the door.
Somehow the Chimera still had his weapon raised. The kid was first, and that was how I lived. The Chimera overloaded the bullseye, and shot a full clip all at once. He was crouched in the corner. The particles tore through the Power Armor. Gabbert fell backwards. I could see his life signs failing on my HUD, blood pressure dropping. Somehow training took over. I went for the enemy. It hissed at me, yellow eyes glowing, mouth an open maw of white razors. I took pleasure in the kill. I stood as close as possible, close enough for the mildly acidic chimeran blood to spill and burn away my Power Armors paint job. I stood close enough to see the rounds burst inside its skull, to see the brain pop and fizzle, to see the dead white skin come apart and reveal ropes of guts and organ. When its head was gone, and nothing lasted above its neck but an ugly stump, I shot it through the heart until there was only a gaping hole. I had unloaded eighty rounds, and had to reload, and when it was over I felt sick and bad because the kid was dead behind me and I could not save him.
"Did you get it, Corporal?" Chief asked me.
"Tango down." I said numbly. "Gabbert too."
"We've got both dropships, swinging around." Chief said. "Whats the status on that evac?"
"Negative." I said.
"Seriously?"
"Said that some bad shit was going down at the FAB."
Chief didn't say anything after that. It was an open comm, and he knew how bad things were for us. "Get out here and help me move Gabbert." I said. "Then lets get quiet."
I could hear the electromagnetic hum of the dropships, getting closer and closer.
TEN
Hanna Chi looked out the window. On paper the North American tower was not any more exclusive than any of the Other atmosphere reaching habitations. In practice she knew differently. This tower held more high net worth individuals and Corporate executive staff than any of the others. The very richest, and most influential stayed at the level she was at now. Men like her employer, Congressman Lane Pailey. It was a remarkably clear day, and she could see the earth below.
The gravity on this level was light, but not zero g. Rather like being immersed in a pool of water. Bad for the muscle tone, but relaxing and pleasant to live in. From the sounds coming from his apartment, Pailey was relaxed and pleasant himself right now. The girl was panting and moaning like a champion. Hanna hoped this one was at least over eighteen. Among many other vices, the Congressman had a penchant for bedding women other than his wife. So far his gaze had not turned Hannas way. At last she heard the inevitable groan of Pailey's orgasm, and she knocked on the door.
"Come in." He said.
The were both lying naked on the bed. The women was a standard beauty, with long toned limbs, and full breast with perky pink nipples. The Congressman himself was well toned, and his erection was long and lean. It was all natural, Hanna knew that gene manipulation was not among Paileys vices.
The woman nibbled on Paileys ear. "Is she here to join us?" She asked.
"No, darling." He said. "She's here for business."
"We have the Net debate in half an hour." Hanna said. "We need to get you plugged in."
"He is plugged in." The women giggled. "He plugged it in me."
Pailey kissed her cheek. "Im afraid I'll have to ask you to scoot." He said. "Me and Ms. Chi need to talk shop."
The woman stood up and walked out, giving Hanna a glimpse of long, sexy legs, ending in a toned ass that looked like a peach. Pailey stood up and tossed on a white robe.
"I saw that eye roll." He said.
"Just wondering where this one came from." Hanna said.
"Doesn't matter. Shes a fan."
"We need to make sure the press doesn't get ahold of your 'fans'."
"Run the talking points for the debate by me again." Pailey said, ignoring the jab.
"Hartman is soft on pre-crime, which we want to expand to the colonies."
"Is that even possible? Have we found enough Precogs?"
"It doesn't matter. The initiate is extremely popular among some of the planets on the outer rim with a law enforcement problem."
"What else?"
"Hartman is against mining for unobtanium on Gaia, which would help drive down FTL fuel prices."
"I thought he was for that?"
"He's flip-flopped. In order to get the nom he had to court the whole Pandora environmentalist crowd, who want to stop all extra-ter mining period. Our points are that Gaia has no viable humanoids, lower fuel prices helps colonists, etc, etc."
"Fine. What else?"
"The big question is going to be about Chimera. We've got to handle that one very carefully."
Pailey had already tossed on most of his suit. "How are we taking that one?"
"Two things; we support the brave troops fighting for us, and we want to stay the course until the threat is gone. Make sure to use the word 'threat'. It tested very high among the outer rim."
"And I need every last dirt farmer to vote for me." Pailey grimaced. "And that motherfucker Hartman has his Navy service to fall back on, plus he's anti-war, like everyone on goddamn Terra."
"Terra's always been progressive." Hanna said. "But the colonist are deeply conservative. Which reminds me: mention your religious beliefs at least three times."
"Thats right." Pailey groaned. "Im a Unitologist now. How exactly am I supposed to 'mention' that?"
"Keywords are 'our united galaxy' and 'the sum of all belief'. Stay away from mentioning specific deities or monotheism."
"Got it." Pailey adjusted his tie. "Generalize the religious bullshit. Lets go."
The debate room was a half g lower in the atmosphere. Two elections ago, a candidate running for corporate office had made the mistake of broadcasting from the moon. His weight appeared bloated, untethered, and at one point he had bounced upward and his hairpiece had drifted off his head. The opposition had run an ad with the footage, and the election had been a landslide loss. Hanna stood in a room to the side with the techs. The debate area was white and bare. Everything would be fabricated for the broadcast.
"Minimal digital touch-ups." Hanna said. "An
d watch the code." A planetary governor had lost, once, when his opponents men had hacked the net feed to add age spots and wrinkles to his face. Hanna had faith in her techs. They were the most expensive, after all. If there was one thing Pailey was good at, it was raising money.
"Live in three." The tech said.
They were all projected into the debate, in the net. A crowd appeared in stands, applauding. Hartman appeared behind his own podium. The debate moderator, a popular news comedian, announced the name of the debate and the candidates shook hands. After that, things started to go to hell almost immediatedly.
After the news comedian had made his introductions and puns Hartman smiled wide and said to Pailey. "Y'know, Lane, I'd like to show folks at home where I'm coming from right now." Half the podium and crowds disappeared, to be replaced by a view of Hartman in a mining spacesuit. The crowd was all miners, cheering loudly under a sign strung up saying Gaia Welcomes Senator Hartman. At least two of the miners wore white Unitologist robes over their suits.
"I tell you what." Hartman said, in a folksy drawl, "There is nothing like seeing what real folks go through, day in and day out, to make this corporation work." That drew claps and cheers from both sides of the audience.
"Congressman Pailey." The news comedian said. "Would you like to do the same thing?"
Pailey fidgeted. "Well, I happen to be broadcasting from the planet Terra." He said, adding "Our original home, and a beautiful place to live."
"Really?" The comedian said. "I thought you were broadcasting from right here." Paileys side of the room vanished, replaced by the stark white nothingness of the actual room. The audience roared in laughter. Hannas blood froze. Had the comedian been bought off? It wasn't impossible. It also wasn't impossible that he had simply thought it was funny. News comedians were impossible to avoid, at this level of corporate politics. Their ratings were simply too high.
Pailey managed to gather up a chuckle. The debate went off from their in a town hall style, with the questions being asked by the audience members. All the questions had been leaked and pre-vetted by both campaigns, so there wouldn't be any suprises. Often, there wouldn't be any answers, either. Both candidates would for the most part deflect any thorny issues with vague generalities, and simply repeat a slogan or talking point.
The high point came midway through when Pailey managed to corner Hartman on the pre-crime issue. "If a precog had knowledge." The little girl had asked Hartman, "That someone was planning to rape and murder your wife, would you have them arrested?"
Somehow the question took Hartman by suprise, and he hummed and hawed. Pailey came down with fire and brimstone, and reminded the crowd yet again that he was sponsoring a corporate bill to bring pre crime enforcement to the rim. Thunderous applause. Which made what happened next even more tragic.
An old veteran stood up, in a red hat with medals pinned to his shirt. "As a veteran of the Martian wars." He said gruffly. "I did my time in the service. I have two sons-" His voice broke, and he wiped at tears. "One of them has died on Chimera...the other one is about to..." His body shook with sobs. Hanna felt horrible. This was playing right to the opposition. "One of them is about to deploy. My question to you, Congressman Pailey, is if you are elected President, what are you going to do to bring my son home?"
As Pailey opened his mouth to respond, a group in the audience suddenly blurred and were replaced by a group of Unitologist priests, in white robes.
"Out of Chimera!" One screamed.
"Our galaxy wants peace!" Another said.
The priest started to throw what looked like rotten fruit. The projections whizzed and fell harmlessly through Pailey.
"Cut the feed!" Hanna yelled.
A tech worked his data padd. The debate disappeared, leaving only the white room. Pailey was covered in sweat, and scowling.
"Tell me that shit didn't go through." He said.
Hanna nodded slowly.
"Fucking bullshit." He tugged at his tie. "Lets get out of here."
In the elevator he kissed her roughly. It took Hanna completely by suprise. He was rough, and his tongue probed the inside of her mouth. When they broke apart, he pushed her down on her knees, and unzipped his trousers.
"I need this right now." He said. "Release. Something good."
His dick was long and thick in her mouth. She nibbled on his foreskin, a first for her, all her other lovers had been cut. Pailey looked down and groaned. There was something about asian women he loved. A certain reserved nature. A nature of submissiveness. There was something else about it, these were the highest net worth individuals, by ethnic group, and he was fucking one of them. Hanna began to bob her head up and down. He let the movement take him over the edge, and came in her mouth. She started to gag.
"Swallow it." He said. "I mean it. You have to."
When they got to his apartment he slapped her hard. She gasped. A thin trickle of blood ran out of her nose. She wondered if it was foreplay, or punishment for the debate performance. He reached under her skirt and grabbed her panties, tearing the thin fabric clean off. That hurt. She wondered what would happen if she told him to stop.
He fucked her in the ass white still wearing his tie. That was worse than the slap, with the other girl he had managed to fully disrobe. He undressed her, tearing off a five thousand yen blouse and ruining it entirely. He used a little bottle of lubricant from the nightstand for the anal, and it hurt bad enough to make her grit her teeth. They pounded away for what seemed like forever. She had to watch the entire thing, in a mirror facing the head of his bed.
When it was done and the semen was leaking out of her ass, Pailey hopped in the shower, making the inconsideration complete. Hanna curled up in a ball on the bed. It smelled vaguely of whatever perfume the slut from this morning had worn. She was trying to think about happier places. Her families house in Taiwan. Some future employment, long distance political consulting she could try. Best to distance herself from this disaster. The writing was on the wall. He was always to risky, one half buried scandal from a downfall. The only thing propping him up had been his perpetual popularity with the colonists, and now that hand had been played out. Maybe he would want to make todays event a regular thing, and she wouldn't have that.
Pailey came out of the shower, glistening with water. He plopped on the other side of the bed, wearing the towel. The screen turned on in the bedroom. It was a MFL game.
"I love this stuff." Pailey mused. "My favorite game."
"The mutants?" Hanna asked.
"The Mutants are secondary." Pailey said. "The main thing is football. Its a perfect fit. Their engineered with enough muscular structure to avoid needed pads. Its purer than that stuff they played in the twentieth and twenty-first."
A free safety was limping off the field, his arm dangling loosely by a flap of skin. Bone and muscle were clearly visible. "They still get injured." Hanna pointed out.
"And they get fixed." Pailey said. "They can fix up hurt muties. Its in their DNA. They make good money, too. Highest rated programming on the net, Sunday Night Football.
Hanna wondered what would be higher, football or the fiasco of the debate."
"Do you think he was really on Gaia?" Pailey said.
"What?"
"I doubt it." Pailey stretched out. "Ive met Hartman twice. He had a weak grip. He's old as hell IRL, and I don't think he could take the cryo trip. He was probably in the european tower. We need to get better techs. His hackers were better than our hackers. Thats what happened."
Hanna didn't think that was what happened, but she kept it too herself.
The next day there was a geniune pall in the campaign. They had rented a midway level in the tower for headquarters. Only half the volunteers had come in, and most of the donors werent returning her calls. Their was a genuine pall over the campaign. It could be summed up by the front page of Terra Times: A side by side shot of the Unitologist protesters, and Pailey in the white room with his mouth open, looking dumbstruck. The poll
ing data showed him losing five points overall, and eight points on Gaia. The debate was supposed to have been something to get them momentum, instead it had been a homerun for Hartman.
Hanna excused herself early, and went up to the zero-g spa. She drifted in the steam, naked, looking up at the stars above her. There were so many of them. So few of them with planets able to support human life. Only a generation ago, people had fought each other for the ground at the bottom of the tower. For resources stripped out of the Earth. Now Terra was mostly wilderness, reclaimed by many of the animals that had been nearly hunted to extinction. Its residents lived in peace, and comfort. Why couldnt the galaxy work this way? Why did all the petty problems of men, have to project themselves across the Verse?
A chime rang in her ear. Pailey was calling her. She let it ring two or three more times, before picking up.
"Where are you?" He said, by way of greeting.
"Out." She said.
"Out where?"
"Out out."
He chuckled. "I guess its pretty bad, then."
"I guess."
"Youve always been here, I mean. Your never out. Thats why its bad."
She didnt say anything.
"I dont want to make a big deal about last night." Pailey said. At that moment Hanna knew she that was close to an apology she would get.
"Fine." She said.
"I checked up on it." Pailey said. "That fucker did actually go to Gaia. The rest of it was bullshit, but he had me there. We need to take it one step further. I was thinking about a trip of my own."
"Where too?" Hanna asked.
"I want to talk to the troops." Pailey said. "On Chimera."
ELEVEN
So much of war is waiting.
There was a system of tunnels and basements, in most of the structures on Chimeras. A necessity to combat the frequent sandstorms. We piled into one with our dead and wounded. And we waited.
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