Suffrage (World Key Chronicles Book 1)

by Julian St Aubyn Green

  “You are much tougher than you look. Most people fall over instantly from a dose that size.”

  She could hear rustling. Her attacker was pawing through the contents of her bag.

  “Dose you got, that should have killed you. Couldn’t use explosives, didn’t want to damage your gear. Ah, here it is. I need this map.”

  How does he know about the map? The only person in this timeline that knows it even exists is … Stanford. Panic and anger at the words engulfed her, yet one part of her Gift must have recovered. She could feel her attacker’s determination and focus, and that sleepy contentment from the bear cubs. If she could sense their emotions, she could project.

  She heard a distinctive sound: the soft, metallic click of a handgun safety, and her anger exploded out from her in a poorly projected wave. It wouldn’t go far in her weakened state, but it didn’t need to. As the figure stepped forward in her blurry vision she heard the cubs give soft, mewling cries. Jay sensed more than saw the brown bear tumble out of her nook and charge the figure looming over her.

  In the confined space of the cave, the handgun was shockingly loud, muzzle flare brightening the gloom enough for her to see her attacker struck high on the shoulder with long claws as he fired into the bear’s chest at point blank range.

  The bear roared in pain and anger as the man slammed against the rock with a cry. She heard a clattering sound as the handgun fell to the floor. Jay felt the animal’s weight on her left leg as it stepped forward over her, swiping aggressively and connecting again. She felt the pain in the ether around her, from beast and man alike; muted, but she felt it.

  The sibilant sound of steel from a sheath could be heard and the sounds of the bear roaring as it backed off, a large gash across its nose. The bear shook its head, blood droplets spraying the air. The damage caused made the bear pause, enough that with a muffled curse and scraping sound on rock the man backed away, and the bear seemed to lose interest in him. With a huff and clack of jaws she moved back to sit next to Jay. She could sense her attacker moving away, leaving her to be eaten by the bear—or so he thought.

  My telepathy! I heard that. The gas is wearing off. Her recovery couldn’t come fast enough. With incredible gentleness for such a large animal, the bear drew her close to its warm fur and the scent of the bear washed over her. She could feel the warm, wet blood seeping from the gunshot wounds, and dripping on her from the injury to its sensitive nose. A long tongue lolled out, licking at the blood dripping from its nose and licking at her as she looked into the bear’s face, silently projecting calming waves. Tears ran down her cheeks as her breathing became easier.

  I take it back. You are one scary big momma bear. Thank you.

  For several minutes she was held gently by the bear, gradually feeling her head clear and the sense of her attacker getting further away with her precious bag. He might not have killed her outright, but without that bag of supplies she was as good as dead. And he’s got the squealer. Fingering the hard edge of the display through the material in her jacket pocket, she realized she could track him if he got out of range of her own abilities.

  With a groan at her bruised back, she rolled to her feet, taking several deep breaths and feeling the last of the disorientation and fogginess dissipate. She took one second to stroke the bear’s head in farewell, then focused her attention on her robber.

  As she moved to leave the tunnel, her foot kicked something that skittered across the uneven rock with a metallic sound. He dropped his gun. She bent over and picked it up, then looked towards the faint light coming from the entrance. The weapon felt strange in her hand. Was she prepared to take a life—even the life of someone who’d tried to kill her for the key?

  The thought worried her as she approached the triangular cave exit. She wasn’t taking any chances this time and surrounded herself with a strong physical shield. She looked down at the snow. There was no way he’d be able to hide, his boots made clear marks, and red drops in the snow indicated he hadn’t escaped from the bear unscathed.

  She looked through the thin pines along his direction of travel and caught a glimpse of movement in the far distance, well outside her effective range. She started out at a jog and hadn’t been moving for more than half a minute before the sound of gunfire echoed around the hills.

  “Tell hell Fox Squad sent you,” Philippe muttered, opening the bolt and blowing the smoke out of the barrel before reloading. “Target down. He’s not getting up from that.” Both he and Sacks had taken a shot simultaneously, from slightly different locations, the big slugs targeting chest and head. At 700 meters, it was almost too easy for snipers of their ability.

  “Heavily laden,” Sacks communicated through the ear bud. “He was carrying two packs. And was it just me or was he a bit messed up before the bullets? Think he’s got a friend around here?”

  “Maybe. I’ll work my way down, confirm and see what I can find, you stay on lookout,” Philippe said, considering the best approach to the corpse.

  “Roger that, I got your six. Stay safe big guy. Over.”

  As Philippe made his way down a gully he couldn’t help wondering who their target was. He had no doubt he was the man responsible for Hamm’s injuries and his own near-death. The outfit and gear he’d seen through the scope told him that much at least. Camouflaged snow jacket, balaclava, and backpack gave no identifying marks, but the SR-25 and the KA-Bar knife strapped to one leg said louder than words that he was military. What really clinched it, that this was the mystery booby trapper, was the electronic detonator he spied stuffed hastily into the bag netting on one of the packs. But which military?

  That equipment was standard issue for American military units. C4 and claymore were used by American specialists. It was commonly used equipment because of quality. Plenty of elite special forces units around the world used the mid-range rifle and knife, and demolitions was a specialized field. By itself it didn’t confirm the Americans were responsible, but who else could it be? Still, the Americans had supplied the intel for this operation, it couldn’t be them.

  “Sir, I have eyes on a target approaching your position from three o’clock, over.”

  Phil dropped instantly into the snow, shouldering his Tac-50 and looking through the scope. That was the same direction that their mysterious attacker had come from. “Copy that,” he replied quietly. Through the scope he saw a splash of neon pink drift between saplings. O-kay, not exactly camouflaged. He was 300 meters from the downed combatant. The pink target was an additional 250 meters beyond that according to the range finder.

  As the figure stepped from behind a sapling, following the tracks of the downed target, he saw them clearly. The puffy, neon pink snow jacket was splashed with red, unmistakably blood, that ran down towards the hem. The target’s right hand held a large handgun, and something like a Kindle was held in the left, which the figure was inspecting. A lock of long dark hair had escaped from the hastily wrapped scarf and hooded coat. Is that a woman?

  “Orders Sir? Over.”

  “Hold fire, let’s see wha—” Through the scope he saw the head snap directly towards his position, as if she’d heard his muttered response. She lifted the handgun in his direction, an impossible shot at this distance, and through the scope he saw the air shimmer and the snow balloon out as if she’d thrown a jetstream at him.

  Oh shit, it’s the psychic. “No target! No target!” he screamed, rolling away from the path of whatever the hell she’d just done. He felt something grab him and was forcibly pulled into the air like a marionette on strings. He was a strong man, but it felt like a giant hand grabbed him around the waist.

  “Phil!”

  “Don’t you dare Sacks! Stand the fuck down, no target!”

  “Roger. But she kills you, I’m going to end her,” Sacks said bitterly.

  He floated, unsupported, at least a meter above the snow, holding his arms above his head in as non-threatening a position as he could. With a gesture he couldn’t see clearly he was sud
denly speeding towards her through the air, crossing the space hard enough to feel the g-forces. Like being in a speeding car without the benefit of a windshield. He came to an abrupt halt, looking down into a pair of pissed-off, chocolate brown eyes.

  “Um, hi. You hurt Miss?” he ventured.

  A shiver crept along his spine as a sense of dread seemed to come from the figure.

  ‡Who are you yeti-man?‡

  Philippe started at the voice in his head. She hadn’t spoken; there had been no gust of moist air from behind the salmon-colored scarf.

  “Warrant Officer Philippe Leve, Ma’am,” he replied.

  ‡You are not the one who attacked me, you’re not bleeding.‡

  “No Ma’am. I’m under specific orders not to shoot you. I’m here to help you, and the rest of the visitors. But someone else has sent forces here. That’s who attacked you.”

  She remained silent, that sense of dread emanating from her dwindling as tense seconds passed, before he gently drifted down to be deposited on the snow mere feet from her.

  ‡Where’s the man you killed?‡

  I didn’t tell her that. She’s reading my mind, he thought, pointing in the direction of the downed target.

  ‡Yes. You can’t lie to me. Don’t even try. Tell your friend to get down here where I can see him. I want my bag back. Move—where I can see you, soldier.‡ She gestured with the handgun.

  He radioed Sacks, needing to order him to meet him at the body. As he walked he tried to feel her in his mind. If he concentrated he could sense an uncomfortable presence, like someone looking over his shoulder. He tried not to think of anything beyond putting one foot in front of another.

  “So what’s happened to your team?” she asked softly.

  Her voice was soft and rather pleasant, at odds with the hard tone he’d heard in his mind earlier, as if she was concerned and couldn’t help asking.

  May as well tell her, she’ll find out anyway. “This bastard set up booby traps. I’ve got an injured man back in the woods. The rest of the unit, some of them have died. I need to go help them.”

  She tilted her head before looking him up and down. “Leg injury. I might be able to help with that. So who do you think my attackers are?” she asked as the blood-splattered snow appeared before them.

  “You could help? That would be great. As for who he is, I’m still trying to figure that out.” Philippe looked down at the bullet-mangled corpse of the enemy combatant. He didn’t have a problem with being this close to the kill. It wasn’t the first time, not even the tenth time he’d had to confirm the target was killed, and the high-calibre slugs used by the Tac-50s were brutally efficient.

  Philippe still couldn’t see her face, but her body language gave nothing away as she stepped forward and knelt next to the corpse. She didn’t react the way he expected. There was no hesitation as she collected the bright orange backpack the man had carried.

  “I can only think of one person who even knew about the map.” She tutted over a cut strap and the blood that had soaked into the bottom of the bag, using snow to try and clean away some of the offending red liquid.

  “You okay?” Phil asked.

  “What?”

  “The body, it doesn’t bother you?” he asked.

  “I’m trying to think of something else right now, can you not talk about it?” She turned back towards him and took the scarf off from around her face, taking a deep breath.

  She’s beauti—oh crap, try and think of something else, you fool.

  The psychic’s eyes met his own with a knowing glance before she gave him a sweet, shy smile and looked away, turning back to the orange bag and checking the contents.

  Phil stood desperately trying to think of anything other than that shy smile she’d gifted him with as she appraised the contents of the bag. As Sacks slid down a snow bank he turned his attention to the smaller man, who looked at the woman bending over the bag.

  The psychic’s head snapped up before she straightened, tugging at the bottom of her snow jacket. She threw Sacks a frown and a muttered word that sounded like ‘rude’, before turning to Phil, holding something out to him. “Here,” she said.

  He held out his own hand as she deposited a few items. A small vial glowing softly with purple liquid, a syringe, and a bar of chocolate. “This will help. I mean, it will help him heal. That’s five doses. Give him one dose and wait ten minutes, then take out the splinter in his leg. Wound like that should close up in a few hours or so.”

  “Thank you,” he said sincerely. “So who do I have to thank for this?” he asked.

  She smiled again. “My name is Jay, and you’re Philippe, and … Sachpreet, and now I have to leave. Go help your friends.”

  As Jay turned, shrugged the bag into a comfortable position, and walked away, Phil watched her before a light punch in the upper arm broke his concentration. “C’mon Romeo, let’s go help Hamm and the rest of the squad. With the captain dead, you’re in charge.”

  El Paso. Yakima. Buffalo. When is this going to end? And how come we seem to be more rushed every single bloody time? Snake thought bitterly. That last trip in Buffalo, they had barely a half-hour before the frigate appeared.

  He crammed a heaped spoonful of the beef stew into his mouth. Across the table from him, Sarge mopped up the remnants of her meal with a torn piece of bread. Her extensive combat skills were rivalled only by this, her ability to eat a whole meal in less than three minutes, in Snake’s mind.

  They’re getting closer every time. It was becoming more difficult to keep Sheila charged enough to transit. Luckily, his fingers were accustomed to enduring hours of performance, but even the calluses on his fingertips were red and swollen from the constant picking and fingering. If only they had a couple of hours and decent ambient noise, he could charge her back up to respectable levels. She only talked to him during emergencies now.

  “Incoming, Pilot,” came the mechano-female tones of Sheila.

  His eyes went wide as he threw the spoon down and waved at everyone else in the tent. His mouth was full of stew, words wouldn’t come, and he felt bile rising.

  Sarge moved past him, her honed reflexes kicking in like a race car at the starting line, grabbing him by the shoulder with her artificial arm and pushing him towards the tent flap as China skated past on frictionless feet. Sarge yelled the warning he couldn’t: “Take cover!” It took only a second for those in the tent to realize their peril. A few nearby soldiers followed suit, making for the exit, guns in hand.

  But a second was too long.

  Sprinting out the back of the hastily set-up mess tent, Snake and company went flying as a massive concussion propelled them through the air. Only a smoking crater remained where the kindness of the military stood a few seconds ago.

  Snake reeled from the impact of hitting the ground. His vision swam from the disorienting blast as well as the dust. He felt his breath, ragged and too feeble to help clear his head. The ringing in his ears from the overpressure danced a jig with the pain in his teeth, both threatening to waltz right out of his head.

  He looked back at the mess tent. Two cooks, three intelligence attaches, and half-a-dozen guards were now just so much ash floating away on the wind. The parts of a few almost-survivors landed nearby. Half of a Kevlar vest and a helmet filled with shredded crimson were on top of him. The armor and the former body still in it was a mess of lacerations after absorbing most of the shrapnel from the blast.

  The bile in his mouth found its way out.

  He wiped his mouth and flopped over, arms and legs made of rubber as he tried to shift the corpse off himself. By the time he could stand, the entire area around them was the middle of hell.

  Black-charged shinkari filled the air and ate away at the defensive perimeter. Sarge tried yelling to get China’s attention, but a salvo of anti-aircraft missiles deafened all of them once again. The trio found themselves communicating via hand signals. She gave the signal to move out and regroup.

  Snak
e wanted the night to be over already. He moved off after China, doing his best to keep up and get to cover. Where the fuck is Mack? he thought desperately.

  The small copse of trees nearby had some large boulders next to it that would at least provide some cover from the amount of fire raining down on them. Sarge had already slapped the power pack into her rifle, trying to pick out any ground targets or perhaps get a shot off at a transport. China found a low spot nearby to protect their flank. Which left Snake huddling next to a large rock and wishing desperately he was small enough to hide under it.

  He changed the control dials and one of Sheila’s harmonic deflector constructs appeared to stave off the highly charged particles screaming down towards them. He glanced at the instrument’s battery.

  Oh bugger. He nearly cried as the indicator dropped below ten percent after the latest attack. It was going to be close. He couldn’t shield again or they were fucked. But the ship was right above them. The moment he tried to transfer they’d be on the receiving end of the frigate’s cannons.

  He started as a large, green vehicle skidded to a halt right next to them and Mack leaned out the passenger door. “Get in!” she screamed, and the trio leapt for the open door and the promise of escape.

  As the Humvee shot off towards the perimeter of the base, dodging troops and weapons fire, China gripped his arm to get his attention. “Snake, transfer!”

  “We’re too close, we need some distance from those guns. We’ve got less than ten percent charge, we only got one shot at this,” he yelled back.

  “Shit!” Sarge leaned out the window, taking shots at the transport heading their way, and managed to score a hit through the front viewport, making the craft veer away.

  Through the front windscreen and to their left, a squad of infantry moved up with several large tubes that were most likely weapons. Snake’d never seen their like before. They aimed at the frigate. As their commander dropped his hand and gave the command to fire, shining vibrostars sliced through him and three of the operators, leaving contrails of blood in their wake.