by P. R. Adams
Rimes struggled again to understand what could create such savagery in people.
Finally, he sought escape in the latest logistics data. It was demoralizing. Even with their combined forces, they were below company strength.
They were losing.
It wasn’t incompetence or a lack of resolve or even simple misfortune. The metacorporations suddenly found the will to spend more.
Metacorporate forces had dug in despite every signal they were ready to cut and run, and that vexed Rimes. Twice he had been within fifty meters of the enemy command post in Rosaleen, and twice he’d been driven off by a gunship. Reinforcements had flowed in shortly thereafter, and what had seemed an inevitable victory had transformed into a soul-crushing, uncertain slog.
They should be collapsing, not fighting back. Why? How?
Earlier in the day Banh and Dunne had forwarded imagery from the Rosaleen airfield. The enemy had shuttled in from orbit what looked like a full battalion and some armor. Rimes looked the imagery over, finally accepting the maddening estimates. A shiver passed through him, and he felt a building fury born out of frustration. His resolve was stronger than any iron, but it wasn’t delusional.
“Colonel?”
Rimes looked up at the voice. In the silence, even a whisper echoed. No one else stirred. It was Trang, one of Oswald’s best soldiers, hovering in what had once been the room’s doorway. Trang was taller and more powerfully built than the other Vietnamese soldiers. His face was narrow, his eyes large. Almost hidden in the shadows just behind Trang was a man who stood a head taller. He was broad shouldered, his hair shoulder length and curly.
Rimes recognized the man and stood immediately, quietly exiting the room. Trang left them. Rimes escorted his guest away from the building where the staff slept, taking them deeper into the shadows of the ruins.
“Thanks for coming, Go,” Rimes whispered to his primary civilian spy, Matthias Goonetilleke, or “Go” to his customers and friends. Go said every customer was a friend.
“Yeah, no problem, mate.” Go offered a toothy smile. He always seemed uncomfortable around Rimes and his soldiers, supposedly because of all the guns. Go didn’t care for guns. He was big—as tall as Rimes and thicker through the chest—and he was a celebrity on Bermuda, a champion kickboxer. “Ya pay good, so I make an extra effort, right?”
Rimes dug a piece of film—untraceable cash—from the inside of his armored vest. It wasn’t much, but it was all he could afford. “I’m assuming they know we’ve retreated to the fort?”
“They will when I get back.” Go accepted the film and laughed. “They pay better, see? But they’re bloody bastards, so the data’s a bit stale. No worries, mate. You’re safe for the night.”
“Thanks.”
“Nothing says thank ya like big bikkies, mate. But I think I got the sorta word you want, yeah? Make yer day.”
“I could use good news if you’ve got it.” Rimes smiled weakly.
“Well, you probably heard already they brought in a bunch o’ new blood? Crazy killers and tanks? Like it’s the big finale, right? But it ain’t so much. You probably didn’t see they yanked out what’s left o’ the vets? Yeah, they hid that. And what they brought in? Not what ya think. Rejects with pop guns, not soldiers. No protection, even. Just pretty little uniforms. Gristle t’clog up the works. Y’know, pointy end that way and off ya go, ya drongo bastards. They’re stuffin’ everythin’ up, runnin’ amok at the Cherry Tree and Kensin’ton. Big mess, lots o’ pissed off locals. Those were upscale places, now they’ve turned ‘em into barracks.”
Even incompetent soldiers can kill; a bullet’s a bullet. It’s not like the veterans were particularly capable. But a battalion?
“Sorry about the hotels getting trashed, Go. This could prove to be important.” Rimes rubbed at the scar on his temple, felt Kwon’s impatient growl. What can we do against a battalion?
“Yeah, your words and face ’r outta sync, right?”
“I’ve got a lot on my mind,” Rimes said, still distracted.
“If yer worried about that armor, mate, don’t be. Pawn shop goods and mothballed pieces o’ scrap. They’re hirin’ locals out to the spaceport just t’ get the engines workin’. It’s all a show. Big, intimidatin’, shit yer pants parade. Even the gunships they used to bring it all down? Junk. They’ve got six of ‘em stuck at the spaceport for maintenance, right? Or a show of force if ya don’t know they can’t break inta orbit. Got the fleet on hold now, waitin’ to fly up the boomy bits. Think what you could do with that? Little air force ya call yer own? Machine guns and missiles flyin’ about, shootin’ everythin’ up? Might be just the thing t’ end this.”
“They’re taking the ordnance?”
“Explosives? Yeah. Dug ‘em up from their hidey hole, got ‘em stored nice ‘n safe near the airfield somewhere. They’re takin’ everythin’ but the greenies. Until they get you and yours.”
“Any idea where the fleet’s redeploying the veterans?” Rimes tried to keep his focus on the moment while considering the big picture. Green troops presented an opportunity, if Go could be believed. It makes sense. And those gunships could change everything…
“Not a word, mate. Lotsa friction between heaven and earth.” Go chuckled. “What about you? Anythin’ I can pass along about your shippies?”
Rimes shook his head. The task force had deployed to Han immediately after the drop-off. They would return soon enough, but until they did the metacorporations ruled the heavens, broken gunships or not. “I’m not even sure they received our request for support yet.” Rimes was lying. There had been no request for support. The struggle had seemed winnable until recently, and there simply weren’t enough forces available for reinforcement, even if the task force could bring them.
“Yeah, well, let’s hope it’s not too much longer, right? No one’s hirin’ a private investigator during an occupation, and I’ve had a gutful o’ watchin’ the zeds move t’ the wrong side o’ the decimal while I’m drinkin’ vodka with the big man.”
Zeds. Zeroes. Rimes tried not to be annoyed by Go’s concern for money with so many lives at stake.
“This new one’s just as bad. I moved back here t’ live like a king, not a pauper.”
Rimes’s brow furrowed. “There’s a new boss?”
“Anton. Anton Tymoshenko. Nice bloke, if you like yer butcher smilin’ when he chops ya up. Used t’ run the show for EEC here a bit back. The Jerries aren’t any better, mind.”
“Riesigfirma’s still around?” Rimes couldn't hide his disappointment at another of the metacorporations showing up. He’d hoped at least the EEC-Riesigfirma alliance would splinter, despite their long-standing relations. Something has to break our way eventually.
“I think most o’ the new blood’s from Krautland and thereabouts. All pasty faces and pale eyes.” Go pointed to his own face—the brown eyes, golden-brown skin and black hair, and soft, handsome features of his Bangladeshi and Singaporean ancestors—and laughed. “Stands out a bit in these parts.”
“A bit.”
“Gotta run.” Go patted Rimes’s shoulder. “Don’t want them worryin’ after me, now do I? See ya, mate.”
Rimes watched Go leave, noting the way he moved with uncommon agility for a man his size. Once he was hidden in the darkness, Rimes turned his attention to the plans, strategies, and dangerous thoughts that had started racing through his mind. He pulled up a map of Rosaleen and the surrounding area, pacing as he worked through the data and Go’s take on it. Always at the back of Rimes’s mind was the thought that reliable human intelligence was more important than any other form.
Is Go reliable, though? He’s made no bones about it: he’s working both sides for the money. He’s never done us wrong before, though.
Finally, Rimes decided on a course. It carried risks, but it held the promise of tremendous reward. He walked back to his sleeping staff, all the while wondering if the surge in manpower wasn’t the real threat, and if he might be stepping
into a trap.
The only way to know if it’s a trap is to spring it.
24
3 March, 2174. Bermuda Colony.
* * *
In the early hours of the morning, a hard rain turned Braddock Boulevard blacker than midnight. The road stretched a potholed forty klicks from the front gate of Bermuda Colony Spaceport southwest to Rosaleen. Even the brilliant-white security lights of the front gate were swallowed by the gloom.
From his position in a shallow ditch about twenty meters out from the front gate, Rimes traced the lit stretch of road and imagined it connecting to a distant hint of light closing in from somewhere out on the barren plain that was home to Rosaleen and the spaceport. Sweet, cold rainwater collected on his tongue as he pondered the light. It could be an approaching car, but it could also be one of the handful of operational street lamps lining the road.
The single glimmer of light turned into two, and Rimes slid his faceplate down. The lights eventually resolved into the unsteady beams of two approaching vehicles.
Rimes drew his knife, careful not to splash in the shallow pool of rain he was lying down in. His BAS indicated the vehicles were nearing fifty meters out. It also indicated his body temperature had dropped dangerously in the time he’d had his helmet open. The way he was always burning up inside, he barely noticed the cold.
Two men—mercenaries—stepped out of the security shack up ahead that straddled the faint remnant of paint that divided the lanes. They were young, probably not even in their twenties yet. They laughed and joked about the pathetic sight of the approaching vehicles and the colony in general. Rimes barely managed to follow their heavily accented English.
He crawled closer, using only his forearms and thighs. His body was stiff and sore, but the activity helped warm him up and drive off the memories that had recently awakened.
The vehicles came to a full stop at the gate, and the young mercenaries stepped to either side. Their laughter grew louder as the fluorescent green side panels on the crawlers flickered an advertisement for Chan Brothers’ Maintenance & Repair. The drivers lowered their windows and leaned out. They were dressed in grimy coveralls.
“Identification.” The first mercenary spoke in what sounded like a German accent as he approached the front vehicle. He moved slowly and frequently looked at the second mercenary, as if they were taking pleasure in inconveniencing the drivers.
“Cold night,” the front driver said. He wiped rain from his face and reached into the crawler, holding out a large, brown bottle of the local beer. “Knock the worst off?”
From his position about eight meters out Rimes could see a half-empty bottle of the cheap, local whiskey in the security shack. When the second driver waved another bottle out his window the mercenaries stopped laughing. They glanced at each other, then quickly stepped up to seize their prize before waving the vehicles through. The mercenaries held the beer bottles up like trophies and shouted something Rimes couldn’t understand.
Their laughter stopped when the vehicles’ brake lights suddenly flared, and the vehicles came to an abrupt stop.
“Vas—?”
Rimes darted from the shadows. He covered the mouth of the first mercenary and plunged his knife into the young man’s throat. The beer bottle shattered on the slick road, and rain quickly washed away the foam and blood. On the other side of the road another form wrestled with the other mercenary, then dragged him out of the light.
The vehicles backed up, and half a dozen shadowy forms rose from the darkness and slipped through the gate. One of those forms took the mercenary corpse from Rimes, changed into the dead man’s poncho and helmet, then returned to the gate.
Rimes climbed into the back seat of the second crawler. A second later, Kleigshoen climbed in beside him. She held her knife out in the rain to let it wash away the blood before closing the door. Her eyes were cold, distant, the lids drooping from fatigue. He wanted to hug her, maybe whisper reassurances, but that wouldn’t have been appropriate.
His heart raced with anxiety and anticipation, not out of fear of death but failure. They were committed to a path that was every bit as uncertain and dark as Braddock Boulevard, which was ghostly through the vehicle’s rain-fogged window.
Road signs flickered on the inside of the crawler’s front window. He’d never liked the idea of projected signs, and the crawler was a perfect example of what was wrong with the technology. Against the grimy window the crawler’s failing projection system could be telling them they were three klicks out from a left turn to the maintenance road, or it could be a cheeky advertisement for a bordello. No one could possibly tell.
He turned slightly toward Kleigshoen. “They were probably ex-cons. There’s no way they’d ever been through any sort of boot camp.” He wasn’t sure if he was trying to reassure her or himself.
She squinted, probably trying to make sense of the flickering sign. Finally, she nodded. She’d volunteered for the infiltration. At the last minute, she’d signaled her intent to take out the second mercenary guard.
“When he realized he was dying he just stared at me,” she said. “Not angry, you know. Just…like he couldn’t understand. He just kept trying to cover that hole in his throat. I don’t know if he was old enough to shave.”
Rimes grunted. “I don’t watch them once I’m sure it was a good strike.”
She was quiet until the crawler bounced off a particularly nasty pothole. “This killing can’t go on forever.”
Oswald turned in the front passenger seat. She slicked back her dripping hair and looked at them, then back to the indistinct sign glowing on the window. “Left at the ‘Y,’ Trang. You sure you’re a qualified driver and pilot?” She tapped Trang on the shoulder.
“I’m sorry, ma’am. I can’t see a thing.” Trang was leaning so far forward his face was lit by the projections.
“Just keep the runway lights to yer right, yeah?” She pointed to the faint beacons—amber, green, red, and white lights—in the distance. “Tell the other bloke to do the same. I can’t bloody see where he’s going in this mess, but we can’t get separated.”
“Yes, ma’am.” Trang quickly relayed Oswald’s directions to the lead crawler.
Oswald turned around again and looked at Kleigshoen. “You gonna make it?”
Relief washed over Rimes when Kleigshoen nodded. “If this works out, it changes everything,” he said.
“It’s always going to change.” Kleigshoen’s head slowly rocked side to side. “It never does.”
“This is different.” Rimes was surprised by the confidence in his voice. Do I really believe it? “They’re moving troops around, dumping untrained thugs onto the front line. This could be the fracture point.”
Kleigshoen closed her eyes and bowed her head; she shivered as if she might be sick. “I don’t know how you can deal with this stress, Jack.”
“You don’t deal with the stress. In this line of work, when the end comes, it’s likely to be fast.”
“That’s not reassuring.” Kleigshoen half-sobbed, then settled on a sniffle.
“Ever wonder what happens?” Rimes studied the darkness, as if it might hold answers. “A sudden bullet to the head, like you gave Moltke? A slow, painful death like my father’s. When it’s over what’s it matter? You don’t carry the memories of the pain forward, do you? Even if you believe in something after, when it’s over, it’s over, unless you’ve got some bizarre, twisted pain fetish in your belief system or something.”
“Always this cheerful before an op, Colonel?” Oswald chuckled as the vehicle bounced, then she turned to the driver. “Hey, you mapping the craters out?”
Trang muttered a cursed. “Sorry, Lieutenant. These roads keep getting worse.”
“File a complaint with the gov. They’ll get someone right on it.” Oswald playfully swatted Trang on the shoulder.
“I guess I can’t help it sometimes,” Rimes said with a sigh that echoed louder than the patter of rain and the straining transmissio
n’s hum. He rubbed his eyes, wondering what others saw in their dreams. Is there ever peace in sleep once you’ve crossed a certain threshold, or is this what it is to be damned for eternity? “I’ve probably seen too much for my own good.”
Oswald smiled wryly at Rimes’s gloominess. “Y’know, Colonel, anyone ever tell you it’s possible to do a bit too much dwelling on the nega—”
Gunfire erupted, and Rimes heard glass breaking. Oswald jerked, then slumped; gore sprayed from her head onto Rimes and Kleigshoen. Trang managed to slide below the dashboard as bullets crashed all around him. Rounds thumped into Rimes’s chest and shoulders, but his armor absorbed the worst of it. Kleigshoen fared a little worse; blood trickled between her fingers where she squeezed her neck.
The crawler came to a stop, its motor destroyed. Ahead of them the lead crawler lazily drifted off the road and came to a stop.
Seconds passed with more gunfire, more windows shattering, and more bullets hammering the crawler. Rimes covered Kleigshoen with his body, jerking as more rounds struck him, not all of them absorbed by his armor.
Finally, the firing stopped.
Rimes listened, hopeful but unsure. He stayed motionless, only his eyes moving. His face was centimeters from Oswald’s, close enough to see his reflection in her dead eyes.
It’s over. I’m sorry.
Light—flashlights, headlights, flares—lit the vehicle interior. Crawler motors whined to life. Footsteps sloshed in the muddy ground. Voices shouted. Rimes heard German, Nordic, and Slavic accents.
“Trang, you okay?” Rimes called softly.
“I’m okay, Colonel,” Trang said, his voice calm. “I guess it was a trap after all?”
“Yeah. Dana?”
“My neck hurts.” Her voice was shaky, close to cracking. “That’s…that’s all.”
“Oswald’s dead.” Rimes wiped his face; his hand came away with blood and brains and something gummy. He thought he might have been hit but couldn’t find a wound and didn’t feel pain or numbness anywhere. Slowly, it dawned on him that the gummy matter was a piece of Oswald’s face. He flicked it away.
