by Hugh Howey
The idea was to hit running, but he came in too fast. His knees buckled, and he went into a roll to dissipate the force. He felt his pack bang violently against the deck, and he ended up in an uncomfortable sprawl. Cole pushed himself up, quickly unbuckled his harness, and let the overworked chute drift to the ground. And then, out of nowhere, a Luddite came at him, screaming. Cole yanked his buckblade free and fumbled for the switch. The man swung at him with a sideways blow.
Cole immediately turned his blade vertical and locked his new arm in place. Pistons and rods stood firm where once muscle and sinew lay. His attacker’s buckblade bounced back before it reached Cole’s, repelled from the like gravitational field so fast, it simply flew out of the figure’s hands. Cole stepped out of the way, allowing the man’s momentum to carry him by, then brought his own blade down on the man’s shoulder and out his opposite hip.
The man’s torso fell a few meters from his legs, his heart visible in its ribcage, still beating. Cole looked up from the two pieces toward the downed ship in the distance, far beyond the mast. All across the deck, dozens of figures moved toward the crash site—more than Cole thought he could fight through. He considered the plan Arthur had come up with and suddenly felt too exposed to pull it off. He was one idiot, alone and ill-prepared, against a legion of hardened maniacs. With the crash of the ship, the element of surprise was gone. Every able-bodied Luddite was now crawling across the camp, looking for trouble. And in his white suit, Cole stood out like an albino on a Mediterranean beach.
He looked off to the side, beyond the village’s railings, at all the snow streaking by. He kept turning and faced the bow, where a massive wall, shaped in a tall vee, parted the sideways flurries.
The plan had been to meet up with Mortimor and the rest of his crew, then wait for Arthur’s special delivery to extract them. But first, Cole thought he should take a bit of a detour and do what he did best:
Improvise.
4 · Luddite Camp
Penny helped Jym up from the ground, the pilot having been thrown out of his seat when their hijacked craft crashed into the Luddite camp. Mortimor clung to the dash nearby; he peered through the busted canopy at the jumbled structures in the village below. It had been Penny’s idea to try and land on the Luddite village, partly to do some damage, but mostly to keep from being buried in the snow and pushed back into the oblivion of hyperspace.
Jym clasped Penny’s wrists and stood up with her assistance.
“Thanks,” he said, gathering himself.
He seemed about to say something else, but Penny raised her hand to quiet him. She leaned toward the cockpit door. Somewhere aft, she could hear the hiss of plasma torches and the clanging of outer hull plating. “They’re already cutting their way inside,” she told the others. “I don’t think they’re happy with our parking job.”
“We’ll make our stand in the cargo bay,” Mortimor told her. He patted Jym on the back, and both men reached for their blades.
Penny nodded her agreement, and the three of them made their way aft, leaning to one side to compensate for the tilt of the deck and the Bern craft’s busted grav panels.
“If anyone gets caught and interrogated, this was the extent of the raid, okay?” Mortimor gave them both a serious look. “It was just us, and our goal was to bring down one of their ships and damage the village. No word of the other crews, no matter what they do to us.”
They nodded, each of them well aware of the Luddite fondness for removing limbs.
Mortimor led them out of the cockpit. “Penny, you stay behind as backup in case one of us goes down. Jym, you cover the port side.”
“Don’t try and protect me,” Penny said. “I’m the best here with a blade.” She stepped ahead of the other two. “I’ll take the starboard—”
“Watch out!” Jym yelled, raising his buckblade.
Penny turned and got hers up as well. Two Luds stormed into the bay, slowing up when they saw they were outnumbered. “Do this fast,” Penny said. “We’ve got to take them in small bites.”
Mortimor ran down the far side of the cargo bay, threatening to flank them. Penny pushed forward, forcing them to think about two dangers at once. One of the men seemed timid, the kind who would throw his sword at a foe, then run. Penny screamed and lunged at him, giving Mortimor time to get behind.
The coordinated attack took just a few seconds, and then there was more mess piled up in the ship, Human and Bern bits indistinguishable.
“Are we better off down on the village deck?” Jym asked “It’s gonna get awful crowded in here.”
Penny looked to Mortimor and saw a grim seriousness in his furrowed brow and set lips. “It’s just a numbers game, isn’t it?” she asked him. “We’re just seeing how many we can take with us?”
Mortimor nodded. “Hopefully this’ll scare the Bern and speed up the invasion. Maybe we’ll end up ushering the other groups through the rift quicker. I say we take out a few more Luds here. After that, they’ll know what they’re up against, that this isn’t a friendly crash landing.”
“And then what?” Jym asked.
Mortimor shrugged. “I don’t suppose it’ll be long before we find out.”
••••
Cole sprinted away from the crashed ship and toward the bow of the Luddite village. He angled to starboard, his improvised plan hatching as he went. He headed for the edge of the giant wedge that parted the horizontal snow of hyperspace and kept the flurries from settling on the deck. It was nothing more than a thick, vertical wall of steel in the shape of a V, creating a sideways roof over the mobile town. With his sword extended and held firmly by his waist, Cole jogged close to the wall, the handle of his blade held just centimeters away. He could only hope that the invisible buckblade was long enough to extend all the way through the metal plating. Looking back as he ran, he saw a jagged line being created—the rise and fall of his gait measured in a fine crack of destruction through the tall shield.
Cole paced himself, recognizing that he had a decent jog ahead. He settled into a rhythm and concentrated on his breathing, trying to ignore the increasing heft of his boots. He followed the tall V to the bow, checking now and then to ensure that his blade was still on. Then he traced his way down the port side.
Before he got through three quarters of the other side of the wall, Cole heard a satisfying groan of steel as the remaining section struggled to hold up the rest. He cut another dozen meters, running faster and waiting for the wails of distressed steel to increase their pitch, and then he sprinted down the rail directly aft, pumping his legs as fast as he could to outpace what he figured to be a toppling mountain of metal about thirty meters tall.
He looked back only once, which was all it took to run even faster. The wall was bending around the portion still connected, singing and shrieking as thick metal crumpled like tin. An avalanche of snow shivered from the wedge, and more than a meter of hard pack calved off like a fractured iceberg. The great white sheets crashed and exploded on the deck, followed soon after by the cliff of thick, welded plates that formerly made up the bow shield.
The force of the impact shot up through Cole’s boots like an earthquake, throwing him to the ground. He rolled and slid, came to a graceless stop, then spun around, gasping for breath as he surveyed the damage he’d wrought.
He had easily cleared the falling wall, even though it had felt a lot closer when it hit. The massive wave of packed snow had slid closer, but probably never posed a threat even if it had reached him. Hitting him in the face—spotting his dark goggles with blooms of moisture—came the only bombardment from his efforts: Snow. Flying sideways and already dusting the deck, the flakes spun and twirled around him, creating a thick mist of white as they coursed through the air unabated.
Looking aft toward the crash site, Cole watched the spreading veil twist its way toward the distant structures, swallowing everything in a sticky cloud. Dark shapes could be seen moving about, the ferocious slam of steel having created just the s
ort of panic he’d hoped for. The other part of his impromptu plan seemed to be working as well: He could now see the dark figures more clearly. Swaddled in their matted furs, they stood out stark against the new white land he had unleashed.
Cole jogged aft and stopped to retrieve his grav chute. He found it already dusted with snow. He slung it over his white uniform, then pulled his buckblade back out and flicked off the safety. Picking out the nearest Luddites, he stole their direction, his sword armed and at the ready. As he closed the distance—their beastly shapes standing out clear as day against the snow—he wondered just how well they would be able to see him.
••••
Penny and Mortimor stood over another pair of overanxious Luds, the pieces of them leaking fluids. She heard someone barking orders further down the hull and knew the easy kills were done. The furballs were getting organized.
“We can’t stay here,” Mortimor said.
“What about the floor?” Jym asked. He traced an imaginary slash through the decking.
“No!” Penny said, holding out a hand. “There’s no telling what you’d slice through. The forward thrusters might get their fuel from somewhere aft of here.”
“Then how about around the portholes?” Jym asked. “Maybe there’s a rooftop to jump to—”
“We’re too high for that,” Mortimor said. He pointed to the flakes of snow drifting through the busted canopy. “In fact, are we higher than the camp’s bow shield?”
Penny powered down her sword and ran toward the cockpit, disappearing into the swirling flurries leaking through the hole in the canopy. “No way we’re that high,” she called back to them. “The main deck can’t be more than twenty meters up.” She looked out through the shattered glass at the rooftops below. The mast in the distance was just a hazy strand of black rising up through a sudden blizzard.
She turned back to the others. “I think the impact of our crash took out the bow shield—”
A loud bang cut her off, followed by a shudder that travelled through the deck. Penny stepped back into the cargo bay as several identical, calamitous sounds reverberated through the hull.
“What is that?” Jym asked. He turned side to side anxiously, his buckblade held out.
“Careful,” Penny said, flipping on her own blade in case she needed to protect herself from his.
Another bang. Extremely close.
Mortimor looked up at the ceiling. “I think they’re surrounding us, preparing to come in from the top.” He motioned with his hands. “Everyone in the center of the bay, back to back. Watch your angles.”
Jym and Mortimor lined up facing aft, and Penny formed the head of the triangle, watching the cockpit. Another bang rang out, and then Penny heard the dull pounding of footsteps on the roof of the ship. Someone whistled in the distance—the only warning they got before a dozen Luddites began cutting their way down through the ceiling. There was a horrible din of clanging metal as cut circles of steel clattered within the mechanical spaces over their heads. And then came the shrill fury of Luddite war-cries, paced by the stomping of their approaching boots from all directions—
••••
Cole skirted the tower’s base, partly because of the small group guarding its perimeter, but mostly out of fear of its effects on time. The grav chute on his back made jogging uncomfortable; Cole cinched it tighter and steadied it with one hand while he held his blade in the other. He entered a small clearing he remembered from his last desperate run through the village. The only difference now was the looming hulk of a massive spaceship sprawled in the distance.
As Cole neared, he thought he could see figures running across the wings of the ship, far above the deck. He stopped near one of the sheds and watched more dark blobs scurry up what looked like steel beams dropped onto the fuselage, giving the Luddites a way up. He reached down and turned his chute to full lift but left the power off. He wondered if his idea would work or if he’d have to scurry up the beams after them.
Putting his blade away, Cole took a few deep breaths as he picked out the first building. Visualizing each step—virtually running his muscles though the entire process—he dug one boot into the deck and pressed the other against the wall of the building behind him. Grimacing, Cole shoved off, running as fast as he could for the low structure he’d chosen.
The distances were complete guesswork, made on intuition and a feel for the chute’s power on the way down. Cole jumped up about ten meters before reaching the wall and jammed the chute on. His stomach dropped, his throat constricting at the odd sensation of going up through the air higher than his legs had sent him. Even so, he’d been overly optimistic—he reached the top of his augmented leap and drifted back down much too far away, his forward momentum from the sprint taking him directly toward the building’s steel wall.
Cole braced for impact and brought one hand up to protect his face, the other reaching for the roof’s edge. He hit so hard, he nearly bounced off, but his right hand clutched the top of the wall with an iron grip, leaving him dangling.
Tensing his new arm, and with the aid of the grav chute set to max, Cole vaulted to the top of the roof with an eerie ease. The combined might of the two devices, chute and arm, made him feel giddy. Powerful.
He shut the chute back down so his feet would have enough traction to run and lined himself up with a taller building across a wide alley. Cole took off, planning in advance the next sequence of jumps on his way up to the Bern craft’s cockpit.
••••
The Luddite battle cries came from all directions, nearly masking the thunder of rushing boots. Ceiling panels rained down, cut in rough circles, one of them nearly crashing on top of the defensive trio.
The clanging of so much steel just added to the confusion. Penny almost left one nearby attacker to Mortimor, then realized the Lud was in her zone. She feinted high, and he brought his blade up to counter. Penny changed levels in a blur, swooping for his ankles. The Lud’s boots stayed planted in an expert attack base, even as the rest of him collapsed to the deck, screaming. Penny finished him off with a slice across the torso, then turned to fend off a blow from a second Lud who had jumped down from above. In her peripheral, she saw Mortimor and Jym parrying their own attacks from behind.
The war cries mixed with agony wails as several Luds bled out. Penny checked over her shoulder after sending an attacker’s arm flying and saw that Jym was among the screaming. He writhed on the deck, one of his legs off, but he continued lashing madly at the ankles of the men aft of him. Penny turned around as two more Luds jumped down. She dispatched one, but left herself open to the second. She saw the attack while still following through with her own, but it came too fast. Her non-sword arm was left hanging out in space from the twisting momentum of her torso. It came off clean, just below her elbow, and a deep nick opened along her thigh as well.
She ducked the next blow rather than block it and went for the knees with an angle two, taking away the fur-clad man’s mobility.
“Cockpit!” she yelled to Mortimor. She dispatched the wounded attacker who had taken her arm and ran forward as more of the hoard rained in around them. Penny turned to see if Mortimor was still with her. She ground her teeth when she saw blood streaming down one of his hands and running off in a tight rivulet. It splattered the deck as he performed unorthodox, desperate swings with his other hand.
There were at least a dozen Luds in the cargo bay. One of them silenced Jym as the group pressed forward, forcing her and Mortimor toward the cockpit. More banging rang out above, letting Penny know there was no safe exit. They were surrounded and critically outnumbered.
One began barking orders to the others, planning the last surge, when Penny realized the encirclement was complete. With a loud bang, a large portion of the cockpit canopy fell in just as she and Mortimor were squeezing through the passageway. She barely had room to defend herself as two Luds crashed through the opening, their swords held on opposite sides and poised for a deadly pincer att
ack.
Penny picked one of them to counter, the other side of her body bracing for a killing blow. Tensing up, she swung her blade into position, when both men froze. Their arms went slack, the pincer attack falling into limp impotence. Both their torsos opened with an avalanche of intestines, bright joints of spine sticking up through the mess as the tops of the men fell away.
As the lifeless, gory heaps crashed to the deck, they revealed behind them the hazy outline of someone in white—someone framed fuzzily against the torrent of snow. Penny couldn’t make out much of their savior, but she did note the barest hint of a classical fencer’s stance—a stance normally guaranteed to get buckbladers killed.
••••
Cole put his blade away. He held on to the edge of the canopy with one hand and fumbled inside a combat pouch with the other. He pulled out one of two blast grenades and clipped the pin to a snap on the front of his suit. Ahead of him, Penny and Mortimor were backing into the tight cockpit, slipping on the mess he’d created on the floor. Without adequate room for defensive posturing, their repelling blades threatened themselves and each other as much as they promised to protect them. Beyond his two wounded friends, Cole saw a file of attackers lining up for their chance at a killing blow.
“Grab on!” Cole yelled into the cockpit. His boots tenuously gripped the ship’s icy hull as he held out a hand toward Penny.
Penny screamed over her shoulder at Mortimor, who relented, turned, and put away his blade. He stepped onto the pilot’s seat and reached for Cole.
With a loud cry, Penny lunged and swung at the first Luddite to enter the cockpit. Their blades flew away from each other and did damage to the ship. Mortimor scampered up onto the dash and out into the snow-streaked air, yelling for Penny to follow. Her attacker pressed forward, threatening them all with any rebound from Penny’s blade.
Instead of blocking, however, Cole watched as she dove forward, below the attack, swinging upward at her foe’s elbow as she flew inside his range.
