by Rod Carstens
“Chief, the Three ship just took a rocket. It’s still flying, but it’s out of formation,” Toland said from her rear-gunner’s perch.
Lee decided to break strict comm silence. “Dragon One to Dragon Three.”
“Go, One.”
“How are you doing over there?”
“Can’t keep formation, One. I lost an engine, but I will still make the drop. I will not be on time, but I will be on target.”
“Can you keep it in the air?”
“I think…fuck.”
“Dragon Three, this is Dragon One.”
Silence.
“Dragon Three, this is Dragon One.”
Silence.
“Chief, I’ve lost sight of him. They were smoking badly but were still flying under control.”
More and different kinds of explosions blossomed near the ship’s nose as Lee continued their dive to the drop zone. He glanced at the mission clock. Still on time, but down to three ships in his formation. There wasn’t supposed to be this much resistance, but then again, intel always seemed to be a day late and a dollar short.
A green message flashed on his display. It was time to pull out of the dive and begin their run into the drop zone. The green light flashed two minutes. Lee switched to the Raiders’ frequency.
“Lieutenant, two minutes. Two minutes.”
“Roger. Two minutes.”
Lyten System
Rift
Internal Security Headquarters
Istas stood outside the interrogation room watching Lieutenant Netis closely. Netis was naked, still covered with the blood from the fight, electronic cuffs chained her to the floor, she was sitting in a metal chair. There was another chair facing her but no other furniture in the room. She appeared completely calm, as if she had not just killed another hybrid and blown her cover, and as if she would not in all probability as far as she knew be killed at any moment. Her face was swollen from a blow from the fight. One arm had a large laceration from the other hybrid, and it had already stopped bleeding.
They must be engineered to control bleeding from non-life-threatening wounds, Istas thought. There was dried blood on Netis’s hands. The guards had been afraid to get near enough to wash her off or allow her enough freedom to do the same. If she didn’t know better, Istas would have thought Netis was an Anjin who had been compromised. Her discipline and resolve were that strong.
Istas touched the spot behind her right ear. “Mother, are you seeing this?” she said quietly.
The Mother of Anjins was monitoring the interview through Istas and could see and hear what she did.
“Yes, child, she is truly remarkable. What do you think?” a voice in her head said.
“I think we are getting a glimpse at just how formidable these hybrids are. Training, do you think?”
“No, breeding and upbringing. She has faced this situation before. Many times, if I were to guess.”
“Who are you talking to? Communication is forbidden,” one of the security guards snapped.
Istas had been accompanied by the two Rift Marines who had fought with her on Earth protecting the admiral. The male stepped between her and the security guard and said, “Quiet. She is an Anjin and she has clearance from the secretary general. You do not need to know who she is talking to.”
The other Marine stepped next to the first and crossed her arms. The two stood between Istas and the security guards, creating a living shield behind her.
“Many times?” Istas said, puzzled by the thought.
“Yes, just as you faced many trials during your time as an acolyte. I would think that being raised by aliens to be as formidable as they are had to be part engineering and part culling of the weakest.”
“Interesting. Then why did she stop the assassination of General Sand?”
“Unknown. That is what you are about to find out, child.”
Istas looked at Netis with new eyes. She remembered her from the emergency operations center on Rift. Istas had noticed her professionalism and toughness before the attack, and that had been only a hint of just how tough this woman really was. Istas had studied her naval file before she had come over for the interrogation—nothing but superlatives from superiors, including General Sand and Usiche during her duty serving them both. Not a hint of the fact that she was an embedded hybrid. She studied the woman closely, using her training. There was not a trace of fear or nervousness in her bearing. She was calm, waiting—Istas was sure—to die, if not at the hands of the Confederation then at the hands of other hybrids. Yet Istas could not detect a trace of fear or nervousness. She had made her choice and was ready to face the consequences. Why had she saved Sand? What was her motivation?
She touched the bracelet on her arm and watched the 3-D video projection of Netis killing the other hybrid before surrendering. It was a brutal fight between two skilled and dangerous combatants. Netis was a fierce fighter, a true hybrid.
“Ma’am.…”
Istas held up a hand for the security type to stop. She continued to stare at Netis, thinking through her approach. She had interrogated a number of people over the years—some with torture and others with guile. She knew torture was of no use here. Guile, or an understanding of Netis, was the best approach. It was time.
“You may open the door now,” Istas said.
The two Marines moved to the door, readying their close-combat weapons.
“No, I will go in alone.”
“But…”
Istas just turned and looked at the marines and said, “No, I will go alone. It is all right.”
One of the Marines opened the door and Istas walked through. They locked the steel door behind her. Netis looked up and saw it was Istas. Recognition slowly crossed her face.
“I thought it might be you,” Netis said.
Istas said nothing. She had thought a lot about what she should wear. She’d decided her fashionista look would be best. It would put Netis off. She had worn a black leather outfit with red piping. Her hair was freshly gold infused and combed straight back from her face, which she had carefully made up. She walked slowly over to the chair opposite Netis’s. Taking her time, she lit a cigarette and blew a stream of smoke toward the ceiling before she said a word. All the while she waited and observed Netis.
“We will start with the most important question. Why? Why would a hybrid embedded for years intervene in the assassination of a high-ranking military figure? That had to be your mission, as I’m sure the admiral was back on Rift.”
Netis looked up. She had been staring down at the floor when Istas asked the question. She met Istas’s gaze.
“It is simple, but I’m sure you won’t believe me.”
“Why don’t you try me?”
Netis hesitated before she responded. “I am more human than Xotoli. Whatever it is that they do to mix our DNA, my human side won out.”
“Explain.”
“The Xotoli told us that they did not have to change us that much—that humans had violence in them all the time. All they had to do was bring it out in us. The talked about our mass murderers and serial killers. They found the right protein in our DNA and tweaked it, and then it was a simple matter of incorporating the right Xotoli genes to give us the strength we would need. After that all they had to do was bring us up to reinforce the changes they had made. Humans are not the first race they have used the technique on. We were one of the easier ones to change. My teachers told us many times that humans and Xotoli were not that different.”
“When did you know you were different?”
“When I was very young. When we are babies, we are given to a human couple until it is time for our Xotoli training. My human mother recognized my humanity early and told me to hide it from the Xotoli. I loved her so much it was very difficult when they took me away. In my training I was just as strong and quick as the others—I just didn’t have the killing instinct they did, and I didn’t identify with the Xotoli the way the others did. I learned how to hid
e it over the years. The main reason I was chosen as an embed was that I excelled in acting human. We had classes that would weed out those who could not hide their Xotoli instincts. I could.”
Netis raised her head and looked directly at Istas.
“Then on Rift, when you killed the other hybrid, I was glad. I knew then that I was with those like me. I was human. I didn’t want to go back to the Xotoli. I wanted to stay with humans. So when I was given the assignment to kill General Sand, I decided I would not. I could no longer hide. I would have to stop the assassination and take the consequences.”
“Very interesting,” the Anjin Mother said. “That might be the only reasonable explanation. But you must test her somehow.”
“You knew that there was a very good chance you would be killed as you tried to stop the other hybrid, did you not?”
“Yes.”
“And if we did not kill you, then certainly the hybrids would kill you for not fulfilling your assignment?”
“Yes.”
Istas sat back in her chair and watched this young woman closely. She picked up none of the tension and hatred she had when she first met Raina Carroll, the senator’s wife. This woman was calm and at ease with her decision, knowing that it meant almost-certain death. Istas decided to test her the way she’d tested Raina.
Istas leaned forward until she was almost touching Netis, her eyes holding hers. With one hand she reached across and gently placed her hand on Netis’s arm and released her sexual pheromones. The reaction was immediate. Netis’s eyes dilated and she flushed with sexual desire. Istas watched Netis’s startled reaction. It had to be very strange and confusing to have a strong sexual desire for someone in the midst of an interrogation. Istas sat back and watched Netis squirm in her chair. With a small smile she held Netis’s eyes. She could almost see the sexual images that were flashing through her mind. Now she knew that Netis was telling the truth. After her encounter with Raina Carroll, she had discovered how a dangerous hybrid reacted to normal human stimulus.
“Excellent, child. A perfect test,” the Anjin Mother whispered in her mind.
This woman was what she said she was, Istas thought. No hybrid could fake such a reaction. She was more human than alien. Istas stood.
“I believe you,” Istas said.
“But.…”
“How do I know?”
“Yes, I mean.…”
Istas touched Netis’s chin with one finger, and Netis could not talk, her sexual excitement was so strong.
“That is how, dear. I might tell you how I did that someday, but right now, I need to get you cleaned up and out of those restraints and this room. We will go somewhere else for my questioning.”
Istas turned to the camera that had been recording their meeting and said, “Release her. I will interrogate her in one of the offices, not in this cage.”
Sui-Ren System
Chika
Naval Special Warfare Squadron
Mike Boat 79
Lee scanned the instruments closely. They were closing in on the drop zone. The last seconds before a drop were critical. Lee had to have the ship horizontal and at the proper drop speed. Any significant deviation and the Raiders’ retros would not be able to compensate. The drop would be a disaster. The green rectangle now had turned red, with a dotted red line down the middle and a bar showing the speed window for the drop. Lee kept the nose of his ship dead on the red line as he slowly pulled out of his attack dive and pulled the ship toward horizontal.
He was coming in too fast. The bar was in the red, so he had to bleed some speed off. He eased back on the throttle and flared the ship a little more. Ground fire of all types was pounding the ship now, but the armor that had been added after 703 was taking the fire with no problems. All systems remained in the green. The fucking corporate types had finally listened to the pilots—this was one sweet ship. Lee eased back on the throttle even more, and the speed dropped into the green. He glanced at his instruments again. Good altitude, good speed, good angle. It was all green. The drop-countdown clock in the corner of his display continued to spin down. Just a few more seconds. Come on, Lee thought to himself. He couldn’t change altitude or speed now. He had to hold on no matter what. The lives of the Marines in the compartment depended on him. Something flashed across their nose.
“Fuck! Laser towers!” Odaka said.
Four laser towers were firing at Lee’s formation as they approached the spaceport. The laser towers stood a hundred feet above the ground and looked for all the world like decorative obelisks. There'd been nothing in the briefing about these towers. The flyovers and other sensors had somehow missed them. The nearest one flashed, and the two ships on Lee’s right took the full brunt of the laser strike. One engine immediately began to smoke, then caught fire.
“Two, can you make the drop?”
“Roger. Still got three engines. She’s holding steady.”
“Missiles away,” Odaka said.
Three air-to-ground missiles streaked from their rails, heading for the laser towers. They were joined by missiles from the rest of the formation. One after the other, the towers’ tops disappeared in flashes of light and debris-filled explosions. Lee put the mini-rail metal storm on auto and let it rake the ground just to add to the mayhem as he concentrated on keeping the ship on the drop path, at the right speed and altitude.
“Thirty seconds,” Lee announced.
Come on, no more surprises. Let me get the Raiders dropped, and then we can begin to go to work, Lee thought. He was fighting the urge to dodge the ever-increasing ground fire, but he held steady. The metal storm’s .50 caliber pellets were kicking up a dust as they raked buildings and open ground along their path to the drop point. Only every tenth round was a tracer, but it looked like a solid line swerving back and forth in front of the ship.
The rectangle began to pulse red and a large word appeared: Drop.
“Drop, drop, drop!” Lee announced over the comm. Good luck, Marines. Better thee than me. I wouldn’t want to be dropping into that hell, Lee thought.
Lee could feel the change in weight as the Raiders began dropping out of the belly of his ship. He watched closely as the drop counter went from red to yellow as the Raiders dropped from the belly of the ship. When the green light went on, signaling that all the Marines were out, Lee banked the ship to the left, with the rest of the flight following him. He glanced at his display. The ground fire changed from arcing up at them to concentrating on the Raiders.
1st Raider Battalion
Alpha Company
First Platoon
Nani watched as Lieutenant Taro ejected, then Elias. Now it was her turn. Nani’s seat’s straps snapped off and her seat shot her into the void. Something was wrong—one of the straps had not released at the same time as the other strap. Instead of heading feet first toward the surface, she was almost on her side. Nani remembered her training and began to count. One-one thousand. Two-one thousand. If she reached five, she would have to fire her retros manually and hope for the best. Three-one thousand. Come on! Her retro system finally sensed that she was at the wrong attitude, and one of the rockets fired to correct her angle.
When it fired, her body came back up to the vertical—her correct drop attitude—but it continued to fire. She was now being pushed in the wrong direction, she was heading away from the drop zone. As she reached for the manual override, the system corrected itself again and the other rocket fired. But she was way off the drop path by the time it did, headed off by herself. The retro system was crude—it was only designed to slow a dropping Marine so she could make a safe landing. It wasn’t meant to fly her all over the damn sky.
Nani frantically searched the surface as she fell the last hundred feet, trying to orient herself. It looked like she was going to be to the east of first platoon’s drop zone. That meant she would be in the middle of third platoon’s area over by the runway. Shit, that put her almost a quarter of a mile away from the rest of the platoon.
As Nani neared the ground, her retros fired right on time. But they had used too much fuel trying to correct her attitude, so she landed hard and had to roll to keep from breaking her legs, even in armor. She silently thanked the training in the ancient parachute-landing fall that she had hated so much because she had thought it was a waste of time. Nani was lying on her stomach. She was on the edge of the runway in front of what the briefing said was the weapons shop. Around her she could see other Raiders landing and moving toward the line of buildings.
The buildings were strange looking from the ground. They looked normal enough, but everything seemed to be out of scale, way too big. The architecture was different somehow.
She remained on the ground. No one seemed to have noticed her landing. With her night-vision visor down, she could see a lot of movement in three buildings to her right. The buildings had large overhead rolling doors, and they were all open. The hybrids showed up brightly on her visor—they were running in various directions as they responded to the sudden attack. To her right she saw a squad of Raiders form up and begin to move toward the buildings.
A fire team laid down covering fire as another team bounded forward. To her left was the administration building and the control tower. She could see movement on the roof, as some Raiders had either landed there or made their way up to clear from the top down. Her platoon would be in that direction, past the administration building and control tower.
Suddenly somebody fired a .48 into the weapons shop. She saw several hybrids who had just emerged from behind some equipment blown back into the building. A Marine was standing over her.
“You hurt?”
“Negative.”
Nani glanced at her heads-up. It showed Weening from the second platoon along with Basso and Mara from the third platoon. The company was all mixed up. She jumped to her feet and pulled her .48 off her chest. The main objective for the company was the administration building and control tower, so they all had the same eventual objective.
