Base Metal (The Sword Book 2)

by J. M. Kaukola

"Net's cooked, drives are fucked, we're going down slow, and the whole thing's a bomb." He answered. He almost added the most damning part. Lauren was gone, ripped to shreds by the Phalanx. He glanced down at the red light on his assist box. How much of her was scattered across that drive? How many pieces had the guard dog ripped her into?

  A mental voice demanded, 'Why did you let her go?'

  "Princess!" Kawalski demanded. She was staring at him. That hadn't been the first time she'd called his name. She demanded, "You with us?!"

  He nodded.

  She ordered, "Okay, new plan. We're regrouping with the rest of Delta. There's a junction box next corner, you're going to plug in, see if you can't assist. We need a flanking route back to the servers."

  "Net's gone." He repeated.

  "Figure it out!" She snapped. Something in her voice caught. Kawalski was always a hardass, but this wasn't her 'soldier up' voice. She was scared. Desperate.

  He nodded, tried to find a way to be useful. "The Phalanx is compromised. I think I can get into cameras, even without hard-link." He didn't add, 'Lauren might have bought me that much.'

  He crouched in his alcove, back against the pot-holed steel ribbing. Hill took up the opposite flank, tongue wedged in cheek, and machinegun laid in. Kawalski stayed close, her last three men fanned across the junction - Spencer, Hayes, and Gurian.

  Firenze pulled his goggles over his eyes, rubbed the dirt clear with one of his handi-wipes. Too much of the net was gone to try and force a link. Despite himself, he checked mask health. Blood red text answered: INOPERABLE - FILE CORRUPT. This time, the tears weren't fear.

  He swallowed them back, forced himself to focus. He could still help. He could save lives.

  The Phalanx did not contest his access. He didn't know if it was segmented away from him, if it was offline, or if it was just too busy with a dying net. He couldn't bring himself to care, beyond a swallowed ache and a traitorous relief.

  Local feed was still up, he could pull security footage. He checked TACNET, found the remaining Delta teams pushing towards the rendezvous. Lieutenant Weber's Delta Two was still up and fighting - eight lights were green. Firenze pulled up their location on camera.

  Weber's team moved in a modified column, bounding from cover to cover, weapons high and angles checked. They were beaten, ammo critical, but not broken. Firenze ran the math. Once linked with Kawalski's team, they might be able to punch back into the server. Maybe.

  Movement caught his eye from one of the adjoining halls. Enemy heavies were moving to intercept.

  Firenze pinged them on TACNET, and Weber confirmed. Delta Two fanned across the corridor, pressed themselves into alcoves, prepared to counter-ambush. Firenze flipped cameras, changed to a better angle to see what was coming up the hallway.

  What he saw was death itself.

  Three behemoths climbed the subdeck access ramp. The two flankers resembled the heavies they'd contacted earlier, powered exoframes wrapped in armored greatcoats. Their jackbooted steps rang from the deck plates, servos whirring under their cascading armor. Each of them wore a rebreather, a great tube running from armored faceplate to their chest, thrumming in time to the scrubbers. Both carried crew-served weapons, backpack powerplants linked to emitter tubes, each adorned with radiators and parabolic mirrors. A distant voice from his imprint echoed, 'Acheron Mark Two Directed Plasma Projector, with Mark Seven Molten Salt Battery'. The enemy had plasma casters.

  What was worse, the third figure dwarfed the others.

  The goliath stood three meters tall, covered head to toe in gleaming mirrored armor. It didn't walk but loped, climbing the ramp in clanging, swooping bounds that left dents in the polished deck. Hardpoints for a half-dozen weapons jutted from its treetrunk arms, a v-rack launcher rested on its shoulders, and a small reactor perched upon its back, cabled to the anti-vehicular laser clenched in its massive gauntlets.

  Firenze's heart caught in his throat, and he scrambled for his radio. He sputtered, "Lieutenant! This is Firenze-"

  Weber advised, "Use your call-signs, Delta Four."

  "Fine!" Firenze agreed, he but pushed on, "Sir, you've got something really nasty coming your way - check vidlink! They're closing fast, heavy armor, energy weapons!"

  Weber replied, unnaturally calm, "Roger. Thank you."

  Beside him, he heard Kawalski start to bark orders. She was going to try and intercept. She'd never get there in time.

  She snapped, "Reaper! Stay on Princess, hold this point!"

  "Dag, I can-" Hill protested.

  "Fuck that! Hold the point! Everyone else, on me!" She commanded.

  Firenze heard running, but he couldn't turn from the cameras.

  Beside him, he heard Hill ask, "What kind of firepower you seeing, Princess?"

  Firenze piped the feed to the soldier's goggles, and he heard the sudden snap of breath. Hill keyed his radio, frantic, and barked, "Dag! Weo! They've got a century laser!"

  His warning came too late.

  The heaviest combatant cleared the corner. It loped into silhouette, planted one armored boot, and pivoted to face the combined fire of Weber's squad.

  Delta team fired. Eight soldiers, from perfect ambush angles, poured their fury upon the armored titan. Bullets glanced from the silver shell, shattered and bounced like sparks from concrete. A rifle grenade struck its chest-plate and detonated-

  It stepped through the haze, unmarred.

  Without emotion, without bravado, it raised its heavy laser.

  Firenze's camera blanked, its sensor burnt by the flash of the beam. He couldn't see, but he could hear. There came a crackle-snap, like lightning and a car-crash. Thunder roared. Howls of superheated metal and boiling meat followed.

  Firenze felt his fingers go numb, clutched about his computer.

  The radio crackled, and Weber's voice cut through the din, "Delta Four, this is Delta Two-Six!" Something burst, rained around the radio like meat poured from a second-story window. Weber screamed, "Dag! Get your people out! Fall back!"

  Firenze tried to find another camera, but all were black.

  Kawalski's reply was near-desperate. She cried, "Sir, we can reinforce your position!"

  "Negative! Fall back and secure-" The transmission cut with a sickening hiss-pop.

  Firenze lifted his goggles, unable to stare at the black display any longer.

  Hill stared at him, his face ashen, his hands clutched tight about his gun. At the end of the hall, Kawalski stood frozen in the door, swaying like a reed in the wind, torn between honor and duty.

  Firenze scrambled after her and begged, "You can't do anything!"

  "They're dying-" She snapped back.

  "To protect us."

  "You." She accused, her eyes like a dagger. "To protect you."

  "The net's gone!" He cried. "We've got to get out of here!"

  "They're-"

  Hill stepped forward. He spoke, his voice a near whisper, "He's right, Dag. The mission's gone. Extract the team."

  Kawalski wavered, once more, her eyes unfocused. She turned from one soldier to another, as if counting their lives against an unseen abacus. With every twitch of her sharp face, Firenze could read the passion play. She wanted to go down that hall. Every ounce of her begged it.

  Her glare broke, and she spat, "Fuck!"

  Hill nodded. He clapped her twice on the shoulder, like a mourner at a funeral, consoling the family of the departed.

  Kawalski gave him a half-nod and a slow blink. For her, that was all but a wail. Then she was all business, once more. She barked, "We're falling back! Princess! Get me a map to the evac-"

  As one, their radios squelched, and Colonel Halstead's voice broke through. He said, "Attention, all units; this is Alpha Six. Evacuate immediately. Abort all missions and evacuate."

  The computer chimed an emergency tone. A pleasant voice intoned, "Attention, all passengers and crew. This is an evacuation order. Please remain calm as you proceed to your assigned departure points." The computer's
voice was as calm as if it were discussing tea.

  Kawalski looked like she might vomit onto her boots.

  Firenze had the map up, highlighted the nearest lifeboats across the midship. He sent it down the link. She took it, and there might have been gratitude in her nod. Any goal was better than none. She tapped her tablet twice, called up the floorplan, and designated a boat, one deck up, just past the clinic. She ordered, "We take that one. Secure it and hold. Clear?"

  One of the soldiers - Hayes - raised a question, "That's a civie deck, Dag."

  Kawalski nodded.

  "Gonna be crowded." Hayes finished.

  "More chance to save people." She replied. "First to fight."

  That brought nods and a half-murmured chorus, "Last to quit."

  They took the ladderwell at a sprint, cleared through the steel coffin gangway without contact. Gurian made short work of the door, and they burst into the promenade.

  Escape from the sterile, conduit-choked halls of the server section washed over Firenze like fresh air. Even second-class cabins were a world apart from the girder, bulkheads, and right-angles they'd fled. Here, the walls formed gentle curves, like the contours a sea-shell. The partitions grew like coral arches, the straightaways gleamed from all-wall holodisplays. Every junction carried a theme, complete with fountains, garden-beds, and oculus domes. Even the carpet was pristine, royal blue against the golden walls.

  Firenze might have felt some relief, but it was not shared. Kawalski grew ever-more agitated. Hill spun through his rear-guard sweeps with unmasked anxiety.

  It took Firenze a moment to puzzle it out - the corridor was too silent. Every door was closed, and there was no sign of movement. This wasn't a hallway - it was a tomb.

  They posted up at the lifeboat hatch, a hundred meters back from the mouth of the aft park-dome, tucked between the swells of the rolling walls. Kawalski's orders were clear, "Hold this point until we can't. We don't launch half-full. Princess! Get back in the net."

  Firenze cut his way into the access panel, clipped his working-cable into the network.

  The Phalanx must have detected this intrusion, because the first response he got was a worm-injection. He spoofed the half-hearted attempt, bypassed the segmentation, and spiked the central network with a logic-bomb. The Phalanx's responses were perfunctory, stymied by failing systems and absentee masters, and Firenze had little trouble grabbing camera access.

  TACNET was darker than before. There wasn't a team standing between this lifeboat and engineering, and little else besides. Firenze looked to the top of the lists and found a familiar name. Clausen. The hard bastard was still fighting. That was something near a win.

  Firenze accessed the cameras around the engine deck, tried to ping any dangers for Clausen's Bravo Team. Their immediate perimeter was clear, and the number of slowly-cooling corpses gave a good explanation of why. Firenze broadened the sweep. There were none of the heavies left near Bravo, neither the armored greatcoats nor the plated goliaths. Firenze allowed himself a moment of relief, but it vanished when he swung his scans over the aft loading bays.

  There, an armored tide grey. Armature frame combat drones - killbots - poured through the hallways, spindly legs and sensor-bubble eyes flashing. They descended through the cargo holds as a blackened-steel tide, trampling the remains of Captain Lee's broken command beneath their clattering feet. No longer did he have to wonder what had happened to Charlie. They'd died as uselessly as the rest.

  Firenze tried to grab a count of the swarm, but the numbers kept growing. Perimeter's reinforcements had arrived, and Sergeant Clausen's team was about to die.

  He reached for his radio, but his camera feed cut. The Phalanx had returned, and it had closed out his connection. He fired off a round of automated crackers to keep the AI busy, but without Lauren, he could do little more than stall it. He didn't waste his time. He'd already failed too many people today.

  Firenze toggled his radio, his fingers dancing from adrenaline, and he started, "Bravo Four, this is Delta, uh, something. I managed to get some of the net under control-"

  "You're late." Clausen's voice was cold, dead. He sounded nothing like the man Firenze knew, but the truth cut deep. If he'd been faster, he might have saved Weber. Might have saved Lauren. Might have lessened the list of blacked-out names on the TACNET tree. Kawalski's entire team was stuck babysitting him, and he couldn't do his damn job.

  He'd failed, and everyone had died.

  He almost broke, right there in the hallway, damnation ringing through his skull. Only the alert-tone of the Phalanx pushing on TACNET drove him back into action. He stammered, "Sir, you've got three squads of killer robots coming your way."

  "I don't have time for-"

  "No!" Firenze screamed."They've got some sort of armature-frame bots! They've got guns, armor - they're coming down on you from above! I count three dozen! They killed Lee - they - nothing works on them!"

  "How long we got?" Clausen's voice was raw. He sounded like he was talking through his teeth to keep from screaming.

  Firenze tried to guess, to figure from speed and distance. His math wasn't right. He knew it wasn't. He needed to sit down, get a desk and notepad. If he had a minute, he could get the right answer-

  "A minute? Maybe less?" He heard himself say. The numbers sounded right. He hoped they were. He tried to key up, to hesitate, equivocate - to tell Clausen that he wasn't quite sure, but that it was the best he could do.

  The line was dead.

  Firenze tried to pull another feed, but the Phalanx blocked his every move. For just a moment, Firenze felt a bit of empathy for the watchdog. It had lost its entire network, but it had finally managed to lock him out.

  Then he remembered Lauren's last smile, and that sympathy was gone.

  He ripped his goggles off, hurled them to the floor. Hill turned towards him, an unasked question perched on his chapped and bloody lips. Firenze tried to answer, but all that emerged was something between a sob and a shriek of impotent rage.

  Hill nodded. He understood.

  Then the lights flickered.

  The ship's announcer began her refrain, but her voice twisted from pleasant to demonic. Firenze scrambled for a hand-hold, but the smooth walls offered no purchase-

  He was airborne once more.

  The lights returned, and he bounced from the deck, hard enough to hear ribs crack. Pain lanced from his chest, and he closed his eyes against the white-noise-burn that coursed through him.

  Something chimed. Not the buzz-chirp of the PA, but something higher, like an elevator door, or a hundred elevator doors. Firenze snapped his head up from the cold deck, fear blooming and realization dawning. Every red-lit doorframe had just flicked green and swung wide.

  Screams filled the hall, a hundred voices crying out in pain, terror, and hope. From every room, the hostages flooded, first in ones and twos, and then in a tide, until the corridor might burst from the stampede.

  Firenze tried to stand. Someone grabbed his buddy-handle and dragged him towards the alcove. His computer tumbled away, kicked between churning legs, and he dove after it. Blows crashed down on him, shoes and knees in a chaotic tumble. No one noticed his uniform or heeded his cries. The human tide flooded onward.

  Firenze scrambled through the maelstrom, chasing shadows of his box as it ricocheted through the writhing mass of khakis and stockings.

  The klaxon sounded, the lights went out, and the stampede slammed against the port wall. Men became meat as they fell beneath the tide. The wailing rose as the desperate fled their gilded cage.

  Firenze snatched at his computer, caught the strap and reeled it in-

  A bludgeon fell across his back. The tide surged, and he toppled into the deadly melee. One boot landed. Another. He curled around his computer, shielded it as the pain blossomed and bones cracked-

  Gunfire split the air.

  Light shone as the sea parted. Kawalski stood over him, her rifle aimed at the ceiling and smoke framed about the m
uzzle. In the reflection of her goggles, he saw the crowd reeling, shrieking. She snatched his handle and hurled him from the melee.

  He crashed into the wall, and agony soared from broken ribs.

  Hill pinned him in place, without regard for the amber flashes on his medlink. Kawalski screamed something in the tumult, spittle caught on her lips. She snarled, "-and keep him there!"

  Hard light dawned.

  The bloom rose everywhere at once, a ruby-red corona that shone against every article of clothing and reflected on every curve of the seashell walls. The glow was gone in an instant, but in that split moment, it grew to drown out the sun itself, until all of reality was nothing but the memory-shadows of the crowd, blinding red, and the taste of electric-burnt dust.

  The crack came like lightning, a sizzle-flash-boom that drowned out even the light.

  Firenze closed his eyes, too late, and raised his arm to shield his face. Heat coursed over him, a tropic-wet blast furnace turned loose upon the hall.

  The explosion slammed him into the alcove. His medlink screamed. His teeth shook from the impact, and he tasted hot metal.

  Something wet rained, a torrent of sticky-sweet-hot crashed over him, thicker than oil and chunky like pasta.

  All he could hear was a whine.

  He opened his eyes. The world moved as if stuck in molasses.

  The walls were stained, flash-burned, and covered in purple splatter.

  Boiled-hot crimson dripped from the ceiling.

  Bits of charred bone stuck from the bulkheads like darts, shot out like porcupine-quills from the ruin that had been the crowd.

  Shoes, singed but intact, littered the soaked royal carpet, bits of flesh still stuck inside. Tongues of flame licked over the debris, charred circles like occult candles, burning in the red rain.

  Something slid down the side of his face, caught in his open mouth like a putrid maggot had burst on his tongue.

  Firenze gagged. He ripped the jellied gore from his face, hurled it to the ground. He staggered from the wall, nearly impaled himself on a femur-spear jutting from the cladding. He tripped on a melted-plastic briefcase, its seals burst open, contents and liner aflame. He crashed to the ground in the middle of the waste and beheld his doom.