The Solaris Book of New Science Fiction, Vol. 2

by George Mann

  Joints at shoulders, hips, elbows, and knees allowed for freedom of movement. The helmet, reinforced and strong enough to withstand a significant impact, was sealed onto the hardshell carapace that covered the wearer’s chest. The carapace provided room for the wearer to breathe, which the constrictive elastic would not, while the armored casing on the rear of the carapace housed the suit’s air and water supplies.

  While the surface suits of the Middle Kingdom were utilitarian and plain, with only markings and colorations required to denote rank and position, those of the Mexica were gaudy and arresting. Painted in a riot of colors, their suits were designed to resemble Earth animals and figures from myth and legend. Helmets constructed to resemble the heads of birds of prey, the faceplate set with a hawk’s beak. Suits painted yellow with black spots, made to resemble a jaguar’s hide. And stranger creatures still: blue demons, skull faces of white, black suits spangled with starfields and emblems.

  Yao had long since given up wondering how the Mexic warriors could wear such outlandish armor without dying of shame. It hardly mattered, anyway. They were his enemies. What difference was it to him if they went to their reward dressed as a chicken or a dog? They would bleed and die the same as if they were dressed as men.

  After a few moments of careful study, Yao detected a weak section of the Mexic line. Several dozen meters from his current position were two Mexica, the barrels of their rifles facing the bacteria farm, their backs to Yao and his men. A distance of over fifty meters separated the pair from the next post of warriors to their left, of over sixty meters to their right. As they were positioned in a slight shallow in the rockface, the ground to either side of them rose at a gentle slope for a few dozen meters before dropping off again. With the Mexica stationed on either side entrenched and low to the group, if Yao and his men approached the pair keeping low to the ground themselves, the chances of the bannermen being seen would be reduced considerably. Still, if the Mexica on either side were to stand and look directly toward the pair of Mexic warriors, Yao and his men would be exposed to projectiles fired from either side, if not both.

  To the east, beyond the plinths and yardangs, Yao could see a dust storm rising. It would be upon them in a matter of moments. Yao allowed himself a tight smile. It hardly mattered to the bannermen, since they had traveled in strict radio silence since leaving the crawler on foot. Once it hit it would serve to hamper their Mexic enemies, making it difficult for them to keep in visual contact with one another and garbling their radio transmissions. That was the cover they needed.

  Yao slid back down the rise and, through a series of simple hand gestures, relayed his orders to his men. In a few moments, when the storm’s leading edge hit, they would charge over the rise and take out the pair of Mexica, quickly and without giving the warriors time to raise the alarm. Then, as the dust wall swelled, the gap in the line would be wide enough for them to approach the bacteria farm, undetected by the rest of the enemy.

  Seto moved into position at Yao’s side while Zong, Yao’s second-in-command, and Jue, the newest member of the squad, moved forward, their sabers drawn and ready.

  As Zong and Jue inched over the rise, keeping low to present as little profile as possible, Seto tapped Yao’s elbow. He made a motion with his hands, two fists brought together, knuckle to knuckle. He wanted to talk.

  Yao sighed and, turning from the waist, leaned forward until the faceplate of his helmet was touching that of Seto’s.

  “Chief,” the voice of Seto buzzed in Yao’s helmet, the vibrations transmitted through the faceplates in contact. “Not to question your judgment, but wouldn’t it be safer to entrench further back, with a clear line of sight, and pick the two Mexic off with rifle fire?” Seto jerked a thumb to indicate the long-barreled rifle slung in a harness on his back, secured to his carapace.

  Yao shook his head, fractionally, careful not to move his helmet out of contact with Seto’s. “Even if the projectile punctures through the hardshell into their bodies, even with a chest shot, they’ll still have a few moments to call for help, and we can’t count on the dust to block out all radio traffic. A headshot would do it, if we had a clear shot through their faceplates, but from the rear it’s more likely to ricochet off the armor plating.”

  “So it’s the hose, then?” Seto asked.

  Yao gave an affirmative hand signal and then pulled away, getting back into position.

  The surface suits of the Mexica were, if anything, better armored than those of the Middle Kingdom. However, they had one significant flaw - a hose leading from the airtanks at their back up into their airtight helmets looped, for the span of a few bare centimeters, into the open air. Early Middle Kingdom surface suits had shared this same design flaw until the artificers of the Dragon Throne devised a means to route the airflow directly from the tanks, through the carapace seal, into the helmet. The warriors of the Mexic Dominion, though, were still forced to go to battle with this one fatal problem. The Mexica were aware of the weakness, but it was a rare occasion in a melee when a bannerman had an opportunity to exploit it, since the Mexica were always on their guard.

  The pair of Mexica nearest them faced away from Yao and his men, exposing the airhose at their shoulders. If Zong and Jue were able to creep right up to the Mexica without being spotted, they could sever the airhoses. If they then delivered a blow to the Mexica’s abdomens, driving out the oxygen in their lungs, the pair would be left unable to speak as they suffocated quickly, unable to call through their helmet radios for help. If the Mexica were able to squeak a few last syllables before expiring, Yao had to hope that the dust storm would provide sufficient interference that radio signals would not travel far, even over short distances.

  Yao snaked up the rise, just far enough to see over the crest, to where his men stealthily approached the Mexica. They were now just within saber range. Yao’s palms itched; a part of him wished he could always take point himself in these circumstances and not be forced to delegate to his men.

  “Come on,” Yao whispered, his voice rebounding low and harsh in the helmet for no one’s ears but his. “Strike. Now!”

  Zong and Jue carried out their mission with textbook accuracy, though Jue became over-exuberant and, rather than merely striking his target in the abdomen after severing his airhose, drove his saber point-first into the Mexica’s stomach. When he pulled it out, blood sprayed over a meter in a bright, arterial spray, painting the sands an even darker shade of red. Luckily for Jue, the Mexica was no more able to sound the alarm than his comrade, now fallen at Zong’s feet, had been.

  Yao slid a short distance back down the rise and, turning, signaled to Seto. The pair of them then maneuvered forward to join Zong and Jue.

  The storm bore down on them. After Yao checked both sides, standing at his full height, he nodded in grim satisfaction to see that the nearest Mexic positions were obscured from view. The way was, for a brief moment at least, clear. He signaled his men to proceed. They made their way across the open ground to the bacteria farm as quickly as their long, loping strides would carry them.

  The bacteria farm was essentially a low, wide dome. It was the same pinkish-orange as all the buildings constructed of materials fabricated from the rock and soil of Fire Star, with airlocks of metal and ceramic set at intervals around its circumference. It stood only five or six meters tall, while its diameter was easily three times that. Here and there, through the obfuscating dust swirling in the thin air around them, they could see the pockmarks of Mexic projectile fire, and scorched areas where fire-lances had been sprayed against it. The Mexica had not been able to get through the heavy, reinforced doors of the airlock and so had been forced to encircle the farm, in the hopes of starving out those trapped within.

  Yao and the other bannermen huddled in the lees of the nearest airlock. The way was barred from within, naturally, and the call controls set in their metal plate had been completely destroyed by projectile fire. Undeterred, Yao pounded repeatedly on the door with the base of
his saber’s hilt. He positioned his helmet’s faceplate in front of the thick viewport of transparent ceramic.

  The airlock and the farm beyond, as seen through the small viewport, seemed darkened and deserted. He continued to pound on the doorway, hoping that the airlock was currently full and that the sound of his pounding would carry to the farm beyond. He wondered whether anyone survived within the structure or not. At length, a shadowed helmet appeared on the other side of the viewport. Dimly visible eyes met Yao’s own.

  “Let us in!” Yao shouted. His faceplate was pressed to the viewport, but he exaggerated his mouth’s movements in the event that the sound of his voice was unable to propagate through the unbreakable ceramic.

  The shadowed eyes on the other side of the viewport seemed to hesitate, uncertain, and then disappeared from view. At first, Yao thought that they had been left outside to rot, but after a few moments Yao could feel the door begin to vibrate through the fabric of his gloves as the lock was cycled slowly open.

  In brief moments, the door was open, and Yao and the other bannermen slipped into the open chamber. As they closed the door to the outside behind them, they saw that they were alone in the chamber. The airlock slowly drew in air, the pressure gradually increasing. The lights inside the airlock were extinguished, the only illumination the faint daylight visible through the viewport.

  Finally the lock completed its cycle, and the door to the farm’s interior began to open. Yao signaled his men to keep their helmets locked and pressurized, and to advance with their weapons at the ready. This time Yao took point. His saber held before him, he cautiously advanced through the open door.

  “That’s far enough,” Yao heard a voice say in Official Speech, sounding muffled and distant through his heavy helmet.

  In the corridor before him, lit dimly by red lamps burning high overhead, stood a woman in a surface suit, her helmet on the ground at her side, a rifle trained on Yao, its butt against her shoulder.

  Yao reached up, slowly, and hit the latch that lifted his helmet’s faceplate. The stale air of the farm hit him like a wave smelling of unwashed bodies, offal, and despair.

  “You don’t want to fire that thing, lady,” Yao said, his voice level. “The recoil will knock you off your feet, and you’ll land on your hindquarters at least a meter back.”

  “Maybe,” the woman said, smiling slightly but not lowering the rifle’s barrel a centimeter. “But by then you’d have a projectile buried in your body, wouldn’t you, so you’d have better things to worry about than how foolish I looked, I think.”

  Yao smiled back and lowered the tip of his saber to the ground.

  “We caught your call for help over the radio, two days back,” Yao said, stepping forward as his men came around the door to stand behind him. “We’ve come to rescue you.”

  “Well it’s about time,” the woman said, and lowered the rifle. “We had about decided that this damned dome would be our tomb. Those of us who haven’t already gone on to our rewards.”

  The woman slung the rifle over her shoulder, and then held out her hand to Yao.

  “My name is Thien Ziling,” she said, “and I suppose I’m in charge here.”

  “Bannerman Yao Guanzhong,” he answered, taking her hand, “and as far as I’m concerned, I’m in charge here now.”

  “You won’t get any complaints from me,” Thien said, then turned and headed back up the corridor. “Come along, and I’ll introduce you to what’s left of us. Then you can get right to the rescuing part.”

  Thien led them to a small central chamber, where two men and a woman sprawled along the wall, eyes half-lidded in the harsh-light from the lamps above, and vacant, weary expressions on their dirty faces.

  “Crew, meet our rescuers,” Thien said, propping her rifle against the wall. She hung her helmet on a hook on the wall and collapsed into a makeshift chair constructed of shipping crates. In the chamber’s light, Yao could see now that she was older than he’d first imagined, fifty terrestrial years old at least. The years showed their tracks in the lines around her eyes. “Rescuers, meet what’s left of the Fifth Regional Tech and Resupply Division, Third Work Crew. Those two are all that remains of my technicians, Kuai Cunxin” - she pointed at the middle-aged man, sitting with his legs folded under him - ”and Min Jinping” - she pointed to the younger woman, no more than twenty terrestrial years old. “And that one there” - she indicated a young man in the uniform of the Army of the Green Standard, sitting with his legs folded up, his chin resting on his knees - ”is Xun… Xun… Hey, Xun, what’s your name again?”

  “Xun Bingzhang,” the young man said, his voice sounding hollow and far away. There were deep shadows beneath his eyes, and his skin looked wan and mottled.

  “Right. Well, Xun was one of the soldiers assigned as our protection on this trek. There was another, Dea something or other, but he got picked off by sniper fire before we reached the safety of the farm, and who knows what happened to his body once we got inside. There was another tech with us at that point, a man named Ang who’d been with the crew for a few Fire Star years, but he caught a projectile in the leg, right through an artery. He bled out before we could get him stitched up. He’s stored in one of the cold storage lockers” - Thien jerked a thumb at a row of doors set into the wall behind her - ”but I don’t see any reason to dig him out. He’ll keep just fine back there, for as long as he needs to. Besides,” she smiled up at Yao, “I don’t figure you were all that hot to be introduced to him anyway, were you?”

  Yao smiled, grimly and shook his head. “So this is all of you, then?”

  Thien looked around, as though making a final headcount. “Yes, this is it.”

  “And are you all fit to travel?”

  “Well, Xun got clipped by a projectile in the abdomen, below the line of his carapace,” Thien answered, “but we were able to get his wound bandaged and the fabric of his surface suit repaired once we got inside. I think the wound is infected, but we don’t have a full medical kit on hand, so there wasn’t anything we could do about it.”

  “We’ve got a full kit back in the crawler,” Yao said. “Once we’re onboard we can get the wound disinfected and properly dressed.” He turned and flashed an affirmative hand signal at the Green Standard soldier. “You hold on, soldier. You hear me?”

  Xun nodded, his head wobbling slightly from side to side. He licked his lips before answering, “Y-yes, sir. I hear you.”

  “Good.” Yao sheathed his saber at his side. He paced back and forth across the small chamber’s floor, considering their options. “Now, here is what we’re going to do. We’re going to gather up whatever supplies you’ve got on hand. Water, oxygen tanks, foodstuffs, any essentials. Then we’re going to haul out to our crawler as quickly as we’re able, and we’re all going to make it out of this in one piece. You hear me?”

  “It’s all in the crawler,” the young woman named Min said.

  Yao turned to her. “What?”

  “All our gear,” said Kuai, the older technician at her side. “It’s all still back in our crawler, outside the farm.”

  “Not all of it, you two,” Thien said, shaking her head like someone scolding a poorly trained pet.

  “We managed to bring in a fair amount of water and oxygen when we got here, before the shooting started.”

  “But not enough,” Kuai said, a hysterical edge to his voice. “How long can we last on it?”

  “Long enough,” Thien said, but Yao looked from the two technicians to their leader, unconvinced.

  “How much do you have, Thien, in the way of provisions?”

  “We could have held out for another couple of days on what we have here, probably. We’d have run out of food before we ran out of water, and run out of both long before we ran out of air. Lucky for us the oxygen scrubbers in the farm’s temporary living quarters are still operational, so we haven’t had to crack open any of the tanks we brought in with us when the Mexica attacked.”

  Yao chewed on t
he inside of his cheek, doing quick sums in his head.

  “It’ll be tight, but we should be able to make it back to base camp, if we don’t hit any snags,” he said, at length. “Suit up, everybody. I want to try to get out of here and back to our crawler before the dust storm passes.”

  Thien and her crew took longer to get themselves ready to move than Yao would have liked, certainly longer than it would have taken a full division of bannermen, but their luck held out. By the time everyone was ready to get moving, the dust storm still blew outside. It provided ample cover for the eight of them to make it across the open ground without being seen, and through the hole in the Mexic line that Yao and his men had punched just a short while earlier.

  With Yao in the lead and Zong bringing up the rear, they made their way through the yardangs toward the position where the bannermen’s crawler was secreted, behind a large outcropping of rock. They traveled in complete silence, their radios set only to receive, watchful of any sign of Mexic pursuit.

  When they reached the midway point between the farm and the bannermen’s crawler, Yao motioned the others to come to a halt. Crawling up a slight rise, he could see the rock outcropping just shy of a half-kilometer ahead, hazed only slightly in the lightening dust storm. He pulled a disk of metal from a pocket on his upper arm, polished to a mirror sheen, and used it to flash the light from the indistinct disc of the sun towards the rocky outcropping. He waited, looking for a flash in response. None came, so he signaled again, and again. Still nothing.

  Yao turned, and motioned for Zong to join him on the crest of the rise. When the bannerman reached his side, Yao gave the hand signals for a remote-viewing mirror. Zong unlatched a sheath on his thigh and handed over a long, slender tube capped with precision-ground lenses on either end.

  Yao held the remote-viewing mirror up to his faceplate. Through the glass he could see Bannerman Bei in his prescribed position, just as Yao had ordered, obscured from the direct view of the farm.