by M. ORENDA
Of course, that’s not true. She sees the vast plain beyond the markers, its horizon flat, save for the swell of other volcanoes, the looming stone corpses of fire gods, their ghosts howling whenever the storm winds come through.
If there’s any place on Mars where her death would make sense, it’s here. Full circle, a life that began in trouble, and ended in trouble, as if she’d asked to go so poetically, as if her death should make so more sense than the others.
She drops her gaze at that, hissing under breath. “Fool.”
Foolish to have brought them all here. Foolish to think that making a stand meant making a difference, as if it’s her job to spin clockwise in a universe that spins counter. No place for heroes.
And doesn’t she know it? No heroes to save the day when a woman gets cornered by those that have strength, when a child gets lost. To lose a child is to lose all the softness in the world, all substance of light in a human soul, to become as empty as the cold volcanoes on the horizon, no breath but what harsh sand blows through.
Memories filled with light, with the softness of small hands and laughter, and innocent words that made the world seem so good, become the knife’s edge, the slip upon the wrist, the severing of life, of sanity.
Everything after that is a dark road, and breathing requires suppression, no thinking, no talking, and mourning only when it can’t be helped, just one foot in front of the other, one day after the next. Drink to stay sane. Take pills to stay awake, pills to sleep, pills to keep from feeling. Survival is an act of cowardice, an allowing for the passage of time to continue without hope, until one day it hits that continuing has gone on for a quite a while, and other faces, other voices, exist.
Bury the pain, or drown. Ease back on the pills, or lose the ability to fight. Begin to function again, or die.
All I know is what murder is in your heart got there for a reason, wild thing, and the years of living with it got you worn thin, drawing on anger because it’s the power you know.
And it’s the power that works. It works for pulling back from the brink, for maintaining territory, maintaining a crew and an operation, even after sanity’s gone… but that’s not what she’s doing now.
No.
She’s busy destroying all that now because she’s committed herself to something blind, to defending someone who doesn’t know up from down, and there’s no letting go once the decision’s made. Not her way.
“Petra.”
She turns, raising the rifle, and Voss is standing behind her.
How… ?
His voice sounds different through his helmet speaker, but it’s him, even bigger now in a mechanized Assaulter suit. His guns are all slung or holstered, for the moment, and his hands are raised in surrender.
She curses under breath, glancing over the closest drone sitting along the crest. “And you didn’t see him coming? What fucking good are you?”
“Petra,” he says again. “We have to evac.”
“How did you get here?”
“Your drones aren’t under your control anymore.”
“Son-of-bitch! They told me the encryption was new.”
“We need to evac.”
“Not opening that door for you. Not giving you that girl.”
“Is that what she wants? To stay here with you?”
Petra lowers her rifle, in part because it takes energy to argue, and in part because shooting him wouldn’t change his mind. “She doesn’t know what she wants. She’s not coherent, babbling about having no attachments, about letting go, and jumping right into the meat grinder.”
“Petra—”
“She’s ripe for misuse and manipulation.”
“She’s not your daughter.”
Petra stops short, her breath ripped out of her throat. She stares at him, feeling heartache and anger hit at the same time, like he’s broken some kind of trust, discovered something he doesn’t have the right to know.
“I was in the wreck,” he says, voice softer.
She can’t see his eyes behind the mirrored visor of his helmet, can’t read his expression as he treads on sacred ground, which makes it worse.
“What happened to your daughter?” he asks.
He found something, obviously, and there was a lot to find, a lot she left behind in the fog she was in, and never had the strength to retrieve. And what good would it have such things anyway? Dark roads are made all the darker by those intricate shrines erected to mark what was lost.
“Petra,” he urges. “Talk to me.”
“Some of the crew,” she replies, like it’s not her answering, like it’s someone else. “I wasn’t the Captain then, but I was with him on and off, and my daughter was his daughter too. He was a profiteer to the bone, and taught me everything about existing on the low. We didn’t get along too well, at the end, but he was never my enemy. Greed in a crew though, greed for money, greed for power… it can lead to killing pretty quick. They shot him after a big drop, and shot me too, shot all of us, only I didn’t die like I was supposed to.”
“Your daughter?”
“It was instant for her. For me, they threw me in the track like cargo, maybe thought I’d be useful later. I was bleeding, but I was also… not so sane. It isn’t hard to lay hands on a gun when everyone thinks you’re dying. Isn’t hard to shoot men when they’re looking straight at you, when they are what they are, and you want them dead. It felt good. If you think I regret it for one second, you’re wrong. I relived it for years, feeding off of what pleasure it gave me. I still do sometimes. One of them was young. Maybe he deserved it, maybe he didn’t, but there’s not one thing I would do different. I shot them all. Track went on its side, rupturing the tanks. I crawled out.”
Voss regards her in silence for a moment, his visor dark. Then, finally, he says something only Voss would say. “What is your daughter’s name?”
Not was. Is.
That brings tears, which don’t get wiped away inside a helmet, just streak along skin as they please. “Ada.”
“I’m sorry.”
“I don’t ask for that.”
“I know.”
“I don’t want that.”
Another moment, then he steps a little closer, seeming relieved when she doesn’t raise the rifle again. “Petra, I need you to listen to me. I understand. I understand why you did this. I understand what you’re afraid of. But the girl you have… she’s complicated, medically. You can’t care for her. You can’t protect her. She needs to be at Fort Liberty. I promise you that she will not be forced to do anything she doesn’t want to do.”
“She doesn’t know what she wants.”
“Yes, she does. There are others like her, and she needs to be with them. She knows that. If you try to keep her here, the same kind of men will come for you, the same kind of killers who murder women and children will appear in force. It won’t be like the last time. This isn’t an opportunity to right old wrongs, to save someone you couldn’t save before. That’s not what this is. These people are going to kill you, kill her, kill everyone, and there will be nothing you can do to stop them, not on your own.”
She stares at him, feeling the argument sink in. The girl is different. It goes deeper than just being naïve. It goes deeper than just being lost, or confused. She’s ‘medically complicated’, not reaching out for a mother.
It is the suffering of attachment, the suffering that comes from holding onto that which must be let go…
Petra closes her eyes, blocking him out, blocking out mistakes and the bright glare of pain which never heals, and things which can’t be undone.
“Petra.”
“We’ll open the door,” she says. “You take her where they won’t get her.”
But he doesn’t answer.
He turns his head, as if listening to something else inside his helmet.
Clara’s voice comes hissing through Petra’s station comm link. “Petra, we have radar contact, coming in high over Olympus Mons. The drones aren’t t
alking to me anymore. We got trouble in heaps.”
“Copy. Keep the station in lockdown.”
“And you? Petra—”
Voss walks forward, grabbing her wrist to change her comm frequency. He dials in new designations, codes, and suddenly she hears all of them, a voice she doesn’t recognize speaking in Assaulter language.
“Blackheart One, we have three bogeys, no pingers, inbound, headed for your position, ten o’clock, high. Drones One, Two and Three have been re-tasked. Do we have permission to engage, over?”
“Roger, standby,” Voss replies. “Skimmer One, this Blackheart One Actual, can you identify inbound vessels, over?”
Static.
“Roger, Blackheart One Actual, this is Skimmer…One… uh… no. They have no identification. They are not providing identification. Liberty has attempted communication on commercial and government frequencies. They are not responding. They are in clear violation, over.”
“Remember what I told you, Skimmer One.”
“Roger, sir.”
Petra looks toward the black horizon, seeing the fiery outline of three ships searing through the upper atmosphere, streaking toward them.
Voss unslings his assault weapon. “Blackheart Two, you have permission to engage when the targets are in range. They get close, you light ‘em up, over.”
“Roger that.”
Voss grabs her by the arm and pulls her toward the summit, taking cover behind the stone ridge of grave markers. He switches the settings on his gun, the movement automatic, precise, with no particular sense of emergency.
He raises his weapon. The scope is its own small screen, capable of flagging movement and identifying distances, displaying wind and elevation.
“Stay down,” he says without looking at her. “You’ve got no armor.”
“I’ve got a rifle and a pistol.”
“That thing is supposed to be a rifle?”
The ships are getting bigger, slipping out of the fire to become solid black shapes, sweeping across the plain in an arrow formation. She grimaces, heart beating faster than she thought possible. And she’s cold, so cold it seems like she could freeze up, like she can’t breathe.
“Sorry,” she says, rasping the words out. “Didn’t want to get you killed.”
“I’m not dead.”
“I didn’t want this.”
“It’s not ideal,” he admits. “But not unwelcome either.”
“What?”
“They want to tangle, we tangle,” he says. “Prepare for contact.”
“What?”
“Get ready to get shot at.”
Time slows down, the sound of her own breath harsh inside the suit, too loud. She swallows, and there’s no spit, nothing but dry air. The ships are getting larger, engines haloed in dust, their hiss expanding into a roar.
Sentinel One swivels up, legs blossomed out for stability, its massive machine gun pivoting in the direction of the ships. It rips with heavy fire, the thin air instantly filled with the sound, a jackhammer in her helmet, a line of glowing tracers flashing light across the summit.
Sentinel Two and Three add to the deafening wall of live rounds.
The ships return fire, guns zippering, bullets peppering dust and rock.
Sentinel One launches a rocket, propellant flaring from its tail, it’s warhead streaking upward on a thread of smoke.
The ships break formation, but not in time, and the rocket impacts the point vessel, a spark of fire and debris spilling from under its fuselage. It loses altitude, but doesn’t crash, vectoring thrust to set down on the rock just under their position.
The ship to the right of it lets loose a barrage of rockets.
“Down!” Voss pulls her under the ledge.
Sentinel One and Two explode, the concussive wave blowing outward, tossing her back along the rocks, teeth knocked together so hard she can taste blood. Her ears are ringing. She gropes, dazed. Chunks of metal clang and flip as they hit stone, timed as if the clock has slowed, as if they’re sinking in water. She’s laying on her side, rasping, her rifle thrown out in front of her.
Voss has got his shoulder to the rock, leaning out from cover to burst rounds toward the remaining ships. “Blackheart Two, we lost Sentinels One and Two. We have an enemy bird on the ground, and we have movement. We have enemy fighters are on the ground. I need mortars.”
“Roger that. I got a skeeto on that side. We are receiving grid coordinates. Mortars are imminent, over.”
The second ship hovers forward. Lights flare from underneath it, casting the world in blinding white. Its machine gun rattles.
They’re going to tear us apart. They’re going to sit above us and shoot us to pieces. Petra, you coward! Get your rifle, and get your worthless ass up.
She forces movement, desperate, reaching out to brush the rifle with the tip of her gloved fingers.
Stone chips hurl around her, rounds singing from rock, and she shields her helmet, pinned down and unable to move. Voss grabs her suit and drags her back, ducking under cover with the aircraft hovering overhead.
Another sound.
Thunk. Thunk.
Bullets through metal… the ship above them is taking sniper fire. It’s accurate fire too, blowing out the flight shield, punching holes.
The sniper keeps shooting.
The ship issues a loud hiss, gas, thermal alarms, engines vectoring back.
It tries to disengage, but gets hit by a blast from behind. A crackling snap from a plasma cannon, like lightning, flashing so bright it suspends the moment, buzzes in her ears, raises the hair on the back of her neck.
The sky is a glare.
She catches a blur of movement, one ship colliding with the other, plasma dancing between them. Fire arcs overhead. The two ships hurtle apart, flinging debris down the slope.
A NRM Skimmer banks left to avoid the wreckage and gets hits with a rocket from the ground. It blooms with a clap of flame, shattering over the summit, fragments of its wings and fuselage spinning raining across the far slope.
“Blackheart One, Blackheart Two, you just lost air support.”
“No shit,” Voss says. “Where are my mortars?”
“Mortars imminent, over.
Petra lunges for her rifle, grabbing it from the stone and pushing back to crouch beside Voss. He nods, his attention focused down the slope.
A different voice comes on the comm. “Blackheart One Actual, this is Blackheart Hunter, you have about a dozen enemy fighters approaching on your front and right flank. I am approaching on your left flank, over.”
“Roger.” Voss looks at her and points left. “Do not fire in that direction.”
“Yeah.”
He rises, lifting his head and shoulders over the stone ridge and firing down the slope, his weapon braced against his right shoulder and kicking with recoil, muzzle flashing with bursts of hot gunfire.
The force shudders through him, cold, violent, intent.
She slides the buttstock of rifle high on her chest, breathes. One, two…
Then she’s up, gripping the forestock, glaring through her visor.
The world appears crystalline in shades of green, heat from the surrounding wreckage glowing white, guns chattering in manic rhythms, so loud it rattles through her skull. Shards of rock, sharp enough to rip through a suit, are flying in the air, clacking with the zing of bullet ricochets.
And fear, the kind of fear that paralyzes, is thick in her chest.
Shapes move among the rocks below, still too far out for her to hit with accuracy, weaving in and out of cover. Muzzle flashes sparkle in clusters. Shadows, demons, people who want her dead… people who were an obscure concept a few minutes ago but are now moving up quickly, murder on their minds.
Petra clenches her teeth, focusing through a primitive aperture sight, aiming between the flashes and squeezing the trigger. The rifle kicks back and she works the bolt, loading another round. Another shot, then another. Some patches go dark, people shi
fting positions, suddenly made aware of her presence.
“C’mon,” she hisses under her breath.
Mortars impact along the slope, their force pounding the stone below, stealing her breath. Giant plumes of dust shoot skyward, billowing murk and falling rock, flung pieces of human beings.
“Blackheart Hunter coming up,” a voice issues over the com.
From their left, an outline materializes from the dust, visible only because it’s moving. It takes human shape as it nears, another Assaulter, though the armor of the man’s suit is draped in thermal optic camouflage, a disjointed reflection of the terrain he’s running through.
The sniper.
He slips in behind them, slapping Voss’s shoulder. “Hey, brother.”
“Right flank,” Voss says between shots.
“On it.”
The comm line crackles. “Blackheart One, Sentinel Three is loose. We just lost control of Sentinel Three.”
Voss curses. “Where is it?”
“On your seven. Blackheart Two is en route, four mics—”
Reinforcements are coming, but it doesn’t matter, because Petra can hear it. Sentinel Three is cracking across the rocks toward them, weapons rotating on internal servos, actuators whining through darkness and silt. It is death, a drone the size of a small track with a machine gun and rocket launcher.
“Contact right,” the sniper says as enemy guns clatter from the right slope.
Petra can’t say anything, chaos raging in a fog, battle ripping along the slope, the sniper thick in it, his back turned away from her.
The Sentinel drone appears as a giant shadow behind them.
Son of a bitch!
Petra responds through the fear, draws her pistol, raising it in hopeless rage. The machine’s lenses dilate, shining between armor plates, the muzzle of its machine gun tilting toward her.
Voss yanks her back, moving between her and the drone.
He becomes something else, as much death, as much machine, as the Sentinel bearing down on them. He charges it.
Leaping forward, he sails, Earthbound strength versus Mars G.
The drone retreats a step, trying to aim on the target, but it’s slow. Voss grabs onto its ammunition cage and heaves himself up, a massive cat lunging over movement, over the bucking chassis of an unwilling robot. He kicks the gun barrel, busting motors, and thrashes two of the armored plates with his boot.
