by Hugo Huesca
Powerful drugs, endorphins. An elephant could spear a man, end to end, and the man wouldn’t realize it until it was too late.
Newgen didn’t like that. The end of a mission, corporate studies proved, was more dangerous than any other part. Even in years-long deployments. Because, at the end, even agents got sloppy. Made mistakes. Got distracted.
So Newgen had added an automated cut-out to endorphins in all their agents’ custom-built pituitary glands.
Hirsen’s pleasure diminished, his satisfaction rushing out of him like a kid popping a balloon. He wanted to race after it, to bring back that happiness he was biologically altered to feel only in small dosages.
To no avail. His kidneys worked in overdrive to flush the hormonal remains, his heart pumped away purified blood across his body, like a cold shower to an excited brain.
Hirsen hated Newgen with all his soul. Only Delagarza’s hate could match his.
It saved his life. He saw the glimmer in a dark corner of the room, underneath the piping. A faint shimmer in the air that he would’ve missed in his post-victory bliss.
The world seemed to slow down.
Hirsen grabbed Lotti and threw her down with him on top. She didn’t realize what was going on, had no time to yell. As they fell, Hirsen raised his pistol and fired, over and over again in the general direction of the shimmer. He hit the floor, hard, air rushing out of his lungs.
Instead of puncturing the wall, some bullets bounced off a mirror-like surface. The shimmer short-circuited, revealing flashes of a humanoid figure in the middle of dashing for cover.
Tactical Reactive Camouflage Cloth. A product of Tal-Kader’s Defense Systems subdivision. Or, as Hirsen thought of it, a royal pain in the ass. Last time he heard of it, it was still in development.
The humanoid figure shot back. He was carrying an enforcer’s rifle, capable of punching cleanly through concrete. Hirsen rolled away from Lotti to draw the bullets away from her and emptied his pistol’s clip at the figure’s shimmer.
The bullets bounced off a mirror-like helmet. Not enough armor penetration. Hirsen’s body shook as if a gorilla had sat on him, and he lost all mobility in his right arm. A flower of blood spread out from his reg-suit, at shoulder-height, dripping on and out of the water-proof cloth.
Shit. Was his artery hit? If it was, he was as good as dead, even if he slowed his heart rate. But he had more pressing concerns than that. Distracted, he allowed his subconscious to isolate the pain and trauma away, a grounding technique installed in his psyche courtesy of the corporate monks on Newgen’s paycheck.
The figure stumbled around, the barrel of his rifle trailing drunkenly in Hirsen’s general direction. He stopped firing. Hirsen wondered if he may have nailed him after all.
Lotti got up to one knee and opened up, full auto, on the figure. Reactive Cloth shorted and died as the fragile panels broke at the onslaught. The man covered his head with one armored gauntlet and rushed at Lotti. He could’ve been thrice her size, but he was fast. They collided with the grace and inevitability of a car crash. Hirsen heard Lotti’s collarbone snap like a twig even through the buzz in his ears from all the gun noise.
The ganger gasped and smashed hard against the wall. The man fiddled with his helmet. The visor had cracked, blinding him. He threw the helmet out. It didn’t surprise Hirsen to find himself staring at the grinning visage of Major Nicholas Strauze.
“Samuel Delagarza,” Strauze said, “hot damn, you’re a cockroach full of surprises, aren’t you? Let’s put an end to that.”
He raised his rifle. Hirsen threw his gun at Strauze’s face. The enforcer deflected it with his weapon, a half-a-second distraction. Hirsen charged at him without as much as a groan. His kick connected with the rifle and tore it away. He threw a punch with his good arm, aiming at the enforcer’s throat.
Strauze used his elbow to deflect the strike and countered with a fluid jab that forced Hirsen back. In a single movement, Strauze launched a lightning-fast kick at the agent’s knees. Hirsen side-stepped and tried to hit Strauze’s pressure point near his chest. The enforcer darted to the right and, in the same motion, made a roundhouse kick that sent Hirsen barreling to the floor.
Hirsen rolled away, enhanced senses doing their best to keep him in the fight. He jumped to his feet. “A fucking roundhouse kick? Really? That’s what Tal-Kader’s teaching its people? Shameful.”
“And yet, you ate it up.” Strauze flashed him a shark-like grin.
Strauze was toying with Hirsen, and they both knew it. They exchanged blows again, but blood-loss left Hirsen dizzy, slowed him down, made his form sloppy. Strauze smacked the agent’s knee away and elbowed him in his destroyed shoulder.
Hirsen’s vision went red. Neural bio-circuits informed him he was undergoing shock. Synthetic hormones and pain dampeners rushed to his brain and body, but they were overwhelmed. Hirsen stumbled, tripped over his own feet, and then Strauze swept his legs of the floor, then stomped on his leg, neatly breaking his tibia.
The agent blacked out for a second before trauma-dampeners in his body activated and jolted him back to consciousness. Emergency mantras sang in his head, along with motivational visions designed to provide him with an extra boost of fighting spirit. The pain carried them away, an unrelenting red river. Hirsen’s spiritual guide disappeared mid-speech as flashes of agony drew reason and strength away.
“You fight like an agent,” Strauze mocked him from somewhere far away. “It’s true, then? The legendary Daneel Hirsen? Man, we used to hear stories about you back in training, made you look like some kind of action hero. Everyone itched to be the one to put you down, you know. I’m kinda disappointed; you didn’t turn out to be much. I expected more of a fight. This is the second time we kill you. Then again, you did manage to trick Doctor Kircher’s nanobots. Mind sharing your secret before you die? It may help me paint you in a better light when I tell the story.”
Hirsen laughed wetly. “I tricked you too, remember? You forgot about that part.”
Strauze’s smile lost its edge. “Well, you know what they say. Fool me once, shame on me. Fool me twice—”
“But I did fool you twice,” Hirsen said. “I played you like a goddamn fiddle.”
“You do realize you’re lying in a pool of your own blood, don’t you?”
“Eh. It’s a chance I had to take. To get you here.”
“Get me here? That’s how you’re playing it? Pathetic. I outplayed you, Hirsen. I intercepted your transmission to your Outlander’s friends. It never reached the EIF fleet. It wouldn’t have helped you, anyway, I heard Erickson killed them all, you know? You’re alone here, you and the Reiner bitch, and in a few minutes, both of you will be nothing else but a promotion in my lap. At least you’ll be dead. Tal-Kader’s probably got something far nastier in store for your ganger trash.”
Hirsen laughed again. It hurt to do so, but he did it anyway, because he knew it pissed Strauze off. “I never had any friends in Outlander. I sent you that transmission because I wanted you here. See, the ship I talked about? Made it up. I’m going to ride your ship to the EIF. Can you imagine what a great bar story that’s going to make?”
As Hirsen expected that erased Strauze’s smile from his ugly face. “Is that right? Well, since I’ll be the one telling it, I guess I’ll just say whatever I want.”
Hirsen wanted to say something like Boy, Tal-Kader should really start teaching its minions to confirm their kills, but Lotti didn’t play ball with his dramatic instincts. She just jumped Strauze, roaring like an absolute maniac, a trail of bloody saliva staining her chin, and an ice-pick in her fist.
She hit at Strauze’s head like a carpenter trying to hammer a nail to a wall in a single strike. There was a wet popping sound, and Strauze screamed. His fist shot wildly and threw Lotti away, to reveal the ice-pick lodged solidly into the bloody socket where his eye had once been.
The enforcer fell to his knees, wailing in a high pitch that drilled at Hirsen’s ears. Strauze’
s hands fingered the pick, like he couldn’t believe it was there. A half-hearted attempt to pull it out resulted in a wail of agony. Blood soaked the man’s face, which was deformed by sheer animal agony.
Hirsen crawled his way to Lotti’s rifle. He confirmed it was still loaded. He took careful aim, compensated against his blurry vision, and shot Major Strauze’s brains out.
31
Chapter Thirty-One
Clarke
The kinetic rounds headed toward Dione, faster than any manned ship could expect to go.
A terrible silence had befallen the bridge of the Hawk, a kind of panicked expectation that was present in disasters that could be seen from miles away but left people powerless to stop them. Train crashes, tsunamis, earthquakes, reactor meltdowns. Kinetic rounds fired from a military ship against an inhabited colony.
“Reiner help us all,” someone pleaded on the bridge’s channel.
People would see the kinetics as they approached. Some of the Outlander’s ships that were ready for departure might be able to make it out in time, but it’d be too late for most people. It’d seem like fiery stars growing by the minute, exponentially, while the newscasters tried to assure the panicking population that everything was under control. Perhaps they’d try to blame the EIF for Vortex’s sins.
The stars would become white-hot fireballs, chunks of molten metal accelerated to relativistic speeds by oryza and human inventiveness. Dione’s atmosphere would be set alight by the blast, and few would live to see the following explosion.
Clarke made an effort to pull himself together, to shove away the visions of Dione’s doom.
It hasn’t happened, he told himself. Not yet. Not while I can do something about it.
“Everyone, pull yourself together. Our people need us, and we’re not going to let them die today,” he announced to the public channel. “Commander Alicante, get Sierra-1’s targeting lasers on those kinetics. We’re going to deflect them.”
“Understood,” Alicante said crisply. Clarke switched to Sierra-1’s command line.
He found Pascari in the middle of some select words with Captain Rehman.
“Suggest once again that we retreat, Rehman, and I swear on my father’s tomb I’ll have you hanged—”
“There’s no point in staying to die if Reiner doesn’t make it out is all I’m saying,” Rehman said. “Sentinel’s on their way as we speak, even if we survive Vortex-1, we’ll run out of the system with our tails between our legs.”
“No one’s running,” Clarke said, his voice low and dark. “Sierra-1’s going for the intercept.”
“Of course we are,” said Pascari with confidence scratching arrogance. “We aren’t going to stay and let them kill a planet.”
That’s the spirit, Clarke agreed.
“Have you gone insane?” Captain Rehman asked. “Intercept? There’s two kinetics, and Eagle’s blind. Do you want me to tell you the odds of making two shots like those? Even if we make it, we’ll be wide open to an attack by Vortex-1’s cannons! They haven’t shot a single cannon volley so far, Captain, and I think you should have realized why!”
“Rehman,” Clarke said, “I know. We all know. We’re still going for the deflect. Let Erickson’s cannons find their target, or not. Our only concern is saving that planet.”
“What for? We stop the rounds, then Erickson kills us, and destroys the planet again! Are you all blind? Here’s an alternative; we ignore the shots and let Dove and Crow intercept them. They’ve more time to aim, they’ve a better chance at getting them.”
“Rehman, you should know when to shut your damn mouth,” said Commander Mather. She sounded as agitated as Clarke felt. “Sierra-2 is that planet’s last line of defense, not a tactical choice! They’re there to stop them if we miss, we can’t drop millions of lives in their shoulders and hope for the best.”
If Task Force Sierra had been the Defense Fleet, with their rules and regulations regarding hierarchy, Clarke would’ve had Rehman deposed by Falcon’s marines detachment. Right now, he considered doing it anyway.
“It’s not logically sound to sacrifice ourselves, Dove and Crow could deflect the hit! Why risk our entire future on gallantry?” Rehman asked.
Clarke had had just about enough of the man.
“Because then Erickson will just shoot again!” Clarke exclaimed. “This is an army’s purpose, Rehman; we’re supposed to run in the bullets’ way the instant they start flying toward the innocent. We’re supposed to be a shield, not a sword, and the reason I’m here fighting the Defense Fleet is because they forgot that principle! I won’t forget it myself. If we want the people to ever see us as their protectors, as the legitimate defenders of the Edge, we need to prove to them we’re worthy of their faith. If we want them to put their lives in our hands, we must show we won’t take their lives lightly. A warrior’s job is not to perform the smartest maneuver, or kill the biggest number of enemies. Sometimes, all that’s required of us is to stare down the firing squad and tell them that, after their bullets are done with us, the people we represent will still be standing!”
The line cracked with static for a few seconds. Precious silence. Clarke tried to control his heartbeat and wondered if he’d gone too far.
“Well said, Captain,” Commander Mather said. “Well said indeed.”
Rehman made another attempt. If he’d even heard Clarke’s words, he gave no signs of it. “I don’t—”
“Enough,” Clarke interrupted. “This is my decision as commander of this force. Follow my orders or don’t, Rehman, but if you refuse, I’ll have you hanged for treason. This is a navy, not a high-school.”
It wasn’t an idle threat. When the lives of so many hanged in the balance, Clarke had no intentions of wasting time arguing with Captain Rehman.
At that moment, Commander Alicante joined the line. “We’ve a firing solution, sending it to Falcon and Eagle as we speak.”
Commander Mather’s relieved exhalation reached Clarke all the way from Eagle’s bridge. “Finally,” she said.
Rehman, wisely, kept quiet.
Clarke read the computer’s plan. They’d launch their own kinetics. To aim, the three members of Sierra-1 would leave their broadsides wide open to fire from Vortex-1. No way Sierra-1’s escorts could handle the entire defensive duty.
“Very well,” Clarke broadcast to both public and commanding channels. “This is Captain Clarke speaking. The deflection protocol should appear on everyone’s holos about…now. Study it carefully, but don’t delay, we’ve a time limit. We’ll only get one shot at this, people, so be careful with our systems. I want everyone ready for some heavy defense and counter-attack measures immediately after firing kinetics. The people of Dione are counting on us. Let’s not disappoint them.”
Hawk’s bridge became a flurry of activity after that. The destroyer’s crew, even though Clarke couldn’t see them, were working as one greased machine to ensure the deflection would go smoothly.
Clarke’s back was so filled with tension that he barely felt the pull of the g-force. He wished he could do more. That he could go down to engineering and help them with the repairs and maintenance. To just sit on the bridge, watching Alicante and his officers coordinate the ship without his help, made him feel redundant.
Navathe joined a private chat with him. “So, this is it, isn’t it? The next few minutes are about to suck a great deal of ass for us.”
“Wish I could say otherwise,” said Clarke.
“You know? You should have deposed that man, Rehman, just in case. I don’t think his heart is in this fight. He’s more concerned with saving his hide.”
“Maybe,” Clarke said. “But Falcon’s crew isn’t. We must trust them, Navathe. We can’t afford not to.”
The three destroyers assumed position in coordinated harmony, fast by the standards of space combat, but nail-bitingly slow for the humans aboard. Clarke’s eyes never left his holo in all that time, all his attention pouring on the constant updates that Alican
te fed him.
“Status,” he asked.
“ETA on deflection, one minute,” Hawk’s XO announced. “All systems functional, we’re on schedule.”
“Falcon’s ready when you are, Captain,” Falcon’s XO said.
“We could do this blind, sir,” said Eagle. “All hands awaiting your call.”
On the map, the two surviving members of Vortex-1 maintained cruising acceleration in a parallel line to Sierra-1. Clarke knew that, as soon as Sierra-1 committed to intercepting the kinetics, Erickson would order their ships to fire.
All the other way across the map was Dione, with its Outlander spaceport orbiting around it like a moon.
If we make this shot, maybe the Academy’s going to teach about it, Clarke thought. Perhaps the next generation’s Captain Yin would go over it with some midshipman named Clarke. She’d probably list all of Captain Clarke’s errors today and advise the midshipman to listen to his teachers if he wanted to avoid ending up like poor, disgraced Captain Clarke.
Midshipman Clarke would nod and do his best impression of giving Yin his full attention. In the young man’s head, he’d daydream of fire and glory among the stars. Perhaps, if he lived long enough, time would drill in his head the lesson his teachers had tried to instill. There was no fire and glory in the vastness of space. Only cold and silence.
The countdown reached zero. The young midshipman and his scowling teacher vanished, leaving only the soldier.
“Sierra-1, open fire. Good luck and God bless you all,” Captain Clarke said.
Gravity vanished as Hawk stopped accelerating to maximize its targeting precision. Power level across all non-vital systems dropped as the oryza reactor focused all its efforts to accelerate a huge chunk of metal to relativistic speeds in few seconds.
The destroyer jerked violently, as if caught in the wrath of an invisible hurricane, and the structure around the cabin groaned. Lights flared, died, then came back to life with a vengeance.
“Kinetics fired,” announced Captain Alicante. The other destroyers confirmed their launches.
