The Rift Coda

by Amy S. Foster

  I wait a beat or two for Doe to get this done and then I say, “Varesh, follow me. I don’t know how your command structure works, but leave a squadron or unit or whatever behind here to pick up the slack, the rest of you can follow me into town.”

  “Acceptable” is all he replies. Okay then.

  Levi, Navaa, Varesh, and I make a run for the populated part of the Village. There’s a significant part of me, the down-and-dirty soldier, that aches to stay behind in the fray, but as the leader here, I need to get back to headquarters, at least for now. It’s imperative that I get a clear picture of the attack and work out a way to get the upper hand.

  I take off at full speed with Levi and Varesh’s troops behind me. Navaa shoots into the sky. There are literally thousands of troops in battle. When I can, I take out an Orsaline or a Settiku Hesh. With the human Citadels, I am more cautious. When a particularly frenzied one makes a run for me, I duck his punch and step on his thigh, throwing my body over his head, taking him down with me by the neck. I put him in a chokehold until he passes out. Some of the human Citadels, most probably, can be saved if given time and deprogramming. The others are past redemption and will have to be executed.

  But that’s something I hope we can figure out later.

  We leave an exponential number of Akshaji in our wake as we go. I watch them fight with a precision and grace that is almost distracting. They are gorgeous and spellbinding. It’s no wonder to me at all why the altered Roones would have chosen them. They already look like gods, even without genetic enhancement.

  When I finally get to Main Street, I am jolted by an explosion. A residential housing block has been blown. Henry tells me through my earpiece it’s the local resistance movement. I knew they had booby-trapped certain areas, but if some of them want to live here afterward, they can’t just go around blowing up buildings. Even though I am the leader here, this is their Village. I have to hope they know which targets are acceptable collateral damage.

  Before I can get to Sugar Skull, I feel a sharp tightening around my shin. Then I’m yanked backward. It’s a Spiradael. More specifically, one’s razor hair braid. I land on the pavement with a thud, my teeth cutting into my bottom lip. I whip around to look at him and see he’s got a gun in his hand. He gets a shot off, but I’m already on my feet.

  “Doe, I need protection for my hands!” I order and immediately the sensuit unfolds up my body. I dodge another bullet by shifting sideways. This gives me enough time for the tech to do its thing. Both hands are covered in a chain-mail-like material all the way up to my neck and down to my bra line.

  I grab the braid with both hands and leap. The Spiradael is still shooting but I’m moving too fast for him to lock on. When I get close enough, I turn around so that the wrapped hair is in both hands behind my right shoulder. I give a strong yank and I hear a sickening crack and what sounds like a bunch of wet towels being lifted off a sopping floor. I have actually taken his entire head from his shoulders. I catch Varesh’s eye as he’s plunging three swords into the heart of an Orsaline. I’m not sure how he got through the uniform. That is definitely a worrisome detail for later. He gives me a nod of approval, which I surprise myself by enjoying for a minute. He is not a guy I should be trying to impress.

  I take just a few seconds to watch the SenMach troops at work. While they don’t have our speed, they certainly have our strength. Unsurprisingly, they fight without effort, punching and parrying as if they were casually swatting away flies. They don’t have the grace of the Akshaji, but there is a fluidity to the way they fight that is mesmerizing. No time for that, either, and I keep moving.

  The block surrounding the Command Center is mercifully clear. Wisely, they’ve put on a lot of guards to keep the area safe. With Varesh’s people, this eye in the hurricane should last a while. I walk into the restaurant and see my team conferring with other UFA members as they give commands. I am happy to see that it’s not just humans doing tactical. The Faida, Roones, and Karekins are all watching monitors and giving orders.

  “Everyone!” I say loudly to the room. “Some of you have already met him, but for those of you who haven’t, this is Sairjidahl Varesh of the Akshaji. He’s added his own twenty thousand troops to the cause, so I’d say that puts us in a much better position.” An explosive cheer erupts from the room.

  Well, slap my ass and call me Diana. I feel like Wonder Woman.

  Probably shouldn’t be thinking that way. This is serious. I wipe the little grin off my face. “Henry, where are we at?”

  “We’re holding them off, but there’s just so many of them.”

  “Where’s most of the fighting happening, though?” I ask as I look at a giant screen that seems to be aggregating troop numbers and conflicts. I’m assuming this is the work of the drones and Morning’s skill set.

  “It’s still mostly in outlying areas. About eight thousand have breached inside the town itself. We’re handling it, but taking casualties,” Boone says.

  “I assume Yessenia is in the gym facility, overseeing triage?” I ask, still looking at the large map of the town and the pulsing red dots that shift and grow every second.

  “She and Feather, along with a Roone healer, are in command there. I’m trying to make sure that we save as many enemy human Citadels as we can, but in these conditions, it’s really hard,” Vi tells me sadly.

  I put a hand on her shoulder and give it a good squeeze. “It’s fine. I know everyone is doing what they can.” After getting a grasp of the holes in security, I make a decision. “Okay, let’s send an additional ten thousand Akshaj troops here,” I say, pointing to the far northwest of the town. “Varesh, you are welcome to stay here, or you can take point on that if you want.”

  “Always, I prefer to fight,” he tells me with a sparkle in his eye. He is waiting for my orders, for me to tell him where to put his troops. I never thought we would get here, but here we are. Together. I can’t stand the sight of him, but I am glad that he’s on our side. More than glad. Relieved. War makes hypocrites of us all one way or another.

  “Okay, it looks like we are most vulnerable in this section.” I point again at a small area west of Main Street. “And here,” I say, laying a single finger at the area of the Village where the habs are. “The Immigrants inside those habs haven’t chosen a side, but they deserve our protection, so let’s send fifteen thousand integrated troops out there, to defend that position and . . . wait.” The enemies’ dots start to move rapidly. They had been in an imperfect circle around the entire Village enclosure. Now they are on the move. It looks like sand falling around a marble.

  “What are they doing?” Iathan asks, as if he’s personally insulted that they’ve changed tactics.

  “How have Zaka’s efforts been going?” I ask no one in particular.

  “They are surprisingly very effective,” Henry says, clearly impressed. “They mined two massive acres of farmland, here and here.” I look and wince a little when I realize just how close we were to those mines when we opened the Akshaj Rift. “They set up nets and falling tree trunks with spikes and shit in the forest. They are good.”

  “Do we have an estimate in terms of casualties on the other side?” I wonder.

  “Eighteen thousand six hundred fifty-five,” Morning tells me with her usual precision. “That number is far less in our faction. Our casualties have been minimal.” I nod my head and drag the breath into my lungs. Our injuries and fatalities are lower only because we are being more cautious. The combined ARC and Citadel forces don’t care about their losses. They’ll just throw as many armed soldiers at us as they can until they wear us down.

  “Right, okay,” I begin thoughtfully, “so they have no idea how many we are and every time they tried to flank us, they got blown up or spiked or whatever. They were testing us with acceptable losses. But now they moved . . . see? From the way they are positioning themselves it looks like they’re about to double down with a full frontal assault. They’re gonna blow through the front gat
e.”

  “If it was just bodies, I’d say we had a decent shot, but they’ve got Settiku Hesh tanks, ten of them. We don’t have any MANPADs,” Henry cuts in quickly.

  “What is a MANPAD? I don’t know this word,” Iathan remarks grimly. Because I speak all of the languages of the Citadels now, I hadn’t realized how much most everyone in the room is dependent upon the SenMach translating program. Still, there are some words that can’t be translated.

  “It’s an acronym for man-portable air defense—a shoulder-held rocket launcher,” I explain.

  “The UFA members were able to get a lot of weapons out of their respective armories before they Rifted out, but there wasn’t time to grab anything with that kind of firepower,” Henry says almost apologetically. “Besides, we don’t really use that kind of stuff. We’ve never needed it before now.”

  “Can’t worry about it now. So here’s what we’re going to do. I want our best snipers on every window, on every rooftop on Main Street. If this is how they’re attacking, they’re going to have to basically roll through town,” I order, still thinking as I’m talking. I’m trying to wrap my head around the sheer numbers involved. “Navaa, your people are our best chance at taking out those tanks. Assign a squadron to every vehicle. You’re going to have to overwhelm each one with numbers. It’s dangerous, but we can’t have all those tanks in play.”

  “I’ll get that going,” Arif says as he walks away, immediately on his earpiece directing his troops.

  “We’ll evacuate the buildings and snipers based on how many armored vehicles get through. Boone,” I say, and he immediately takes a step forward. “I’m going to need you and Vi to stay on that in here, maneuvering troops from Command in real time, based on their firepower. Varesh, Iathan, Morning—your soldiers, along with ours, are the infantry. It’s basically going to be a brawl in the streets.”

  “I like this plan,” Varesh says smoothly. “We should be fighting hand to hand. That way I will know our enemies are truly dead.” There is a moment of terse silence. I think we all like a good fight as much as the next guy, but we’re talking almost two hundred thousand troops in a very small area. We not only need to win, but we need to keep the Immigrants safe, too. Speaking of Immigrants—

  “Where is Zaka?” I ask, looking around.

  “He’s gathering up all the resistance fighters from the Village. He’s tasked me with being his envoy in here,” Glenys says without hesitation. Now that she’s had a taste of what war really looks like, her trepidation is gone. Although the puffiness under eyes suggests a decided lack of sleep, she seems much more confident. She even looks taller.

  “Good, tell him to position his people behind us on the front line. Look,” I say as I drag a hand through my short hair, still unused to its cropped length. “I know a lot of you still want me to stay behind here at Command. And maybe if they were coming at us from all angles, I might have reconsidered my position. But there is no real tactical play here. We just have to let them run through us and take them down as they do. The troops need to see me out there.”

  “I agree with you, Ryn,” Navaa says thoughtfully as she glares at the monitors. “Your presence in theater will galvanize the troops and make the other humans wonder about your determination. The remaining Citadels under ARC’s command will only have to look at you to understand that there must be some sort of basic truth that they are missing.”

  I can’t help but snort a little at that prediction. “That would be nice,” I say hopefully. “But we can’t count on that, so let’s move, people, and stay on the comms,” I tell everyone. The different parties scramble and I finally get a glimpse of Ezra in the fray. He is working with a SenMach, presumably on the sound blockade problem. Our eyes clap on to each other. I had wanted to say something to him, but now I have no idea what that something might be. I will always love this boy, this brave soul who taught me that training and super soldiering has very little to do with where real strength comes from. Real strength comes from the exact opposite, from knowing the odds are stacked against you, but you raise your hand anyway and step forward. Ezra smiles and gives me a slow nod. We don’t need to say anything to each other. We know.

  When I walk outside, the sheer volume of people is overwhelming. We are thirty deep and a quarter of a mile long, zagging around buildings and statues and even some apartment buildings. I take my place in the middle of the street, front of the pack. When they come, I will be the first thing they see.

  Before it even gets that far, there is a barrage of pulses and screams. The Faida are doing their job from the sky, taking out the tanks. The tanks don’t use bullets, they use lasers. So, from this distance, it sounds like I’m listening to Star Wars from another room.

  “We have secured three vehicles,” an unknown voice says in my ear.

  “Affirmative,” I respond. “Commandeer them. Start firing on the enemy and the other tanks,” I order. There are more whooshing screeches as the lasers slice through the air in staccato bursts. There’s an explosion and smoke drifts from the south. So. It’s not only lasers then, but missiles as well. I have to assume that the only reason they haven’t relied on a blitz is that missiles are messy and concussive for both sides. Lasers are far more precise. Besides, I’m thinking a Faida might just be fast enough to catch one and throw it back at them. I bet they don’t want to test that theory.

  “We’ve overtaken two more,” a voice says through the earpiece. “That’s five. We have half.”

  “Keep at it. Keep taking them out and use these things against them.” I try not to wince every time I hear the booming flash of an explosion. The entrance to the Village is still too far from me to see, and even if it wasn’t almost a mile away, it’s on a decline, curving down from our position.

  I put my hands on the guns strapped to my legs. The screaming is louder now, and then there are shots, silencing the moans.

  “We took possession of a sixth vehicle, but the remaining four are headed your way. They’ll be in visual range momentarily.”

  “Good job, we’ll take over from here,” I say as I look to the horizon. “Take your wounded to Triage and meet us back here on the line.”

  The thunder and rumble of the tanks invade the air a minute or so before we actually see them. I crack my neck and roll my wrists, limbering up my body for what’s coming next. We have about five seconds before they start firing. “Vi,” I say in my earpiece. “Send out two teams of Gammas, Ros, Kappas, and Omegas to deal with those tanks. They cannot be allowed to get any closer. We’re too packed together. They’ll just pick us off. I imagine, since I’m still hearing weapons fire, that the Faida in the tanks are doing a fair bit of damage to the Citadels?”

  “We managed to take out thousands of the enemy in this capacity,” Morning breaks in. “Many of them human.” This is the first time I’ve heard any kind of emotion in her voice.

  “I don’t like this any more than you do, Morning, but we can’t expect our allies to risk their own lives being gentle with the human Citadels. We’ll do what we can on our end,” I tell her briskly.

  Finally, the tanks come into view, and in a flash, each team Vi assigned to take out the vehicles sets upon them furiously. I want to keep watching, hoping they’ll do their job, but I just have to trust them, because the enemy that outran the fire from the commandeered tanks are yards away. They charge at us all and I run to meet them. My legs pump with increasing speed and I leap in the air with one arm held out. I manage to get a young Citadel down by cutting her off at the neck. Before she can get up, I give her a massive wallop on the skull. She’s not dead, but she’s incapacitated.

  Before I can turn around I feel a great pressure around my entire body. One of the Orsalines has me in his grip. I inch toward my gun, hoping he won’t break my ribs before I get there. I pull out a pistol and place it solidly behind me, beneath his chin, moving my head away as I pull the trigger. I fall out of its embrace . . . and I just stop for a second.

  I have n
ever in my life seen anything like this. The sound is deafening. I knew of course that war was loud, but not like this. It’s not just the metal clang of bullets firing out of chambers or lasers whizzing in the air, but the grunting and breathing and screaming from both sides. The ripping of limbs, of skin slicing open and blood dripping. I cannot believe we are killing one another. I can’t believe that they made us do this.

  But I don’t have time to ponder the insanity of this because another Orsaline comes at me, his claws digging into my uniform as his open jaw and pointed teeth lunge for my carotid. Then I see his head chopped cleanly off. I turn and look. It’s Varesh, who gives me a slight bow and continues on his campaign. I suppose this makes us even. Sort of.

  No. Not ever.

  I use the dead carcass of the Orsaline for cover. I place it in front of me to act as a shield and begin to fire my gun. I shoot one more Orsaline in the head, and then another. In rapid succession I take out three Spiradaels and four Settiku Hesh. I drop the body so I can reload. I barely have time to get a clip in when another human Citadel jumps down and gets me in the jaw with his elbow. I wish I had time to explain that we aren’t the enemy. That he needs to stop and that nothing is what it seems. But he’s lost to the fight. I doubt he’d listen, anyway, regardless of the brainwashing and the drugs. The best I can do is empty my entire clip into his chest. This won’t kill him because of the uniform, but it does slow him down long enough for me to put him in a sleeper hold.

  I reach into my belt for another clip, but before I can reload, I hear something that makes more than a few of us stop in our tracks. It’s hoofbeats on the pavement. I narrow my eyes and look behind me. Zaka and twenty of his resistance fighters.

  Riding.

  Unicorns.

  This is everything my fantasy-loving, Chronicles of Narnia–reading girlhood self could ever ask for and it’s absolutely bananas and glorious. As if the sight of that wasn’t surreal enough, at least fifty large catlike animals, something between a jaguar and lynx, dart through the line past me and immediately start to maul the enemy. “Zaka?” I ask in confusion. “This is beyond amazing but what is going on?!”