by IIsa J. Bick
“Hold up, Clemens,” he said into the open hatch, and in another second the tank jerked and squealed to a halt. Then McGinnis toggled his radio. “Tory Three, this is Tory One. All stop.” He watched as the lead tank, one of their two SM1 destroyers, puffed to a stop and hovered there, riding a cushion of air. The rest of the tank column came to a halt, the effect like the ripple of a vibration down a taut string.
“Mac.” It was Eberhardt, in the lead SM1. “You sure about this?”
“Yeah, absolutely.” Actually, McGinnis wasn’t sure about a damn thing, except if they didn’t slow the Dracs down here, they’d all be grape jelly by nightfall. “Just remember to adjust your firing angle; didn’t come all this way to get buried.”
“From your mouth to God’s ear,” said Eberhardt. “Just say when.”
“Roger that,” said McGinnis and turned his attention back to the wide mouth of the gorge—and to the bulbous shapes of those red, whirring helicopters in their attack wedge. They were being smart about altitude; McGinnis read it in the way the copters’ shadows went way the hell off to his left and out of sight. Yeah, coming in high and out of range, even from autocannon fire—if they’d had autocannon rounds. (They didn’t.)
“On my mark,” he said into the radio. He was waiting for the bump: that little jig up and down that dropped a copter’s nose to bring missiles, lasers and machine guns to bear in an attack.
And the copters bumped.
McGinnis thumbed his mike. “Mark.”
As her attack force screamed in, Hines saw the tanks open fire: searing red darts of laser fire and the lesser puffs and sparks of machine guns. No autocannon tracers and no missiles that she could see, and her boys were playing it smart, staying well out of range. Too perfect. Look at those Blues; they couldn’t even get their aim down, for crying out loud; they were that shook. Amused, she watched as lasers and bullets sprayed the arroyo’s walls, blasting out a shower of debris—far short of her people. Idiots. Lucky if they didn’t bury themselves, way they were shooting, and . . .
Later on, Hines wouldn’t ever know what she’d have thought next. All she knew was, at that moment, something black ballooned from the rock. At first she thought, haze from exploding munitions, but the angle was wrong: growing out instead of up. And then the black grew and grew, and then roiled and billowed—and resolved into legs. Talons. Wings.
Oh, my . . . “Pull up! Max Four, do you read? Pull up, pull up, pull up!”
The nayaraptors didn’t just fly out of the walls. They exploded, jetting out in a huge, chittering black cloud of spiked tails, needle teeth and razor-sharp claws.
“Cease fire!” McGinnis shouted, plugging one ear with his pinky. “Cease fire!” The screams of the raptors were so shrill they grated like sharp nails squealing over a chalkboard. The hairs along his forearms and down the nape of his neck stood on end. He kept screaming for his people to cease fire because he wasn’t sure anyone heard a damn thing over the din. But the shooting, from his end anyway, diminished to a few scattered pock-pocks of machine gun and a last hiss of laser.
And then he just stood there, mouth hanging open, shoulders slack—because McGinnis had never, ever seen a raptor flock take wing all at once. Hell, it was something that, if you lived on Deneb Algedi, you never hoped to see because if you did . . . well, you were probably dinner. The nayaraptors soared heavenward, streaming from the rock walls in black gouts like inky water—higher and higher until they found something plenty interesting to capture their attention.
And so, McGinnis thought, would the Dracs.
Picture the soot gray bulb of a paper wasps’ nest, and what happens when you take a stick and knock it to the ground—and then multiply that by a factor of twenty. No, fifty. Make that a hundred fifty gazillion.
Hines had never seen anything like it, not even in nightmares. The air was alive with raptors swarming, coiling, boiling like thunderheads and bawling an unearthly, rasping screech that Hines heard through her helmet and all the way to her toes. Far below, she saw her choppers break off, cutting right and left to avoid the winged reptiles. But choppers were not like aerospace fighters; they didn’t turn on a dime, and they sure as hell couldn’t climb nearly as far or as fast.
Mad Max Four, the lead, was hit first. A raptor screaming straight up, levitating as if pulled to heaven by an unseen hand, slamming into the Balac just as the copter angled hard right, slewing down. Suddenly, there was a spray—no, a fountain of blood and chunks of quivering raptor meat spewing in a halo. The Balac bounced up as its rotors whack-whack-whacked the raptor, hacking off the head before gutting the reptile. A twisting tangle of intestines unraveled like a ball of yarn, and as what remained of the reptile caromed off the copter, the lumbering machine flipped over and fell like a stone.
“No!” Hines watched in horror as the VTOL smashed into a Donar that had angled directly into its path. The copters collided, exploded, showering debris and molten armor as a mushroom cloud of orange and yellow flame blew toward the sun.
Then the air turned electric, sizzling with spurts of laser fire crisscrossing from the remaining four choppers. They tagged a few raptors, scoring flesh from bone and burning troughs into bellies and along backs. But that only seemed to enrage the remaining animals, and they pivoted, screaming their ungodly howls, wreaking ruin.
“Get me down there, get us down!” Hines screamed at her pilot. She felt her stomach bottom out as the pilot pushed the Crow into a steep dive, and Hines fumbled with the pickle, flipping her HUD to targeting mode. The Crow had no missiles, and only one laser—but, by God, she’d be damned if she let this go by, she’d be damned! Crimson spots that resolved into targets, so many she couldn’t count, jumped across her HUD, and she decided what the hell and started shooting.
She got two, and she thought that maybe she’d tagged a third. But then something huge and black wheeled into view on a collision course, filling the windscreen, and her pilot was screaming some awful, nameless horror, and Hines had a split second of life remaining to register this: Deneb Algedi did have a hell, after all.
A painting he’d seen once from way back when, really old—hell, ancient Terra. By a guy named Hieronymus Bosch, and called Descent of the Damned, or something like that; McGinnis wasn’t sure, and it really didn’t matter. Because as he watched a raptor wham into the tail rotor of the remaining Balac, saw the copter begin a horizontal pinwheel around and around as the main rotor twisted the chopper in a corkscrew before it blew itself apart, and as he saw the tiny blue Crow bullet like a meteor, the dance of its laser licking fire over the tangle of raptors and screaming metal, before smashing into a raptor, nose-first—he thought that, yeah, it was just like that: all those lost souls plummeting straight into the yawning mouth of an abyss blacker than a starless night. Not even a Drac deserved an end quite like that.
And what had it been for after all? McGinnis let his breath out, inhaled, tasted the oily, metallic smoke of spent fuel and charred flesh. First the Swordsworn, and now the Dracs. He had no illusions. The Dracs would prevail and Deneb Algedi would fall—maybe not today, or tomorrow, but soon. He’d bought this tiny slice of his world a few days, maybe, and not much more, and he was suddenly very, very tired.
McGinnis keyed his mike. “All right, people,” he said, and then stopped, shocked that his voice shook with something very close to grief. Turning aside, he met the eyes of his driver, read the horror there. McGinnis put a hand on the man’s shoulder and squeezed. “Let’s get the hell out of here.”
31
Cylene Nadir Jump Point
Prefecture III, Republic of the Sphere
25 July 3135
All that remained was to give the order. But Katana hesitated. She sensed Crawford and the Old Master, her JumpShip’s tai-sa and the bridge crew waiting on her command—and she couldn’t give it, not yet. Her mouth was dry as a dust bowl; her stomach was in knots; and she was prickly all over with anxiety, about ready to jump out of her skin—all par for the cours
e. All that adrenaline pumping through her veins was there for a reason, as were those inner voices insisting that living to see another day was nice, thank you very much. Similar to what McCain always said about doctoring: Death is an unacceptable side effect.
But was it death she feared? Katana stilled herself, reaching into that portion of her soul that commanded zanshin, watchful alertness. Yes, of course, she wanted to live. Why else would someone fight? No, she was more concerned about the lives she thrust into harm’s way, and the soldiers she considered brothers and sisters under the skin, Sakamoto’s troops.
And Sakamoto? A sigh nearly escaped. Crawford wanted to fight the man; no, that wasn’t true. Crawford wanted Sakamoto dead. Understandable: Crawford had experienced Sakamoto’s brutality.
And because of Sakamoto, Toni’s dead. Tears pricked the back of her eyes, but she would not let them fall, not here. There was a time and place for grief, but this was neither. They would not strike at the warlord. They would try to reason with him.
And if the tai-shu was acting independently, for his own glory? Well, then—she crossed her arms over her chest—that didn’t leave her much choice, did it? Whatever else, that ought to satisfy Crawford’s thirst for revenge and, maybe, hers as well.
But she was not frightened. Because when I know myself, I am one step closer to uwate: mastery of mind and sword, soul and body.
Turning, she met the Old Master’s gaze for a brief, wordless exchange. She wondered if he read the change in her eyes and thought that, likely, he could, though he held his peace as was his wont. Her gaze shifted to the communications officer, a smooth-skinned sho-i with clear, green eyes. “You’re ready to go active as soon as we complete the jump?”
If the young ensign was nervous, she didn’t show it. “Hai, Tai-sho. I have taken the liberty of assessing communications’ capabilities between our JumpShip and our commanders stationed at Galatia III, Ronel and Hean.”
Katana nearly smiled at the woman’s eagerness; she could see that the sho-i was just busting at the seams to relay some good news for a change. “And?”
The sho-i’s eyes sparkled. “Receiving and transmitting, Tai-sho. The black boxes are working like a charm. Command Hean reports that boxes have been dispatched to Sirius and Irian.”
“Excellent,” Katana said, and she was rewarded with a grin from the sho-i, who squared her shoulders and settled into her task. She glanced at her ship’s tai-sa. “Quinn?”
The grizzled captain gave a gruff nod. “Ready when you give the word, Tai-sho.”
“Good. No unnecessary risks. Remember: in and out at Sadachbia.” She raised her voice so that all could hear. “I know that we have fallen comrades there, and they deserve our respect and grief, but now is not the time. Do not linger, Quinn, understood?”
“Perfectly.”
“Very well.” Katana took a deep breath. “Jump.”
JumpShip Eastern Moon, Sadachbia Nadir Jump Point
Prefecture III, Republic of the Sphere
25 July 3134
Tai-sa Orrin Sand stretched, yawned, gave himself a good, full-body, doggy shake. Going on two months of this detail, hanging around, waiting for something to happen . . . Sand scrubbed grit from his eyes. He was ready for some serious R&R. He understood why his duty included tag-team pony express runs, ferrying messages to and fro, or evacing troops. But he didn’t have to like it. Besides, all the shooting was over weeks ago and . . .
A shrill alarm spiked his ears and Sand winced, pulled out of his slouch in a hurry. “What?” he snapped at Con.
“Ship coming through! It’s got to be an enemy ship, sir! There’s no friendly scheduled for . . .”
Sand caught movement from the corner of his left eye and snapped his gaze back to the viewscreen. He saw the space at the jump point pucker, flash red, tear—and cough out a JumpShip, its long, slender body like the most delicate dragonfly, and so thin it was nearly invisible as it passed into Eastern Moon’s shadow.
“Report!” Sand cut his eyes to his communications officer. “Are they hailing?”
The chu-i’s eyes were huge. “Negative, sir! Invader- class! Designation . . .”
But whatever else the lieutenant was about to say, Sand would never know—because, in the next instant, space folded, puckered, became crimson all over again. Sand blinked, wanted to scream for the other ship to wait. Of course, it didn’t.
Instead, the ship winked out. It jumped.
32
Kaffeli, Shinonoi
Prefecture II, Republic of the Sphere
15 August 3135
Rain spiked the ferroglass canopy of Viki Drexel’s Shockwave, with a sound like seed corn drumming tin. Usually, she liked rain: liked curling up with a mug of tea and a good book. But tonight Drexel was nervy, her muscles taut as banjo strings. They’d come in on the night side of the planet and it was dark as pitch, the halogens dotting the perimeter of the defensive complex, Shinonoi’s primary center, blurry with rain and mist. She couldn’t see for shit, and she was worried, too. They’d come in at a pirate point, but surely Sakamoto’s men must have known their DropShip was inbound for days already. And yet there’d been no reaction, and it was killing her. Wincing, she shrugged her shoulders and rolled her neck, listening to the crackle of her vertebrae. Her neurohelmet chafed her shoulders, her head felt flatter and a sharp pain knifed up her spine between her shoulder blades. She let out a curse.
A voice, male, faintly amused, sorted itself out from the general background hiss. “Just say when, and I’m your man.”
Jing Smith, in his Thunderbolt. Her eyes ticked right, and she made out the fuzzy amber patch of his cockpit lights. The Thunderbolt was a good fifteen tons heavier, but Smith moved the ’Mech through its courses with the facility of a ballet dancer. Drexel’s lips worked in a smirk. “Sorry, but I’m taken, big guy.”
“Break my heart. What’s McCain got I don’t?”
“You really want an answer?”
“No. Here’s what I really wanna know—where’s the reception committee?”
“Wondering that myself.” Drexel flicked a glance to her HUD, saw nothing she hadn’t seen before—a whole lot of nothing. “They got to know we’re here, but my thermal imaging’s for the birds, and with all this steel, forget MR.”
“Leaving good, old-fashioned viz. I don’t like it.”
“Me neither, big guy.” Smith wasn’t big. At a stocky meter and three-quarters, Smith wasn’t tall, but he was solid muscle; a kickboxer in his pre-Brotherhood days, and a damned good one at that.
Drexel checked their distance and then called up a map of the complex from her DI’s database. “Still, no matter how you cut it, this is the best approach vector. This used to be an old lake bed, but The Republic filled it in, leveled it out, so it’s really nothing but a big old field. Hard to pull off an ambush with no cover.”
“Also hard to hide if they start lobbing LRMs.” Pause. Then: “I don’t like it.”
“You never like anything,” she said, though she’d stopped liking it on the way down, the moment they got close enough in their ’Mechs for her to see just what Sakamoto’s men had done. Blast craters, twisted girders and smashed cities—the planet looked like it’d been car-jacked then left in a gutter. As they moved in across the dried-up lake bed, the terrain had turned progressively more difficult to negotiate. Deep troughs cut out of the ground, hummocks of ruined vehicles, most of them identifiable as Blues by their insignia—and there were bodies, whole and in pieces, littering the route. She’d played her Shockwave’s headlamp over the bodies, working hard to keep her rage from boiling over. Those people had been dead a long time; months, probably. Working the ER on Junction, she’d learned a few things about bodies and decay. These people were way beyond bloat, and Shinonoi’s native animals and insects had been busy.
They were a bare four kilometers from the complex when Smith sang out, “Hey. Dead ahead. Twelve o’clock. You see that?”
“I see it,” said Drex
el. She had, too, a split second before Smith’s warning: a shadowy, hulking blob that suddenly reared up between them and the complex, as if coalescing from threads of blackness, or—and this was crazy, she knew it was nuts—like a robed and horned devil rising from a pit. In the next instant, she knew something else. Her alarms hadn’t so much as burped. Throttling back, she came to a dead stop, then keyed for Smith. “Pull up. Just hold up a sec. You getting anything?”
Smith sounded just as mystified. “No target lock. Whoever he is, he’s not running hot.” Then, in an awed whisper: “It’s a Shiro.”
Drexel’s stomach bottomed out, but a quick check of her HUD as her targeting crosshairs dropped into place confirmed. A Shiro: one of the newest, deadliest heavy ’Mechs in the Combine’s arsenal. Four LRM-10s, two to each side of the torso, an autocannon wedded to its left arm; and the final touch—not a katana, but seven meters of Hira Zukuri blade, beveled along its cutting edge with a sawtoothed ridge along the Shinogi-ji and the tang affixed to the moral equivalent of a pike. But the Shiro hadn’t opened fire when it could have. Might this mean . . . ?
She made a decision. “Stand down. Take your targeting off-line, and drop back a couple six, seven meters.”
“What? He’ll read that for sure, and there’s no way, I’m not . . .”
“Just do it. If he opens up, there’s only one of him and two of us.”
