by J. N. Chaney
A large bird, probably a partridge, blasted up from a laurel patch, making them both wheel around, hands reaching for weapons left back at the LZ.
“Scared the shit out of me,” Tomiko said with a rueful laugh.
“Me, too. Thought it was a tin-ass for a second there.”
“We’re just jumpy. No weapons.”
“And it sucks,” Rev said.
“I know, but we can’t really go marching into San Cristobal in our PAL-5s, armed to the teeth, right? Might stand out just a bit.”
Rev grunted. He knew that, but he didn’t have to like it.
“Miko . . . uh, Leona, what do you think of this mission? I mean, really?”
They’d been walking in a column, and Rev was currently in front. Tomiko stepped up beside him.
“It sure the hell isn’t what we’re trained to do.”
Which, Rev suddenly realized, was making him feel more uneasy than on any of his previous three missions. Rev was a Union Marine Raider, trained to close with and kill the enemy. It was a dangerous profession, but call it being self-assured, call it arrogance; in each previous case, he’d gone in with a degree of confidence that he was up to the task.
This mission was . . . well, quite a bit different.
The Centaurs had invaded Tenerife nine months previous, only the eighth Perseus Union planet taken. But instead of wiping out the planet’s humans, they had kept most of them alive, and that caused a problem.
Of course, it was great that the people hadn’t been killed. But it was almost as if they were human shields now. With hundreds of millions of people, what would the Centaurs do if humanity tried to retake the planet? That was what had stymied the Council of Humanity, and the Perseus Union Secretariat, in particular, from doing anything about it. Until now.
Under surveillance with tiny orbital drones that kept getting knocked out and replaced, humanity was monitoring the situation on the planet’s surface, and theory after theory kept popping up as to what the things they were observing meant. It looked, for all intents and purposes, as if much of the population was working, either at human facilities or inside vast buildings erected by the Centaurs. Initially, the consensus was that they were slave labor for some kind of project. There were reports from across the galaxy that humans had been put into forced labor, but nothing to this scale.
Then, the rumors started taking a more sinister tone. The humans inside the Centaur buildings were being experimented on as the Centaurs tested new weapons and ways to exterminate the human race. That humans were being genetically modified to become entirely new beings, and that they were simply being tortured for the amusement of their captors.
Rev wasn’t so sure about that last one, but it didn’t matter what he thought. Pressure was building on the government to act. People with relatives on Tenerife were a daily event as they protested outside the Government House on New Mars. It had gotten to the point that something had to be done despite the obvious danger to the captive humans should the planet be invaded by the Marines.
And so was born their mission. Those trained in surreptitious insertions—most of the Corps’ recon assets, SEALs, planetary rangers and commandos, and some Frisian and Manifest Destiny special forces—were to infiltrate the population centers and organize the citizens to act upon the coming assault. Once the Marine main force arrived, the citizens were to flee for safety.
Military and civilian specialists feared that the carnage among the civilians would be astronomical. Anything that could be done to minimize the number killed had to be attempted.
Rev and the rest had crowd control theory uploaded into their battle buddies, and they’d gone through some limited hands-on training, but he was far from confident that all the two-man teams scattered across the planet could first, escape detection, and second, actually herd civilians to safety while the planet was under attack.
Rev wasn’t afraid for his own life. He was afraid of failure and its consequences.
2
San Cristobal looked surprisingly normal as Rev and Tomiko walked into the outskirts of the city. Subdued, yes. Depressing, yes. But there were a few people out and about and no signs of Centaurs. Not many signs of damage, either.
No one seemed to pay any attention to the two Marines as they continued, keeping to the outskirts and cutting kitty-corner as they made their way to the Polanco neighborhood, which was their assigned AO, their Area of Operations. It didn’t seem right to call it that. They were not here to take on the Centaurs, after all. But the military was the military, and the entire operations order had been given in militarese.
“Camera,” Rev whispered to Tomiko. “Eleven o’clock on the second floor.”
“Just keep walking,” she said, taking his arm in hers.
They’d expected to see the surveillance cameras. Social monitoring on Tenerife was more stringent than back on New Hope, so this was their first big test. A camera like the one Rev had spotted wasn’t likely to be able to perform a retinal scan, but it could feed facial recognition or movement patterns into the database. Something as simple as a hitch in Rev’s gait could set it off . . . if the Centaurs were monitoring it. That was the thousand-credit question.
Rev’s gait was slightly odd now, after his augments. Muscles, joints, and ligaments had been altered beyond human parameters. He just hoped he wasn’t too far out of the norm.
He tried to modify his gait to something more normal.
“You’re trying too hard,” Tomiko whispered. “Just relax.”
She was right, of course. The two kept on walking down the sidewalk, passing directly through the cam’s field of view. It took an effort of will not to look away. Just two people walking along. Nothing to see here.
Rev half-expected an alarm, followed by a couple of Centaur paladins rushing down the street to meet them, but there was nothing. No hue, no cry. He let out the breath he hadn’t realized he was holding and turned to Tomiko with a big smile.
“One down, who knows how many to go?”
“Just keep on going.”
They had entered the city at BangPu, a suburban residential area, and were still about five klicks from their AO. That seemed like a long way for them to be simply sauntering along. Even if the Centaurs weren’t actively monitoring the security system, the AIs could note their presence. For all anyone knew, humans were being kept confined to certain areas, and breaking the restrictions could set off alerts.
Once again, if the Centaurs were on the systems.
Rev was anxious to get to their destination. They were too exposed out in the open, and they didn’t know what rules the population might have to follow. Certainly, the humans were not free to do what they wanted, not under the yoke of the Centaurs.
They passed through BangPu and into the BangNa neighborhood, where small, minisynths fabricated the various items that kept civilization humming. The area was quiet, however. None of the shops looked open.
“This is creepy,” Tomiko said.
Probably most cities within human space had these pockets of minisynths, many mom-and-pop operations with a single fabricator. It was so much cheaper and easier to simply print out whatever was needed than to have the items shipped in. They were the lifeblood of humanity, and them being silent was the most concrete sign the two Marines had seen that the planet was under alien occupation.
Rev wanted to stop and look inside one of the shops, but he restrained himself. He didn’t want to do anything to call attention to them.
“Another forty minutes,” he said needlessly.
Tomiko had the same navigational augments, and she knew exactly where they were just the same as he did. But he needed to break the oppressive silence of BangNa.
It was with relief when they crossed over the Boulder River and into a more commercial area. It wasn’t as crowded as it would normally be this close to lunchtime, but it was good to see people moving about.
“Hell, look at that,” Rev said as they came alongside a ruined city block
.
Rock and glass had fused into misshapen lumps, a sure sign that it had been hit by an energy weapon. Two teens were picking through the ruins, prying with crowbars to see what might be underneath. Other people walked by, heads down and not paying any attention to the scavengers.
“What was that?”
“No. That’s enough.”
As a Marine, Rev expected military targets to be hit, but seeing civilians killed or wounded was always a gut-punch. There was no discernable damage to the surrounding buildings, and as the two walked past, he wondered just what had happened here. Just bad luck?
Hopefully, the residents weren’t hunkering down inside their apartments.
As they continued, there were more signs of damage—not as bad as the destroyed block, but still signs of the invasion. All that did was cement the fact that he and Tomiko were in a war zone unarmed.
An old lady approached them from the front, dressed in her best, complete with a box hat framing her gray curls. Unlike most of the other stragglers out and about, she held her head high, looking as if she was bound and determined not to let the present situation affect her daily life.
She gave Rev a piercing stare as they approached, and he automatically said, “Ma’am,” as he nodded.
She gave a tight, pursed smile as they passed, in control of every aspect of her life.
At least, giving a façade of that. She couldn’t control the Centaurs.
“That’s the market,” Tomiko said a block later.
The Northwest Market was the largest in the city. It was where farmers and craftsmen brought in their wares. Food fabricators were the norm on Tenerife, just as in most of human space, but there was a thriving demand on the planet for organics. There were a few lightly stocked stalls manned in the front, but the warren of aisles and stalls inside looked abandoned.
Rev hadn’t expected to see anyone trying to sell their goods, but humanity was resilient. And their presence was a good sign, even better than the few people out in the streets. The Centaurs were not cracking down on every aspect of life, and that might make their jobs just a bit easier.
The market had more significance to Rev and Tomiko, however. It was one of their possible rally points to gather the citizens during the coming assault. It was a no-fire zone for the Navy and Marines, and it was relatively easy to exit the city from there.
“It might do,” Rev said.
There were three other possibilities, but it was good to get eyes on this one.
“Think we should take a quick look while we’re here?” Tomiko asked.
Rev hesitated. He and Tomiko were peers, but he was technically senior, and in the Corps, someone was always in command. It was up to him.
“No. I don’t see any activity past those few stalls. We’d better find out what the rules are first.”
“Tomatoes, nice and ripe,” one of the sellers said as they passed.
He didn’t seem too enthusiastic, and Rev wondered if he was there because he was essentially on autopilot. When a person’s world came crashing down around them, routine was one lifeline to sanity.
They left the market behind. Another thirty minutes, and they’d be at their destination. They had five potential hides, all buildings that, according to the last records from before the Centaur invasion, were empty. They could be full of refugees now, for all the two Marines knew, but they had to find a base of operations. They couldn’t just walk the streets out in the open until the Marine assault.
The battle damage was more evident as they continued. Destroyed hovers, burnt to scrap, were scattered in the road. Buildings had scorch marks, windows were smashed. A few forlorn bunches of flowers, accompanied by crosses, Stars of David, or crescent moons were testaments to loved ones lost. Someone had put up a scorched piece of wood as a monument to someone named Teo, with the simple inscription He Went Home Tired. Rev looked away, a pang of regret flaring to life in his throat.
A single armored personnel carrier blocked the middle of the road. It was split in two as if cut by a giant ax. Rev didn’t know what Centaur weapon could have done that. He couldn’t help but look inside as they passed, but if there had been local militia in it when it was hit, the bodies had been removed.
A grubby man, filthy, his hair matted, was sitting in the shade offered by the hulk. He might be twenty years old, or he might be eighty—Rev couldn’t tell. But his eyes were piercing as he looked up at the two Marines.
Rev expected him to say something, to ask for a handout, and maybe he was going to, but he suddenly twisted his head to the right. Quick as a cat, he was on his feet, darting away from the APC.
Tomiko and Rev might not be armed, but they were combat Marines with combat reflexes. Both were moving immediately, darting down a narrow alley. Only, it wasn’t a real alley. It dead-ended after twenty meters.
As one, they turned and hugged the wall of the building. A short thirty seconds later, a Centaur passed the entrance to their refuge. At least it had to be a Centaur. It screamed alien, but it wasn’t a paladin, a riever, or any other Centaur Rev recognized. And it was small, barely a meter long, the chassis half-a-meter tall.
Both Rev and Tomiko had seen a Centaur body, and while maybe half the size of an adult human, that was still too big to be inside the vehicle . . . or whatever it was.
It either didn’t see the two of them, or it didn’t care. It passed the entrance in two or three seconds as it traveled down the road, heading in the direction of the market.
“What the hell was that?” Tomiko asked.
Rev repeated the question, but to his battle buddy.
“No shit, Sherlock.”
The pedestal, which looked like a smaller version of the one on a riever, was proof enough of that.
“Pikachu doesn’t recognize it, but it’s tin-ass,” Tomiko said. “Does Punch know what it is?”
Not really the smartest question as both AIs had the same database. Rev didn’t point that out, though.
“No way there’s a tin-ass inside that. Not enough room,” he said.
“Not unless they’ve got little tin-asses. Or baby ones.”
“Record and file for transmission,” Rev told his battle buddy. “Priority Three.”
Punch could pull the image up at any time in the future, and by putting it at Priority Three, the image was primed and ready to go. If Rev was killed, but his head was intact, there would be enough power to keep his battle buddy running for approximately three minutes, more than enough time for him to send off a pulse. When it would be received was a different issue, but at some point, it would be.
“It has to be automatic,” he said. “Does that mean the tin-asses have AIs?”
“Their tech is better than ours, so why wouldn’t they?”
Because we haven’t seen it before.
But was that the truth? For all the fighting, humans had only seen one actual Centaur, and it was dead. Sure, the science-types had measured signs of life, but after seeing the mini-Centaur scoot by, Rev wasn’t sure anymore.
The two stayed tight for a few minutes, lost in their thoughts. Finally, Rev crept forward and looked around the corner. The Centaur wasn’t in sight. There was a scuffling sound, and Rev wheeled around, but it was the grubby man, creeping back out to the APC.
“It’s gone,” he told Rev as he sank back to his sitting position.
But to where? Is it in hiding, waiting to attack?
Rev turned to Tomiko and said, “Let’s go.”
They still had a mission, and a Centaur sighting or not, they had to proceed. As they resumed, a door opened, and a woman carefully looked down the road in the direction the Centaur had taken. She didn’t bother giving the two of them more than a glance before she slipped out and hurried the other way.
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br /> “They sure don’t like the tin-asses.”
Rev almost said, “Would you?” but he knew that wasn’t what Tomiko meant. For all the admittedly few people out and about, for the handful of vendors at the market, it was evident that the humans didn’t have full freedom. Which was logical, given the circumstances. But after seeing signs of life, of commerce, Rev had started to hope. Freedom of movement would make the two Marines’ jobs that much easier.
But this was the situation, and they’d just have to make do. That was what Marines did.
A little warier, they continued, nerves on the alert, ready to dive for cover at an instance’s notice.
No more Centaurs came down the road. And as local noon approached, there seemed to be more people on the street. Not a lot, as might be expected in a city of this size. But a few more than they’d seen before. There was less visible damage, too.
“Salazar Square is right up ahead. Another five minutes, and we can check out the first potential safe house,” Rev said.
“Not soon enough.”
This was more of an upscale neighborhood with townhouses, cafes, and shops lining the street, guarded by leafy elms. In another time and place, it would be bustling with people sitting in the open-air cafes, eating and socializing.
But it wasn’t another time. It was now. They reached the square and turned to the left for their last leg to their AO.
“Who the hell is that?” Tomiko asked. “Over to your three o’clock, with the white armband.”
Rev let his eyes slowly take in the square, passing over Tomiko’s target, and he immediately understood what had caught his partner’s attention. Aside from the white armband, there was something different about the fiftyish man. Instead of being bent over, eyes to the ground, he stood tall with an arrogance that projected from him like a light. And if Rev could tell anything from body language, the woman standing next to him would rather be anywhere else while the man addressed her. Short and stout, the loose red-trimmed torbin robe with the hood pulled up did nothing to hide her slouched figure, hands clasped in front while she listened to the man.
