by J. N. Chaney
In a much calmer voice, Rev said, “It’s started. I’m taking the girl. You two can come or not as you wish.”
“Peth, I’m going. You need to come, too,” the woman pleaded.
“But—”
Rev had already turned away and started back to the market.
The woman hesitated only a moment, then rushed alongside Rev. “She’s scared. Let me take her.”
Rev handed the girl over, and she buried her sobbing face into her mother’s shoulder. He felt bad about scaring the youngster, but he wasn’t about to let her be put at risk.
A Navy Shrike fighter screamed over the city, targeting something in the distance. The battle was truly joined, and Rev was a good five minutes from the market if he stayed with Teddy and the woman.
Not that there was a choice about that.
“Sorry, I need to take her back, and we need to run. Do you understand?”
The woman, eyes wide with fear, silently handed him the little girl, and together, the three adults broke into a run.
Rev didn’t hear if the man stayed back as the Drop Marines closed with the planet’s surface.
8
It took them seven long minutes to reach Geltrain Street, just two blocks from the market. A dozen other people were hurrying along as well.
None of the Drop Marines landed anywhere close—by design. The evacuation/No Fire Zones had been chosen away from all known and suspected Centaur positions, and the Drop Marines didn’t want to draw Centaurs to them.
“Just a little farther,” he told the woman. He’d never even asked her name.
He shifted the girl to his left hip. The little one was quietly sobbing, but at least the screams had died down.
A whine caught his attention, and with his augmented hearing, he was the first to notice. To the south, from where they’d just run, a Navy Ibis shuttle was crabbing unnaturally in the air, smoke spewing from the aft end. Rev stopped dead in his tracks. He’d ridden an Ibis before, and it could hold up to twenty-eight Marines in full battle rattle.
He could see the pilot try to keep it in the air, but it was a losing battle. The shuttle tipped to its side and started spinning.
“Straighten it up!” Rev shouted, causing the rest of the people to stop and look.
But it was no use. The shuttle’s engine whined in futility as the Ibis rolled to its back and plunged out of sight behind the buildings. Rev hoped he’d see it reappear, but an explosion rocked the ground.
“Peth!” the woman screamed, falling to her knees.
If the man had stayed in his house, he could be dead now. The shuttle had gone down right about there.
“Take them,” Rev told Teddy, handing off the baby.
People started running for the market, and Rev knew that was where he was supposed to be, but he had to make sure. He sprinted against the flow of people and reached Linhei Street, the major north-south boulevard in the area, which gave him a better view of where the shuttle had gone down. Black smoke, mixed with actinic bursts of sparks, was rising.
Crap!
“Any chance of survivors?”
The sparks within the smoke were the telltale. They were proof that the drive had broken in the crash, and that was catastrophic. The shuttle had probably wiped out two city blocks with it.
But “almost none” was not zero. He was tempted to make sure. Those were Marines and sailors on that bird.
“Hey, they said get to the market!” a man yelled as he ran past the intersection.
And that’s where he was supposed to be, he realized. With a sigh, Rev said, “Respect to the fallen,” before he turned and started to jog back up Geltrain. More people were running for safety, hoping that the Marines would protect them.
Rev prayed that was true.
Rev was at the southwest corner of the market, right alongside the White Mountain Silks booth. There was no sign of silk inside, nor much evidence of any activity despite its primo location. The business might be dead, but it gave Rev a good field of observation down Geltrain, the most obvious avenue of approach. The larger Centaurs tended to avoid constrained areas, and they’d already sent one courser. Four hundred meters of red stains along the road and then the destroyed bridge over the Muddy River were reminders of that. They could just as easily send another.
“Hey, Marine! When are they going to get us out of here?” a deep male voice asked.
Rev didn’t even turn to see who was asking. It was only the tenth or twelfth time he’d been approached during the last half-hour, all asking something along those lines.
“When the situation is secure, and if we still need to evacuate, that’s when . . . sir.” That last word was added almost as an afterthought.
“That’s bullshit. It’ll be too late. I want you to take us to Ryder now!”
Rev rolled his eyes, glad he was facing away. Ryder was the major planet in this sector, a good twenty light-years from Tenerife. If the planet was evacuated, a major logistical challenge on its own, the people would be shuttled to the nearest location where they would essentially be stashed until the situation here was better known.
And truth be told, if things got so tenuous here that the order to evacuate was issued, not everyone would get off the planet. There just weren’t the resources. That wasn’t going to be revealed to the people, however, until it had to be.
There was a huge flash that lit the sky, followed by a shock wave that rattled the walls.
“Distance?”
“See that!” the man yelled, getting up from where he’d dived to the ground. “We’re in danger!”
Rev ignored him. What else could he do?
The man didn’t take it well. He stepped up and put a hand on Rev’s shoulder, trying to turn him around. “I said—”
Whatever he was going to say was cut off when Rev spun, knocked the offending hand aside, and snarled, “Do . . . not . . . touch me.”
The forty-something man’s eyes widened in fright as he jumped back—along with most of the others crowded around Rev. “I . . . I . . .”
Rev didn’t want to be the bad guy here. He wanted the people to trust him. But this self-privileged asshole was getting on his nerves.
It took a force of will, but he lowered the ferocity in his voice. “Sir, I am here to protect you. But I need to concentrate on what might be coming. You pulling on me could be just the hesitation that lets a Cent paladin attack.”
“A . . . a paladin?” the man asked, holding his arm where Rev had hit it.
“Roscone, this Marine took out a courser on the Silver Bridge. Lots of us didn’t make it, but even more would have died if he hadn’t done that. You leave him alone, you hear?” Vivian said, stepping out from the rest of the people. The old woman looked exhausted, but she took the man by the arm and dragged him deeper into the market.
“Do you really think a paladin is coming, sir?” a high, querulous voice of a child asked from over his shoulder.
“Not if I can help it,” Rev said, turning back to cover the street.
Three hours later, the city was still a battlefield. The operations order had allotted a scant five hours to secure the city based on the suspected number of Centaurs in it. That was not going to happen. Rev wished he could get an update, but his comms remained silent. He didn’t know if that was a good thing or a bad, but he’d give anything to find out.
The stress of protecting the people while armed with two lone Morays was getting to him. Punch had already offered three times to tell him jokes, which he’d refused. By now, he was sure this joke-telling thing was part of the program, and in this situation, he took offense at the notion that he could be controlled so easily. The last time, he’d snapped at Punch, who’d withdrawn in what Rev would swear was a sullen pout.
Yeah, as if a hunk of crystals can pout.
Still, he felt a little guilty about being brusque with him.
&n
bsp; A Navy fighter whizzed overhead, unbelievably quick. At the river, it banked in a turn that only remotely operated craft could manage. There was a buzz of its Gatling as it disappeared from sight.
“Get some,” he muttered before movement caught his attention.
Down by the bridge, two mini-Centaurs emerged from the buildings, their cannons making the air ripple as they fired after the fighter.
“Shit! Where the hell did they come from?”
Rev raised his Moray as people pushed back to get away from him. He knew the Moray was more than powerful enough to take out one of the tiny Centaurs, but there were two of them, and firing both missiles would leave him with only his M-49.
Still, if those cannons turned to orient down Geltrain, he’d have no choice. There were too many people in the line of fire.
“All of you, push back so you can’t see down the road. And you,” he said, pointing at a young woman. “Go tell Corporal Reiser that we’ve got mini-Centaur action down by the bridge.”
The woman looked surprised, pointed at her chest, and quietly asked, “Me?”
“Yes, you. Now go!”
He turned back to the two mini-Centaurs. They were just sitting there, out in the opening at the base of the destroyed bridge. Rev wondered if they just didn’t have the intelligence to know they were vulnerable like that. It didn’t seem likely, given the Centaurs’ level of technology, but his eyes weren’t deceiving him.
His ears weren’t either, and he caught the high-pitched whine of a fighter, either that one looping back or another.
“Stupid dipshits,” he muttered, keeping his Moray trained on the two unsuspecting mini-Centaurs.
The Navy Shrike fighter was a compact, highly shielded piece of death. Without a living body inside, it was entirely weapons, flight surfaces, a power plant, and stealthy protection. Most energy beams targeting one were reflected aside. It would take a powerful beam quite some time to burn through the mirror-like armor and bring the plane down.
Rev had his doubts that even two mini-Centaurs could manage it in the short time it would take the fighter to line up and light them up with its kinetic Gatling. He stood up, his excitement rising. He wanted to watch this.
And there it was, shooting in like an arrow, coming down the south side of Linhei Avenue. Rev whooped as it popped up and inverted, ready to take the mini-Centaurs under fire—a whooped cut short when a missile reached up from the buildings in the area of the emitter station.
“What . . .?”
Almost instantly, the two mini-Centaurs bolted out of sight, and the fighter pulled Gs that only a remotely operated plane could achieve in an attempt to evade the Centaur missile, turning toward the market. It was no use. The missile was too quick and fired too close. The fighter came apart in a flash of flames, the resultant debris heading toward the market.
“Trajectory?”
Rev stood as what remained of the fighter headed at them. But with the market packed with people, there was nowhere to go. The largest chunk skimmed over the top of the market to hit the street and slide into the buildings on the other side, starting secondary explosions. Smaller pieces rained down everywhere as people screamed in terror.
The market might be a No Fire Zone, but neither the Centaurs nor downed human aircraft honored that designation.
“We need a doctor here!” someone yelled from behind him.
Rev turned to see people crowding around somebody, wildly gesturing for help. He turned back, feeling guilty for not getting involved. But he wasn’t a doctor, and his job was to protect the people there.
“It was a trap, right?”
Rev was angry at himself. Not that he could have done anything to save the Shrike. Even if he’d taken out the two mini-Centaurs, they had only been the bait. But he’d been caught in the trap as well. Marines knew that the Centaurs were technologically more advanced than humans were, but too often, they forgot that the creatures were also thinking, sentient beings.
At boot camp, it had been drilled into their heads that complacency kills. It sure had this time. The only saving grace was that the fighter was unmanned. But now, there were at least two armed mini-Centaurs between the Muddy River and the market.
So far, though, he’d been more in danger from his own forces. First the shuttle, now the fighter. Rev knew that there was a good chance he’d die in the war, but he didn’t want to go out like that. It should be at the hands of the enemy.
Fire sprang up from the demolished building into which the fighter had crashed, and Rev could feel the heat on his face. Civilians, who had moments before tried to get out of the way, now crowded him as they moved to gawk.
“You need to move back, people,” he shouted, letting his voice amplify just a bit. “There are still two more of them out there.”
It took some gentle pushing, but he cleared a space around him, giving him room to react to any threat.
He suddenly felt tired, his mind numb. The boost that the anger over the Navy fighter had given him receded like melting snow when the Chinooks blew.
“How long since insert?”
Rev hesitated. He’d been amped up on XL-12, the same energy sludge he’d taken on the Dixmude before the Roher-104 mission, but without sleep, that would only take him so far. He had one more option.
“You’re reading my mind.”
But if he took the boost, he’d get fifteen hours, maybe a little more. After that, he’d go down hard. It was a calculated risk. He’d be more alert, better able to protect the market, but if they were still there in fifteen hours, then what? He should have planned this out with Tomiko first, maybe having her catch some Zs. He considered trying to find her, but that would leave his corner of the market undefended.
“So, now you’re the doctor?”
But Punch was right.
Unlike the XL-12, which was swallowed, the ATP-A was a direct cellular jolt of adenosine triphosphate administered by his nanos. The “A” after the ATP stood for “augmented,” but the Marines said it stood for “agony.”
“Do it.”
A piercing flash of fire shot from his head down his spine, taking his breath away. He staggered before the fire seemed to burn away his fatigue.
“Are you OK, sir?” someone asked, stepping up to him.
“Yes, I’m fine. Totally fine.”
He gave the burning building one last look. The remaining wall collapsed in a shower of sparks. He wondered if the owner was in the market with him.
The damage to the city was someone else’s problem, however. Rev turned back to his mission, to protect the people in his charge. He just hoped that all of this would be settled before his fifteen-hour reservoir of energy was gone.
9
Fifty-four minutes later, a squad of infantry emerged onto Geltrain and headed toward the market.
“Are those Cents?” a woman asked, stepping up to stand beside Rev, her hand raised to shade her eyes.
“Those are Union Marines, ma’am,” Rev said, a wave of relief flowing over him like a tsunami.
The weight of responsibility was lifted from his shoulders.
“Hell, you have to be a fly in the ointment, don’t you?”
More people started crowding around, the general hubbub rising in volume, but even with the Marines now only a couple hundred meters away, they stayed within the boundary of the market as if a fence kept them in.
Rev knew he should be scanning the area, watching for a Centaur to pop out, but his eyes were locked onto the squad as they slowly closed the distance. As the point man reached the edge of the square, he halted, caught Rev’s eyes
, and gave him the hand-and-arm signal to wait. Rev took a single step out from the market and silently stood there.
The squad members faced outboard, and Rev’s hopes took a small hit. Why face outboard in a hasty defensive position unless there was still a threat?
A staff sergeant—a glorious sight in their PAL-3 combat suit—made their way forward and approached Rev. “Looking for Corporals Pelletier or Reiser.”
“Pelletier.”
The staff sergeant reached Rev and held out a gauntleted hand.
“Thought that must be you. Staff Sergeant Prospero, Fox Company. We’re here to relieve you,” they said in a gender-neutral voice.
“You mean, we’ve won? My comms are still down, and I’m out of the loop.”
The staff sergeant looked at the civilians crowded around, eagerly waiting on the reply. “Most of the city is secure. We’re sweeping for stragglers right now. I . . . I don’t know about the rest of the planet. As you said, comms are still down.”
The murmuring from the crowd took on a disappointed tone.
“Was there a courser taken out, maybe in the river?”
“A courser? Yeah. At the central park. Echo had a tough time with that bastard. How’d you know?”
So, it made it out.
If Echo, a full Marine company, had problems with it, then Rev really hadn’t stood much of a chance against the behemoth.
“Not important, Staff Sergeant. So, what now?”
“Like I said, we’re here to relieve you. I need a full debrief, numbers of civilians, casualties, the whole situation. After that, what you do next is up to your orders, I guess.”
The civilians were crowding closer and closer. There were lots of excited faces. Rev didn’t think there were Angel shits among them, but he wasn’t sure this was the place for a debrief.
“If I can suggest we find Corporal Reiser, she’s got a better handle on the situation here. I was out there rounding up folks for most of this.”
