by Rick Partlow
"There're at least twenty of them," he hissed into the throat mike connected to his datalink. "Heavy weapons, military grade, and armor."
"Are you getting this, Colonel Savage?" Rachel asked, her voice ringing in his ear bud.
"Yes, dammit," Savage's flat twang replied. "We're getting a vehicle, we'll be there as soon as we can. You two should slip out if you can."
"No," Rachel said in a tone that would brook no argument. "These are humans attacking Tahni females, Captain. They're trying to turn the settlement here against us. We can't let the Tahni here think we're abandoning them."
"Hey, sis," Pete interrupted, and he could hear the tension in his own voice despite an attempt to conceal it, "I'm all for that, but you know we still got a shitload of these guys coming and only two handguns between us?"
"Fear not, small human," a harsh, grating voice said from behind him. He started and spun, then checked bringing up his handgun when he saw it was one of the Tahni females, a young adult, her hands filled with what looked like a magazine-fed slug shooter of some unfamiliar design. "You will not fight alone."
Other females were filing out of the building behind her, all of them armed. There were handguns, hunting rifles, shotguns, one Tahni military laser and even a few long-handled pole-axes of some kind, but no Tahni came out of the building without a weapon in her hands. Rachel followed them out, also carrying a firearm: a human-made hunting rifle of some kind, with a telescopic sight. She crouched down near Pete while the rest of them spread out along the wall at about ten meter intervals.
"This is all really dramatic and impressive," Pete ground out to Rachel in a low mutter, trying not to be overheard, "but they're still a bunch of untrained civilians against heavily armed mercenaries."
"We just have to hold out till Colonel Savage gets here," she said with what he thought was forced optimism.
"I don't suppose any of your new friends brought surveillance drones or night vision glasses?" Pete asked, a bit louder than he'd intended.
"You didn't bring glasses?" she asked him, slipping a pair out of her jacket pocket and sliding them over her eyes. They were commercial models, more a fashion statement than the durable, functional ones he'd been issued as a constable back on Canaan, but they were a damn sight better than nothing.
Which was what he had. "Umm..." he stuttered, feeling his face redden. "I think I left mine in the shuttle's equipment locker."
Rachel shot him a look he last remembered seeing on his mother's face when he'd come home covered in mud, then she withdrew a second set of optics from the same pocket and handed them to him. He put them on and the unlit parts of the wall and the trees around them glowed with a simulated twilight, ambient light and infrared blended with seamless utility by the software in the glasses.
There was a small slit window in the wall a couple meters to his right; he shifted over to it and peered out, trying to get a glimpse of the attackers. The way they'd moved, he was sure they were military trained, which put them one up on everyone on his side of the wall even before you counted their gear.
"I guess we're lucky they didn't smuggle in combat drones," he muttered half to himself.
"Those are illegal," Rachel said, almost by reflex, and Pete laughed.
"These guys are mercenary assassins who probably know they're trying to help start a war," Pete told her. "You really think they're worried about that?"
He paused as he caught sight of what could have been movement out in the brush across the dirt road, concentrating on it until he was sure it was one of the attackers setting up in a makeshift fighting position.
"It's more that it's too hard to smuggle that into any place with halfway decent entry security," he said a bit absently. "Lucky for us, this is a big enough colony to warrant a port authority." He gestured with the barrel of his handgun out the vision slit. "They're coming in this way. I don't think there's enough of them to assault on all sides, so they're probably going to try to blow the gate."
"Lyra!" Rachel called back to one of the Tahni. Pete could tell she was motioning, but he kept most of his attention on the enemy. He aimed his handgun through the slit in the wall, judging the distance at about fifty meters, and toggled the ammo selector switch to armor piercing.
There had to be some reason he shouldn't open fire yet, but he couldn't think of it. He pushed the button on the side of the pistol and touched a pad on the earpiece of his goggles to link the handgun's sight to the optics and an amber reticle appeared in his vision to indicate the point of aim. The aiming circle jumped around fitfully as he tried to steady the handgun, and he wound up resting the butt of the gun on the bottom of the viewing slit. The image settled down and he centered it on what looked to be the curve of a helmet. The reticle wavered slightly with his breath as he let it out, then settled; in the next heartbeat he pulled the trigger.
The pistol barely moved in his hand; the projectile was kicked free of the barrel by a puff of coldgas before the rocket propellant kicked in and it flashed away with a hiss of fire and a crack of broken sound barrier. Pete guided it in with the link to his night vision glasses, keeping the aiming circle on the curve of the helmet for the half-second it took the round to strike home. There was an incandescent flare of superheated gas as the slug sent a needle-thin spray of plasma through the helmet, then an involuntary shudder as that superhot dagger turned brain tissue into steam.
The mercenary collapsed and all Hell broke loose. The night erupted in a crackling barrage of laser pulses and a rolling, echoing thunder of steam explosions as they impacted against the aggregate of the perimeter wall in bursts of liberated water vapor. Pete ducked away from the view slit just before it blew apart from multiple hits, expanding into a ragged hole bigger than his head. He felt the hot sting of concrete fragments peppering his back and dropped to a knee, his curses lost in the screams and shouting and the report of the hunting rifles returning fire.
He pushed back the half-dozen flashes of pain and stumbled to his feet, trying to find Rachel. His eyes widened as he saw her aiming her borrowed rifle out of the ragged hole where his view slit had been a moment before. He glanced furtively back and forth to check for threats; he could see up and down the wall smoldering, smoking gaps where lasers had punched through, could see the Tahni females pulling themselves up from the ground to fire back. And in one case he could see a young female lying prone who would never get up again.
Rachel fired but Pete couldn't hear the report; everything was dulled down and far away and his ears rang painfully. He could see the recoil push back her shoulder, shift her weight back onto her plant foot, then see her work the action of the hunting rifle and fire again. He knew what was coming and he yanked her away from the hole just ahead of a blast of return fire that cauterized the air before impacting the wall of the building behind them. More shrapnel buzzed by his head and he felt something hard and sharp hit him in the shoulder, but he didn't think it penetrated his clothes, much less his skin.
"We need to fall back!" he yelled to Rachel, louder than he needed to because his own voice sounded muted in his abused ears. Another burst of laser fire exploded through the aggregate block a few meters farther down as if to punctuate his statement and he stumbled slightly, nearly yanking Rachel off balance with him. "This wall is concealment, not cover!"
Rachel yelled something, but he didn't catch it through the cacophony of gunfire and wasn't even sure it was directed at him. She seemed to be looking behind him at someone, then nodded and grabbed his shoulder, pulling his ear close to her mouth.
"Back to the house!" she shouted, and it still sounded soft as a whisper. "We have to protect the Matriarch!"
"Who the fuck is the Matriarch?" he asked, but followed her anyway since she was heading away from the increasingly not-there wall.
He turned back as he ran, emptying his pistol in the general direction of the attacking force with little hope of hitting anything since he didn't dare stand still long enough to pick out a target. He didn't
try to reload, just sprinted through the door to the largest building, hot on Rachel's heels. The Tahni were coming behind them, slower, pausing to take aimed shots at the approaching troops. He hesitated in the doorway, pausing to pull out the spare handgun he'd taken from Rachel as he watched the females fall back towards him.
A swathe of laser pulses streaked out of the night and nearly cut one of them in half in an explosion of superheated blood that made him duck back through the doorway. He leaned out and tried to follow the afterimage back to its source, using his night vision glasses to spot the glowing thermal signature of the just-fired pulse carbine.
There.
A touch on the side of the handgun to connect it to the goggles then and he fired off a homing round, watching the glowing dot of its rocket motor igniting just before it blasted into the night. There was a flare of heat when it struck the laser-shooter and the small, man-shaped figure went down, his weapon falling from limp hands. Pete felt nothing but satisfaction.
He'd never been a soldier, but he'd been a cop for several years and he'd had to kill people before. Sometimes, he'd wound up feeling bad about it, usually when some poor itinerant had been forced into a situation where the alternatives were life as a chawner on the dole or picking up some rich criminal's gun. But these guys were professionals, which meant they could have worked for someone else, did something else. Instead, they were working to try to restart the war that had killed almost his whole family.
They can rot in hell, he thought as he saw the infrared outline of the body hitting the ground.
He stepped back from the doorway as the first of the Tahni females reached the building; they began to take up positions inside the interior hallway doors, trying to keep two walls between them and the incoming fire. Pete abruptly realized that he was blocking their line of fire and scampered out of the way, heading down the hallway after Rachel. He could see her location in the goggles from his connection to her 'link and he squeezed past the Tahni females in the narrow hallway to get to her, ignoring the looks they gave him. He couldn't read their facial expressions, but he didn't think they were smiling.
He reached the end of the hallway and found himself in some sort of combination bedroom and office, along with Rachel and two Tahni. One was the younger female who'd met them at the gate---he thought Rachel had called her Lyra---while the other, he was fairly certain, was the Matriarch. At least he couldn't imagine there could be an older Tahni here that was still alive. Rachel and Lyra were ushering the ancient Tahni between them through an interior door into what looked like a bathroom.
Did the Tahni have bathrooms?
"They'll be coming for her!" Rachel shouted back at him as she let go of the Matriarch's arm and let Lyra guide her the rest of the way. "That has to be why they're here!"
He could hear her better now, hear the shrill note in her voice as it echoed against the walls of the little room. He could also hear the gunfire from out in the entrance hall, the bark of slugshooters and the explosive impacts of laser pulses.
"So we stay here and make sure they don't get past us," he found himself saying. Inside, a voice screamed at him what the hell are you doing? but he ignored it. She was his sister-in-law, the only sister he had left. If this was her fight, it was his too.
He looked around and saw a table up against the wall, weighed down with some sort of primitive clothing fabricator. It was made of metal and looked solid, so he wrestled it in line with the door and tipped it over. It had to have weighed at least a hundred kilos and it hit the floor with a startlingly loud crash, cracking several of the ceramic tiles.
"Get over here!" he said to Rachel, motioning to her before ducking down behind the makeshift barricade and taking the time to reload his pistol. He tucked the pistol he'd taken from Rachel into his belt and took his own in a steadying, two-hand grip, eyes on the open door.
She used the buttstock of her rifle to lever herself down into a prone position behind the heavy table, then rested the barrel across the edge of it, snuggling the recoil pad into her shoulder. Pete wanted to say something reassuring, but all he could do was stare at the door and listen to the unmistakable sound of pulse carbines discharging as it seemed to get closer.
Someone said something over his earbud, but he couldn't quite make it out over the sounds of the gunfire coming down the hallway.
"Say again!" he yelled, hoping his throat mike could filter out the noise. He cupped a hand over his ear, trying to shut out the clamor. "Negative copy, please say again."
"I say again," a voice that might have been Savage's sounded in his ear like a shout, "we are..."
Whatever he'd been about to report, it was lost on Pete because just then the world exploded and everything went dark.
Chapter Sixteen
"Get in this fucking car or you're fired," Keller Savage snapped, pushing the younger man aside and hopping into the open cab of the utility vehicle.
"Colonel," the nominal Captain---he'd gotten out of the Marines as a 1st Lieutenant---objected again, climbing in beside him nonetheless, "there's only the four of us!" He grabbed for a handhold as the driver shifted into gear and jerked away from the curb beside their hotel. "We should wait for the others to get back!"
"They'll get to us when they can!" Savage yelled over the whine of the car's motors, not looking at Captain Jenkins, concentrating instead on checking the load of his pulse carbine.
"Why can't we at least take the shuttle?" Jenkins wanted to know, accepting his own carbine from the NCO seated next to the driver. He checked it automatically, then grabbed the proffered bandoleer of magazines. There hadn't been time to break out tactical vests or armor.
"Because by the time we got back to the landing bay and got it warmed up," Savage answered impatiently, "this fucking car could already be there! And before you ask, we aren't launching observation drones for the same fucking reason! Now shut up and get ready to shoot!"
Colonel Savage, the transmission came over his neurolink, identified by his headcomp as his second in command onplanet, Major Asahara. We had a report from one of our local sources. We think we have a line on Kah-Rint.
"Oh for Christ's sake," the former commando bit off, feeling anger surging in his stomach. "Every damned thing has to happen at the same time..."
"What is it, sir?" Jenkins asked, but Savage ignored the question.
Where is he? Savage asked, his neurolink translating the thought into a simulation of his voice on Asahara's end of the conversation.
The word is, he was staying in a sort of boarding house in the Tahni section, sir. But he's on the move...heading for the port.
Oh of course he is, Savage wondered how much of the bitter anger would translate over the neurolink. His mental gears turned quickly. He should send the rest of his troops to trap Kah-Rint; that was the mission. On the other hand, if he let Caleb's wife and brother get killed, he was pretty sure he'd be next. There weren't very many humans that scared him, but Caleb Mitchell was one of them.
Put Andersen and Kruger on it, he directed his deputy. Tell them to observe only. Don't try to take him down without my direct order. Get the rest of the troops in the shuttle and get in the air ASAP, to the coordinates I gave you.
Roger that sir, will do.
Savage sighed, resisting an urge to punch the seat in front of him. With the mood he was in, he was too likely to put his fist through it and do bad things to Master Sergeant Kimathi's spine. He wasn't going to tell Jenkins, but he wished they'd had time to go retrieve the spy drones...and some armor, and heavier weapons. But they'd been lucky to even have the vehicle handy; Jenkins had just returned with it from a scouting run in the canyons west of town.
There were still people on the street, even after dark, and a couple of them had to sprint to get out of their car; Tech Sergeant Lopez had been told to hurry and the man obeyed orders. Savage was a little concerned that the local law enforcement would notice them and cause a delay they couldn't afford, but apparently a speeding groundcar was
a bit too low level to bring them out of their nice, comfortable offices at this time of night. Based on how readily they'd accepted his bribes, he wasn't too impressed with them.
A cool wind whipped at Savage's face and he could feel dust grinding between his teeth as the vehicle left the city limits and the paved road behind. It was as dark as the inside of a well out past the city lights, but it seemed like twilight to his lens implants and Lopez was using night vision goggles, so the car's lights stayed off. It was bad enough they'd be visible on thermal.
"Ah fuck it," he muttered to himself. "They'll probably think no one is stupid enough to come at them with four guys and a rental car."
They were a kilometer out when he started to hear the sounds of the battle: discharging lasers, gunshots, shouts in English and Tahni. A Normal couldn't have picked them up over the hum of the car's motor, the rush of the wind by his face and the rasp of the tires crushing the dirt and gravel beneath them; but his headcomp separated out the noises and gave him an estimate of where each originated.
How many years have I been taking shit like that for granted? he wondered. Could I operate without it?
It was a moot point; it was a permanent part of him and it would most likely outlive his biological parts. Will I still be swimming along inside the headcomp's memory after my brain shuts down? Like some digital ghost?
Seven hundred meters.
"Engage when you're in range," Savage yelled in Jenkins' ear. "I'm getting out."
"Sir?" the man said, blinking with incomprehension.
He'll figure it out, Savage thought, then vaulted out of the vehicle and into the night.
* * *
"You need to chill the hell out," Deke Conner said, not looking up, his conscious concentration focused on the upcoming transition to realspace.
