Ranger

by William Stacey

  But it didn't matter anymore.

  As she reloaded Alex's rifle, she saw it was hopeless—the enemy was almost on them. She looked at her husband. He held his last hand grenade, the pin still in place. She dropped the rifle, leaned in, and placed her hand atop his. "I love you."

  He yanked the pin free as the boggarts stormed up the incline, with hundreds coming out of the trees. He held her tightly. "I'm—"

  His words froze as a metallic object the size of a football flew over them. Held aloft by four small propellers, the strange object spun in place, pointing a camera lens at Alex and Leela.

  Two gateways flashed into existence on either side of them, and all hell broke loose.

  Alex stared at the Unmanned Aerial Vehicle, understanding it was a backpack-portable short-range sensor platform, but didn't understand how it was there or what its presence meant. When two circular gateways opened on either side of them, he forgot about the hand grenade he was holding and the pin ring he had already removed. When the safety lever popped off and the grenade hissed as the fuse activated, he suddenly remembered what he was holding, threw the grenade down the hill, and saw it bounce among a cluster of boggarts. He threw himself atop Leela.

  The grenade detonated with an ear-splitting boom and a blast of dark black smoke, throwing dirt on Alex and Leela and sending shrapnel winging through the air, cutting leaves loose. Alex lifted himself from Leela. Her lips moved, but he only heard ringing. A large figure strode out of each gateway, hurrying to the side to let others rush through—soldiers, dozens, at least a platoon's worth, all in full battle-rattle but wearing futuristic gear the likes of which Alex had never seen. The soldiers spread out, dropping to their knees to open fire on the enemy with futuristic-looking bullpup assault rifles he didn't recognize. When they fired, it took Alex a moment to realize the weapons weren't expelling the spent cartridges. They're using caseless ammo.

  The two larger figures, the ones that had come through first, lifted their arms before them, pointing at the Remnant forces. Alex's breath caught in his throat when he realized they were women wearing armored exo-suits, powered exoskeletons that encased their legs, arms, and torsos in camouflage-painted metal plates, pistons, gears, and cables. Each suit had two large articulated appendages affixed to their backs that bent forward over the women's heads, pointing forward. The needlelike tips of the appendages glowed white-hot. The two women wore the same futuristic combat helmets as the other soldiers, with visors that came down over their noses, leaving only their mouths exposed. One woman was white, the other black.

  The black woman raised her hands before her, and fog and blowing snow filled the air like an arctic storm. Visibility dropped, and the air went frigid. The other woman lifted her arms, and Alex saw that her exo-suit was fitted with weapons attached to the forearms, projectile launchers. Hundreds of small darts flew soundlessly from the weapons, sending a withering hail of razor-tipped death at the enemy. The darts spread out on their own, each seeking its own target. She's using telekinesis, he realized, directing each missile's path.

  Alex rose, but Leela dragged him back, wrapped her arms around him, and yelled something. He stared at her in confusion. In exasperation, she grabbed Witch-Bane's handle, drew the sword, then threw it away behind them. Before he could move, she gripped the sides of his head, and heat and energy rushed through his skull. His ears popped, but he could hear again: screams, gunfire, explosions, and the howling arctic storm.

  "—away from them," Leela repeated. "They're mag-sens. You'll only get in the way."

  Alex stared at her then the two mag-sens and the other soldiers, dozens of them now, with more still charging out of the open gateways and forming firing lines.

  None of this was possible.

  A soldier ran up to him, a young man, he thought, but the dark glass of his visor obscured most of his face. "Major Benoit—Alex—I need you and Leela to stay the fuck down, you hear me?"

  The voice was familiar. Alex nodded, and he and Leela dropped onto their bellies. Alex crawled to his sword and retrieved it. He couldn't just leave it—it was his only defense against dark-elf mages. It had originally been a spear, and Alex had taken the weapon from the dark-elf mage-hunter Ulfir Dunwalker—after shoving it through his throat and into his brain. Kargin had reforged it into a more useful weapon for Alex, a short sword.

  Alex rejoined Leela, and they lay together, watching the slaughter. The blinding snow obscured the enemy, but Alex heard their screams. The gunfire and metallic darts were cutting them to pieces. And the soldiers weren't firing blindly into the snow, he realized. Each soldier was taking aimed shots.

  How?

  A moment later, he understood—thermal imaging. Years ago, Kargin, the dwarven technomancer, had discussed the possibility of using body heat to find invisible dark-elf mages. Kargin was certain it would work, and here was proof. The helmet visors must have overlaid a thermal image of the battle. In the snowstorm, the enemy was blind, while the soldiers saw perfectly. Even an invisible mage would glow red. They had lost their one defining advantage against humanity.

  Time for payback.

  "Mage, ten o'clock," the black mag-sens yelled.

  "On it," the other answered, changing aim with her darts and sending them arcing into the blowing snow.

  "You got her, Long Bow, you got her. Good shooting," the black woman called out. She spoke with an African accent, Alex realized. South African, he thought.

  The other mag-sens, Long Bow, whooped in triumph, pumping her fist in the air.

  The soldier who had ordered them to stay low, the one with the familiar voice, dropped onto a knee, watching the battle. "Acknowledged," he said, nodding. He raised his voice. "Snow White, Sunray wants that cut-off force now. We've got squirters."

  "On it," the black woman yelled. She turned to her right, and the appendages of her exo-suit bent forward, light flaring from their tips, so bright it was like looking at a welder's arc. Alex looked away, closing his eyes, but he still saw ghostly afterimages. When his vision cleared, another gateway flared into existence, and through it, Alex saw forest, blinding snow, and boggarts racing toward it.

  The gateway opens in front of them.

  Snow White slipped out of the way as five more exo-suit-wearing soldiers, all men, ran from one of the other gateways for the new one. Three of the men carried M134 miniguns, six-barreled 7.62mm Gatling guns that could spit out five thousand rounds a minute, while the other two carried MK 19 automatic grenade launchers. The men wore large metal ammo packs on their backs, with covered belts of ammo running from weapon to pack. The equipment must have weighed hundreds of pounds. Weapons like that were mounted on vehicles, yet the five men loped along with them effortlessly.

  They ran through the new gateway without hesitation. As the last man went through, his metal-cased boots pounding the earth, the gateway collapsed.

  A second later, the first minigun fired, sounding like a long, wet fart. The detonation of grenades followed, with the screams of dying Remnants.

  Who are these people?

  The shooting stopped as quickly as it had begun, and the soldiers peered over their weapons, looking for new threats. The silence was deafening after the tumultuous firefight. He tasted the cordite in the air.

  "Your call, Snow White," Long Bow said, dropping her arm-mounted dart launchers.

  Snow White lowered her arms, and the storm dissipated, exposing the carnage before them. Alex rose to his feet, with Leela joining him, standing just behind him.

  Long Bow turned and grinned at Snow White, her teeth flashing. "Absolutely badass, you magnificent war-bitch!"

  "Long Bow," called out the soldier in charge. "Eyes front. We're still weapons free."

  She pouted. "Relax, Cap. We—"

  A single rifle shot rang out, proving what she was about to say a lie. A score of soldiers opened fire, shredding the boggart who had been hiding behind the carcass of a hellhound. The boggart's body fell apart under the impact of the bullets
.

  Once more, silence drifted over the battlefield, littered with the corpses of hundreds of boggarts, trolls, hellhounds, and dark elves. Blood mingled with the melting snow, turning the ground wet.

  "Alex," Leela mumbled, sounding confused.

  He turned just as she fell into his arms. He stared at the spreading bloodstain on the back of her tactical vest. And the large bullet hole.

  11

  Alex placed Leela onto her side to stop her lungs from filling with blood. He moved by rote, his heart stuttering with the beginnings of panic, as he ran his fingers over the entry wound in her chest and the larger exit hole in her back. She grasped at his face, her fingers trailing blood in his beard. Her eyes rolled up into her head.

  She's going into hypovolemic shock. She'll die. "Listen to me, baby. You need to stay awake. Focus on my voice." He unzipped her vest and pulled it from her. He pushed against her wounds with both hands, trying to apply pressure, but her warm blood soaked his legs.

  "Medic!" someone yelled. A woman, her face obscured by her helmet and visor, knelt next to Alex. "I have her, Major."

  "She's… she's bleeding out," Alex stammered.

  "I have her," she stressed, elbowing him aside.

  A firm hand grabbed his arm and pulled him back, the same young man in charge. "Alex, let her do her job." He reached up and activated a button on the side of his helmet, and the visor snapped up, disappearing within it.

  Alex stared in confusion. "Lee?"

  It was Lee Costner, the Canadian Army private who had helped defeat the dragon Bale-Fire six years ago. What's he doing here?

  Lee pulled Alex farther back. "Are you hurt?"

  Alex watched the medic cut away Leela's shirt, exposing the bullet wound in her sternum, still spurting blood. They were losing her. Two more medics joined the first, helping her apply pressure with gauze pads to both wounds. They applied a blood pressure monitor to her arm and nodes from an EKG monitor to a half dozen different locations on her chest and neck.

  "She'll be fine," Lee insisted. "These are good people, the best."

  Each medic wore a GoPro-style camera atop his or her helmet. The first medic spoke clinically, detailing the results of her preliminary examination of Leela to someone, but she wasn't speaking to the others, he realized, but he didn't see a radio microphone anywhere. "What… what are they doing?" he asked.

  "Dr. Ireland is with Cassie back at base. They're assessing the best course of action."

  The female medic looked at the black mag-sens. "Snow White, Boko, I need you to stabilize her—now!"

  Snow White lumbered forward, her metal exo-suit creaking. Despite the weight of the suit, she easily lowered herself onto a metal knee beside Leela. She slid the visor on her helmet up, revealing a stern-looking woman with piercing dark eyes. She held her hands out over Leela's chest, but a moment later, she looked puzzled. "Something's blocking me."

  "Me," Alex said, a wave of cold fear washing over him. He yanked his arm free of Lee and staggered back several feet, his heart stuttering. "Try again."

  Snow White's lips cracked into a smile. "Okay, I'm channeling again—even with my poor healing skills."

  Leela moaned, a good sign.

  Snow White stood up, her exo-suit whining. "I've slowed the bleeding, but I can't heal that much internal damage. She needs Starlight."

  The medic nodded then carried on with the conversation she was having over the radio. After listening to someone, she turned to face Lee. "Vitals are stabilized, heart-rate and blood pressure, but they want her right now."

  Lee bit his lower lip, looking at Snow White. "Got the juice?"

  "Not on my own. I'll need to link with Liv." She looked at the other mag-sens then punched buttons on a keypad on her forearm. "I'm linking through your suit, drawing power from your crystal."

  "Got it," Long Bow answered, staring at an identical keypad. "Link's solid and holding green. Do it now!"

  Snow White turned away, the appendages on her suit flaring with light. Another gateway opened, this one revealing a hospital emergency ward with white walls, stainless-steel cabinets, rows of electronics, and medical personnel in scrubs, watching them. Alex recognized a young woman with short blond hair—Cassie Rogan, codenamed Starlight, one of the first mag-sens. Cassie wore a long black glove on her left arm—the Brace, a powerful magical talisman that augmented a mag-sens's magical powers.

  The three medics lifted Leela and carried her through the gateway. Alex took a step to follow, but Lee caught him, holding him in place. "Not you. Don't worry. Cassie's got her."

  The gateway winked out of existence.

  Alex faced Lee. "Who… what?"

  "Later," Lee said. He stared at the giant red-tinted rip in the sky. "Sunray, we're good for Watchmaker and the bird." He waited, listening to the other end of the conversation. "Ack." He turned to face Long Bow. "Sunray's coming in as well. Look sharp, people!"

  Long Bow raised her visor, revealing a beautiful young woman with ice-blue eyes, a loose strand of blond hair, and skin so pale it looked like ivory. "On it."

  She used her own glowing appendages to create yet another gateway, exposing the forest where the rangers had hidden their trucks. Alex saw dozens of soldiers, including Paco and Mo.

  The soldiers rushed through the gateway, followed by Paco carrying the terrified Mo in his arms. The moment Paco was through, he dropped Mo onto the grass, and the dog launched itself forward, charging into Alex so hard he almost knocked him down.

  "I'm glad to see you too." Alex heard the emotion in his voice. "Thank you," he whispered.

  Paco embraced Alex. "She's going to be fine, brother."

  "I know." And she would be. With the Brace, Cassie could heal anything but the dead, and Leela had been alive, her vitals holding.

  "Alex," said a familiar female voice from behind him.

  He turned to face Heidi "Huck" Armstrong, the artillery officer who had helped them assault the Culling Machine. Huck wore the three bars of a major on her combat uniform, a uniform that Alex now realized, like the others, belonged in a science-fiction movie. She wore a jumpsuit made from thick material with a camouflage pattern that perfectly matched the surrounding woodlands, then Alex saw the pattern shift to reflect the tree trunk behind Huck. My God, it's like a chameleon's skin.

  She hugged Alex. "I'm sorry about Leela, but I've just heard from base. Cassie's already healed her. She's fine—tired but healthy. Dr. Ireland wants to watch her overnight."

  His knees buckled as a wave of relief washed over him. Huck grasped him, holding him on his feet.

  "Thank you. Thank you."

  "Gonna hug me, too, manling? I'm feeling a wee bit lonely me own self," a booming voice with an odd accent asked.

  Kargin Ice-Hand stood behind Alex, grinning like a hairy bearded fiend.

  Kargin was a dwarf and a technomancer—a master artisan among his people, who could create magical artifacts. As bald as an egg, he had a thick pleated red beard that hung to his waist. With his bulbous nose, squinty eyes, and lined features, Kargin could have stepped out of a fantasy movie and even carried a magical fighting ax in a loop on his belt opposite a Smith and Wesson 500 Model hand cannon. He was just over four feet in height, but his massive shoulders and powerful limbs belied his size. His muscular structure was beyond dense, more akin to an ape than a man. A really, really strong ape.

  Emotion surged through Alex, and he embraced the dwarf, a sensation like hugging bricks. "Old friend, it's so good to see you. What are you doing here?"

  Kargin and a female dwarf named Ylra Shatter-Fist were the only other survivors of the attack on the Culling Machine. They had lived in Doig River for a year after the cataclysmic event before moving to Boulder City to help McKnight rebuild civilization, a task for which the dwarven technomancer was ideally suited. Kargin, like his father before him, was a genius. In fact, Kargin's father had forged Witch-Bane before Kargin had reforged it. A legendary warrior among his people, Kargin had even taught
Alex the basics of sword fighting, although he had groused that Alex was too old to learn properly.

  Kargin stepped back, slapping Alex on the shoulders with a powerful blow. "Saving your skinny manling ass. Although if we're being honest, we're also here for the gamma radiation Helena Simmons detected." He looked at the glowing rip in the sky in the distance. "And now we know why." He paused, his eyes narrowing as he stared. "Those ruins look familiar."

  "You ready, Watchmaker?" Huck asked, glancing at the phenomenon.

  "Ready for what?" Alex asked.

  "That," said Kargin, pointing at the three soldiers who were preparing another UAV for flight. This UAV was much larger than the first, several feet long, with four separate propellers and many cameras and short antennae. They're sending that through the rip, Alex realized. Why? And how are they creating their own gateways?

  The other soldiers, several platoons, moved across the battlefield, providing emergency first aid for the wounded enemy—he didn't approve but had no say in the matter. Other soldiers had established sentry positions. The five exo-suit-wearing soldiers with the heavy weaponry now returned, walking back from the direction in which the enemy had tried to flee.

  "Not too shabby for a unit with a stupid-ass name like 'Strike Force,' is it?" Paco asked from beside him.

  Alex had to agree. In the space of minutes, McKnight's quick reaction force, at least a company in size, had gutted a Remnant force three times as large, including their mages, and without taking a single injury—other than Leela, and she had only been injured because he had been stupid enough to stand up.

  "Good to go, ma'am," one of the soldiers setting up the UAV yelled.

  The four propellers beat a consistent thrum, and the UAV rose into a hover several feet above the ground, dislodging grass and dirt. The engine was more powerful than he had expected. Must be heavy.

  Huck looked at Kargin, who nodded. "Send it through," she yelled.

  The UAV rose then darted forward, climbing over the trees as it soared toward the red-tinged gash. Moments later, the UAV vanished from sight.