I couldn’t let that fear pull him down though. I had busted my ass to keep him alive so far, and I wasn’t going to let the yellow streak forming down his back make all that hard work worthless now.
“What the hell did you think was going to happen?” I asked, my tone harsher than it needed to be. If I was mad, he would either get mad himself or get strong. Either one was better than being scared, better than being dead. “You joined the damned Marines, didn’t you?”
His eyes grew wide at my tone.
“You read the words. You spoke the vows.” I shook my head. “Don’t stand there and tell me you’re scared now.”
“N-no,” he answered, shaking his head. Good. The kid went for strong instead of angry. That spoke well to his resolve. “I was just surprised. I was told fliers were scarce now. I didn’t think they’d post them on a sleepy moon outpost.”
“Sleepy?” I scoffed. “This sleepy moon outpost isn’t as sleepy as you thought it was. This place was a trap, Billy, a goddamn planet-sized trap. They wanted to lure us here and kill us dead, probably to make an example of us. I wouldn’t be surprised if they pulled out all the stops, fliers among them.” I looked at the boy. “And don’t believe everything you hear from the news or the recruitment office. Both of them were just trying to get you to sign up. Telling you that the big bad monster you’ve spent your whole life hoping wouldn’t come flying toward you from the sky is almost dead is a pretty good tactic, wouldn’t you say?”
“I guess,” he answered somberly. As he blinked, I saw his entire face drop.
I knew that moment. I had seen it on countless grassfeds over the years. I had worn it myself. It was the moment you realized everything you thought was true about the world wasn’t. It was the moment you realized this fight they sucked you into wasn’t about what you thought it was.
Sure, it was a damned good fight, and we had to do it, but it was not as bright and shiny as it looked on television, and, if you did survive, maybe you didn’t feel so good about yourself afterward. Maybe you'd done things you weren't proud of. Maybe you turned your back on your fellow Marine in order to save your own hide.
I watched that moment settle on Billy, and I knew it would swallow him up if I didn’t stop it, if I didn’t pull him out.
“Your father loved gummy bears,” I said, sighing and following the red line as it directed us up a sand hill in the distance.
“What?” He looked over at me with his mouth agape.
“Don’t look so surprised.” I shrugged. “You said you wanted to know some stuff about your father. I’m telling you what I can remember.”
His voice cracked as he asked, “About gummy bears?”
“Yeah. You know, the candies. Shaped like damn bears, come in a lot of different flavors.”
“I know what they are,” Billy answered. “I just, I never knew that.”
“Oh, yeah,” I continued. “Your dad couldn’t get enough of the stuff. He used to have a plastic bag of those damn things everywhere he went. They’re not part of the regimented diet as you go through training. Processed sugar is the devil, and all that, but your dad used to sneak plastic bags of them into the barracks.” I smiled. “Not that he’d share. I think he gave me one of them in all the time we knew each other.”
“You know,” he said, looking over at me, “I used to think my mother was lying. When she told me that my dad knew Mark Ryder, that he’d worked alongside him. I used to think she wrote those letters herself, so that maybe I’d think my dad was a hero. So that, when I saw other kids playing catch in the park with their fathers, I’d know there was a good reason that mine wasn’t there.” He shook his head, and I saw tears in the boy’s eyes. “She wasn’t lying though, was she? He really was a hero?”
A pang of guilt ran through me, and not just because this kid’s father was dead. The truth was, I had no idea whether that gummy bear story was about Bill Langham or not. He was a good man, and I had always thought of him as my friend, but I remembered the action and not the identity. That story could have been about any number of men I knew in my first year here, about any number of now-dead boys.
The thing I told him next though, that was absolutely the honest to God truth. “Every man and woman who puts on one of these suits is a hero, son.” I put my hand on his shoulder, stopping us both in our tracks midway up the hill. “Your dad was, and you are too. You gotta remember that. You’ve gotta believe it. Acting like a hero is what makes you one, but believing you’re a hero is what makes you act like one. Get it?”
He didn’t have time to answer before Annabelle chimed in.
“Lieutenant Ryder,” Annabelle’s voice sounded in my head. “I’m afraid there’s been a miscalculation.”
“Miscalculation?” I asked, my hand tightening instinctively atop Billy’s shoulder. I didn’t like the sound of that. A miscalculation got you killed out here.
“A shielding frequency has been put in place throughout various parts of this moon. My system has only now been able to identify and disable it. My initial report on your safety was exaggerated. I’m afraid your enemy is closer than expected.”
“Really?” I muttered. “How close are they?”
“Rather than give you an exact distance, I’ll simply make a suggestion. Look up.”
My head shot up and, right over us were three of the largest fliers I had ever seen in my life. Large with huge heads, hulking bodies and flapping translucent wings. In their clawed feet, hung a trio of women.
My heart raced. “Artemis.”
10
“Oh my God,” Billy muttered from beside me, and I could practically hear him wetting himself. One look at the fliers and all the work I’d done to calm him down and stop him from sliding into panic drifted away like dust in the wind.
“They’ve got them,” he babbled on, terror thick in his tone. “They’re flying away with them.” He swallowed hard. “Do you think they’re still alive?”
“Shut up,” I said flatly, looking up at the trio of fliers dotting the sky and the women dangling from their clutches. As they weren’t in my command structure, I didn’t get any vital information on their nameplates other than IWA Marine – Artemis Squad A, B, and C. They were moving, but they were too far away for me to be able to tell whether or not that was because they were struggling or because their lifeless bodies were simply swaying with the motion.
It would make sense. Just like the people of Earth used an intercepted recording to boost morale, the bugs had been known to deposit the bodies of our fallen (when there was enough a person left to consider it a body) on the steps of one of their holy buildings or in front of one of their authority figures. Hell, sometimes they’d just dump a human corpse right into a crowd, and all the bugs would cheer their black hearts out.
Maybe that’s what they were doing now. Maybe what I was watching was the end of a legend, the last chapter in the Mina John’s story and, as a footnote to that chapter, I was too damned late to do anything about.
“No,” I muttered, my jaw tightening nervously. Luckily, for me, I had someone in my head who could see a lot further and go a lot deeper than I ever would be able to.
“Annabelle, run outward diagnostics,” I commanded. “Tell me if those women are still alive, and if they are, what kind of condition they’re in.”
“Affirmative,” Annabelle answered, all business. Someone must have accepted the information request, be it Della or Mina John or the suits themselves, because info popped up under the nameplates. No ID info yet, but body temperature, heart rate, and other vital health statistics flooded in.
“All three of the members of Artemis squad are alive,” Annabelle said, and I felt the cool rush of relief pass through me.
“Condition?” I could tell they were alive by the nameplate info but Annabelle could give me more in-depth data.
“Minor internal injuries, broken bones, and dehydration, which is to be expected. Preliminary scans show nothing life-threatening.”
�
��You know, except for the fact that they’re being held by three of the most dangerous creatures in the whole of the universe,” I muttered.
“There is that. Though, to be fair, the universe is still, for the most part, a vast mystery to us. The chances of a bigger threat existing somewhere in the cosmos is roughly 79.5 percent.”
With that blissful nugget of information in my head, I turned to Billy.
“What kind of offensive weaponry do you have?” I asked, looking over at the younger man.
“A stun cannon, a robusta rang, and a chomper cloud,” he said, looking from the flier to me expectantly.
The Alliance loved to give their weapons all sorts of fantastic names, especially nowadays. It went along with all the flashy graphics, rankings, and coin awards, anything to make you spend more coin for what they offered to the Marines.
The ‘robusta rang’ was just a hi-tech boomerang, using inertial guidance and gravitic engines to guide it back to its thrower and magnify its impact. The ‘chomper cloud’ especially was a stupid name, but it was apt. It created a mist of consumptive nanites that ate any kind of matter, even the gas in the air, and turned those raw materials into a crude but effective net of raw polymer.
“Buy a neo lasso,” I commanded quickly, looking back up at them. If we didn’t do something quickly, they would get away, and they’d take the Artemis squad with them. “You got enough coin for that?”
“Yes, but—”
“Don’t. Don’t tell me about how you were saving up to buy out of your contract, or that it’s always been your dream to live on a houseboat or that your saint of a mother wants new pearls. We won’t make it out of this if you don’t do exactly as I say, and neither will those women. Do you understand me?”
“Yes, Mark.” I watched his eyes flash blue, indicating he had connected with the Alliance Central Store. ”Download commencing,” he said. “It’ll be complete in three, now two seconds.”
“Good,” I said, thinking. One of the great benefits of nanotech to us Marines was the ability to make weapon modifications and combinations on the fly, a benefit we were about to abuse. “Fuse the lasso with the chomper cloud and connect the rang to the end of it. Then toss it up toward the fliers but miss them wide.”
“Miss them?” he asked, narrowing his still blue eyes at me.
“You do that, and the rang will send the lasso right back to you. The chomper cloud will activate, and it’ll create a circular net of polymer around them, trapping them inside and eating at any bugs that try to escape.”
“You’re going to make a plastic fence?” he asked, confused.
“No. You’re going to make the electric fence. I’m just going to make sure I’m trapped inside with them when you do.”
“Oh my God,” he stammered.
“You say that a lot, don’t you?”
“I guess I just keep waiting for him to help,” Billy admitted.
“The Lord helps those who help themselves,” I said, repeating something my grandmother used to tell me back when I thought the world was a much simpler place. “Now get that damn lasso out.”
“What are you going to do?” he asked as his eyes reverted, telling me the download was complete.
“I’m going to fly, Billy boy.” I looked back up into the sky. “I’m also going to kill some bugs and, with any luck, I’m going to save three pretty badass women.” I cleared my throat. “Annabelle, Thrus—”
“Wait!” Billy shouted, holding his hands out in front of him to stop me. “What if I can’t do it? What if I can’t aim the lasso and it doesn’t work or something? I could get you killed. I could get you both killed. I could be the guy who kills Mark Ryder and Mina John.”
“Or you could be the guy who cracks the world in half or the guy who cures cancer,” I replied. “Anything is possible, kid. We do what we do because we have to do it. All we can hope is that the people beside us do their best.” I nodded. “And I believe you’ll do your best. Besides, you’re not alone. What’s your suit named?”
“Hector,” he answered.
“Really?” I said, squinting. Poor bastard. “Hector’s connected to your brain. He’ll help you. He’ll make sure it goes down the right way.” I turned away from him. “Now get it done.”
“Okay,” he answered.
Looking up at the fliers with their flapping insect wings, exoskeletons and long appendages that ended in shape, curved claws, their nameplates popped up as my targeting systems locked on. Acburian Flyer, they read and lucky me, a pop-up told me that they had an Alliance Bounty Special! on them today (an extra 10,000 coins per kill).
I took a deep breath. “Annabelle, lower thrusters on, and plot a course toward those ugly bastards.”
“Affirmative, and might I say,” she continued as the thrusters in my feet turned on, “that was quite the pep talk.”
“You know me,” I said as the force of the thrusters lifted me from the ground below. “I’m a goddamn inspiration.”
I roared through the air toward the fliers. I was always surprised at how quiet this suit could be. Even when it was doing amazing things, like lifting the two-hundred-pound man inside of it clean off the ground and shooting him toward his target like an arrow with fingernails and a love for tequila, it barely made a peep.
“Lowering thruster intensity by fifteen percent,” Annabelle told me as I leveled off into the air. “Might I suggest some long-range weaponry?”
“You’re a woman after my own heart, Annabelle,” I said, “but I can’t shoot yet.”
“I’m not a woman at all, Lieutenant Ryder,” she answered, “are you afraid you’ll miss?”
“Don’t insult me like that, sweet thing. We both know I’m the best shot on either side of the Milky Way. I just have to wait until the kid gets the lasso up. I need him to be clearheaded and vigilant when it happens.”
“When what happens, Lieutenant Ryder?” Annabelle asked.
“When I do it. When I kick some flier ass, and these women start dropping out of the sky.”
I looked at the three of them, still held by the fliers. I knew nothing about the other two, but Mina John, the middle one if I was visually judging the suits correctly, was capable. If she was half as capable as the stories said, she’d have known that enough thrust in the opposite direction would have freed her from the grasp of these fliers.
With that knowledge, I had to assume part of her suit system was down. She must have found herself in a trap too, thrown down into something custom designed to take her out, which meant she likely couldn’t fly. If her suit was suffering from that malfunction, it stood to reason that all of Artemis squad was dealing with the same issue. A drop from this height would reduce them to tin-wrapped blood and guts, even with shielding on.
Luckily, the lasso cloud Billy was about to create would serve as something of a netting. It would basically trap us all in a giant suspended plastic bag like we were goldfish some kid had just won at a county fair.
I moved closer, close enough that I began to be afraid the fliers would see me. While I didn’t mind going hand to claw with the bastards, that would mess up my plans right quick.
“Annabelle, initiate camouflage.”
“Thermal, visual, of energy signature?” she asked into my head.
“I’m feeling frisky. How about all three?”
“Affirmative.”
A tingle ran through me, and I saw a shimmer of light pass over my eyes. In an instant, I was invisible to the both the bugs and the people carrying them. Normally, I would connect with the Artemis leader and let her know what was going on, but Annabelle still wasn’t receiving anything from Mina’s communications device. That must have been damaged too.
Luckily, my communications with Billy were up and running, so I could talk him through what he needed to do.
“Billy,” I said, “I know you can’t see me anymore, but trust that I’m bridging the gap. Rangs have a pretty wide range. So I want you to wait three seconds and then toss it. On
ce the barrier is in place, and these things have nowhere to run, I’m going to take them out.”
I thought about that for a second; how insane it must have sounded to a grassfed like Billy for me to actually want to trap myself in a confined space with these things. That was the job though, and it was time to go to work.
“Say affirmative, so I know you heard me, dammit!”
“Sorry,” he said nervously. “Affirmative. Sorry.”
“It’s okay, kid,” I said, silently speeding up and bridging the gap between us. Now that I was closer, I could see how much two of the three armored people were struggling. The third hung still in the center, body swaying with the breeze. Since Annabelle had assured me all three were alive, I’d have bet my right hand that the calm one was Mina. I’d have done the same thing. No sense in wasting your energy when you’re in a situation you can’t escape from.
“One!” I heard Billy shout, finishing his countdown.
The rang flew through the air, crackling with the cloud-infused lasso behind it. It rushed toward us and, for the first time, the fliers (and presumably the people they carried) caught sight of us.
I held my breath as the rang arced toward us, and looking at it, I immediately knew something was wrong. It was supposed to miss wide, far enough away so that the circle it took encompassed the lot of us. It was too close though. It was far too close.
The rang slammed into the first flier, slashing into the thing and filling it with all the energy from the cloud-infused lasso. It shook and convulsed as the nanites went to town eating it, forcing it to drop the poor girl it was carrying, and instead of initiating her thrusters, she flailed and plummeted toward the ground below.
11
I watched as the armored woman plummeted helplessly toward the ground. I was right to assume her thrusters weren’t working and, even though Billy’s suit came standard with them, I didn’t imagine he was in any mental condition to catch her, anyway.
He had totally screwed up the toss; a real feat considering how precise the internal targeting mechanisms in our suits are. He must have really overcompensated for distance or something. Whatever the reason, it let me know the most important lesson I could ever learn about the man. He might have been kind, well-meaning, and even brave when it came down to it, but I couldn’t count on him in a crunch. That one thing, unfortunately, meant more than all the others put together.
Doomed Space Marine: A Space Adventure (Bug Wars Book 1) Page 7
