I looked at the old-fashioned telephone handset just inside the door to the CP. “She’ll call when there’s something to report.”
“When she does, I’ll be ready.” O’Hare turned and splashed out through the flashbulb effects of the lightning, the rain greying out her image.
“What was that all about?” asked Zandra.
I stared out into the downpour for a long time. “We were working for a Jakota Commerce Czar on a world called Jandu…a small, piss-ant place, probably a year before your pops came on board with us. We were supposed to be stamping out a bunch of pirates raiding trade routes from the colonial mine settlements to the central space port. Apparently the locals didn’t care for a bunch of aliens lifting their precious resources without so much as a peck on the cheek.
“We did a hell of a job, too. Poor bastards were only using small arms and modified civilian vehicles.” I motioned to the world around us. “Not much unlike this place, until yesterday.
“The bitch of it was, the Commerce Czar had some pretty influential enemies, as figures in power tend to do, and these enemies took up the cause of these poor, oppressed locals and contracted another merc unit—humans.”
“The Night Stalkers.”
I nodded. “I’ll never know how they got their infiltrators on the ground without us detecting them, but they’d been there for a while, studying our tactics, and maximizing their on-hand resources and stepping up their raids to draw us in.
“That’s when we came across a piece of intel. The pirates—we still called them pirates—had a camp dug into a canyon wall on the backside of a great river. Couldn’t tell you what the aliens called it. We came to call it, ‘The River Styx.’” I drew a deep breath. “Many a soul was carried to the Nether World that day.
“We attacked with the whole company—25 CASPers. Of course, that was what they wanted. The Janduans fired down on us from the canyon wall with smuggled weapons—chem lasers and guided rockets mostly. We lost two CASPers in the first salvo, their pilots killed, and a third was badly damaged, its pilot hurt badly.
“That’s when the Night Stalkers came out of the woods behind us. It was a beautifully executed ambush. Pinned us right to the wall with plunging fire coming down on our heads. Should’ve cost us the whole unit.”
I looked back through the darkened downpour toward the sleeping metal beasts. “Two more of our company went down, burning, in the Stalkers’ opening salvo. One of them, a fresh-faced kid, screamed until the line went dead.” My mind moved without control to Karen. “Our pilot in the damaged CASPer needed to be medevac’d but we were knee deep in shit.”
I pinned her with a stare. “We all fought like demons that day, but Jake…” I chuckled without amusement. “Jake fought like he was at the right hand of Lucifer, himself. The Stalkers pressed their advantage, I mean hard. Shot the whole damned company to hell. We had to do something or die. Jake took three volunteers in a mixed unit and charged right across the river we’d been using as shelter. He was critical on ammo—we all were—but he pushed them off that little knoll, blazing away with his carbine. Karen led the rest of the company up the face of the canyon with jump jets against the Janduan insurgents at the lip.”
“What happened?” Zandra asked.
“Both sides claimed victory. Stalkers held the field and 12 of our CASPer battle suits; they killed 11 of the pilots and took Jake prisoner. It was six weeks before Karen got him back for a pretty healthy ransom. We claimed strategic victory. The Stalkers hadn’t been bested, but The Battle Styx ended the insurrection. The Janduans had taken their best shot and failed.” I frowned into the rain. “The wounded pilot died, bled out. Her name was Mandy Hollis, Jake’s sister. He’d never cared for me, but Styx sealed it. I had been Mandy’s platoon leader, and he had a sense the two of us had feelings for each other. Thought them inappropriate.”
“Did you?”
“Have them? Yes. Act on them? Never.” I paused and blew out a deep sigh. “Jake had been a hell fighter up until then, but after that, he just went through the motions. Karen made him a staffer—liaison officer—but he’d never quite fit in before. Afterwards… ”
I left the thought unfinished, and we sat there for several long minutes listening to the pattering of the rain. And, in the aftermath of that story, I thought of Jake and how he must feel—to have been the hero of Styx, to have laid his sister on the altar of the company only to have command ripped away in his moment of ascension; to have been lucky enough to survive the one good shot the Stalkers had taken so completely and with such precision…
My spine tingled as a sudden, horrifying thought occurred to me. Surely no. Not even an ambitious narcissist like Jake could…
Buzz-buzz. Buzz-buzz. Buzz-buzz.
“Aren’t you gonna answer that?”
I looked at Zandra. “What?”
Buzz-buzz. Buzz-buzz.
She pointed at the handset behind me. “You’re waiting on that, aren’t you?”
I turned and looked at the phone on the cradle. The red light above it was flashing. Buzz-buzz. Buzz-buzz.
I stood, walked over, and picked it up. “Actual.”
Heavy panting was the first sound to hit my ear. The loud squawking of a bird was the second. Two gun shots blasted, drowning them both. “Sir! Sir!” It was Brenda Tilley, the girl I’d sent out of harm’s way. “There’s something happening between…” Two more pistol shots brought a grunt from Brenda. When she spoke again her voice sounded pained. “…the birds. I think the king has been assassinated. It’s some kind of big…” more gunshots and Brenda screamed.
Another scream joined Brenda’s, this one from a P’tan, angry and hateful. There were no more gunshots, but I did hear wet shick sounds. Shick, shick, shick. A last moan escaped Brenda’s throat, then, silence. Now, I was the one panting. “Specialist Tilley? Specialist Tilley?”
The line went dead, and I found myself thinking about ceremonial pikes that could do more than look pretty, if the wielder knew how to use them. I returned the handset to the cradle and backed away, staring at the phone. I bumped into Zandra.
“What is it?”
I looked at her, trying to process the last 30 seconds. A memory of Hollis filled my mind, his uniform covered in gore and soot, but no burns, no tears no other marks. And the bird he’d been with outside the G’dar’s tent! The one with the green plumage, the one the angry orange-breasted P’tan had been talking to!
Hollis’ words came back to me: “It is sometimes helpful to understand the culture of those you serve, Captain.”
“…the king has been assassinated.”
You understood. Didn’t you, Jake?
Snap! I looked to my right, peering through the dark, driving rain. “Did you hear that?”
Zandra’s troubled gaze was the only answer I needed.
Lightning flashed and reflected off a large, metal shape halfway up the ridge that Olefemi had wanted to use as cover to approach the mountain. I looked into the CP and locked eyes with a comm tech regarding me with curiosity and confusion. I moved my mouth to shout a warning, but a flash from the ridge triggered my instincts. I spun, grabbed Zandra, and hurtled us both into the driving rain.
The missile had already penetrated the CP’s metal hide, its armor-piercing warhead blossoming into a shockwave of fire and shrapnel. The blistering heat hit us before our feet left the ground. The angry sing-song twing and zwang of flying metal filled the rain-battered night around us. We splashed hard into the cold, muddy grass, the chilly rain already pounding the heat of the fireball from our flesh.
I lifted my head from the ground and looked over my shoulder. The CP burned in jovial defiance to the deluge, its radiant heat reaching out and brushing my face through the water curtain pouring down from the sky. I turned to the whirring sound of servos and heavy thumping of monster footfalls coming from the direction of the ridge. Orange firelight flickered against the black-looking CASPer descending the final few meters to the flat land and hinted a
t motion in the rain-sodden shadows behind it. The lead machine stopped, and I could feel its night-enhancing eye on me.
The thought of running seemed so futile and pointless; I briefly considered lying face down in the mud to await death. I could feel the CASPer’s machine gun drawing its relentless bead on me when the missile streaked over my head, past its right arm, and into the war machine over its right shoulder. A great gout of fire erupted from the metal monster, and it fell into the mud with a metallic groan.
The roar of jump jets caused me to turn my head, and I was cheering before I knew what I was doing. A Fusilier CASPer rocketed overhead and landed by the blazing CP, carbine at the ready. This was my chance! I pushed off the cold, muddy ground.
“Get to the ship! Warm it up and tune into the tac feeds.”
“Where are you going?”
“To get into the fight!”
I was halfway to my command mech when another Fusilier CASPer came on-line. It took a single lumbering step and turned toward the fight raging on the ridge. The ta-zing-ta-zing-ta-zing of the Magnetic Accelerator Cannon sending streams of steel-cored titanium toward the CASPers on the ridge joined the growing sounds of battle.
I reached my CASPer and climbed into the clamshell, risking a glance back at the ridge. Missiles and tracers streamed down toward the CP, and return fire lit the wooded heights, betraying the presence of a second platoon coming down and extending the enemy’s line by at least another 100 meters to the south. I tried to peer through the rain to the north, but the roaring flames hindered my night vision.
“They’ve got the T crossed,” I said into the mike.
“No shit!” It was O’Hare. I’d have given four-to-one odds that she was the one blowing up that platoon on the ridge.
That’s when I saw the rocket blooms from the lip of the mountain. “Eyes front! Bandits in-bound out of the north!” I counted and my heart trembled. “Eight marks!”
A fiery trail rose from another waking CASPer, reaching out and turning one of the inbound craft into a fireball of wreckage. Large hunks of flaming metal rained down like meteors, reducing our incoming worries on that front by twelve-and-a-half percent. The clamshell sealed around me, and the combat computer hummed to life, sending that static-like electrical sensation walking through my pinned brain. The tri-v display blossomed, and the world around me became a rainy, muddy firefight.
The enemy CASPers were close, now, laying down fire of their own. Metal barracks and support buildings began to blow up. So did our CASPers. Jordan Grazetti got off a scream before the billowing fire consumed her machine. Billy Garza didn’t get that much; maybe he was better off for it.
I set my sights on the closest target and blasted the son of a bitch into shrapnel. The machine had been about to touch down. It bucked and tilted forward, sliding down the muddy slope of the low rise screening our northern face. I didn’t have time to watch him settle. I was already turning my attention to the next target, but he was getting a bead on me. His missiles slammed me into the muddy ground. Hard. I grunted in pain, the cockpit grew hot, I smelled burnt wires, and the battle computer was warning me in her maddening, soft-spoken voice about damage and fire, but I already knew—I wasn’t out of this yet.
I stood just in time to watch Kamaal Olefemi’s machine fall lifeless to the ground. The rain was cooling the smoke from the burning machines and buildings, causing it to settle close to the ground like a fog. O’Hare was still engaging targets on the ridge. “They’re getting behind us!” she said over the tac channel.
I could see people running—techs and support, most likely, fleeing the chaos that had been brought down on their heads. A CASPer on the ridge opened up on them with a MAC, cutting down several and herding them to the south and west. A thin feminine form that could only be Miley Rix, the farmer’s daughter, disappeared in a mist of gore I didn’t want to contemplate.
I did think about the asshole who blasted her as I put MAC rounds into his cockpit. I looked at O’Hare. She was moving back-and-forth, keeping the CP fire between her and her targets to mess with their sensors. I nodded in admiration—smart girl. We might just make a victory of this, after all.
I prodded my machine toward the Stalkers hiding behind the northern knot of land in an effort to cover O’Hare. Another Fusilier moved in behind her. We were gonna turn this around, just like the Styx. I was even grinning. And then I wasn’t. The Fusilier was Jake Hollis.
I gasped in horror. “Fusil Two-one, this is Fusil Actual. Watch your six!”
“Wha?”
I was too late. Hollis pushed his blade arm right through the back of O’Hare’s machine, stopping it mid turn. He pushed with his free arm to help extract the blade, toppling the stricken machine into the CP inferno.
“What the hell?” It was the last thing Krypkey ever said. Hollis put a dozen rounds from his carbine into the man’s CASPer at near point-blank range. He was drawing a bead on another Fusilier, but I wouldn’t allow it. My HUD showed some static and jumped a bit, but it still worked. My MAC was turning its hungry eye on Hollis’ chest when I was knocked to my right.
This time, I was really hurt. My left arm was struck with shattering force and the ribs on that side might’ve broken. Heat exploded in my cockpit and I’d been jarred with such force, I might have lost consciousness for a few moments. The computer droned about severe damage in that female voice, red and yellow lights flashing and a buzzer sounding for emphasis. For the second time in five minutes, I lay face-down in the mud contemplating my imminent death, and, for the second time, it was the actions of a woman that gave me hope.
“Thom, it’s Zandra. I’m warming up the engines. Get out of there.”
I looked out at the fight around me—the Stalkers had the high ground and our flank, Jake was running around stabbing the few fighters we had in place in the back, and about a third of our CASPers had never seen a pilot. “Live to fight another day.”
“All units, this is Fusil Actual. Withdraw to the southwest. Rally point at the landing pad. Evac via the C-95 on the deck. Any CASPers on-line protect the egress.”
It took tremendous effort to get back to my feet. The CASPer was shot up, and I was hurt. Badly. The Stalker who’d put me down was gone, no carcass, but no machine, either. I turned my attention back to the ridge. Hollis’ CASPer lunged at me, blade first. I threw myself backward and landed hard on my ass.
Hollis toppled forward and crashed face-first into the mud. I lashed out as hard as I could with my leg and triggered a direct comm link. “How could you do this, Jake? Karen was your friend!” I struggled to grip the carbine holstered to my right leg. It came free, and I pointed it at him.
I pulled the trigger, but nothing happened. He laughed and swatted it away. The gun had been damaged in the battle. I put as much of my weight as I could behind my responding backhand. He’d been trying to get to his feet and was knocked back to his left. His image jumped a little as my HUD glitched.
“She wasn’t my friend!” He moved quickly; his arm came off the ground, knocking me backward. My ribs screamed and head ached. I rolled across the muddy grass, tearing out divots and slinging mud. I spied his carbine in the wet grass, but he stood and stepped over it. He stalked toward me, his broiling animosity transferred to the war machine’s motions, his arm blade reflecting the fire light.
“I saved this company—ALL OF YOU! And what did I get for it? Glory? Commendation?” He gave a scornful chuckle. “Abandoned and left to die. Begging Mandy not to do the same!”
It took effort to get to one knee, but I managed. Tracers and missiles flew all around us. Something big tore at the ground to my right. I got a sense of battle from the P’tan tent city. Someone had headed off the southern platoon. “Fortunes of war, Jake. You’re a soldier. I shouldn’t have to tell you that!”
“And then the bitch took this company out of my hands with her dying breath. Took it and gave it to you!”
“Maybe she knew you set her up. Maybe seeing those raven sigi
ls on those CASPers yesterday was just too much coincidence in a galaxy this big. Maybe she knew you were a turncoat piece of shit!”
Jake roared with rage, bringing his blade arm up over his head. I leapt and body-checked him. My ribs screamed, and any doubt that I had a fracture in my arm was erased. I crashed through his left shoulder and spun him onto his back. I glanced off him to my right and crashed hard on my face into the mud.
My tri-v display quivered and faded, but it stayed with me. I was less sure of my left arm, but I was trying to save the rest of me. I grunted and struggled. Tears of pain filled my eyes, and my body convulsed in agony with every breath. I managed to get to my knees, but Hollis was already on his feet, pointing his arm blade at my back.
“I’m going to enjoy this,” Hollis drew the blade back to plunge it through my CASPer.
“Me, too,” I said and rested Hollis’ discarded carbine backward over my right shoulder. The sight of his own gun barrel froze him, and I heard him gasp over the link as I pulled the trigger.
His CASPer landed face-up in the rain and didn’t move.
I got to my feet and spared him a glance. He had a hole in the right chest, below his shoulder. There were no readouts to tell me what damage he’d suffered, and I could spare no time to keep pounding him. I had to trust that I’d put the bastard down for good. There was movement beyond the burning CP, and I knew there would still be enemy CASPers on the backside of the northern knoll.
I fired a few one-handed rounds at the Stalkers on the ridge and limped back to the ship. I toggled my comms back to the tac channel. Zandra’s voice filled my ear: “Let’s go!”
“I’m coming,” I said in a weak, shaky voice.
I waited for the Stalkers to rush us or blast our getaway ship with missiles, but like the Styx, they seemed to have had enough of the Fusiliers and appeared content to let the survivors limp away. I climbed onto the deck, just as another Fusilier CASPer rushed up from the south and east. I recognized J’quall ShoChe’s modified unit. The purple and orange HecSha had been among those holding off the Stalkers to the south.
The Good, the Bad, and the Merc: Even More Stories from the Four Horsemen Universe (The Revelations Cycle Book 8) Page 11
