Hand of Raziel (Daughter of Mars Book 1)

by Matthew S. Cox

  “Garrison said you’d be going with us on this one.”

  “Yeah.” She smirked. “I’m the trained weasel sent into the sewer that gets to open the gate for the army.”

  Pavo chuckled. “I like that. Means you get to stay safe.”

  Risa smirked at him. “I’m not helpless.”

  “I raided the MDF armory. Brought a bunch of PWRS units since we’re going to be in e-suits for quite a while.”

  She picked the vest up and held it out, facing her. It resembled a one-piece woman’s swimsuit, full of electronics. “Never worn one of these things. Do they work?”

  “Yeah, as long as you keep to liquid nutrients only.” He cringed. “Good for about a hundred hours before you have to swap out the crystal catch. Hardest part is remembering to stop wetting your pants when you take it off.”

  No way. “I’m not drinking my own piss.”

  Pavo’s laughter stalled when he realized he’d looked right at her. She showed little reaction. “It’s not piss by the time it gets to the feed line. It’s necessary to preserve as much water as possible. The PWRS doesn’t reservoir liquids; you have to drink it.”

  She scowled, standing. “Is there anything nanobots can’t do?”

  “It’s no more piss than every drop of water in Earth’s oceans.” He held his hands out to the sides. “It’s all been filtered by something’s kidneys at one point already.”

  “You’re such a romantic.” She slipped into the vest, bundling it against her chest with her back turned. “Zip me?”

  He tugged at the shoulders to adjust the fit before pulling a metal slider from the small of her back upward. His hand went around and patted just above her left hip. “The crystalloid solids build up in this pouch.” He indicated a small zipper. “The filtration process happens here…” His finger traced over her stomach, stopping a half inch below her right breast. “There is a small pouch here that holds drinkable water once it puts the elements back together.”

  Risa tensed as his touch sent waves through her body, grateful he couldn’t see her face. Zone up, Girl. You can’t melt every time a man looks at you. She took a deep breath. I didn’t feel like this when Shiro was draping himself over me. Shiro had made her feel lonely and vulnerable, like a waif in need of rescue. Pavo’s not as confident… or do I mean arrogant? Risa’s breathing slowed and drew shallow. His explanation of the PWRS brought his arms around her on both sides, but she didn’t mind. Is he trying to tell me something? Give me a hint?

  She hesitated, eyes half closed. Risa turned toward him, lips parting, but found him two steps away digging her armor out of a locker. She grabbed her elbow across her chest, eyes down. He didn’t even notice. The flutter of rubbery material on the bench almost made her jump.

  “Your new friend gave us some serious hardware for this. Maris is impressed.”

  New friend? Her back stiffened, face pink. He thinks I’m sleeping with Shiro for the Front.

  I’m not a cheap whore. “It’s not―”

  “A dozen MPRG-9s.” His eyes widened. “Easily three-million worth of hardware.”

  Or an expensive one. “Pavo.” She glared.

  “What?” he leaned back.

  Ugh, he doesn’t even realize what he said. “Nothing. Never mind.”

  Risa’s curiosity about what exactly Shiro had provided triggered a subconscious command to her neural interface unit, which in turn linked to MarsNet. Four seconds after wondering what an MPRG-9 was, a schematic appeared in her field of view, labeled ‘3mm magnetically accelerated projectile rifle.’ Not much larger than a full-sized assault rifle, they would tear through any body armor the ACC fielded on Mars and pose a sizeable threat to light vehicles.

  How did Shiro get these? She shot Pavo a worried look. “What are we getting involved with?”

  “Whoever this Shiro guy is, he’s got impressive connections. Those rifles don’t usually find their way up to Mars. The ACC is cheap. Ballistic weapons make up only fifteen percent of probable threat on Mars, so they’ve focused on light armor tuned to dissipating energy strikes. Mag rifles aren’t civilian legal on Earth either. Cops get testy about weapons that make their armor useless.”

  She sat on the bench and stuck her legs into the cold, rubbery ballistic suit, gathering it up to her thighs. “I’m not sure I could handle one of those guns. They’re huge.” She got her arms in, stood, and pulled the side zipper up to the corner of her jaw. Having something on under the suit felt awkward. She squirmed and fidgeted.

  “They have very little recoil, but they are heavy… magnets.” He smiled. “Good thing is, you won’t need to worry about that. All you have to do is open the door. If everything follows the plan, you’ll be well removed from the fighting.”

  Risa looked at him, trying to pull some manner of emotional undercurrent from his words. Protective? Sympathetic? Chauvinistic? She smirked, unable to tell, and shoved her locker closed with her boots still inside. Her twin Hotaru-6 pistols clattered against her knee in the harness she carried into the hallway. Barefoot, she navigated serpentine cables, scattered supplies, and playing children. A few of the mineshaft kids smiled and waved at her as she went by. Pavo followed her to the end of the corridor and out onto a catwalk ringing the circular operations room.

  Six people sat at consoles, faces lit by multicolored holograms, coordinating MLF activity across settled Mars. One woman spoke German at a low whisper, another man rattled in Mandarin at a contact embedded in Xīwàng dà City, far on the other side of the planet. A man in the back guided someone through the tunnels of an ACC settlement two thousand miles away.

  “Chinese?” Risa muttered to Pavo as she descended a curved staircase to the sunken floor. “I didn’t think the ACC got China.”

  “They didn’t.” Pavo caught up to her beside a table full of large rifles. “They have independent holdings in the south near the Mare Cimmerium. UCF respects their sovereignty and the ACC gets spanked every time they try something. You ever wonder why our cities have so many ramen bars? We’ve got relatively good relations with the Chinese politically.”

  The holo-table at the center of the operations room had a sizable crowd gathered around it, as well as at least ten bulky rifles stacked along the edge. Risa wandered over to an opening in the group and dumped her pistol harness on the table.

  She picked up one of the rifles, attempting to sight through a built-in electronic scope at the ceiling. “These things are ridiculous.” She grunted from the weight and flipped it upside down. It had one port for a magazine of inert slugs and another socket in the pistol grip for an e-mag. “Too heavy. Probably knock me on my ass if I fired it.”

  Pavo shook his head. “Magnets, remember? No recoil.”

  General Maris and Garrison stood at one side of a holo-map table at the center of the room, surrounded by the men and women about to carry out Shiro’s request. All had e-suits on, but not sealed. Risa set the rail-rifle down and trudged to the racks by the processor cabinets. The sight of small handprints smeared in the dust made her grin. I hope they’re driving Maris crazy. Three heavy-duty e-suits remained hanging there, and she helped herself to one of the dull-red garments. She stepped into the attached boots, secured the straps, and shrugged the suit up over her shoulders.

  With a helmet under her left arm, she joined the group studying the map. Everyone looked at her. Risa broke eye contact to pull her weapons harness on over the e-suit. They still all think I’m Cat-6.

  “Hey,” said a brown-haired woman with a scar across the bridge of her nose. “I hope your angel is really up there. We’re gonna need him.”

  She looked up, unsure if she should smile or feel mocked. One man rolled his eyes, but most of them wore neutral expressions. Guess Shiro was right. No sense pissing off the man upstairs on the off chance he’s real.

  “Risa…” Garrison pointed at the holographic rendition of the Martian desert. “We’ve identified your point of entry. “You will go in through this output grating here.”r />
  “That’s a launch vent, sir,” said Lancaster, shaking his head. “If they fire while she’s inside…”

  She studied the map, pulling her fingers over the glass to drag the image in for a closer look. “I can clear that tunnel in about four minutes. We’re tapped into UCF traffic control, shouldn’t be a problem to make sure they have no flying targets for a little while. The ACC won’t waste credits on a missile unless they think they can’t miss.”

  “That’s the spirit,” said General Maris. “You all could take a lesson in courage from her.”

  Risa squinted at him. You’d send your own children to their deaths without a second thought. You wouldn’t care if I burned to a crisp. I bet you want me dead too, don’t you?

  “It’s not courage, sir,” said Javier, with a sad expression. “She’s got a death wish. She just doesn’t care.”

  Everyone got quiet. Risa’s stare at the floor did little to disprove the accusation. Garrison gave her a hurt look.

  Pavo put a hand on her shoulder. Inside, she collapsed. Somehow, she kept her face stoic.

  “That’s not true,” said Pavo. “She’s had plenty of opportunities not to come home before.”

  “Maybe the angel saved her ass, eh Pav?” Javier grinned.

  “All right, enough,” barked Garrison.

  Risa straightened, pointing at the holo-map. “I gain entry to the compound via the missile exhaust system. From there, I move to the control house here”―she tapped the display atop a steel building―“where I can disable the perimeter sensors and EM mines, as well as the automated turrets and their communications.” She glanced up at a bald black man. “Donovan, when you see the facility go dark, that’s your signal.”

  He grinned, resting an MPRG-9 over his shoulder. “Yes, ma’am. Umm, how are we handling prisoners?”

  “This is an ACC facility,” said Garrison. “It’s safe to assume at least twenty percent of their staff is only loyal for fear of death. If anyone surrenders, secure them, and we’ll evaluate on a case-by-case basis. Some of them might prove to be allies. This place is remote enough that we’ll have plenty of time.” Garrison looked into the distance, listening to a message coming over an implanted comm. “All right, everyone. Your chariot has arrived. Suit up.”

  Risa picked her helmet off the table and started to follow the crowd, but stopped as she bumped shoulders with Pavo.

  He looked into her eyes. “Stay safe out there.”

  Kiss him. Risa glanced at his boots, letting her hand slide down his arm. “You keep yourself alive too.”

  She walked behind him as they crossed the safehouse and headed into the large tunnel she’d brought the kids in from. Ralek, still on guard duty at the door, saluted the entire procession as they passed. Risa’s stomach grew heavy. Why does this feel like a death march? She climbed up the back of a six-wheeled rover, flopping into the last space of a side-facing bench seat before the rear hatch door whirred up and sealed with a heavy clunk. No one spoke as the vehicle wobbled and bounced through two and a half miles of tunnel, followed by another ten minutes on the surface.

  When the door opened, falling away to become a ramp, she glanced out at three landed aircraft. A pair of DS2 dropships, typically used by the UCF to transport soldiers from starships to the planet surface, flanked a huge boxy-looking brick-red aircraft with downswept wings mounted to the top of the fuselage. The markings on the sides were in Cyrillic as well as German. Her eyes annotated the view. The odd plane came up as a Tupolev CN4 ‘Mul,’ a common ACC cargo transporter. It was slow and about as maneuverable as a whale, but according to Joan’s Encyclopedia of Military Tech, it could take one hell of a beating and not fall out of the air.

  She trudged down the ramp, heading for the ACC transport. A blond man in an ACC flight suit greeted her with a raised hand and gestured at a pallet full of large, grey boxes. They look like coffins. Risa suppressed the urge to shiver. One such case was open at the end, revealing a padded interior instead of the anti-aircraft missile the markings indicated should be inside it.

  “Guess I’m flying first class.” Not gonna be room to move in there. Shit. She put the helmet on and sealed it.

  “You’re the lucky one,” said the pilot. “You get your own private plane.”

  Risa approached the stack of missiles and grabbed the top edge of the opening. “Please tell me these aren’t all full of live ammo?”

  He pursed his lips. “That one isn’t.”

  Oh, great. She looked up at the shifting patches of blue and indigo obscuring stars. Raziel, please watch over me. She climbed in, sliding boots-first into the confining space. As soon as he could do it without cracking her in the head, the pilot closed the end cap. A few minutes later, her coffin rattled and rumbled as a power loader lifted the entire pallet into the back of the ACC aircraft.

  Death wish? No, this is just idiotic. She yelped when the motion stopped with a hard jolt. “Dammit, be careful with this shit!”

  “For ACC, this is careful.” The pilot’s voice crackled over the radio, with an overacted Russian accent.

  She sighed.

  Risa’s thoughts drifted in the quiet dark. It had taken the ‘planners’ three hours to come up with this idea to get her close to the facility. Shiro’s friends had somehow gotten a hold of an ACC shuttle with an entire load of surface-to-air missiles, each one the size of a man. She tried not to think about how much like a casket the munitions case felt. Trusting a smiling, stocky man with a Russian accent that verged on comedic to fly her, alone, to a remote enemy base would have been terrifying without a hundred-odd tons of ‘made as cheaply as possible’ warheads packed around her. Besides, what was the point of stealing them if they were going to give them back? Hopefully they at least disarmed them or gave them glitchy flight controls.

  She put a hand on the roof, inches away from her face. Four boxes above her and five below, each with fifty pounds of NE6 in the warhead. From the sound of the clank, her ‘door’ pressed up against the inner wall of the aircraft. Even if she wanted to, she couldn’t open it. No amount of second thoughts could get her out of this now.

  Raziel, please… Javier is wrong. I don’t want to die.

  Minutes later, her coffin shuddered as they hit a turbulent boundary layer in the atmosphere. Her hands clasped at her neck as a dozen ideas of what could go wrong at that moment flashed through her mind. The ACC was not known for spending much money on quality assurance. Any one of those missiles might be leaking noxious fumes. Every time the ship bumped hard, one might accidentally arm itself or fire its thruster. One bad bounce and the entire shuttle could be dust. Arms crossed over her heart felt too much like death. She held them stiff, grasping her thighs. Despite her complete trust in Raziel, a wave of panic welled up.

  Why did I agree to do this?

  Cramped, unlit places had given her comfort for most of her life. Claustrophobia was a new experience. The want to get out of that box took all her concentration to suppress. Faces appeared like flashcards in her mind: Garrison, General Maris, Osebi, Javier, Donovan, Ralek, Kali, Lancaster, Huang… all the men and women around the table… Pavo. Every one of them counted on her. If she succeeded, the chances of them all coming home became much greater.

  Too late for doubt now. I’m committed.

  Risa gripped the sides of the padded container and held her breath. Another rumble shook everything around her. She summoned the memory of the fire. Her father wanted Mars to be free. Someone high up the food chain in the UCF had ordered him killed for helping the MLF. Her trembling ceased. If she were in danger, Raziel would have warned her.

  She spent an hour going over the facility map on a virtual holo-panel created by her eyes. Entry via the flame redirect from the launch tower, a hatch inside, down a shaft to the control room buried underground. Looks easy… except for that whole sudden flames from nowhere issue. Another hour passed staring at the time display in the corner of her vision. The steady droning thrum of engines coupled with her lack
of mobility lulled her into a half-awake state.

  Comm chatter snapped her out of her daze at hour four. The pilot spoke in Russian; passable subtitles in English text scrolled through the darkness. He conversed without hesitation, handling the routine as though he had done it dozens of times.

  “Phaethontis Outpost, this is transport T-1411, requesting clearance to land. Manifest CW-94410.”

  They exchanged a series of challenge/response codes in Russian, which her system butchered.

  “Standby T-1411, verifying.”

  Something’s wrong. Risa shifted to stare at the button they told her would open the hatch. The pilot sounds like real ACC. What if they sold me out? What if this is a cage?

  She stared at the moving letters.

  “Confirm approach vector. I need to do a rapid drop and dust. I’ve got six more stops to make.”

  “Understood, T-1411. Would be nice if the idiots making the schedules had to ride along now and then to understand how slow those mules are.”

  The pilot chuckled. “Yeah. Whenever I’m carrying weapons, they send me all over the place. When it’s booze, they’re in no hurry for me to go.”

  Both men laughed.

  “Landing vector uploaded. Follow the arrow. A crew will be waiting for you.”

  “Acknowledged,” said the pilot.

  Risa watched the time for another seven minutes until thruster whine pierced the silence. Her weight shifted as the Mul decelerated. Inertia squeezed her headfirst against the wall for a few seconds before letting her go. Her stomach flipped when she floated off the cushion. She landed hard. Everything rocked. The low roar of idling ion engines permeated the cargo hold with a tooth-rattling shake. Her gaze darted about, racing over the menu controls in the e-suit visor. Kendrick had rigged her capsule with several exterior cameras. She turned them on, getting a view of her immediate surroundings via a virtual holo-panel. Light from the setting sun invaded the hold as the rear doors opened.

  Two men and a woman in powered exo-suits tromped up the ramp into the bay. She clenched her jaw. Surrounded by explosives in the middle of nowhere and possibly betrayed, Risa pushed aside her fear until she felt nothing. Breathing ceased as her container shook with a loud, metallic bang. Gravity shifted in a slight tilt toward her legs. The shuttle walls slid past the external camera view. Metal feet clanked over the deck and down the ramp, falling silent as they reached the Martian surface. As dangerous as the shuttle hold was, leaving it filled her with anxiety. She found herself praying to Raziel for the next fifteen minutes while the workers carried her over rocky ground.