Superluminal

by Tony Daniel

The Capacitor was a metal cylinder twelve hundred feet high. It was ringed with tiered layers of ceramic insulators. It looked remarkably like a gargantuan version of an ancient spark plug from back in the days of the internal combustion engine—but a spark plug that turned slowly on its axis and occasionally shot tremendous bolts of lightning into a black-and-yellow sky. The bubble was an observation and defense post that was mounted on the lip of the deep human-made canyon in which the Capacitor was anchored. There were fifty-seven other such stations in a ring around the perimeter of the canyon. All of them were occupied by the Federal Army, two soldiers to a blister. One hundred fourteen buggers who are probably as scared shitless as me, thought Carkey. I guess that should make me feel better. Hooray for the Army; we’re all going to die together!

  The waiting was interminable. It was like a bad merci show, with the tension rising. You had nothing to do but stay prepared. You knew the bad guys were coming. He tried exchanging some banter with Dowon, but she, too, was too anxious to carry on much light conversation. On the knit, communications were flying—orders, reports. There was some fighting outside the minefields that circled the planet. An armada of small ships engaged the DIED cruisers and scored a couple of hits. And where were the vaunted cloudship defenders? There were only two in the entire Jovian system, Cloudships Sandburg and Yüan Hung-tao. The rest of the Navy was supposedly building up and training out in the Oorts. Lot of good that does us here, thought Carkey.

  Then there was the call of the mines, as they blew themselves to smithereens, and other mines maneuvered as best they could to fill in the gaps. But the isotropic coating of the DIED ships limited the damage a single mine could do—even if it were nuclear or antimatter ordnance—and, like a school of fish, the mines had to concentrate to be effective. They had to pick out one ship to home in on, and let the other ships through with minimal obstruction.

  This they did, and a big DIED cruiser was broken to pieces as it tried to get itself into orbit around Io. Carkey felt profound gratitude toward the mines—most of them simple, loyal little converts. The destruction of the DIED ship meant twenty or thirty thousand fewer invading soldiers for the surface forces to face.

  Somewhere out there, too, Cloudship Sandburg was engaged with an enemy ship, holding it at bay for the moment, if not destroying it. Carkey heard no knit chatter about Cloudship Yüan Hung-tao. He must not be engaged today. General Redux, the system commander, might be holding the cloudship back at Callisto, thought Carkey, or maybe using him to patrol in the vicinity of Europa to make sure no backdoor attack would go unchallenged. Typical of the Federal Army brass in these parts—make sure your own ass is covered, even if that means exposing your neighbor’s ass.

  Suddenly, the Capacitor gave a great crackle and shot lightning into the sky. Almost as if this were a cue, the storm of battle hit.

  Three

  There was only one thing Llosa knew for certain—that goddamn Sergeant Folsom was a maniac.

  She expects us to be some kind of elite fighting force from the merci, when everybody knows we’re just a bunch of dumb kids from the backwaters of the Vas. Who is she trying to fool? We’re going to get slaughtered!

  Llosa did go over and over again the plan of operation, the different ways to kill a man (I’m expected to kill somebody!), the communications protocols. All the things that Folsom drilled them on over and over again, the hard-ass. And here he was, doing her the honor of remembering the stuff she’d told him. At least some of it. Not enough to get me out of this alive, though, Llosa thought.

  “Two clicks up on descent rocketry,” said Folsom over the platoon’s vinculum channel. “Lieutenant says we go in second wave.”

  Llosa turned up the spew rate on his boots. That slowed his rate of descent, which was good, because it kept him off the ground and out of the fighting longer. But it was bad, because there he was hanging in the air, exposed to enemy fire.

  As if in answer, a bolt of energy lit up the sky nearby, along with a neighboring platoon. Ten troopers sizzled out of existence. Several arms and legs remained, floating lazily down in the gentle gravity. One foot, with attitude rocket still spewing, whipped around in a spiraling circle, like a deflating balloon, but sloughing a trail of blood behind it. It soon wheeled out of sight. Llosa turned his attention back to the moon’s surface.

  It’ll be like hosetube, he thought, a game he’d played back in Carta Cylinder, his home bolsa on the Vas. Nearly everyone in Carta had a garden plot for a front yard, and there was great care and great competition among the gardeners. In addition to the microfiber irrigation system that everyone employed, most people also had a larger, handheld tube, attached to the house, to deliver additional water and fertilizer to problem areas.

  The game was this: You’d go to someone’s door—preferably someone who didn’t know you or your family—and use a fake ID card to announce yourself. The hapless resident would come to the door and you’d immediately blast away with the house’s own hosetube—you’d soak the person, the interior of their house, their pets, spouse, and children. In almost every case, the person who answered the door was too stunned to react in time. Then you’d throw down the tube and run like hell. He’d done it many times, and only got caught when he accidentally chose the house of one of his father’s coworkers, who recognized him.

  So that’s what I’ll do here, Llosa thought. Open up, folks. It’s hosetube time!

  Except now he had rockets, grenades, an antimatter rifle built into his arm. And, if he played the game right, nobody would be running after him. They’d be dead, and their dwelling place in flames.

  No, this wasn’t like hosetube at all.

  Below, Llosa saw the first wave go in. Flashes and screams over the vinculum. It was murderous down there. Then the vinculum psychological filters went into effect, and the screams were silenced. Now everyone was dying in silence. Twenty meters. Fifteen. Soon he’d be in the shit. Here it came.

  Here it was.

  In front of him, Folsom aims a rocket at a window and blows it open, and Llosa is right behind her, and he’s screaming bloody murder in his mind, even though there hasn’t been any air in his lungs for hours. At first he forgets everything and shoots off every weapon at his disposal. Fremden are scampering around, trying to get out of the room, and before he can think about it, Llosa spins around and triggers a spray of automatic weapon fire from his wrist, and blood spatters the wall and bits of—what is that? Bone. And the other fremden soldier makes it out, but Folsom tosses a grist grenade after him, and the guy’s legs start swaying like spaghetti, and the guy looks down and notices that his feet are turning into puddles, and his legs are melting, and, like an idiot, he tries to use his hands and arms to stop himself from sinking toward the floor—but he’s not sinking into the floor; he’s being deconstructed by grist-mil. And there goes the last of him, his upturned face floating on the goo of what used to be his body. And then the eyes melt out, then the lips, and finally the tip of the nose, and nothing is recognizable as human anymore.

  “Easy there, Llosa,” Folsom said. “Got to save some of those bullets for later. Short bursts, remember?”

  Llosa looked down at the slumped and bleeding form of the man he had killed. My first one. Doesn’t matter.

  “Yes, Sergeant,” he said.

  “Platoon form up,” said Folsom.

  Five were inside. The remaining three came in through the shattered window, among them Lieutenant Chatroom. Folsom turned to her for instructions.

  “OPORD remains in place. We’re to make our way down to the central grist core for command and control of this facility, where we’ll rendezvous with other units and secure the area for a technical kill team.”

  “Yes, ma’am,” said Folsom. She turned to the platoon. “All right, this is MOUT—military operations on urbanized terrain. Remember: Use your obstacles. They will provide your cover and concealment. Know your field of fire at all times. Find the key terrain and think about all avenues of approach.” She l
ooked the platoon over. “Come on, you puppies, let’s kill the fuck out of them before they kill the fuck out of us!”

  She was out the door, and Llosa was following. The last member of the platoon to exit the defense bubble, Extraslim, closed the door behind them. They moved through a small airlock.

  “Op 2 take the door, Op 4 and Driver 4 cover,” Folsom said.

  Aschenbach, designated Op 4, and, like Llosa, another platoon greenhorn, opened the door. Llosa, who was designated as Op 2 on this mission, and Gerhard, Driver 4, covered him. As expected, there were defenders on the other side. Gerhard fired at them, killing one, while Llosa tossed a combo grist-percussion grenade into the hallway. There were screams when the grenade went off, and that’s how Llosa knew he was back in a regular atmosphere. The hallway was creepily empty when they moved out into it, with only some sticky resin of what used to be human beings on the floor.

  They moved in staggered pairs down the passageways, keeping five-meter separation, and daisy-chaining along, just as they had done in drills and virtual gaming. Corporal Alliance, who was Surf 1, the surveillance op, stayed close to Folsom and the lieutenant. He was outfitted in every sensory device known to the Department of Immunity, and looked like a blistering of antennas, dishes, and sensor rods with a man in there somewhere. But the equipment worked, and they quickly found their way down three levels before they ran into any resistance.

  They were hit hard by a fremden DA—that is, a direct action, an ambush. The fremden platoon had obviously been lying in wait for them. Guess they have sensors, too, Llosa thought, as bullets flew past him, and he dived for cover. Fortunately, he’d done just what Folsom said about observing your obstacles, and didn’t have to think about where he was going; he found himself behind a service bulkhead.

  “Fire and cover,” Folsom called out. “They’re concentrated at the end of the hall. Surf 1, check for booby traps.”

  “I’ve got a zip wire at ten…twelve meters from forward position. Three inches off the floor.”

  “Copy that, goddamn it.”

  It was a microfilament thin and sharper than any razor. It would cut your foot off at the ankle without a bit of resistance. Plus it would probably trigger something even more nasty.

  “Op 4, Op 2, you’re on,” Folsom said. “Two up, 4 cover.”

  Aschenbach moved up beside Llosa. “You ready?”

  “Fuck no,” said Llosa.

  Aschenbach smiled. “That’s the spirit,” he said. “I’m chucking a percussive and a fogger, then I’ll roll out and direct antimatter fire to the left and at the level of that fucking wire.”

  “Gotcha,” said Llosa.

  “On two?”

  “On two.”

  Aschenbach got his grenades ready, then counted down. “One and two—”

  He threw the grenades, then rolled out and began his barrage. Llosa emerged from cover. The fogger was doing its job—visual and electromagnetic scrambling, plus multiple ghost messages through the grist. With any luck, the fremden wouldn’t be able to tell which was the real Llosa. With even better luck, they wouldn’t shoot him by sheer chance. He barreled down the hall until he found more cover—a side passage that at least appeared to be empty. He chucked a grist grenade down its length, just to be certain. Sure enough, a soldier staggered out of cover shrieking and burning as the grist-mil ate into her body and dissolved it. He could tell it was a woman because of the pitch of her screams.

  Two kills.

  Llosa provided cover for Aschenbach to move up, and then the two of them exchanged heavy fire with the fremden while the rest of the platoon moved forward behind them. Llosa heard a grunt behind him, but paid no mind to it until Folsom dragged Gerhard into the side corridor. He had taken a bullet neatly in the forehead. There was no way his repair grist could handle that kind of massive brain damage. Gerhard was dead.

  Alliance came up and told Folsom he’d found a roundabout access to a position behind the fremden—it was down the corridor Llosa had just cleared out, up a level, and then down a tube. With the low gravity, there was no need for stairs in this facility. People could jump up or down several floors at a time—and even farther with an air-puff assist from the basement or rooftop. Folsom detailed Asad, Meeker, and Chin to the task. The rest of them remained and exchanged fire for a good fifteen minutes (but it was only seven minutes when Llosa checked his objective internal clock). Suddenly, the other members of the platoon burst from behind on the fremden.

  “Fuck, those fremdem must be shitting their BDUs now!” Llosa heard somebody exclaim. It took him a moment to sift through his acronym-laden head and remember that the BDU was the “battle dress uniform.”

  Five of the fremden were killed, while two others escaped by fleeing.

  They lost Meeker to enemy grist-mil.

  The corridor, where Llosa had just spent some of the most intense moments of his life, was a nondescript walkway now. The platoon moved on. Before they rounded a corner, Llosa glanced back. Once you cleaned up the dead bodies, it could be…well—anywhere. Or nowhere.

  Hell, he’d never find his way back to this place, or know it if he did.

  Four

  From

  Merci feed 97QQ6513-15-4

  The Winny Hinge Show

  E-date Broadcast April 24, 3015

  Winny Hinge aboard Cloudship Sandburg, brought to you by Jermatherm Coats-Like-New—Get the pellicle you deserve when appearances matter. Touch my hand and enter the Jermatherm universe of beauty. Go ahead, touch me. This is JBC, Jupiter’s source for conflict coverage. It’s fifteen o’clock e-standard.

  Winny Hinge here as Cloudship Sandburg closes in the Ionian minefield perimeter and three DIED ships that look to be of the Dabna or Dirac class. Yes, Sandburg has just identified them as two Dirac-class ships, and one carrier, the Lion of Africa. The cruisers are the Mapplethorpe and the Samsam. We’ll just…yes, we have a sim of both ships now online, fully interactive. Pull down door number 3 from your toolbox for those sims…and we’re closing in…my…God…those are big ships…

  If you intensify, you’ll hear my heart thumping, and my breathing getting a bit…yes,I’ve adjusted my internals. Don’t want any of you grandmas out there to get a coronary. All right, then. A bit of tranquilizer, and here we go, back to the window.

  My God, those ships really mean business. We’re bigger than any one of them, even the carrier—but three? I’m a little…a bit worried, ladies and gentlemen. I thought we were just going out on patrol, and here we are attacking what I’m sure is a very powerful enemy force. Sandburg, are you sure…

  Cloudship Sandburg tells me that we now have orders to attack, and there’s nothing he can do about it. For those of you with the full feed, you’ll also know that he just told me to shut up and stop complaining, but he said it in somewhat saltier terms. So that’s what I’ll do. After all…

  Oh, my. Here we go…

  I know many of you have never been in contact with a cloudship before. They’ve been known to hold themselves aloof, after all, and they don’t use the regular merci channels like the rest of us joes. Cloudship Sandburg, it turns out, is a bit more of a populist, and he’s let me take a good look at some of his inner workings, including his…well, his weapons. He’s able to use something called the Casimir effect to actually make a beam of positrons and shoot it out in a concentrated stream from anywhere on his surface. The DIED ships use a different way of producing their positrons. It’s another one of those “effects,” this one called the Auger effect. Instead of being produced anywhere on the surface, like the cloudships do it, these positrons come out of cannon that are powered off the ship engine. The cannon are sometimes called “Auger cannon,” as a matter of—

  —Ladies and gentlemen, we’re closing in. If you’ll intensify through my eyes, you can see exactly what I’m talking about. Out the window there…that ship—it’s the Mapplethorpe , says Sandburg—see those little bumps along the flank there? Those are the Auger cannon.

 
; My God, that ship is big. Must be a couple of kilometers. And those scythes near the front. Those are spun to make gravity, and that’s where the living quarters and command bridge and such are, Sandburg tells me. But it all looks so threatening. Like a bundle of pitchforks. Everything’s prickly and dangerous looking.

  And there’s the Samsam. Just as big. Something’s happening. It’s—it’s shooting at us! Oh, my God. I’m just going to take cover here—

  Wow. Did you feel that? That was quite jarring. Maybe you parents should think about moderating your child’s intensity level, or maybe just restricting her or him to visual only— here comes another fucking bolt!

  Aren’t you gonna goddamn shoot back, Sandburg?

  Ow. I think my…something’s broken in my hand. A finger or maybe a—

  Christ, that hurts. Going to just release a bit of morphine. Yes. There.

  Better.

  Okay, then. Here we are. Closing in for range or something. Sandburg says those ships fired too soon on him, that the damage he took is minimal, and now it’ll take them a couple of minutes to get their cannon up to full power. Of course, there are the rocks, he says.

  What rocks?

  Uh, yes. Ladies and gentlemen, it seems that the DIED ships are also equipped with catapults. Very powerful catapults that fling out storms of stones. Human-made meteor showers. Also—jagged pieces of metal. But that sort of shrapnel is usually rained down on the planets, and not flung at ships. It’s the rocks that get thrown at—

  The Samsam ’s catapulting its load of rocks at us!

  I’m—ah! Jesus! Stop it! Oh my God, it hurts! It hurts! You fucking idiot, are you trying to kill me! Christ on a crutch, I’m—

  Sorry, ladies and gentlemen. I…I seem to have broken another bone, this time in my leg. My grist is setting it, don’t worry, and I’ve got a full morphine drip going. For those of you dialed in at full intensity, I’m sorry for all that pain. I’m afraid the dampers won’t have filtered most of it. The algorithms we use for the Winny show are not designed for this kind of roughness. We’ll have to get some from the mountain-climbing shows or from Plasma-skate. Some of you know I used to be married to the host of Plasma-skate , Ron Edgekirk, until he revealed on my show his deepest secret, that he was—