by Ben Weaver
“It’s you and me, and we have to get by, what’s that? Maybe an entire battalion right there?” Halitov asked.
I glanced to a data bar in my HUV, ordered the computer to make a tactical assessment with troop movement projections relayed via our satellite link. A message flashed: UNABLE TO ESTABLISH EIS. “Eyes In the Sky are gone,” I told him.
He chuckled under his breath. “Like that matters?”
“We can still get by these guys.”
“Not this many. Not this time.”
“What is it with you and this prophet of doom bullshit?” I asked. “I’m tired of it. You want out? I’ll relieve you right here and you can go surrender. See if they’ll put up with your whining as long as I have.”
Abruptly, I streaked off around the corner, reached into the bond, scaled the tower to a height of about ten meters, then dodged right, tipping sideways, defying gravity but feeling none of its effects. The massive swarm of Marines lay off to my right, and though I ran about three, maybe four times as fast as an unconditioned soldier could, I knew the alarms would still wail in their HUVs and they would eventually lock onto me. I noted that Halitov ran about a half dozen meters behind, and over our private channel he muttered something about power going to my head and that he should have taken his own command way back when. Who the hell did I think I was, and where was I going? I grinned. His buttons were way too easy to push.
“They’ll get a lock any second,” I said. “Soon as we reach the next corner, we hit the gozt, drop onto those buildings over there. Roof to roof.”
“They already got a loose lock on me,” he shouted, then suddenly hustled past me, his combat skin alive with ricocheting rounds of particle fire. If any one of those Marines below managed a steady lock, that fire would penetrate his combat skin.
“Okay, go now!” I cried.
Had we not been under such intense fire, I would have better appreciated our well-timed bullet thrust, arms at our sides, rifles tucked against our legs. We were bizarre, wingless birds, shimmering and arcing across a sky torn apart by the lightning of particle rifles. With our heads coming within just a meter of the first building’s rooftop, we broke from the gozt and into a perfectly executed roll—or at least I thought mine was until I made contact with my back, then wheeled around as though I were sliding across ice. With a horrible thud, I slammed against the steel housing of an air filtration unit. My right arm tingled, although my skin had absorbed a large portion of the blow.
Halitov had come out of his roll and crawled toward me under a tarpaulin of particle fire hanging less than a meter above his head. “I think we’ve lost some of them now,” he said with mock hope. “Now only about a thousand are after us.”
Something hummed. Grew closer. I sat up, craned my head. “Listen!”
The skin protecting his face cleared a little, and his gaze went distant. “I can’t right now. Have you checked the casualty reports? The numbers are insane. Three hundred and two KIA so far.”
“What?”
“Look at the report.”
I called it up in my own HUV, even as that hum grew louder. The names scrolled up one of my databars. I was about to close my eyes and shudder when my brother called. “Scott, you there?”
Though static washed through the image, the dirt and anguish on Jarrett’s face were unmistakable. “I’m here, Captain,” I said, feeling uncomfortable calling him by rank, but it was still better than Taris Markland. “Report.”
“First shuttle just launched—and just crashed,” he said.
“How many?”
“I’m not sure. At least a couple hundred civvies gone. Prem scan indicates only a few survivors.”
“Damn it. And we might lose more. We got a core leak. About seventy minutes left till it blows. Get our ATCs in the sky. We’ll run our own cover. Launch the shuttles. And get out of there yourself.”
“Easier said than done,” he moaned, then muttered a command to his tac computer, widening the image.
His legs were gone. Two corpsmen worked frantically on his stumps and on a gaping laceration across his bicep. I lost my breath.
“Scott, I just want you to know, I, uh—”
“Shut up,” I said, staving off the shock and pain. “I want to speak to your XO right now.”
His eyelids fluttered, and I thought he might lose consciousness. Before I knew for sure, the image shifted to a squad sergeant, a brunette I recognized as Trina Amitoss, my brother’s lover. “Sir, don’t worry, sir,” she said, her tone a hairsbreadth shy of hysteria. “We’re getting him out of here right now.”
“Scott, an airjeep just came over the side of the building,” Halitov droned, as though he had already agreed to my suggestion of surrender. “And the gunner…I think he sees us. He’s bringing the cannon around.”
“Amitoss, you get my brother out of there,” I cried, then broke the link, rose and whirled—
And there it was, the airjeep, about ten meters ahead of us and hovering a meter off the ledge, its pilot tipping the small vehicle’s nose down a few degrees, allowing the rear gunner to get a bead.
“Are you thinking what I’m thinking?” asked Halitov.
“I doubt it,” I said darkly, then ran straight at the jeep. I figured the gunner would fire, I would dodge his shots, then take him out before the pilot knew what happened. After that, I would hold the pilot hostage, and Halitov and I would hitch a ride all the way back to Alpha pad. It was a grand plan.
However (and in combat there is always a “however”), the gunner’s cannon released not a wave of particle fire but a round of swelling blue energy. Even as I launched into the old somersault and kick of the dirc, believing I could shift my trajectory to hit the gunner, the round became a scintillating, weblike sphere that dropped over me. I struck one wall of energy, then the others clung to my back, shoulders, arms, and legs. As though composed of a trillion tiny insects, the web began chewing through my skin.
“What the hell is that?” screamed Halitov, sounding as mad as he was surprised by my capture.
“You’re out of here,” I ordered.
The gunner leveled his weapon on Halitov, who stood there, torn a moment until he opened up with his own rifle, spraying the airjeep’s pilot with a vicious bead that drilled into the man’s head. I knew that within a few seconds, the pilot would be dead, my skin would dissolve, and Halitov would be captured by the gunner.
So I took a chance and willed myself behind that gunner. The distance was short, the drain not as bad as I imagined it would be. The web of energy that had covered me hung for a moment, a human silhouette devoid of flesh, then it trickled like water to the rooftop. The gunner, a young woman of twenty maybe, with remarkably petite features and a diamond glistening on her finger, sensed my presence and glanced back. I reached up, braced her head in my hands, closed my eyes, listened for the crack.
As she fell out of my grip, the pilot collapsed in his seat, a victim of Halitov’s true aim. Realizing that the pilot had died, the airjeep’s computer switched to autopilot and brought the vehicle in for a smooth landing on the rooftop, though we could no longer take it since the controls had been set to a user-specific mode. Even then, Halitov made a quick attempt to hack his way into the system, after which he punched the touch screen in failure.
A distant rumble from the north signaled the approach of a squadron of Western Alliance atmoattack jets. They streaked just above the treetops, cleared the perimeter forest, then dove over the nearest row of hangars. The fighters’ T-shaped bows and spherical fuselages cast long shadows over the crab carriers parked nearby as pilots zeroed in on our evacuation pads to the south.
I got on the battalion-wide channel. “Listen up, people! Air attack’s inbound. I want everyone out now!”
Four of our G21 Endosector Armored Troop Carriers blasted off, turning their beaks toward the inbound atmoattack fighters. Those ATCs were running defense, with four more of the quad-winged craft waiting to launch behind them. I imagined th
at the pilots and copilots behind those seed-shaped canopies already knew they were dead; it was just a matter of how many enemy pilots they could take with them. What I didn’t realize was that the enemy squadron we had just seen was a diversion. As my ATCs opened fire at those incoming ships, a second enemy squadron rose vertically from behind the one of the tawt drive construction facilities. Before those enemy ships even propelled themselves forward, they launched a flurry of multiseeker missiles.
All Halitov and I could do was stand there, listening to the roar of troops below, the sonic booms of turbines, and the high-pitched whistling of those missiles. My pulse raced as three, two, one the ATCs exploded in swelling fireballs that grew long stems of flaming debris racing to take root on the surface.
Another quartet of my ATCs roared over the destruction of their brothers, spitting undulating whips of particle fire on that squadron of atmoattacks. Then one atmoattack from the first squadron broke off, circled back, and began strafing the rooftops.
Suddenly, the building beside our own blew apart as though it had been detonated from within. Colossal hunks of debris hurtled through the air toward us. As the shadow of a tumbling piece of quickcrete darkened the nearest ledge, we leapt from the rooftop, not realizing until we were airborne that a squad of ten Marines waited in the alley. A soldier I figured for the squad sergeant glanced up, shouted something to his troops, and a maw of particle fire opened below. We dropped right into that maw, our skins lightning up like casino signs until we hit the ground, rolled, then dodged back for the wall.
A shit storm of debris rained down on the Marines, taking out two before they even looked up. The rest took our cue and bolted for the wall.
“Lesson,” Halitov cried. “Quitunutul arts. Chak is the art of the turn.” With that, he demonstrated on the nearest soldier, leaping up and whirling in midair while extending his right leg. His boot passed through the Marine’s skin and broke the guy’s jaw.
“Lesson,” I shouted. “Ai is the floating kick, counter-kick.” I ran past Halitov, leapt up two meters, drop-kicked one Marine in the head, then rolled, driving my heel into a second Marine’s neck. By the time I hit the ground, the sharp blades of my Ka-bars jutted from my fists, as they did from Halitov’s.
Though smaller debris continued to fall, we ignored it, shifting fluidly between the rubble to stab one Marine after another. The eight fell, and we looked around, gazes darting through the dust, blood dripping heavily from our knives.
I checked both ends of the alley. Clear. Opted for the rear exit. “This way.”
Before I managed a step, twenty, maybe thirty Marines stampeded into the path ahead, their muzzles already winking at us, rounds flashing by or thumping on our skins.
Halitov grabbed my shoulder. An equal number of troops flooded in from the opposite direction. We exchanged a knowing look, one almost sad. A lot of people were about to die.
I thought of every round coming from every rifle directed by every Marine advancing toward us. I thought of the particles that comprised those rounds, those rifles, those Marines. And Halitov did likewise. Together, we found the bond and for a moment just stood there as they fired upon us.
Then, with a precision inspired by our old instructor Major Yokito Yakata, the man who had first demonstrated the technique to us, we turned a hundred brilliant beads of automatic particle fire back on the grunts who had unleashed them. Marines fired wildly as they fell, even striking the soldiers nearest them. Combat skins grew opaque, and as a few dissolved, the utter terror etched on the soldiers’ faces chilled me. We wielded an ungodly power given to us by an ancient alien race, a race that might have orchestrated their own demise.
The fire continued to loop, and the dead continued to pile up until shouts of “Cease fire! Fall back!” sent the troops darting off through the steam of sizzling flesh.
Halitov gaped breathlessly at me, then leaned over, placing palms on his hips as though he just run a marathon. Without warning, the drain hit me. The ground turned to water and began rolling. I nearly fell, caught my breath, and finally blinked clear the feeling.
“Oh my god. Please. Help me!”
I craned my head, searching for the woman who had called out, probably a dying Marine.
From behind a bank of tall canisters lining the wall to my left came a frightened looking woman of about thirty, a very attractive woman with striking red hair, fair skin, and icy blue eyes permanently narrowed in her quest for the truth. I knew her, all right. All too well.
“Elise Rainey?” I said, dumbfounded. “Why are you still here? I ordered a full evacuation!”
“I’m just curious why you’re not dead,” Halitov added, glaring at the woman, whose floatcam hovered at her shoulder, the disk’s operational lights flashing and indicating that she was, in fact, recording our conversation.
Her gaze darted past us to the piles of dead troops, then to the fresh Marines taking up positions along the wall. “Just get me out of here.”
Halitov grinned ironically at me, then shook his head, took aim at the floatcam, and summarily blew it to smithereens.
“Hey!” cried Rainey.
I leveled my index finger on her. “You promised me.”
“I’m a war correspondent,” she said. “We get the story. Whatever it takes. I thought you knew I was lying.”
“No. But I do know you’ll die here.”
“No, I won’t. You’re going to save my ass. Right now. Come on.” She swung around and started off, walking straight toward the Marines.
“Screw her,” said Halitov. “She comes marching into the tower like she owns the place, tells us she’s got access to our entire battalion. Probably slept her way into that.”
I lowered my voice. “Doesn’t matter. We still have to get her out.”
“And the bitch knows that.”
“Look, there’s no way she could’ve known we’d be here. She was probably getting ready to surrender, maybe even die. You have to admire that much.”
“Well, getting back to the pad should be even more fun now,” he said. “Especially with less than an hour on the clock and her slowing us down.” With reflexes enhanced by the quantum bond, Halitov suddenly dodged in front of Rainey as particle fire streaked toward her.
With my grumbling XO serving as a human shield, his skin battling off dozens of incoming rounds, I de-skinned and came behind them. “Get on my back,” I ordered Rainey.
“What?”
“I’m not joking. Just do it.”
She toed off her heels and jumped. I staggered forward as she wrapped her arms around my neck and began choking me. I reached up and loosened her grip, then took a deep breath. Was the bond there? Yes. I tucked my arms beneath her legs and began scaling the wall.
She gasped, and I was actually thankful for the twenty or so beads of incoming particle fire that tore up the quickcrete around us. They kept her silent.
We reached the rooftop, and I told her to let go. Thick clouds of brown smoke rose from the shattered building Halitov and I had leapt from and whipped by, stinging our eyes and sending her into a coughing fit.
“Got a plan?” Halitov asked, reaching the ledge and hopping down to join us. “’Cause I sure as hell don’t.”
“I think so,” I said, then jogged off, out of the smoke and toward the far end of the building. “This way!” I skinned up and called for the blueprints on the building ahead, a broad, rectangular, two-story affair with a half dozen dishes mounted on its roof. SOFTWARE DESIGN OFFICE #4 had at least three subterranean passages leading toward the central hub. From there we could take another series of tunnels back to evacuation pad Alpha. Even though Alliance Marines were probably crawling through those passages like termites, we would only have to contend with them and not air strikes. Once Halitov and Rainey reached me, I shared my idea.
“We can’t go back to Alpha. It’s already gone,” said Halitov.
I tried verifying that fact via my tactical computer, but the Marines had finally decr
ypted our codes and were jamming all communications. I couldn’t even contact my brother or Jing to learn if they had made it out. “We’re being jammed,” I told Halitov. “How do you know Alpha’s gone?”
He made a strange face, almost a grimace, accompanied by a shrug. “I just know.”
“I can’t go on that.”
“Alpha is gone,” he insisted, grabbing my wrist. “So are Whiskey and Bravo. Delta’s the only pad left.”
I didn’t like his guilt-stricken tone; no, I didn’t like it at all. I ripped my wrist away, grabbed his collar. “How do you know?”
He banged a finger on his tac. “Forty-eight minutes. We don’t have time for this.”
“If he has a gut feeling, I say we go with it,” argued Rainey. “And what’s going to happen in forty-eight minutes?”
I ignored her and scrutinized Halitov. “What are you holding back?”
“Just get the fuck away!” he cried, shoving me aside. “We have to go!”
“What did you do, Rooslin?” I raised my voice to a shout. “What did you do?”
He whirled away. “If we don’t get to Delta pad, we die.” Slowly, he turned back. “You can trust me on that.”
I snorted. “And we’re not talking about a gut feeling, are we…”
His expression said he wouldn’t explain further, and the damned clock wasn’t just ticking in my ears; it banged like a sledgehammer. I glared at him. “Okay, we’ll go to Delta. But if you’re wrong…” I turned to Rainey, tapped a code into my tac, and removed the bracelet. “Here,” I said, handing it to her. “I should’ve given you this before. The computer will reset for you. You’re going to skin up.”
“What about you?”
“Just worry about keeping up with us,” I said. “Because in about forty-seven minutes, all of this goes bye-bye.”
“What do you mean?”
“Forget details. Think big picture. Think big bang.” I made sure the tac fit her properly, then activated the skin.
She staggered back as the membrane zipped over her. “This is weird.”
