Crimson Strike

by Peter Bostrom

  After what felt like an eternity in the air, we came down and landed between the civilians and the soldiers. “Stand down!” I yelled at the soldiers.

  “But they’re monsters now,” one of the soldiers said. “Just look at them.”

  A stream of protests and curses came from the civilians.

  “Enough!” I yelled, and as I did, Panthra roared, too.

  Everyone went silent.

  I dropped down from my Battle Steed and took a step toward the civilians. They raised their assorted thick pieces of metal and broken synthetic wooden beams in response, so I stopped and held out my empty hands, palms up.

  “I’m not here to hurt you,” I said.

  “It’s a little late for that,” said a high-pitched voice from somewhere down the civilian line.

  I scanned the group of civilians until I found the man with wiry hair and the broken baseball bat. “Are you in charge here?”

  He took a couple of steps forward, stopping just centimeters from my face and looked me directly in the eyes. “None of us is ‘in charge,’” he said, “but I can speak for the group.”

  I wasn’t comfortable with him standing that close to me, but to step back would be a sure sign of weakness. So I stood a little taller and said, “And what is your name?”

  “Harold Dawson,” he said, unblinking. “Who the hell are you?”

  “Sergeant Walker.” I held out my right hand, but Harold kept staring at me, unmoving.

  “What’s this all about, Harold?” I said.

  His jaw tightened. “We want justice.”

  The civilians behind him yelled in agreement and took a step forward. Behind me, I heard a few more plasma weapons click into the ready position.

  I held my hands up. “Easy, now,” I said. “Justice for what?”

  Harold folded his arms across his chest. “For not patrolling the projects. For waiting until something happens to the business district to take action.”

  He tightened his grip on the broken bat. “For letting civilians die.”

  “Yeah,” shouted a pale woman who held what looked like part of a street sign pole in her hands. “We pay all sorts of taxes, and what do we get? Nothing but broken electricity hubs and trash-covered streets.”

  A squinty-eyed soldier just behind the front line chimed in, “Oh, yeah? If y’all got off the streets, there wouldn’t be any trash!”

  Laughter erupted from the soldiers, but quickly came to a stop when Patel stormed up to the front line.

  “What the frak is going on here?” Patel asked me as she looked down the line of civilians with narrowed eyes.

  I cleared my throat. “I believe these people have some grievances they’d like to express.”

  Patel stared at the civilians with cold eyes. “I issued a mandatory lockdown, and they are in direct violation of that order.”

  She smirked, then continued, “And besides—if the factories are closed, what else are they going to do?”

  Harold shot forward, chest extended. “What do you mean, ‘what else are they going to do’? I’ve done more in one year than—”

  But the collective sound of angry voices on both sides drowned him out. Some of the soldiers who had been riding inside the transports had emerged to see what was happening, including Rand, who pushed his way forward to the front of the crowd, nursing his injured arm.

  “These are legal citizens of the United Federation of Sol,” Rand said loudly as he came to my side. “Allow them have their say.”

  The crowd quieted. Harold nodded at Rand, who bowed his head slightly in return.

  “What I was trying to say,” said Harold, “is that we could do so much more to help if we just had an opportunity.”

  He looked down at the broken baseball bat. His brow crinkled briefly and his eyes grew even more red.

  Then, sniffing quickly, he stood tall and said, “But the system is rigged. And no matter what us hard-working, tax-paying, long-suffering citizens do, we’ll never be given a chance to prove ourselves.”

  He looked at Captain Patel. “Or fight for ourselves. We don’t need lockdowns—we need hope. We need a cause we can fight for.”

  Patel sighed. “That’s something you’re going to have to take up with your regional UFS representative, not the Peacekeepers. We’re only here to—”

  She stopped mid-sentence and cocked her head to the side before holding up a finger. As she turned around and spoke quietly into her helmet comm, there was an uneasy silence among the two groups.

  Rand leaned closer to me. “It’s certainly a shame we can’t utilize them,” he whispered. “They could be a mighty fine militia.”

  A moment later, Patel turned back around and immediately spoke. “I hate to break up this little neighborhood watch meeting,” she said coldly, “but Colonel Vaiega has just arrived at HQ on the orders of Earth Central, and he’s just called for an emergency strategy session. Let’s get out of here.”

  25

  COLONEL VAIEGA LOOMED over the conference room table’s dark, polished surface. The room was completely silent. Well, except for the symphony of gurgling noises my stomach was making after pounding down about half a metric ton of lukewarm chow mien noodles just before the meeting. But Vaiega didn’t seem bothered by the occasional glurp. Instead, he looked around at the cowering officers, daring them to say something.

  “Well?” He said. “We don’t have nearly enough soldiers to pull off a major offensive, and you’re telling me that after three hours, a room full of the brightest the Peacekeepers have to offer can’t come up with a single viable idea?”

  I knew that Vaiega wanted me in this marathon meeting, but since I was pretty sure he was the only person in the room who didn’t want to shoot me over the massacre in the park, I didn’t want to give anyone else a convenient opportunity to pull the trigger.

  Vaiega scanned the room one more time before stopping at me. “What about you, Sergeant Walker?”

  Aw, hell.

  “Um . . . well,” I scratched the back of my head. My mind had kept going back to what Rand had said after our confrontation with the civilians. “Since we’re short on soldiers, couldn’t we organize militias from the locals? You know—fill our ranks the old fashioned way. Private Rand says there’s a provision for it in the UFS constitution.”

  I bowed my head a little and said, “At the very least, it would free up a team to rescue our soldiers who have been captured before those pale bastards have a chance to transform them.”

  Vaiega’s head tilted sightly to the side, but he leaned forward slowly, so I kept going.

  “The civilians here are strong, smart, and looking for justice,” I said, gaining confidence when nobody in the room had pointed a gun at me yet. “They’re practically begging to be enlisted.”

  The Colonel sat back in his chair and steepled his fingers just below his chin. “And with the kind of factory jobs they all have, we know they’re good at following orders,” he added.

  I could see myself leading a rag-tag team of factory workers who had nothing to lose, coming in at the last moment to save the Peacekeeper forces and triumphing unexpectedly over an army of bloodthirsty monsters. All the news vids had our pictures, and we were on the cover of every magazine in the solar system. It was glorious.

  Then Captain Patel jumped in. “Colonel, Sergeant Walker is absolutely right.”

  My mouth dropped open and hung that way for a long moment before I closed it. She had never—never—agreed with me. What was she up to?

  “According to Peacekeeper bylaws,” Patel said coyly, “anyone wishing to join a militia must go through a rudimentary training program and pass a basic exam that’s witnessed by two officers.”

  There it was.

  Patel looked at me with a sly grin. “And since Walker was the one to come up with such a brilliant idea, I suggest that he and his team begin a militia training program immediately.”

  Vaiega nodded. “An excellent suggestion, Captain. Sergeant Walker, i
nform your team.”

  “And what about Winnifred Harker?” I said.

  The Colonel knitted his brows in response.

  “You know—the Resistance spy?” I said.

  Vaiega shook his head slowly. “I’m not so sure about that. I’ll need to consult with Captain Patel and get clearance from Earth Central on that matter.”

  I looked over at Patel, who just stared blankly back at me.

  “The rest of you,” Vaiega said, “will receive your deployment orders as soon as we locate the enemy’s hiding place. Dismissed. Now go get some rest.”

  I got up quickly and made my way to Vaiega, but Patel got there first and put herself between him and me. Dammit.

  I left the room and drifted through several hallways, my mind reeling from the loss of Kovac and how easily Patel had turned my own idea against me. When I finally arrived at the printing bay, I stepped inside and smelled the tang of ozone and printing material. There were only a few people flitting between machines, which made it easy to find my teammates. Rand and Lopez leaned against a transport-sized printer. He was wearing a new set of light blue fatigues and had a sling on his left arm. But that didn’t stop him from using his single free hand to tap angrily at his mini data pad.

  “Damn . . . bureaucratic . . . forms . . .” he muttered in between forceful jabs. With his final jab, the data pad leapt from his hands and tumbled to the floor. But instead of reaching after it, Rand buried his head in his hands.

  Lopez leaned over and put an arm around his shoulders. “I know,” she said softly. “I miss him, too.”

  A sharp pang of guilt shot through me, breaking my stride. Lopez lifted her head to see me, then looked determinedly in the other direction. I wanted to talk about Kovac, about how much I wanted to run off and find him—or what was left of him—but I knew I couldn’t without breaking down.

  “So, I finally have some good news,” I said. “We’ve been assigned to the militia training program.”

  Rand looked up from his data pad, his thick eyebrows flattening after being so crinkled in anguish just a moment ago. “Please tell me that you’re serious.”

  “I never joke about militias,” I said. “Space warrior apprentice haircuts, yes. But never militias.”

  Rand looked momentarily confused, but then his eyes brightened.

  “The bad news is,” I said, “I’m pretty sure this is Patel’s way of trying to neutralize us. Anyway, how’s the new ammo coming?”

  Rand wiped his eyes and then managed to look at me with a goofy grin on his face. “I managed to solve our problem—now my silver slugs will function in any standard-issue plasma weapon.

  “How long will it take to get those printed?” I asked, watching Lopez out of the corner of my eye. “The faster we get those out, the closer we’ll be to finding Kovac.”

  Rand grimaced. “We’ve already printed a sufficient amount,” he said. “I requisitioned an industrial-sized cargo sled and sent the new and improved ammunition to the munitions depot a few minutes ago.”

  Then, bending to retrieve his data pad from the floor, he said, “Now if I can just manage to file a blasted patent application for those . . .”

  “What about that silver knife I asked for a while back?” I interrupted.

  He looked up from his data pad and stepped over to his nearby black duffel, a lumpy mass that was leaning against the shiny wall. He removed a small sheath with a silver handle sticking out of it and slapped it into my palm.

  As he let go, Rand said, “I thought about replicating Kovac’s vibro-hammer which was so unceremoniously confiscated upon our arrival, but I suppose you have at least some semblance of an idea of what you’re doing with this weapon.”

  I nodded, tucking the knife into one of my pockets.

  “And there’s no need to fear,” he said with an upward tilt of his mustache as he zipped his bag shut.

  “That Dominion whip of yours is present and accounted for, too. The bag is understandably weightier,” he said, looking down at his injured arm, “but since I’m not anticipating much in the way of heavy calisthenics for this portion of the operation, I think we should be fine.”

  A speaker in the room dinged loudly over the hum and regular clunking noises of the printers. “Sergeant Walker, please report to the nearest communication point.”

  I shuffled quickly over to a wall-mounted control panel and punched in my access code. “Walker here,” I said.

  Patel’s voice answered impatiently. “I’m scrambling transports, so if you and your little team of misfits wants to use one, you’ll need to get to the docking bay on the double—it’s first come, first served.”

  “Thanks,” I said unconvincingly.

  “Oh—one more thing,” Patel said. “That turncoat girlfriend of yours was just cleared to join your team on this mission, so I’m having her escorted to the docking bay to meet you there.”

  I felt a fluttering in my stomach at the thought of seeing her again. And of her being called my girlfriend. “Th-thank you, Captain,” I stammered as I quickly tried to smooth the wrinkles out of my fatigues.

  “Don’t get the wrong idea, soldier,” Patel said. “It wasn’t a favor. Patel out.”

  So Patel hadn’t had a change of heart, after all. I was beginning to wonder if I would ever be able to get on her good side. Mobilizing this militia was the best shot I would have. If my work with them couldn’t change her mind about me, I didn’t know what else would.

  “Okay, gang,” I said loudly enough for them to hear me over the printers. “Time to roll out.”

  Rand exhaled loudly and shut off his pad before tucking it into a cargo pocket. Lopez still wouldn’t meet my eyes.

  “And if we want to get a transport that actually works,” I said, “we might need to run.”

  “I am not running,” Lopez muttered under her breath. “Not like you did when Kovac was in trouble.”

  That was a low blow. A little too low. Had she always been this childish? It seemed like she was being extra annoying since we rescued Winnifred.

  “Look,” I said sharply, “I didn’t run because Kovac was in trouble. I ran because I thought the trouble would follow me.”

  Lopez tilted her head in disbelief and stared blankly at me.

  “Whatever,” I said impatiently. “Then you’ll just have to catch up with us later.”

  I turned and walked briskly toward the door. I remembered Winnifred was going to be coming with us, and it lightened my mood a bit—like light from the end of a wizard’s staff. I looked down at my fatigues and was horrified at how little my smoothing had done.

  I pressed firmly against my fatigues the entire way to the docking bay. When the large double-doors whooshed open, we were met by an almost empty room, made even more empty by how huge it was. Panthra was there in the corner closest to me, sitting nervously in a cage that was slightly larger than last time, but not by much. When she saw me, her tail began to make a tinny thumping noise against her cage’s metal floor.

  Toward the center of the wide room, there were exactly two transports left—not nearly enough to make a meaningful difference in the fight. And by the look of them, I wasn’t even sure if they actually counted as transports. Each door was a different color, and you could clearly see the welded seams where different scrapped transports had been stitched together to make this pair of Frankenstein-grade monstrosities.

  I was about to yell, “It’s alive!” in a creepy tone, but my voice caught in my throat when I saw Winnifred rounding the rear corner of the closest transport, running a slender finger along its side. She looked stunning in her black fatigues, which fit her perfectly. Hell, with a body like that, everything probably fit her perfectly.

  “Hey there,” I meant to say. What came out instead was, “Hurrturr.”

  Her red lips formed that faint smile I’d come to long for. “Hello, hero,” she said.

  At the same time, I saw a maroon-covered arm emerge from behind the second transport’s hood and b
egin using their fatigue sleeve to rub repeatedly at a singed spot. This must’ve been Winnifred’s escort.

  “Hello?” I said to the anonymous arm.

  The figure quickly pulled its arm back and stepped briskly around the hood, stopping neatly at attention.

  “Good day, Sergeant Walker,” Lieutenant Stanton answered crisply. Maybe a little too crisply.

  “It appears that I will be joining you on this rubbish mission of yours. Whether either of us likes it or not.”

  26

  THE PATCHWORK TRANSPORT shook violently as it rumbled down the daytime streets of Triton. In fact, the front doors were rattling so loudly as we drove that I thought they were going to fall off. Which wouldn’t have bothered me so much if I wasn’t the one in the driver’s seat.

  Winnifred sat alertly in the co-pilot’s seat, looking carefully at all of the buttons, dials, and switches on the console in front of her. I wanted to learn everything about the Resistance warriors and their fight against the evil Dominion. I wanted to find out how their world had gotten that way. And, maybe more than anything, I wanted to figure out what made this fierce and mysterious woman tick.

  I’d tried asking repeatedly, but the noise inside the transport was too loud for her to be able to say anything without having to repeat it five times. So now we just sat in silence—well, the inside of this pile of junk was anything but silent, but you get what I mean—and I looked up at the transport just ahead of us. Stanton had tried getting into the pilot’s seat, but Lopez had climbed in through the co-pilot’s side and was just fastening her safety belt when Stanton opened the door. Patel might have sent Stanton to babysit us, but we weren’t about to let him take charge.

  So Lopez was now driving the transport in front of us and was pulling Panthra’s cage behind it. The mechanical beast’s head hung low as the cage’s wheels found most of the street’s frequent potholes. She hated being transported, and I can’t say I blamed her. She was born—er, built?—to run free, and couldn’t stand being locked up and moved along by somebody else. And right now, I felt the same way.