Ritz gave a curt nod and the two Marauders shot off into the woods, their bio-mechanically enhanced legs carrying them over the ground as if they weighed nothing at all. The captain turned toward the rest of them.
“I’m not going to lie to you guys but this isn’t a battle we can win.” Ritz spoke fast but sincerely. “We could maybe take down a couple of corvettes and maybe even a frigate but this is an entire fleet we’re talking about here. I say we run.”
“What?” Byzzie said, turning toward him. “We can’t run. What about all of these people on the ground here? I’ve got family here.” She pointed at the house.
“And our best bet might be getting them out of here,” Ritz said. “Almost everyone on this planet understands their chances here and most of them are going to be trying to escape as well. The best we can do is carry who we can.”
“But this is my home,” Byzzie pleaded. There was a look of frantic desperation in her eyes and Raquel recognized it: it was the look of someone forced into making an important decision and given almost no time to think about it. “If we can just-”
Just then, a distant boom rolled overhead and everyone looked up to see multiple clusters of orange lines streaking down from the sky.
“Shit, those are SEU drop pods,” King said reaching up to run a hand over his smooth head. “They’re not playing around here guys. We’ve gotta move.” And even as he spoke, a distant cloud appeared above them, slowly materializing into hundreds of tiny troop transports.
The comm-unit hooked to Ritz’s shirt beeped and Vanessa Jackson’s voice suddenly filled the air. “Captain Tariq, look up into the sky.”
“Yup, we’re seeing it, ma’am,” he responded.
“Are you still at the house?”
“Affirmative. Kit and Nadia are getting the ship as we speak.”
“Could I be so bold as to ask you to get my children out of here?” she asked.
A beat of silence passed and Raquel looked over at Byzzie; she didn’t look happy but she seemed to be accepting the inevitable.
“Yeah, we can do that,” the captain finally said. “We should have enough room in the cargo hold. It won’t be comfortable but they’ll fit.”
“Great. Meet me on Worran in the Onyx System. We have kin there; Byzzie can fill you in on the details.”
Ritz looked at Byzzie and she nodded.
“And Byzzie?” Vanessa said. “I just want you-” But her words were cut off as the first SEU drop pods slammed into the ground less than a mile away.
Kit and Nadia had just made it to the small landing pad where the Leopold was waiting when the drop pods hit.
“We gotta move,” Nadia said, as she increased her speed. She suddenly felt very naked without her armor. “They’ll be on us in seconds.”
The two Marauders ran past the gate of the landing pad where a guard station door hung wide to reveal no one inside the tiny booth. Probably left on one of the ships, Nadia figured, and she couldn’t say she blamed them. People were already streaming onto the landing area to find a ship to board, whether they owned one or not.
Kit went left and Nadia went right, sliding around a big group of hobbling pedestrians—likely a family—that seemed lost and frantic, young and old looking in all directions. Nadia felt a pang of guilt as they ripped past them, knowing that they couldn’t fit all of them onboard the Leopold. Not if they were taking Byzzie’s family, at least.
And that was probably the plan. They hadn’t stuck around to hear what to do next but they had run enough ops with Ritz to know how he thought and Nadia would have bet her life on Ritz deeming the situation out of their hands. No way they were about to stand up to a whole PUC fleet, thousands of ground troops, and multiple squads of Surgical Equalizing Units.
This was a surprise attack, and despite its level of suddenness, the massive amount of overwhelming force was actually meant to reduce casualties. Nadia had been on a few of these herself, though not quite this big of scale, and every time the priority was shock-and-awe. They were to hit hard and fast and seize control before most of the planet’s inhabitants even had their socks on. No one got to their positions. No one got off the ground. The idea was to cause the entire population to practically freeze in place.
And that meant they had to move fast.
Reaching down to hit the ship’s remote cargo door button she had installed just behind her holster, Nadia put on a burst of speed and cut underneath an old civilian cargo hauler. And that was when the first SEU in full combat armor broke through the tree line.
Nadia slowed to a normal running speed and saw Kit do the same. It seemed counterintuitive, but Nadia had been trained long ago to prioritize threats before doing anything else and she was almost certain that these SEUs had received the same instructions. This way, she might get to the Leopold slower but she was also taking steps to ensure that their attackers wouldn’t immediately recognize two fellow SEUs and know who to take care of first.
The Leopold was less than twenty feet away now and it looked like they were going to make it. Then, Nadia saw the SEU pull out what looked like a long tube and point it at a ship off to their right that had just begun to lift off of the ground. With a tightening knot in her stomach, she quickly anticipated the next three things that would happen.
She was correct on all three accounts.
First, she saw Kit halt and draw his sidearm with lightning speed and just as the tiny projectile left the end of the SEU’s ground-to-air missile launcher, Kit fired and the missile detonated in front of the armored figure, knocking him backward. The Arc Suit was tough enough to save the soldier’s life, but Nadia would have bet big money that he wouldn’t be waking up for a couple of hours.
It was an insane shot and the only reason Nadia knew Kit could make it was because they had spent days on the exact same maneuver at the SEU programming facility they had been trained at.
Second, a hail of gunfire ripped out from under the trees as the other SEUs began firing.
Kit was already moving though, and he successfully placed the Leopold between him and his attackers’ firing line. Nadia had done the same and they hustled up the ship’s now-lowered cargo ramp to the sound of energy bolts pinging off the ship’s armor.
Third, they didn’t make it inside quickly enough.
Ideally, they would have been inside with the ramp up before the SEUs could make it around the side of the ship but Kit had given them away too soon to allow that to happen and now the squad of four remaining super-soldiers had thoroughly fixated on them. The ramp was halfway back up when an armored hand appeared on its lip and in less than a second a fully armored super soldier had launched himself up and over into the cargo bay, followed by two more. There was a thunk as the last one tried and failed, slamming off of the now-sealed ramp door.
Nadia and Kit had just barely made it around the corner when the wall behind them was ripped apart in a storm of gunfire.
Kit didn’t want to kill these people but they were making it awfully difficult. He knew he had taken a chance when he had shot down the missile right in front of the first SEU but even if that man ended up dying he would have to sit down and weigh that individual’s life against those onboard the ship he had been about to destroy.
He hated doing that though, weighing lives. As if they were some commodity to be traded and collected. That sort of disrespect toward the living had been the whole reason he had deserted the PUC in the first place. So while he valued the lives of his crewmates against those of these new attackers he couldn’t just take them out as flippantly as Nadia could. Nadia had followed him when he had gone AWOL because she supported him, not his philosophy, and he knew that if it came down to it, she would kill these men and women.
He just hoped that she wouldn’t.
“Start the ship,” Kit yelled from behind and Nadia reached down and felt at the control pad on her hip, looking for the on-switch. She pressed it and felt the ship hum to life beneath her.
Sprinting down the
hallway, she made it to the door of her living quarters and hurled herself inside, Kit right behind her. There wasn’t a burst of gunfire this time but Nadia could already hear the soldiers pounding up the hall. She lunged for her armor hanging on its rack.
When the first SEU came around the corner, Nadia’s Arc Suit had just closed and engaged around her and Kit watched her dive sideways as the room was filled with energy bolts. The blue rounds from their neural rifles practically set the room on fire, but Nadia was already ducking and moving behind the unused bed.
Kit’s Arc Suit however, hadn’t closed fast enough.
The SEUs had appeared and opened up with their weapons just before the seals on Kit’s Marauder armor could automatically latch shut and the energy rounds tore through it, practically cutting it in half. The shoulder pieces blasted sideways as the chest plates were hammered and bent inward and finally, the entire thing collapsed and the soldiers turned their attention towards Nadia.
It had given the two of them just enough time.
Stepping out of the shadowy corner behind the attackers, Kit pressed his right arm into the lower back of the nearest soldier and engaged the high-voltage taser Byzzie had recently installed in place of his demolished hand. There had been some glitches when she had tried hooking it up to the neural interface he had implanted in the back of his skull but after some tinkering, she had refined and perfected it to its current state.
It worked like a charm.
The soldier went down and Kit was already moving around him as the second soldier brought his gun to bear. Using his left hand to slap the gun away, Kit swung the taser on his right up toward the SEU’s face, but the man grunted as he threw himself backward into the wall, successfully dodging the attack.
Out of the corner of his eye, Kit saw Nadia pounce up and over the bunk bed that was leaning against the wall, her armor taking and deflecting two shots before she slammed into the third soldier. The two wrestled to the ground as Kit continued to engage the man in front of him.
One of the first things SEUs were trained was to “never let go of the gun.” If your weapon was wrestled out of your hands in a close-quarters situation, then it could quickly be turned on you. Apparently, Kit’s attacker had taken this to heart, because no matter how hard he tried, the man seemed to have an iron grip on his weapon.
This meant that Kit had to stay close—too close for his opponent to get enough space to fire the long energy rifle. They fought and grappled for a few seconds, Kit sandwiching the gun’s barrel in the crook of his right elbow. With his left, he deflected a number of the man’s blows and then finally pulled back and landed a fist in his gut. The man’s armor absorbed most of the impact, but the distraction was enough.
Kit rushed in, momentarily letting go of the gun to press the taser into the man’s stomach and depress the trigger. Being energy derived from electricity rather than motion, the effect was far greater than Kit’s punch had been. The electrical current surged through his attacker and as the man convulsed, he threw a glance over his shoulder to see how Nadia was doing. And what he saw almost froze him to the spot.
Nadia had managed to get on top of her opponent and was now smashing her huge armored fist into the man’s faceplate. She hit him once, twice, a third time; his faceplate cracking beneath the blows. What caught Kit’s attention however was the man’s right hand which had just reached down toward his side-holster and drawn a large silver handgun.
“Nadia, gun!” Kit yelled as he watched the man bring the gun to bear on his partner’s head. He dropped his unconscious attacker to the ground but he couldn’t move fast enough.
Nadia managed to land one more blow however, and when she did the man’s arm froze and then began to shake with convulsions. Kit blinked a couple of times and looked away as Nadia finally pulled her fist away from the man’s face. As she did, the long blue plasma blade she had just ignited from her right-hand gauntlet slid out of the center of the man’s faceplate and his head rocked limply back, smacking off the ground, blood running out onto the floor of their living quarters.
“Goddamit,” Kit muttered; he walked around and disarmed the other two unconscious soldiers. Neither of them spoke as they put the weapons in a pile and then quickly removed the soldiers’ armor to reveal a man and a woman, each in thin white underclothes.
“Put ‘em in the airlock,” Nadia said. “We can kick them out once we pick up the others.”
“We haven’t even tried the airlock since Byzzie fixed it,” Kit said. “She’s good at fine-tech stuff but that was more King’s department and he was too drunk to do it. We don’t even know if it works.”
“We’re going to have to try because-” Just then, the ship rocked and an alarm began to blare. “Because of that,” she finished.
Kit hauled the two SEUs up onto his shoulders and followed Nadia as she ran down the hall. He dumped the limp soldiers’ bodies next to the door by the airlock and then raced to catch up with her. When they made it to the viewport, Nadia cranked the wheel and throttle at the same time without even sitting down, and as the ship banked and scraped along the ground, Kit saw the final conscious Marauder finish loading the missile launcher he had picked up from his fallen companion. He aimed and fired, just as Nadia banked again and the missile streaked by in front of them, just missing by inches.
“That was incredibly close,” Kit said.
“Yeah, it was,” Nadia agreed. And then, “Now go boot those assholes off of this ship before they wake up and I have to kill them too.”
Seamus Clark stood on the bridge with the commander of the fleet’s Flagship and watched the progress of the battle. Once through the Void Gate, the fleet had issued a transmission demanding the immediate surrender of all of Pillon’s planetary defense systems.
They had refused by opening fire.
The first couple rounds had mattered little however, only managing to take out two corvettes and drop the shields of a frigate. The PUC’s reaction however was much more devastating. The first salvo took out a large number of their remote-control defenses and a few manned stations, and with that, the first ships started to flee.
Clark had expected as much. Sure, some of these people would go down fighting tooth and claw but not most. Most of them were just people seeking refuge. All it took was a competent display of military firepower and most of them would run. He knew that and they knew that. In fact, he figured that’s why most of the stationary defenses were automated. It wasn’t that they didn’t have the people—it was that most of the people here had come to escape the eyes of the law and once the law showed up, they responded accordingly. Most would flee to the other gates, which was fine. All Clark wanted was the planet—the ground. Seamus Clark wanted the entire system and if its people fled then that made his job that much easier.
Some of the SEUs had orders to bring down any fleeing aircraft but only where there were possible militia leaders. There were a few spots on the ground that had known militia forces and he’d just as soon scrub them from the face of existence. Those weren’t people looking to avoid the gaze of the law—they were active antagonizers looking to spread discord and chaos. The more of them gone the better.
Plus, he couldn’t risk a ship with weapons systems escaping and looping back around to hit the Light Wire once it was up and running. No, the ground needed to be secure or else the entire thing was a bust. If he couldn’t get on top of the information that would soon be flooding out of Desia and force it into submission then this entire operation might just blow up in his face.
“The Surgical Equalizing Units are away,” said Graham, Head of Fleet Command. He was a wiry man with wisps of snow-white hair and a ramrod posture that made him appear almost like a fixture on the Flagship’s bridge. “Dropships will be right behind them and we should have control of the ground within the hour.”
“Good,” Clark said, feeling something like a light electric current buzz through him. This was it. Secure Desia and all the systems will finally be connec
ted.
There could be no greater blow to the militias that infested the dark corners of PUC controlled space. Soon they would fracture even more. They’d still be troublesome, sure, but they wouldn’t be able to fight on nearly the scale that they currently were. The raids would diminish in strength and number. Intelligence would take longer to travel secretly. Everything about today’s victory would secure tomorrow’s safety.
Then there was the progressive aspect. The fact that there would finally be a PUC controlled Light Wire in this last vestige of darkness. They would finally all be connected. A million worlds operating as one.
He couldn’t wait to tell his son. He planned on calling him from the control room, in fact. Once the battle was won and the ground was secured, Seamus Clark would personally land on Desian soil, walk through the doors of the secret Light Wire station, and flip the switch. Then he’d call Lucas and they’d share in the moment.
“Move in,” Clark said.
The commander looked up at him. “But sir, we’re-”
“Do it,” he said, cutting him off. “The defenses are almost all wiped out, their meager fleet has fled, and by the time we get down there the SEUs and other ground forces will have taken control.”
Before the Head of Fleet Command could even respond, the comms crackled and a harsh voice rasped over the speakers. “This is Grayfield.” Grayfield was the name of the SEU squad leading the attack down below. “Ground secure. We’ve taken prisoners and all Desian high command are all in custody, in the wind, or in the ground. How would you like us to proceed?”
“Any casualties?” Clark asked.
A moment of silence, then: “Indigo Squad has been incapacitated for the time being. One dead, three unconscious. Weaver is the only one on his feet right now and he says that they encountered a few synthetics—probably rogue SEUs.”
Shattered Light Page 6
