Picked him.
“Don’t ask silly questions,” an old hand had once told him. “Because the answers often aren’t.”
The galaxy skipped into that moment, and he was helpless with the joy of vision of her. She was… she was his treasure.
Treasure.
He’d never known quite how to phrase it. But she was that. His treasure. And all he’d ever been doing since… was just killing Savages to get back what they’d taken from him. Wasn’t that true?
That ol’ pardner who told him not to ask silly questions said that. Leaning one boot up against the fence and watching that mustang toss her head and throw up dust in the corral. Like she knew her wild and free days were over for good.
“Weren’t that true?” the old hand asked inside that stuttering reality. He was just a drifter who worked from ranch to ranch, never putting down roots. Helping where help was needed. “You just wanted your treasure back, didn’t ya?”
He nodded that this was true, and when he did, he felt big wet tears fall from his eyes.
“You never loved her,” said the old poke as he uncoiled a lasso and sent it about him, right around the big man’s chest, as easy a trick as there ever was. “You just didn’t like having something taken from ya. That’s all, hoss.”
He sat on the ground, smiling like a dope and crying at the same time. Watching her on the porch. She was coming out to tell him the chicken was fried and cooling. Dinner soon.
That’s home to me, he thought as the cowpoke tightened the lasso around him. He began to crawl across the hard-packed dirt of the yard. If he could just reach the porch, reach her… then he’d be home now.
But the old cowpoke was on him. Tying him up like a hog.
“She’s just a thing to you,” said the old trail hand. He was thin and rangy and he had a wolf’s teeth and eyes.
“No… no… no…” he was telling the cowboy while smiling, laughing, and crying and crawling all at once. “No!” he shouted. “You’re a liar! She was my treasure!”
He couldn’t move. He was just feet from her.
She stood there on the porch in that dress, smiling her smile.
“You’re all done now,” said the ol’ poke. “Might as well go ahead and just give up.”
He struggled. But even he knew it was useless now. Cowboys tie knots better than a preacher, as the old saying goes.
“You’re all done now,” she said from the porch of their old stead, echoing the poke who’d trussed him up.
Sadness washed over him.
And then darkness as he felt himself carried along the tunnel. Blind and helpless. His hearing coming back. He could hear their digital speech. High-speed bursts between them, low and sinister. They had him. The Savage scout team had immobilized him with some kind of sensory scrambling explosive. And now they had him and were taking him to the coolers, the bubbles, where all the other survivors had ended up. Until it was their turn to become calories.
He was crying. Just like in the dream. Sad that he’d never do another one, babe for her ever again. Sad that he would never see her smile again. Sad that he’d somehow failed.
65
Admiral Sulla was at the forward bridge of the Chang after leaving command of the Defiant to a subordinate officer. It was important for him to personally assume command of the assault frigate for the rescue effort. Because Tyrus Rechs was his responsibility. And his oldest friend. He’d introduced him into the operation for better or for worse. That their little plan was going to be found out and that there would be serious repercussions with UW Navy was also a fact.
There was a reckoning coming and there was no denying that.
And it was nearing go time for Chang’s micro-jump back to the rendezvous with the trigger-nuke team on New Vega.
But Sulla had been an admiral for a long time, much longer than most suspected, and he’d made a lot of allies during that time. He knew a lot of secrets. He knew where the actual bodies were buried. So he had some cards to play. And if things didn’t swing his way… well, then he could always start over. He had before. It’s just that he’d never been so close to accomplishing the one way he saw to deal with the Savage threat as had been with the formation of the Coalition. He, like Rechs, knew personally why the threat had to be dealt with before humanity could assume its place among the stars. The Coalition had been the first step toward a formal galactic government that oversaw the worlds and fielded a unified military capable of dealing with external threats.
The Savages were considered an external threat. They’d left humanity long ago. Hyperdrive-connected humanity had more in common with the alien species they’d encountered via jumps through hyperspace than they had with their sociopathic ancestors crawling around at sub-light speed between the worlds like ancient Viking invaders come to set some colony back for a few more hundred years of galactic dark age.
In the day and half since the assault frigate Chang had lifted off from the stadium LZ as New Vega burned and Coalition ground forces retreated en masse, once the micro-jump back to the fleet had been completed, a massive rearmament program had taken place aboard the sturdy ship.
All the missile stores the Chang could handle had been transferred from the rest of the surviving ships of Task Force Wrath. So had secondary shield generators from two other ships. Jury-rigged and patched into the defensive network, they were unreliable at best. But Sulla had thought it best to take everything he could to what was sure to be an all-out junkyard dogfight. They’d even transferred the one multi-warhead nuke the Defiant carried and set it up for a fast load off the cargo deck if they needed to fire it in anger.
Using a ship-based multi-warhead nuke wasn’t nearly as bad as lighting the fuse on a trigger-nuke… but it wouldn’t be pretty.
Sulla finished briefing the Chang’s skeleton bridge crew he was carrying. Other than a full engineering complement to keep the power on and handle damage control, he’d transferred as many personnel off the assault frigate as he could before the rest of the fleet jumped out of the system.
Because you don’t think you’re going to make it back out of this one? he’d asked himself as he watched the quiet hum of activity that precipitated a ship getting underway for combat ops. Or rather heard some voice asking him.
After all, he had to admit to himself, one assault frigate against four Savage hulks was hardly good odds on a great day with surprise in the mix.
No, he answered himself and slid behind the flight controls of the frigate. He didn’t trust anyone to fly this one but himself. And the fewer people aboard, the fewer casualties they were going to take when they came out the other side of what was about to happen. And they were going to take casualties. That was for sure. Even if not coming out the other side wasn’t.
“Jump plot locked in?” he asked the captain who was now flying left seat on the frigate.
“Locked and green across the board. Standing by to jump at your command, sir.”
Sulla finished strapping in and donned his flight helmet. Then he moved his chair forward and took the stick.
“I have the stick,” he said formally announcing that he was in command of flight for the Chang. “Sound the bells for battle stations and give me engines to max. Executing jump in five… four… three… two…”
66
The Savages were pursuing the APC into the tunnels as if they were some hive mind that had only just now reacted to the imminent threat within the vastness of underground complex. As the APC powered through the midnight dark, two armored mechs moved fast on articulating walkers to cut off the vehicle before it could reach the lift down to level twenty-two. Both Savage war machines were spooling out heavy doses of lead ammunition. Rechs directed a burst of aimed pulse fire from the APC’s guns into one of the mechs’ insectile pilot’s canopies and smashed glass and melted internal systems. A second later Davis clipped the other mech’s ex
tending walker at high speed, shearing it off and collapsing the mech.
The collision caused Davis to lose control of the APC. It spun off, slammed into a wall, and fishtailed before she finally regained control and they were racing through the dark once more.
“Sure you can find that lift without the battle board?” Rechs called.
“I drew the map, didn’t I?”
Rechs didn’t answer. He didn’t like sarcasm when it wasn’t coming from him.
“The lift should be close now,” offered Davis.
The emergency lighting within the APC flickered on and off. Its power system had been damaged by the concussive impact of the two mechs’ heavy weapons fire. In its flickering flashes Rechs got glimpses of the two little girls staring at him. One radiating cold anger. The other uncertain fear. Both were a kind of indictment against him that for some reason he couldn’t shake off.
“Hang on!” shouted Davis over the comm. “Lift’s not here!”
All four balls of the vehicle locked and extended their braking treads, and the vehicle skidded toward the yawning well where the lift should have been. With just meters to spare, they came to a halt.
Rechs popped the main hatch. His helmet’s audio picked up the distant sound of more Savage cycle teams inbound on their location. The awesome well that descended into darkness also rose up toward the smashed and ruined surface, from which distant shards of waning daylight fell down and died in the gloom. He scanned the utilitarian maintenance areas and cargo off-loading decks that surrounded the well. All of the blisters, pipes, and bulges conspired to look like the bizarre hieroglyphics of some lost alien civilization.
“There’s a smaller lift over there,” he said over the comm. “Your nine o’clock, Davis. Does it go down to the same place?”
“Only one way to find out.”
Rechs vaulted from the vehicle and Davis followed, letting the low growl of the engines pull the APC forward.
Reaching the lift control, Rechs flipped open the safety cover and accessed the gate. Then he slammed his gauntleted fist onto the lift call button. The platform was currently three levels below.
Seconds later, the first of four speeding Savage cycles tore into the empty area of the well. He drew his hand cannon and engaged, dropping the weaving riders as they tried to rake him with strafing fire in their quick passes.
“Radar reads more contacts coming in from multiple directions!” Davis said. Her voice was controlled, but Rechs could tell the veteran starship captain was nearing some limit.
And so was he.
Bullets smacked into the gate, and one nailed him solidly on his left arm. It was like being hit by a rocket-fired hammer even with the armor he wore.
He stumbled for the cover of the APC. The armor ran a diagnostic medical check and indicated a possible fracture. Armor integrity tightened up the area to immobilize the break and still allow some mobility. Then it hit the screaming nerve endings with some anesthesia and calming drugs.
“You all right?” asked Davis. She’d been watching him on the driver’s screens. She’d seen him take fire and move for cover.
He shot her a thumbs-up in the cam feed, threw his back against the APC, and fired at another passing Savage, dropping the rider and sending his bike skidding off the lip of the well and down into the distant darkness below.
The platform had almost arrived when two Savages activated their high beams and swooped in head-on at him, intent on running him down. The histrionic blare of their mounted submachine guns crackled to life.
The lift gate was down, and the platform arrived on their level.
“Move!” shouted Rechs.
And then he took two steps toward the bikers and hit the armor’s jets, vaulting above them in a sudden flare of energy-assisted lift. He was hoping to draw their attention off the broadside of the APC, whose armor seemed on the verge of giving up all integrity. If even one round breached the hull it would ricochet around inside and eventually hit Davis or the girls.
Davis drove the APC onto the lift platform as Rechs pivoted in midair and followed the targeting tags on the two bikers. Two shots. High-powered fifty-caliber depleted-uranium slugs.
Both bikes kept moving, their riders most likely dead, or at least dying. They too shot off the lip of the central well and were swallowed by the darkness.
And then Rechs had his boots on the ground and was sprinting for the lift. Savage ground troops were flooding the chamber from access hatches and maintenance tunnels. A heavy weapons team opened up, attempting to range him as he crossed the distance.
Rechs closed the gate and sent the APC down to the complex’s deepest level.
67
“Run!” shouted Martin, his voice hoarse, his breathing ragged. He’d grabbed the dying sergeant major from Makaffie and the two survivors who’d been carrying the wounded man. All three looked out of even the energy to move themselves to safety.
“Pack out!” shouted Greenhill over the comm. And then announced, “Last one.”
With the limp sergeant major dangling from his shoulders, Martin turned and sprayed the shadows behind with his pulse rifle, buying time for Greenhill to get his last charge pack loaded into the heavy. The Savages returned fire, but it was wild and erratic.
“We gon’ die here, Specialist!” murmured the sergeant major. His eyes were closed and his blood was soaking Martin’s back and shoulders. “Last pack now… we down to knives and insults.” The old NCO thought that was funny and laughed. But it sounded like a death rattle.
“Keep running!” shouted Martin at the survivors.
Only darkness lay ahead, and the civilians didn’t seem too keen to disappear into that all on their own, without weapons, but their pursuers were surging from the rear, and neither Greenhill nor Martin could be spared to take point.
And now both soldiers were low on charge packs.
“Put me down, Special-list,” coughed the sergeant major. “This here… good as any place… to die.”
“Negative, Sergeant Major. We’re gonna make it.”
Martin hustled up the tunnel as Greenhill laid down more fire from the heavy he carried. At least they still had sidearms. And after that… combat knives.
“Ain’t over yet, Special-list… Ah, I like that!” coughed the sergeant major. Martin could feel the man shaking on his back.
Behind him, the cav sergeant’s heavy pulse rifle suddenly went wild and cacophonic, like he was firing without pause at everything in every direction. And then it went silent. Its missing strobe-like flash plunged the tunnel into complete darkness.
Greenhill was down for sure.
Keep moving, Martin told himself. Not really thinking about the odds, or the situation, just thinking ten steps more at a time. And then if he made that, maybe another ten.
Life was down to just ten steps.
Imagine that, said some distant part of his mind, and then he pushed that thought away and hustled on because he didn’t need that right now. It didn’t do him any good here at this last of moments. He understood that now. He’d passed some limit, and payday was coming due.
***
“Can’t shoot fer—” grunted Greenhill, and then one of the Savages kicked him in the gut with an armored combat boot, driving the air out of him. Out of the corner of his eye he saw one of them drag his heavy away from the circle of punishment that was forming all about him, all of them chittering in their insane high-pitched digital eruptions.
A circle of punishment. Or a circle of death.
Because that was the way it looked right now.
Another boot connected with his head. Stars and light erupted across his skull. This must be like what it feels like to get a pulse rifle shot right in the head, he thought distantly. When you got double-tapped, and then another in the head. The last one. Dull and distant.
Well, he�
�d done that enough on Kimshana to others. That was for sure. So maybe his turn had just come up.
Then the gloved iron fists were raining down on him. Kicks, too. Beating him like he was a piece of meat.
They jes’ tenderizing the meat, another part of him thought from far away.
He tried to shout at them, to call them what they were—not just Savages, but cannibals. The opposite of human. Animals. But nothing came out because his jaw had been broken.
He tried to call them that all the same. Because he was down to just insults now.
Knives and…
No.
Sidearms and…
And he was aware in that moment that he was certainly going to die in the next.
He reached for his pistol. It was supposed to be on his thigh, and he hadn’t felt them pull it off. Maybe they didn’t know. Or didn’t understand sidearms, or really anything that used to be human and the way humans did things. These Savages were little better than animals now. So maybe there was a chance he could pull it and go to Fiddler’s Green. Just like the old cav poem that was part of every unit since…
Another mailed fist hit him in the back, driving him to the dusty concrete of the rail tunnel floor.
Put your pistol to your lips and go…
It was there. His sidearm was there. His hand was broken, but he never no-minded the pain and got it out of its holster.
In one last act of defiance, as the Savage marines stepped away from him, laughing histrionically like digitized demons in some dance party song, he got on his knees and pulled the sidearm, his arm making it go wild as he tried to get it to his lips.
And then a distant cannon was roaring, blazing away with angelic fury. Like some summer storm in the morning on the highlands of the Kimshana mountains when everything was gold and silver and diffused light. Terrible and beautiful all at once. Like that.
He remembered those days on that hard world.
The Savages were dying in sudden explosive sprays, or scrambling away only to be torn apart by sharp barks of automatic gunfire up close, too close, and far too personal.
Galaxy's Edge: Savage Wars Page 33