Rebellion

by Edward M. Grant

  He picked the next-closest target, and sent another burst heading their way.

  Then the booms of the first explosions reached him. Logan pointed his rifle around the side of the rock just as the second grenade burst hit, and looked through the rifle sight on his HUD. Dirt spewed into the air from the explosions, and one of the insurgents tumbled to the ground with his face and chest smeared with blood.

  “Insurgent down,” Logan said, and tagged the man as dead. If he wasn’t, he didn’t look like he was going to rejoin the fight any time soon.

  Rifle rounds slammed into the rock near Logan’s hand.

  He pulled his rifle back, and fired a third burst of grenades over the rock. With the drone gone, the launcher was the closest thing to artillery support they had, and he might as well use it.

  The insurgents on his HUD moved as soon as they heard the grenades launch. More rifle rounds cracked from the far side of the village, and another of the insurgents went red.

  “Insurgent down,” Gallo said.

  But the rest of them had got out of the impact zone before Logan’s grenades landed. Indirect fire over the rocks just gave them too much warning. At best, he was merely annoying them now, or forcing them out of cover where the others could shoot at them.

  He slung the launcher and held his rifle tight as he looked behind him. He wasn’t far from the village. Maybe a hundred metres remaining before he’d be in cover behind the closest house in the row along the street.

  But there was no cover between here and there.

  Unless...

  He glanced behind him as something hissed. A dark trail of smoke raced through the air, flying down the hill toward the truck, accelerating as it moved.

  The mule ran forward, past Bairamov and the truck, before it exploded in a cloud of smoke and flames. The burning legs of the mule collapsed to the ground in front of the truck.

  “RPG,” Bairamov yelled.

  Logan swung out around the side of the rock, aimed his rifle toward the man holding the RPG, and fired a burst. The man dropped the RPG and dove to the ground as dirt erupted all around him where the rifle rounds impacted. Logan ducked back as two insurgents returned fire at him.

  The rest of the team fired toward the man with the RPG. Logan waited a second, then he crouched, and ran toward the stream, just a few metres away. Then jumped off the bank, down into the water.

  Rifle rounds cracked above his head, but his legs sank more than a metre into the water, and the riverbank covered his body and head as he crouched and crept along it toward the village. In a few seconds, he was clambering out onto the bank of the stream where it passed the row of houses.

  Then he crouched at the corner of the closest house, and peered around it.

  Just don’t let there be a hidden IED...

  “Taking a lot of fire here,” Gallo said.

  Logan leaned further around the corner of the house.

  He couldn’t see the insurgents through the tall grass in the fields, but he could see where they were marked on his HUD. He aimed the grenade launcher toward the nearest red square, and fired a burst. Then moved on to the next, and fired again. He could at least keep their heads down to take some of the heat off Gallo.

  Logan fired off the last of the grenades, and slung the launcher. He’d had plenty more ammo in the mule, but that was history now. Bairamov must have used the robot to block the RPG before it could hit the truck.

  “Moving,” Gallo yelled.

  Gallo’s square moved on Logan’s HUD.

  Logan fired his rifle at a random selection of insurgents as Gallo moved toward the truck.

  Then another RPG round roared over the hillside.

  “Fuck,” Gallo said,

  The back of his suit exploded in a shower of blood, flames, and debris as the RPG round slammed into his chest. The suit stood upright for what seemed like minutes, with a huge, ragged hole ripped through it. Logan could see the dirt and grass of the hillside between the bloody remains of Gallo’s arms and abdomen.

  Then it tipped forward, the knees bent, and slowly tumbled to the ground.

  “Man down,” Logan yelled. ‘They got Gallo.”

  Logan fired his rifle at the nearest insurgent. But, now Gallo was no longer firing, the insurgents were aiming at him.

  He ducked back behind the house as rounds ploughed through the dirt around him. Eight or nine insurgents were still firing out there, and there were only three Legionnaires and two Compagnie men, with no heavy weapons, no drones, and no backup.

  Logan could still see the truck beyond the buildings where the road curved around along the clifftop. Another RPG round flew across the hillside, trailing smoke toward the truck.

  Dirt exploded from the road as the RPG round impacted just behind it. The rear trailer wobbled as the blast hit it.

  “Truck, move on,” Bairamov said. “You’re a sitting target out here.”

  As the truck’s tracks began to move, Bairamov ran towards it. Insurgent rounds threw up dirt around him, and sparks flashed from the back of Bairamov’s suit as one impacted there. Then he was on the far side of the truck.

  Bairamov jogged along beside the truck. His rifle cracked as he leaned between two of the trailers, and fired a long burst in the direction of the RPG.

  Dirt and stones flew from the ground nearby, and the man backed behind a rock. The Compagnie men in the truck fired wildly from the windows, spraying bullets that hammered into the ground around the remaining insurgents.

  Logan crouched, and lined up his rifle sights on the man holding the RPG as he loaded another rocket. Logan swung the rifle slightly, placing the crosshairs on the front of the rocket, instead of the man.

  Then fired.

  The rifle kicked against his shoulder. The grenade exploded in the man’s hand as the round hit it.

  His arm and the remains of his head tumbled through the air above the rock, and the rest of his body splattered across the dirt and rock in a red, gooey mass.

  “RPG’s down,” he said.

  At least that might be some small consolation for Gallo.

  “Desoto,” Bairamov said, “form up on me when we pass. McCoy, you’d better do something about that damn bomb, and do it fast. The truck isn't stopping.”

  What the hell was he supposed to do? He ducked behind the building and glanced toward the bridge. He had less than a minute before the truck reached it. Rifle rounds cracked around him, throwing dirt clouds into the air as they hit the wall of the house. And he had to do it under fire, too.

  He jumped back into the stream, and waded through it to the bridge. The bomb was held onto the logs by ropes wrapped around it in four places. Dark and weathered, they looked little different to the ropes holding the rest of the logs together.

  He could hear the tracks of the truck approaching now. Desoto jogged in front of it, and fired his rifle madly between the buildings. Not much chance of him hitting anything, but it should keep the insurgents’ heads down. The truck would be on the bridge in a few seconds.

  Logan stared at the bomb. And the ropes. And the wires.

  But he didn’t need to defuse it, did he? He just needed to get it far enough away that the bridge wouldn’t be damaged if it did go off.

  And there was only one way to do that.

  He slashed through the ropes with the blades on his suit’s hand. The IED tilted as the ropes gave way, but didn’t fall free.

  The truck was only metres away. He jumped over the bridge, and slashed through the ropes on that side.

  The boxes splashed down into the water.

  He backed away, then jumped out of the river as the flow of the stream heading for the waterfall caught the boxes, and they began to slide downstream. The wires between the boxes and the bridge unwound and stretched.

  The wires going to whatever was supposed to set it off.

  Then the ground shook as the IED exploded, throwing a towering column of foamy water into the air.

  Logan’s foot slipped on t
he muddy banks of the stream as the blast hit his suit. He slid backwards as his feet tried to grip. He bent his knees and tried to crouch as the suit overbalanced and toppled, but only found empty air beneath him.

  The suit tumbled as it fell backwards, over the edge of the cliff. His rifle flew from his hands as he reached out, trying to grab anything that might support him.

  But his hands only found more empty air.

  His arms and legs thudded against the rocks as he fell over the cliff, and red lights glowed on his HUD, warning him of damage to the suit. He turned his head, trying to see anything he could grab onto, but could only see the dark rocks and bright sky above him.

  The suit twisted around as it fell, until he was facing to the side, along the valley.

  The metal feet of the suit slammed against the rock of the cliff, and it turned further, until he was looking straight down. A thick rock outcropping protruded from the cliff below him, and he tried to grab it. His hand clamped down on the end of the outcropping, but the rock cracked as it took some of the suit’s weight. It broke apart with a loud snap, and the suit fell past, barely slowed.

  Logan grunted as the back of the suit hit the cliff again, and the suit frame smacked against his own back. More red lights glowed on the HUD, and the suit flew away from the cliff, now barely ten metres above the river, and tumbling toward it.

  CHAPTER 21

  “Bairamov? Desoto? Anyone hear me?” Logan said. But no-one answered. Nor was there any indication of their status on his HUD. His suit’s reactor was still running, but the suit status display was little more than a sea of red, indicating all the failing or failed systems after the fall. His suit was going to need a lot more than just a service after this.

  He hung in the straps that held him to the suit frame. They strained against his shoulders, hips and groin as they supported his weight with the suit lying face-down in the water.

  The arms of the suit were bent beneath his chest, trapped between the front of the suit and the bottom of the river. He pushed with his hands, trying to lift the suit from the riverbed.

  The motors whirred faintly, but the arms wouldn’t move, no matter how hard he pushed on the hand grips in the suit. He tried to bend his knees, but the legs only twisted slightly, then came to a stop with the ozone smell of arcing, and the acrid stench of burning wiring.

  His suit wasn’t going anywhere any time soon under its own power. That was for sure.

  The visor was still intact, despite some scratches and chips on the surface, and the suit could keep him alive under water for an hour or more with no external air. But he couldn’t just stay there and wait.

  For a start, no-one but Bairamov and Desoto had any idea where he was, or was likely to come looking for him.

  He’d have to find his own way out.

  And then explain to Volkov how he’d lost his suit, his weapons, and the rest of his team.

  Which wasn’t going to go down well.

  He grabbed the pistol from the survival kit, and holstered it. Then the goggles. He was lucky he’d managed to scrounge a new pair to replace the ones he broke in the battle, while those were being repaired.

  The food and water from the kit went into the pouches on his body armour, and there wasn’t very much of it. To get back to the Legion, he had at least eighty kilometres to cover to town, and he’d have to travel by night, then find somewhere safe from radiation to sit out the day. As fit as life in the Legion had made him, it would still be a long trip. At least three days in this thin air. Maybe four.

  For now, he should be safe enough following the bottom of the valley, as the sun was in the west, and would be behind the cliff for a few hours. Maybe he’d have cover for the whole time until it set.

  But once he passed out of the shadow, he’d no longer have millions of tons of rock to protect him from anything the star could put out.

  And he still had to get out of the river, first.

  He sucked in a dozen quick, deep breaths, filling his lungs and blood with as much oxygen as they could hold. He might need it before he reached the shore.

  “Alice, open up.”

  “I am underwater. Opening the suit would be hazardous. Please confirm order.”

  Certainly hazardous to him, if he couldn’t get out, and drowned as the water poured in. But the suit frame didn’t seem badly damaged. Maybe hazardous to the AI, too.

  Hopefully she'd still be intact by the time they recovered her. If not... he’d made a backup before they left.

  “Sorry, Alice. Confirm. Open the suit.”

  He took another deep breath as motors whined and the back of the suit began to open, then his own back turned to ice as river water poured in. He resisted the urge to gasp as his body shook and shivered at the sudden temperature change as the water ran over it.

  Instead, he held the last breath he took, and tried to ignore the cold as water filled the front of the suit. Then the back of the suit opened completely, and the last of the air inside it burst past him in a trail of bubbles. He slammed his hand onto the clip in the centre of his chest that held the straps together, and pulled on them until they came free. Then twisted out of the suit’s exoskeleton frame.

  His arms pulled him up and legs kicked as he swam toward the surface, and his face broke free of the water in the shadows of the cliff. He glanced back, looking for a landmark to help him find the suit when they returned to recover it.

  But the water splashed around him as the river carried him away, twisting and turning, between rocks protruding from the surface. He paddled with his hands and twisted around, to look downstream. White foam sprayed into the air as the river tumbled through rock-strewn rapids just ahead.

  He kicked and paddled through the water, toward the rocks near the shore. He needed every ounce of the oxygen he had sucked in before he left the suit, and pushed all the energy he could find into his limbs as they struggled to haul him away from the rapids.

  His heart was thumping hard, and he gasped down a fresh breath every time his mouth rose above the surface. He’d swum in the Channel back home, in the sea off the beach at Hastings, but it had never been as hard as this. Even the one time he made the mistake of swimming out to sea with the receding tide, then trying to fight his way back to the beach against it.

  Then, like now, he’d struggled as hard as he could against the water, but salvation barely seemed to come any closer no matter how hard he pulled himself toward the shore. Only luck and swimming well beyond the point of exhaustion had saved him that time.

  The rocks passed by on his right as the water carried him on, and his own efforts to swim across the river had barely any effect as the current tried to turn him around in the swirling waters. If anything, he was moving further to the left as he tried to swim to the right.

  His head bobbed up and down in the river as it became more turbulent with every metre it travelled toward the rapids. He gulped down a mouthful of cold water as he gasped for breath, and spat it out as he bobbed up again. The roar of the rapids filled his ears, and the spray landed in his hair. If he didn’t smash into the rocks, he was going over them, and on down the river. Probably with a few broken bones.

  But the world was fading around him as his lungs ran out of air. The roar of the rapids faded, the water no longer seemed real as his consciousness began to fade, and his eyelids drooped. He had no strength left to swim toward the shore.

  The first rock towered above him, rising two or three metres above the water. He sucked in a deep breath, and kicked his legs with all his remaining strength, pushing himself away. His left foot slapped against the side of the rock, then he was past it, slowly turning in the water and heading downstream.

  Another rock protruded from the water just ahead. A small one that barely rose above the surface, but was perhaps a metre across where it did. He kicked toward it, and swung his arms through the water with all the energy he could find, pulling himself toward the rock until he was almost on top of it.

  His shoulde
r strained as he reached for the rock, and wrapped his left arm around it. Then he grunted with pain as the arm took his whole weight against the force of the current, and pulled him to a stop. His legs floated out behind him as he swung his right arm round, and wrapped it around the rock alongside the left.

  He pulled himself onto the rock, until his chest lay on top of it with only his legs dangling over the side, which took some of the strain away from his arms. He lay there for a few minutes, gasping down the air until his heart slowed and his head began to clear. Then he pulled himself up.

  The cliff towered above the river, about ten metres to his left. But there was no easy route in that direction. He’d have to cross three metres of churning water to get to the next rock, and would still have a long way to go. On the far side, though, away from the cliff, a chain of rocks led right across the rapids.

  He crouched, then jumped to the first of them, another flat rock about a metre away. The next rock rose higher from the water, and he grabbed it, then pulled himself up and clambered on top. He hopped from rock to rock until he reached the last of them, right at the river’s edge.

  He crouched on top of it, and looked down the valley.

  Only long grass and a few spindly trees grew down there, in the shadows most of the day. He slid down the far side of the rock, and sat on the dirt beside it, leaning his back against the rough surface.

  Water oozed from his fatigues beneath the body armour as the pressure between his back and the rock forced it out. The dirt around his legs slowly became dark mud as water soaked into it from his trousers.

  “Bairamov? Desoto? Do you copy?” he said. But there was still no response.

  Well, that was a complete clusterfuck. Gallo was gone for sure. With Adamski in hospital and Bairamov and Desoto MIA, Logan knew few of the people still left in 1st Company, and knew few of those as well as he knew Volkov and Poulin. And he’d rather not know either of them.

  Particularly after Poulin got Gallo killed for her stupid ore truck plan.