by Jeremy Szal
‘I’m doing what I have to do,’ hissed Joreth. The Torven’s hand was shaking as he held the thin-gun, the laser targeting sights trained square on my chest. He stared at me through the transparent visor of his spherical helmet. He wore a bright-red suit, the glossy material flame-resistant.
‘Explain to me how blowing up your own museum solves anything,’ I said.
‘Everything’s possible with you people, isn’t it?’ Joreth sneered. ‘So idealistic and naive.’
‘You can’t possibly be part of the Suns,’ I said, aware Kowalski and Grim were listening to every word and would hopefully send backup. The alien’s face twisted. Bullseye. ‘Why do their dirty work for them?’
Joreth couldn’t meet my eye. ‘I have two daughters. I had to make a choice: blow up this building, or they’d destroy our home with them inside it.’
I flexed my muscles, clenching my fists, rebuilding the suit’s energy charge. I wasn’t going to stand here and let the Suns get away with this. Not again. Joreth’s heart might not be in following through with this, but I know when someone’s prepared to do whatever it takes to keep their family safe. Even shooting an unarmed prisoner to keep him quiet. ‘We can help you.’ I realised the we I meant was Harmony. ‘Protect you. Smuggle you into hiding.’
‘No. It won’t work—’
‘Of course it can work!’ I hissed. ‘Listen to me. We can have your whole family safely on a lungship tonight, departing to any outpost in any system you want.’
‘It should have blown already,’ Joreth murmured, as if he hadn’t heard a word I’d said.
‘Listen to me,’ I said, injecting desperation into my voice.
‘They must know something’s wrong.’ Joreth talked over me.
‘Listen to me!’ I begged.
Joreth’s finger tightened around the trigger. ‘They might be on their way to my house already.’
‘Listen to me!’ I yelled, panting hard. They couldn’t do this to us. Not again. I spoke fast, aware every second we delayed risked alerting the Suns. ‘Think about the message you’re going to send. You’ll be destroying an alien cultural archive, destroying a symbol of the Common’s effort to welcome and integrate other species. On behalf of a terrorist cult who hate their guts. The rise in stormtech? The Bluing Out? The attacks? That’s them.’ My mouth had turned uncomfortably dry. ‘You’re a Torven. Your people took decades to integrate into Compass, centuries to fill this place with your valuables. Why would you destroy it all now?’
‘None of that means anything if they kill my family,’ Joreth said.
‘There’s another way,’ I begged.
‘There isn’t,’ the alien said, almost kindly. ‘I’m sorry.’
But I wasn’t.
I rushed him. My suit had fully recharged and I clawed at the alien’s arm with invisible hands, trying to knock the weapon away. The surface of his suit was slippery, letting him wrestle free, firing twice. Even if I were invisible, at point-blank range he couldn’t miss, and both shots punched into my shoulder. I was slammed into the wall with bone-jarring force, my head knocking against something metal. Stars swarmed my vision. I collapsed, visible again, clamping a hand to my bleeding shoulder. Blood soaked my suit as I crawled to my knees, groaning. I felt blue worming up my chest like ivy climbing in fast-forward, circling the injury and smothering the pain. The bullet was popped out as the stormtech welded my flesh together, faster than I’d ever known it.
Joreth watched me with narrowed eyes down the holographic sights of his thin-gun, before lowering the weapon and backing away. ‘Joreth, wait, don’t,’ I begged, still on my knees. My words were swallowed up in the metallic echo of the door slamming shut and sealing me inside.
37
Burning
I reeled to my feet, shoulder throbbing in agony.
‘Vak!’ Katherine’s voice was filled with fear. ‘We’re coming to get you!’
‘Get out of there!’ Grim yelled.
‘I can’t,’ I told them, my heart sinking into my guts. No windows. No exit, no way out. The cable duct gaped mockingly above me, at least three metres too high to reach. No amount of stormtech would armour me from the searing heat of a fusebomb explosion. My flesh would melt like wax under a stream of supercharged fire, leaving me a smouldering pile of guts and gristle.
‘No! There’s got to be something!’ Katherine panted. ‘Vakov!’
But I was screwed. Fusebombs have a thirty-second countdown. Assuming Joreth had set it off when he shut the door, I was almost out of time.
But my body’s survival instinct wouldn’t let me quit and the gears kept spinning.
I scooped up my weapons and bundled my body into the largest of the crates. For the first time in my life I wished I wasn’t such a big guy as I crammed myself into the rock case. Squeezing the weapons between my legs, I sealed the case shut and gritted my teeth as my injury scraped against the metal, sour sweat dripping down to where the harness buckle was rubbing between my shoulders. How long was I going to be—
There was a flaring, hellish explosion, swallowing up the world in a bone-shaking roar, loud as Harvest artillery fire. My guts leaped into my mouth as the crate went flipping into the air and slammed hard against the wall. My head collided with metal and my mouth filled with blood. I almost bit my tongue in half, choking as smoke seeped in.
I’d survived.
But when I tried to push the crate open, it wouldn’t budge. Sealed shut. My eyes were watering from the smoke. I heard the distinct crackle of burning wood and realised I’d locked myself in my own coffin. I twisted in the choking darkness, finding the corners, the crate’s weak points. Metal ground against my spine as I manoeuvred myself around, steadily drawing on the stormtech, and pushing against both sides of the crate. Heat built against my skin and I felt my legs, arms and back strengthen, an animal growl tearing out of my throat. I raked in a breath, choking smoke pouring down into my lungs. The next few breaths were going to be my last.
Something gave under my fist. I drew back my hand and punched where the seal would be. The metal groaned as it dented. I punched again, again, again, my knuckles tearing open and bleeding. I swore I felt a bone breaking, but between one blow and the next the stormtech had already repaired it. The seal gave a splintering crack and I tumbled out into a burning inferno. The fire was barely visible through the cloud of smoke. I coughed and heaved as clawed up my weapons. The door had been damaged in the explosion, the tattered remains bursting apart as I powered through. The groaning stairs collapsed under me as I raced down them, sending me flying, almost me skewering on a chunk of rebar. I staggered, choking and spluttering through the roaring blaze. Everything was a fiery red smudge of heat. Smouldering beams collapsing around me, spitting hot wooden shrapnel. Glass and windowpanes shattering in my face. The fire spreading as it swiftly cut off all exits.
There: a slice of daylight ahead, stabbing through the smoke. Not knowing if I was on fire and not caring, I leaped over a burning table and I hurled myself at the front door in a great crunch of splintering wood, spilling face-first onto the footpath.
I rolled onto my back, raking in fresh air, too exhausted to move as I watched the xenomuseum surrender to the damage. The walls were already blackening, roof caving in, great sheets of windows shattering and sliding off like cooked flesh off a bone. A scream of tortured wood as beams collapsed. Dark smoke coiling skyward to be sucked up by the air vents. Emergency drones whirled down to stop the blaze spreading to other parts of the Academy, but centuries too late to save anything inside.
I might have found our next lead, but I hadn’t prevented the House of Suns from obtaining their victory. They’d destroyed the xenomuseum in their act of planned terrorism. That was its own kind of failure.
I found some reserves of energy to scoop myself up and stumble away. Everything ached. My fist and shoulder were both bleeding. A pud
dle of sweat and blood had congealed around my feet. I probably had severe burns. But I’d have become a kebab if I’d stayed in that box, so I was going to take my injuries in stride.
And that’s when I noticed the crowd staring.
They’d been focused on the burning building. Until I, the lone survivor, came bursting out of it wearing a high-tech suit with weapons strapped to my back. Now, half a hundred people were staring at me with an expression I wasn’t liking one bit.
‘It wasn’t me.’ I barely recognised the sandpapery growl that clawed out of my throat, attempting to form words. ‘It wasn’t me.’
A few looks were exchanged. Fists tightening. Anger building on faces. Someone spat. They’d been primed for this moment by the escalating Reaper and skinnie incidents, by other attacks that looked awfully similar to this. ‘It wasn’t me,’ I choked out again. A chunky ball of stormtech had wedged in my throat and wouldn’t go away, my voice turned husky. There was an ebbing in my elbow where I’d been cut getting out of the crate. I twisted it around to examine it. The blood oozing out of the wound wasn’t red. It was blue. Splattering to the ground like dye.
Oh no.
‘Terrorist dog,’ someone shouted to sounds of agreement.
‘You people destroyed that bank!’ someone else roared.
‘No!’ I roared, but no one was listening. No one wanted to listen. Easier to leap to assumptions then let anything dissaude them. I’d tried to save these people and they were about to turn on me.
‘Get him!’ someone shouted.
Screw this.
I unslung my scattershot and levelled it at the crowds. ‘Get back!’ I roared. The crowd gasped. The two men approaching me paused, but didn’t back off. I was so focused on them I didn’t notice the one sneaking up behind me. He grabbed me by my harness, heaved, and sent me sprawling across the hard concrete, scraping my wounds. Screams erupted as I scrambled for the scattershot, slamming my elbow into the assailant’s side before he could attack me again, scooping the weapon up. Another shocked gasp went up. The act of self-defence reading as unprovoked violence, filling the gaps in their minds supported by their own prejudices. I backed up, fresh pain throbbing down my joints, my aim wavering between my assailant and the crowd. It’d be so, so easy to pull the trigger, blowing his skull apart, blood spraying and splattering over the belligerent crowd. It’d teach them not to mess with Reapers. Make these ungrateful bastards respect the men who’d saved their lives in the war.
‘I didn’t do it,’ I said, my voice an angry sob, fighting to regain control of myself. ‘I didn’t do it, I didn’t do it. They did it. They did it all.’
But no one was listening, because mobs only ever see red. I stared down the sights of the scattershot at the crowd. Slowly backing away until I could duck back behind a building. I activated the suit’s recharging cloak and my body evaporated into a hazy shimmer. I flattened myself against the cool metalwork, members of the crowd stalking past, their bravery miraculously rediscovered. I shimmied up the walls until I reached the rooftop, then squatted on my haunches along the parapet, chest heaving, surveying the scene of desolation before traversing the rooftops towards home.
38
Stormblood
I’ve always hated space travel. Being strapped into a military frigate in orbit over a war-torn planet doesn’t do much to ease my prejudices. If I thought I could look down without puking my guts up, I’d see the stormy planet of Renchio below. The skies blossoming with artillery fire like little wounds. The clouds crackling with bursts of nuclear ordnance. Our ships have been outfitted with bleeding-edge stealth-tech, so we and the squadron of fighter-ships pass unseen through space as we utilise Renchio’s gravity to slingshot to the other side of the planet.
We’ve spent months tracking the Canine King down, shredding his outposts and smashing his men on the battlefield. With every week, Harvest’s grip on Renchio weakens, and his resources with it. Now, we’ve chased him down to a major Harvest outpost on the outskirts of a city. We break them here, and we’ll smash a serious dent in Harvest’s control of the planet. If we kill the warlord, it’ll be a borderline victory.
The rest of my fireteam sit around me in a corner of the ship. Ordnance, suits and weapons are webbed to the ceiling. The rest of the large military vessel is choked full of fireteams, squads, air-support troopers and miscellaneous Harmony personnel clad in bulky armour outfitted with glowing lights and whirring machinery. In the semi-dark we look like a factory of battle-robots. This drop is Reapers-only. We’re diving face-first into the darkest of Dead Zones. I saw corvettes, fighter-ships and attack drones, artillery being prepped for the operation. We’re packing heavy for this one.
I can’t wait.
I strain against the reinforced seat harness, too restless to remain seated, knowing that standing up in a storm like this is a death wish. And yet I can’t stamp the urge from my mind. The aircraft shudders with sudden turbulence. Strapped tight next to me, Alcatraz’s faceplate almost knocks against mine. The holographic readouts around us groan with warnings. ‘You seeing what I see?’ I ask, tagging a Drop Trooper who’s pacing and clawing at his body. His armoured fists slam into the hull, leaving massive dents. He’s got a hungry look on his face I’m not liking one bit.
It reminds me of Cable smashing that Harvester’s head in until his skull went soft.
And I’m starting to feel the same way. My hands are twitching by my sides. My breathing’s gone heavy and fast, like oxygen’s in short supply. I’m covered in cold sweat. I’m constantly agitated, an itch in me I can never scratch. Nothing I haven’t felt a hundred times already during the war. Only before I could always redirect it. Channel my energy and adrenaline towards our operation with sharpshooter precision. Now, it’s like grenades are going off in my body, spraying shrapnel in wild bursts and harming anyone within range. And I’m the one pulling the pin.
When Alcatraz doesn’t answer, I know he’s feeling the same way. The whole fireteam is. I can smell the stormtech inside them, inside me, growing thicker and more succulent. It should make us better soldiers, shouldn’t it? But there’s something increasingly wild about my body. Something primal I don’t completely have control over.
‘I’m not sure we ever had control over it,’ Alcatraz says when I share my theories with the rest of Ghost.
Ratchet stops fidgeting with his seat straps. ‘What the hell’s that supposed to mean?’
‘Stormtech makes us addicted to adrenaline. Stands to reason eventually it’ll make us do things we don’t want to do for that extra kick.’
‘They said that would never happen in basic training!’ Cable says. ‘That our bodies would adapt like any other augmentation.’
‘Except it’s not an augmentation,’ Myra says. The stormtech shivers warm and wet up my chest, like it knows what we’re talking about. ‘It’s alien, and Harmony knows nothing about what it’s doing to us.’
‘It makes us good soldiers,’ Alcatraz said. ‘Soldiers who do what no others can. That’s why we’re on these suicide missions. Marching into Dead Zones, chasing the Canine King, dropping into this battle in the middle of a storm. They’re deliberately getting our adrenaline levels to soar. They wind us up, then turn us loose on the enemy, sit back and watch us rack up some serious damage.’
I want to deny it. But it makes too much sense. ‘Those Intelligence Officers watching us train,’ I say with a sinking heart. ‘The post-operation assessments they’ve been asking us to do. Getting us to wear our armour as much as possible. They’re studying us like lab rats to maximise the stormtech’s potential. Even if it kills us.’
Fury pours off the others.
‘They lied to us,’ Ratchet growls. He’s starting to shake. ‘All this time, they lied to us.’
‘We’re freaks,’ Cable whispers huskily.
‘This changes nothing,’ Alcatraz says.
‘What?’ Myra snaps.
‘We haven’t changed.’ Alcatraz looks at us one by one. ‘We’re still Reapers. We’re still family. They can’t take that away from us. We’re still going to do right by each other. Until we’re dirt and dust.’
Slowly, our collective anger dials back down. ‘Dirt and dust,’ we repeat, one by one.
‘So we go down here and we fight like hell,’ Alcatraz says. We cross our arms over our chests in salute, a tight lump in my throat. ‘Not for Harmony. For each other.’
There’s that familiar tightness in my gut as we drop out of orbit and into the planet’s gravity well. We plunge through a sky choked with oceans of boiling clouds. Spears of lightning crackle down. Sporadic rain spits in rapid bursts across the landscape. The friendly squadrons scream ahead of us. We shudder in their turbulence. A siren starts shrieking. White strobes slash through the blackness, showing snatches of restless Reapers stirring in their seats. The pilot announces we’re fast approaching our drop-point. I unbuckle and stand with the rest of Ghost, our helmets sliding down over our faces.
Technicians strap us into the drop tubes; a heavy frame clamps tight around my back, shoulders and chest, before I’m slotted into a cylinder. A human bullet in a chamber. My armoured body’s sheathed in metal; the space around me ringed with old-fashioned white and red lights. The stormtech’s burning through me like wildfire. I’m ready to tear out my weapons and start shredding Harvesters to pieces.
The interior flares with lights like glowing blood vessels. Warning icons blink up on my HUD. I’m suddenly spat out of the chamber and into the air. The wind screams past my helmet. The world’s a dark smudge. Rain hammers against my armour and faceplate. I straighten my arms and legs, activating my thrusters and burning towards the looming highrise and surrounding buildings.
Around me, fellow Reapers are lit up in golden outlines, nosediving through the storm, my fireteam in bright green. Long-range gunfire streaks skyward towards us. A Reaper next to me is blasted straight out of the sky, cooked alive in his own armour, careening as he’s sent spinning to earth.