A Pale Dawn

by Chris Kennedy

  Curran/Dante fired several bursts from their particle cannon as soon as they were below sixteen kilometers. It was the soonest they could legally fire at ground targets. The low mountains between Baia de Santos, their target bay, and the São Paulo defenses only allowed those quick shots. The Zha Akee showed two orbital-class missile batteries disappearing in balls of fire. Curran/Dante grunted in satisfaction.

  Then they were all burning their fusion torches like miniature stars. Five, ten, twenty, forty Gs of force tore at the Raknar as the aptly-named suicide burn scrubbed off thousands of kilometers per hour of velocity. The shockwave of the seven fusion torches blasted away mountains of water below them as they stopped, exposing the sea floor in places and flash-boiling several thousand acre-feet of ocean.

  Along the bay, the city of Santos was host to a five-meter tsunami which inundated the settlement. Air raid sirens had cleared most of the residents to shelters, so casualties were light.

  The seven Raknar rode on pillars of fusion fire, rising above sea level like phoenixes. Those on tall buildings who’d been drawn out by the alarms looked on in amazement as the mecha hovered there for several long seconds. Then as one, they all increased thrust and angled inland, accelerating rapidly.

  “Drop landing baffles,” Jim/Splunk ordered. All seven of them jettisoned the highly radioactive baffle plates from their fusion torch thrust chambers. The plates fell behind and slammed into the ocean like drop tanks off ancient bombers. As soon as the Raknar cleared the coast, they switched to rocket motors.

  Now, with much less thrust, the towering mecha slowed to under 100 kilometers per hour as they skimmed the buildings and tree tops. Occasionally a tree or a house would burst into flames from the white-hot exhaust of their passing. The Raknar were only alert for one thing, and one thing only, though: Enemy.

  They passed over São Vicente; Largo da Pompeda was crowded with boats of all kinds. A thousand heads turned to watch the unearthly forms pass overhead. The dragon’s breath of their motor exhaust tossed the water like a blowtorch. Passengers in boats below their passing either dove into the water or risked being capsized or burned.

  The town of Cubatão passed below them. There wasn’t much damage there as the seven were climbing higher in anticipation of the Mantiqueira Mountains. These were only foothills of the much greater ridges northward, though they were still more than a kilometer high, and presented the Raknar with natural cover.

  “As planned,” Jim/Splunk said, “break into teams, and let’s go in.”

  The Raknar split into two teams of two, and one of three. Jim stayed with Epard/Ryft and Curran/Dante in the middle. To the north went Fenn/Peanut with Thompson/Shadow, and to the south were Mays/Aura with Kleve/Sandy.

  “All ready,” Jim/Splunk said when the teams were in position. “And…go!” The seven Raknar exploded over the mountains.

  * * *

  Dropship One, Nearing Merc Internment Facility, Lagos, Nigeria, Earth

  “We’re taking light anti-aircraft fire,” the pilot called. “A few lasers, here and there. So far, no missiles.”

  “Roger that,” Sansar replied. “Continue on to the drop zone.” The pilot sounded excited about the lack of missiles, but it caused a worm of anxiety to crawl up Sansar’s back. No missiles? Had they caught them flatfooted? It didn’t make sense. There had been plenty of time to let the facility know they were coming—and there wasn’t anything else in the area that was worth assaulting. Maybe it didn’t have any defenses because Peepo didn’t think the facility would be attacked in central Africa? That no one remaining on Earth would do such a thing? Did that make sense?

  “Ten seconds,” the pilot said, interrupting her thoughts, and the ramp started down. The members of First Platoon stood up. “Holy shit!” the pilot yelled. “Missiles! Missiles everywhere!”

  The shuttle banked hard left, and its nose rose precipitously as the pilot tried to avoid some unseen threat. The CASPers had already unlocked from their seats, and they were thrown into each other and down the ramp. Sansar watched in horror as two of her troopers went into the airstream. They pin wheeled for several seconds then slammed into the trees below the dropship before their systems could get their descent under control. The lights for their suits went red in her display.

  There was a crash as something hit the dropship, and another CASPer went out the back as the craft yawed violently. Things suddenly got quieter as one of the motors cut out.

  “We’re going down!” the pilot yelled as the wings leveled. “Jump! Jump now! I can’t hold it!”

  The trees rose to meet them as the platoon raced out the back of the craft. Sansar was the last person out of the dropship, and she could easily see the palm fronds on the trees whipping past the craft just a few meters below the ramp as she launched herself out. Four of her troopers’ icons were now red as she touched down. Happily, it looked like all the members of Second Platoon had made it down safely.

  “Everyone, gather on me,” she commed.

  “What do you think?” First Sergeant “Mun” Enkh asked. “They obviously know we’re coming.”

  “They do,” Sansar agreed. “But that doesn’t mean they’re ready for us.”

  “The dropship pilots might disagree with that.”

  Sansar frowned. “I’m sure they would. However, there’s a difference between being ready to stop a dropship or two and being ready to stop a company of CASPers. We proceed to the target and we recover the people the Merc Guild is holding. Trust me, having been there, I can tell you that being held by the Merc Guild isn’t something they’re enjoying.”

  Mun nodded, then turned her CASPer to the rest of the group that was gathering around them. “All right, you heard the boss. Being held by the Merc Guild isn’t any fun. Let’s go rescue our compatriots from the loving care of aliens. First Platoon, First Squad, you’ve got point. Head out and follow by squads. Let’s go!”

  Although the jungle was thick, the company didn’t have far to go before they reached the outskirts of town.

  “We’re here,” Staff Sergeant Dirk Flint, the squad leader of First Squad, transmitted a couple of minutes later.

  Sansar moved forward and found that the imagery they’d looked at hadn’t lied—one second there was jungle, the next there was city. The road through the neighborhood just kind of trailed off into the jungle.

  “Where the fuck are we?” Corporal Gantulga asked.

  “Looks like hell,” Staff Sergeant Jacobs said as Second Squad reached the edge of the jungle.

  Sansar found it hard to dispute her assessment. She’d seen plenty of third world countries, both human and alien, over her life—Blue Sky Above, she’d grown up in one—but the outskirts of Lagos, Nigeria made Uzbekistan look like a rich metropolis. It would have taken a huge infusion of credits just to upgrade the houses to awful, though at least the residents had walls and a roof. The houses were either of cinder block or sheet metal construction, and most had a simple sheet of metal over a space large enough for a single room. A small creek wound past them with feces floating down it; the creek was obviously used as an open sewer. A board laid across it provided a means for Humans to cross without having to touch its fetid waters.

  If Sansar knew one thing, it was that she was not opening her canopy here.

  “Is this the right road?” she asked.

  “Yes, ma’am,” Flint said. “The target should be about 500 meters east of here and then 100 meters south of the main road we have to cross.”

  Sansar could see groups gathering to the left and right of her at the ends of the parallel streets. “Everyone accounted for, Mun?”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  “Flint, there are some mercs who need saving. Let’s go; on the double!”

  “Let’s go, Horde!” Flint commed. “Follow me!” He raced off down the street, with the company following. By this point, the aliens had to know they were coming, so there was no point in trying to sneak up on the facility.

  Sansar cau
ght flashes of faces in the holes that passed for windows in the structures as she ran by. None seemed scared; most seemed merely inquisitive, as if they saw a squad of CASPers running by their houses every day. Weird.

  They reached the main road—the first paved road they’d seen—and the company started stacking up as they waited for breaks in the traffic.

  “Don’t bunch!” Mun commed. “Go over them!”

  She tapped her jumpjets and roared over the traffic, followed by the rest of the company. Sansar didn’t need the augmented hearing from her external microphones; she could hear the sounds of cars slamming together through her sealed canopy as the cars’ occupants watched the giant mechs fly over them.

  The buildings along the main road were a combination of professionally-built structures and hovels mixed together without apparent rhyme or reason. She hoped the vibrations of the mechs touching down on the other side of the road didn’t knock any of the shanties down, because they didn’t have time to set them back up if they did.

  She got her first view of the target facility while in the air—it was the only two-story building in the area. The top of the structure was visible as the company charged down the streets one block to the east and west of it, using the intervening buildings for cover. A laser beam burned through one of the shanties several meters in front of her, and Sansar realized that while the buildings—mostly just sheet metal here on the back street—could be used for concealment, they didn’t really provide much cover.

  They came even with the facility, and Sansar could see the four-meter-high wall that surrounded the complex, along with the rolls of razor wire on top. Neither of those were impediments to the CASPers’ progress. The high-powered laser turrets in the corners, however, were very much so.

  “Move in!” Sansar ordered as the company encircled the prison. They closed in, racing from building to building, as the defending lasers fired more and more frequently at the moving shapes. “Fire at will!”

  Rockets launched from seven of her troops—an eighth trooper armed with rockets had been one of those lost—destroying the turrets.

  Snipers fired from the roof of the building, and the CASPer next to Sansar fell, a laser hole through its canopy.

  Sansar fired the heavy MAC on her shoulder and the Zuul sniper was blown from the roof’s edge in two pieces. The other snipers were also killed by the Horde troopers, if not quite as messily.

  “Charge!” Sansar yelled, and the company jumped as one, soaring over the walls to land in the courtyard surrounding the jail facility.

  A number of Zuul were waiting for them, and two of her troopers were hit as they soared in. Sansar saw one of the Zuul aiming its rifle at another of her troopers and landed on top of the alien, squashing it as she crashed onto it.

  The battle was over in seconds, and the members of First Squad stacked up at the main door to the facility. The entry command was given, and the door was kicked in, slamming the Zuul hiding behind it into the wall across the small anteroom. Flint smashed his CASPer through the door frame and fired once through the alien’s head as he crossed to the interior door.

  Without waiting, he kicked it in, then dove through the opening, looking for a target. He didn’t find one.

  The rest of First Platoon poured into the building and drew up short. They stood inside a large two-story building, with cells going around the outside of both the floor they were on and the floor above, which they could see through a large central opening in the building.

  And they were all alone.

  There were no signs of any jailors or any of the mercs who were supposedly being held in the facility. The individual cell doors were open, but they were all empty.

  “Shit,” Corporal Gantulga said as he inspected the closest cell. “I wouldn’t keep my goat in this place. It looks worse than some of the places we passed by on our way to get here.”

  Sansar had to agree; the cells were grim. A thin blanket was thrown on the cement floor, and that was it. Some of them had a bucket for refuse, but the majority didn’t, and the floors were stained with all manner of…stuff. Having been a prisoner not long before, Sansar shuddered to see the conditions the mercs had been kept in.

  “Search the building and the grounds,” Sansar ordered. “Odds are they are still here or close by, or they wouldn’t have had the Zuul guarding the facility. Find them or find what they did with them.”

  Sansar could feel an anger building in the pit of her stomach as she surveyed the facilities. This was one more thing Peepo would be held accountable for, if it was the last thing she did. This facility—even if Peepo had never seen it—was being managed on her watch, by people she had hired. She was responsible for this. Words failed her.

  “We found a door,” Flint called, and she hurried off to see what they’d found.

  Flint, along with Gantulga, were standing in the only clean rooms Sansar had seen in the jail. A small anteroom led into what must have been the manager’s office. The desk had been pushed—well, thrown, probably, as it lay on its side—against a wall, and a carpet thrown over top of it, revealing a large trapdoor in the floor.

  “What do you suppose is down there?” Gantulga asked as Sansar stepped into the room.

  “Only one way to find out.” Flint replied. “Open it up.”

  Gantulga reached down but couldn’t grab the latching mechanism with his CASPer’s fingers. “Umm…Staff Sergeant, I can’t get it,” he said after a moment.

  “That’s why you need one of these,” Flint replied, pulling a thin metal rod from a bracket he had mounted to his lower leg.

  “What the hell is that?” Gantulga asked.

  “It’s a poker,” Flint replied. “After you can’t pick up things enough times, you start carrying tools to help you.” He bent the metal rod into a “J” shape, then leaned over, hooked the door latch, and popped it up so Gantulga could grab hold of it.

  Flint snapped the poker back into its bracket, stepped back, and aimed his rifle at the door. “Go ahead,” he said. “Open it.”

  Gantulga flipped the door open and jumped out of the way. Stairs led into the darkness below.

  “Well, shit,” Flint said.

  “What?” Gantulga asked.

  Sansar saw what Flint noticed immediately. “Why don’t you go down and investigate what’s down there?” she asked.

  Gantulga stepped toward the staircase, then realized it was too narrow for his CASPer. “Oh, got it. We’ll have to dismount.”

  “Yeah,” Flint said. “And the only reason I can think of to have a staircase that a CASPer can’t get down…”

  “Is to make us dismount,” Sansar finished.

  “Yes, ma’am,” Flint replied. “Ma’am, if you’ll back out of this room, I’ll take a squad down there and see what they have planned for us.”

  “You can lead,” Sansar replied, “but I’m coming, too.”

  * * *

  Houston Starport, Houston, Texas

  Laser fire rose to greet the members of Asbaran Solutions as they dropped toward the south end of the starport on their HALD profile. The laser fire, while significant, wasn’t as fierce as he’d expected. Also…he checked his sensors. They appeared to be working, but…

  “Does anyone show any missile launches?” he asked over the command net.

  “Nope.”

  “No, sir.”

  “None.”

  “Looks like we caught them unprepared!”

  Nigel shook his head. While he was happy anytime he got to land unopposed, it didn’t make any sense. No missiles? At the base the Horsemen would most likely attack first? Could it be that Peepo was that confident of her position here on Earth? If so, she was going to be sorely surprised. If not…it was almost like Peepo wanted them to land. Why would she do that?

  “Ten seconds,” his system advised as his rocket motors went into full boost to slow his descent. It didn’t matter at that point, anyway—they were committed. They could no more boost back to orbit than they
could stand on the surface of the sun. The ground rushed up to meet him, and Nigel was down, for good or bad.

  Several MinSha fired lasers at them from the direction of the Hellcats’ hangars to the north—which lay in ruins, Nigel saw—but they skittered off when the Asbaran Solutions’ CASPers returned fire.

  “What do you think?” the Asbaran XO, Lieutenant Colonel Paolo Valenti, asked.

  “I think something’s very wrong here,” Nigel replied. “I expected them to try to hold the starport.”

  “I would have thought so, too. Perhaps they didn’t have enough troops to do so, and they’re trying to draw us into a trap.”

  “It’s possible,” Nigel said. He looked up and down the tarmac then made up his mind. “Call in the Lumar. If we’re going to spring their trap, having a little extra muscle won’t hurt.” Nigel looked around again and added, “Standing around here makes my skin crawl. Let’s get to the hangar where we have a little more cover.”

  The troops jogged to the closest hangar—Tom’s Total Terrors’—taking periodic laser fire from the north.

  “They sure want us to know they’re at the Hellcats’ hangar,” Nigel noted.

  “They sure do,” Valenti replied. “Do you suppose that’s where the trap is?”

  “Must be. Either that or they heard this is your first time back on Earth in ten years and they’re going easy on you.”

  “It’s closer to fifteen, and I doubt they’re going to cut me any slack.”

  After ten minutes, two dropships screamed in to land close to the hangar, and the two companies of Lumar disembarked from them. The laser fire picked up again as the large humanoids lumbered into the hangar and the dropships lifted off.