by Tim C Taylor
“You didn’t think the handful you spotted would be here alone, did you?” asked Umarov. The blood lust rang through Umarov’s voice. Springer could imagine him itching to bring out the combat blade secured to the hip patch on his battlesuit.
Springer shrank inside her suit. She hadn’t thought that far. She could be such a dumb veck sometimes.
“Thanks, Old Man. I owe you big time.”
Battle erupted through this section of the minefield: the rest of 4th Company revealing themselves as they engaged with the New Empire unit. But Umarov and Springer were headed the wrong way.
“I’ll hold you to that, Springer. I need a promise from you.”
“Not now. You know, there’s a battle?”
She tried to turn round on a wide arc to bring them back behind the enemy Marines she had first revealed. Umarov wasn’t cooperating. He was trying to push her away in a straight line.
“Umarov. What are you playing at?”
“Not now,” he snapped.
A tickling sensation traveled up Springer’s chest, numbing her with its touch. Saraswati sensed her human’s horror and spoke up in her mind.
“Promise to take your pleasures wherever, whenever and with whomever you can. I know you modern-day cyborgs laugh at me for saying that, but…”
Umarov’s voice was lost in static.
“I promise. Umarov, I never thought you were silly. Umarov! Umarov!”
It was Saraswati’s voice, but Umarov’s words.
Umarov’s suit was leaving a debris trail of metal, ceramalloy and plastics. Then the corrosive must have reached his flesh, because a plume of red geysered out of the wound in her friend’s back.
“NO!”
Springer squeezed her eyes shut and tried to shake off Umarov’s corpse. But his grip was too strong.
It was only the corrosion eating at his suit integrity that loosened his embrace enough for her to finally kick him away.
Springer didn’t open her eyes.
But she had comrades that were still alive, and they needed her.
And she needed…? What did she need? She took a deep breath to calm herself. It didn’t work. It only added to the anger that puffed her up so much she felt as if she would burst inside the confines of her battlesuit. The inside of her helmet visor reflected back violet light.
They would pay for what they had done.
And when she had killed the unit that had ended her friend, she would kill their comrades. And theirs. Not even a thousand corpses would satisfy her.
“Can you screen Umarov out of my vision?”
Springer opened her eyes and saw nothing but the serene emptiness of space. “Give me tac-display. Let’s start extracting payment.”
Saraswati’s words took a moment to sink in. “What?”
The AI gave her interpretation of a human sigh.
“All gone? All of them?”
“How many?” asked Springer. It would take an age, but she would track them down and kill them all.
Springer’s fury switched from fire to ice. It burned even more painfully inside her. “We never stood a chance.”
“The Colonel? The beautiful Colonel Xin Lee who can bend mere mortals to do her bidding. Xin with the heart of purest evil. What has she to do with the death of my friends?”
“And how is it that she lives when so many better people have died?”
“How the frakk would you know? You aren’t human.”
Before Saraswati could reply, Springer shut her out. The battlesuit with all its sensors, displays, and motor functions was now under the control of instructions sent directly from Springer’s mind.
A little voice in Springer’s head – it sounded like Saraswati from far way – said that this was the reason she hated Xin so much, because she had foreseen that she would murder her commanding officer in the field.
Frakk off!
Springer self-administered the ultimate drug: combat immunity.
Within seconds, all her doubts sloughed away.
Only two impulses burned with crystal clarity within her breast. One was a need to kill. The other was a sense of intense loyalty.
Loyalty to her friends.
And Xin Lee was not her friend.
It took a moment to retrace the Colonel’s position when Saraswati had contacted her. After a final check to ensure her carbine was in working order, and her ammo status was acceptable, Springer headed off to meet Colonel Lee.
— Chapter 47 —
Springer found Colonel Frakking Lee fleeing for her life pursued by a cloud of traitor Marines. For a few moments, Springer tagged along behind, reveling in the anticipation of this voyeuristic performance of her arch enemy’s death.
Her breath came in shorter, faster panting gasps until she had to release in a scream that hurt her ears. Her hands had to frakking do something. Crush. Punch. Flail. Squeeze. Something, anything but hang uselessly by her sides.
Her lips curled away from her teeth like a Jotun’s snarl.
She had to kill.
Whipped by the combat drug, high on revenge, Springer closed with the enemy. All of them.
Without understanding why, she changed the setting on her carbine to X-ray pulse. The SA-71’s entire charge would discharge as an X-ray energy beam for about 20 milliseconds. Then there would be a second to recharge. It was like a laser beam turned up to a hundred times the strength, but with the firing characteristics of a bolt-action rifle.
The targets were all maneuvering hard. Hitting them would be next to impossible. Even if she hit one, the X-ray beam had low interaction with physical matter. It would probably pass straight through. The only reliable target was hitting the AI in the armor band around the chest. The armor would actually increase the chance of absorbing the immense energy of the X-ray pulse, frying the AI. But hitting the AI or its interface from a distance of nearly a klick was impossible squared.
Despite the combat immunity haze, she hesitated. What the hell am I doing?
Her doubts didn’t stick, though. This was what she was going to do, and that was an end to it.
She kept a steady vector, braced her carbine and aimed. Her first target seemed to slow almost to a complete stop. The suit AI’s location was outlined in violet.
She fired. An invisible bolt of energy flew from her carbine, carrying for a fraction of a second the energy of a warship’s main battery.
She knew immediately that her shot was on target.
“Thank you,” she mumbled to Saraswati for helping with her aim.
But there was no reply. Saraswati was still locked out.
As she switched to her next target, the truth shook her that this was all her own doing.
Springer was so in tune with her carbine an
d the vengeance she was exacting from the enemy that she moved to a different level of consciousness. Time blurred, ran backward, spread out and ran in parallel before looping back on itself, until she was shooting all of her targets simultaneously and repeatedly. Only when a slender strand of normalcy whispered that the last enemy Marine was dead did she begin to register her surroundings once more.
There remained only one object of interest nearby.
Xin.
The skangat officer halted, revealing her suit signal to Springer. When she made her visor transparent, she seemed almost to be welcoming the Marine who had shot her pursuers.
I’m not falling for your games.
Springer was closing the gap to her nemesis by 80 meters per second. Xin quickly matched vectors but slowed her speed slightly. Consequently, Springer wafted gently toward the officer like a falling feather.
Xin had her carbine on her back. Her arms were outstretched, non-threatening.
That won’t save you.
Springer reversed her carbine, holding it above her shoulder, ready to bring it down hard. Gods but she wanted to ram the stock into that cute, snubby nose, shattering it across that frakking face.
Not going to work. Helmet armor too strong.
Springer was still deciding how to kill her CO when the two suits gently kissed together.
Their meeting was gentle, but the two of them were hurtling at high speed, already through the minefield and gradually approaching the Legion fleet. Relative to each other they lay at rest, each upon the other, with barely an inch separating their helmets.
I could extend my carbine’s teeth. Rip a hole in her suit and watch her drain into the vacuum. Competing visions of Xin’s death floated in Springer’s imagination.
Oh, is that doubt worming its way across your pretty face? Springer grinned, drawing out this moment that felt so frakking good. She blanked her visor so that Xin could see her look pointedly at the veck’s carbine. The colonel had her weapon strapped to her back, whereas Springer had hers to one side, the barrel resting against Xin’s belly. Just one stab of her thumb and monofilament teeth would extend out the end of that barrel, and burrow through armor, flesh and bone…
“Why?” asked Xin.
Why what? thought Springer. Why did I try to kill you or why did I try to save you? I guess it’s the same answer in either case.
“Because I’m a Marine,” she said.
Inside her helmet, Xin gave a minute nod. “Understood. I don’t agree, mind you. A Marine never turns on her own, no matter what the provocation.” Xin narrowed her eyes. “I’m going to cut you a helluva lot of slack, Tremayne. You abandoned your position to come here to murder me, just in time to save my life. If you hadn’t tried to kill me, I would be dead. To someone who didn’t know you, that level of irony would be stunning. But we know better, don’t we? This is just a day in the life of a mutant pre-cog. I don’t fear you, Tremayne. Not even after you took out the enemy like the freak of nature you are. No, I pity you. Officially, I’m going to put your threatening conduct down to a side effect of your combat immunity drug. It’s obvious you’re as high as a frakking orbital elevator. And in that you’ve good company. I recall someone else going a little crazy on the same drug. Do you remember our Cadet McEwan getting naked with an alien?”
“Don’t mention his name. And he isn’t ours.”
“Ahh. One mention of the father of our children and now we’re getting somewhere.” The doubt had left Xin’s eyes now, replaced by scorn.
You haven’t won yet. Springer’s thumb hovered near the manual control that would activate her teeth.
Xin went on. “I know you hate me.” You got that right. “Maybe you fear me – though I never have worked out why. It’s more than just wanting to control Arun, isn’t it?”
“It is.”
“But whatever the reason, even you don’t understand.”
“True.”
“Which makes me think it’s your mutant, violet future-sight warning you that I’m going to do something really frakking bad in the future.”
You’re supposed to be locked out! Anyway, I can’t believe you’re siding with her.
Springer groaned. She still didn’t fully believe Saraswati, but… her groan softened unto a sigh. There was a hint of truth. As the years rolled by, her hatred of Xin had been laced ever more with self-loathing, as if the darkness in the future was something Xin would inspire her to do.
“My AI backs you up,” Springer said. “Apparently you understand me better than I do myself.”
“Good. Seeing as you’ve not reason enough to harm me – yet – there’s no one I’d rather have to watch my six. You need me to stay alive to do whatever bad thing I’m supposed to do. Otherwise your hatred won’t be justified. Tortured logic but works for me. Agreed?”
Springer tightened her lips into a white line.
“Tremayne! We’re in the middle of a battle. Thousands are dying. The enemy has just outmaneuvered us. This is not all about you!”
Springer didn’t reply, but her face softened into neutrality.
“Better. Marine Phaedra Tremayne, I’m reassigning you to be my personal bodyguard until further notice.”
Springer swallowed hard. This isn’t over, she thought, but it was for now. She withdrew her gun from her CO’s belly and moved back an arm’s length. “Yes, ma’am.”
“Now shut down your emotions, Marine. At least whatever hasn’t been burned out by the combat immunity drug. I’ve got a battle to win and you’re gonna help me do it.”
With a heavy heart, Springer released Saraswati, letting the ancient AI reestablish control over her battlesuit, and plug her back into the battle.
“How do you intend to do that?” asked Springer bitterly when she saw Saraswati’s sitrep. It wasn’t just Umarov and Xin’s bodyguard who’d been killed. 4th Company was gone, and there was no sign of 3rd Company. And that was just Springer’s battalion. BattleNet was down. A battle was probably still raging around them, fought by many regiments of Marines – scores of battalions – but it was a silent one. Springer and Xin might as well be the only two people in the star system.
Xin didn’t answer. Instead she made a cupping gesture to her ear, which signified: I am ignoring you while I respond to a higher priority message.
Springer scanned the area but couldn’t see anyone.
Then BattleNet reestablished itself and she could see everyone.
Saraswati quickly cycled through layers of information to summarize the situation for her human partner.
“I worked that out for myself. That’s how we’re back on the net.”
“Follow me, Tremayne,” ordered Xin. “Update on the bad guys who got past us. Signal intercept says there’s a column of enemy Assault Marines headed for the Lance of Freedom. They’re gonna get there before us. But I intend to make their visit a brief one.” In a Net-wide broadcast, Xin added. “To all battalion commanders, withdraw your reserve companies and order them to form up on my position. We’re going to hunt and kill.”
Springer stealthed her suit, grateful that Xin couldn’t see how her update had drained the anger from Springer and made her body shiver. If their destination had been anywhere else in the galaxy, the hatred would stil
l be making her eyes light up in violet beams. But there was something special about Lance of Freedom.
Her children were there.
— Chapter 48 —
Arun watched the battle unfold from his incarceration in Lance of Freedom’s CIC. The New Empire forces had cut two safe channels through the minefield using a combination of Marines and the brute force strategy of making the mines explode by throwing drone craft at them.
The two Legion carrier groups still maintained their holding formations, spinning in ever-circling disks so that they always retained enough linear velocity to breakout into close quarter combat maneuvers.
An impact shook Arun through the multiple buffers of his acceleration couch as another missile penetrated point defense. Must have been a big one. The enemy’s long-range missile bombardment was keeping the Lance’s damage control teams busy and lengthening the faces of the command staff monitoring the depleting defensive munition reserves. The 3rd Fleet’s commander appeared to regard the bombardment as a softening up tactic rather than a battle-winning one, because the bulk of the fleet had moved closer to Khallini-4 and was about to penetrate the minefield and bring their main armament to bear.
And all the time the enemy waited to strike with the Marines they had snuck through the minefield.
Arun wanted to scream. His friends were out there dying, and he was stuck here, a key asset to be protected and brought out when the fighting was over. His frustration was amplified by being suited up in armor, kitted out as a killing cyborg but made to sit on the bench.
Okay, so the fancy battle planner brain that enabled him to see an optimal strategy didn’t work to a deadline. In fact, it was worse than useless at responding to fast-moving events, and so he left tactical command to others. But understanding that sitting here like a civilian was the right thing to do, and accepting his role, were two very different things.
A flash of activity flared in the battlemap display Barney was projecting onto his battlesuit visor. His AI followed his interest and magnified that section of the battlefield. A patrol of Legion Marines had detected and were engaging a battalion-sized unit of the enemy. They were less than a thousand klicks away.