by M. D. Cooper
Khela had no way of knowing if they’d hit any of the GSC soldiers, but there was no way to miss one of Charley’s jets getting taken out by missiles.
They ran between the warehouses, their progress made in fits and starts as they dodged small bands of soldiers, narrowly avoiding some and exchanging fire with others. The hit Terrance had taken to his leg had dented the armor just enough to make him limp slightly, but he kept pace with Khela and Charley, his gait more of a skip-and-jog than a full-on run. A minute later, they cleared the last warehouse and were treated to an unobstructed view of the bunker Logan had commandeered.
“Damn…he wasn’t kidding about the nano, was he,” Terrance said as they slowed.
The bunker should have been a low plascrete affair with surface to air defenses surrounding a central silo.
In theory, those features were still there, but they were obscured by the beginnings of a comm tower, a part of a radar dish, acres of network conduit, the forklift Logan had mentioned, and what appeared to be the façade of a restaurant.
Lena waved a hand from behind a low plascrete berm. “Nice of you to join us, Cap.”
“Nice of you to keep my seat warm,” Khela replied. “Everyone in one piece?”
“Yeah, well,” Xiao said from behind a burned out truck. “I don’t know which pieces of me are me anymore, but sure, I guess you could say I’m all ‘one’.”
Khela shook her head with a smile and, after assessing the terrain, directed her Marines to fan out more; given the layout, Henrick’s goons would most likely come at them right up the center.
Khela followed Terrance and Charley behind the bunker to see the AI standing as close as he dared to the mass of nano, a thick strand of network cable stretching from him to the structure.
Overhead, four more jets streaked by, bombs dropping from their wings moments before the crack of the explosions tore through the air, while the earth-shaking ka-whumps shook the ground beneath them.
Another jet fell from the sky, and Charley glanced at Terrance. “There’s another car coming down the strand, and I’m down to three jets.”
“And in space?” Terrance asked.
“Not a lot better,” the AI replied. “More GSC ships are on their way, and I only have ten fighters left up there.”
The truck Xiao was using as cover pinged as weapons fire from the warehouses struck it. Khela turned, spotted the shooter, and fired her railgun, the rounds slamming into the enemy soldier.
“Terrance.” She put her hand on his shoulder, glad that he didn’t flinch. “You stay—”
Her words were interrupted by shots from behind their position, and the corporate exec spun, firing his slug thrower at a group of phage-infected, abandoned GSC soldiers moving through a row of vehicles parked just beyond the bunker. His shot struck one in the head, and Khela added her own fire, hitting another.
Just then, a glint of light in the sky caught her eye, and she looked up to see a trio of GSC dropships bearing down on their position.
ACTING PRESIDENT
STELLAR DATE: 09.12.3246 (Adjusted Gregorian)
LOCATION: Acting President Henrick’s Office
REGION: Planetary Security, Ring Galene, Tau Ceti
Jason and Calista took positions on one side of the lift doors that opened into Henrick’s office, while Tobias was on the other. The AI counted down from three, and then triggered the doors open.
Tobias and Calista launched themselves through, both rolling to either side and coming up with weapons firing on the soldiers that were with Henrick in her office.
A lieutenant went down in the initial volley, and the other two soldiers fell back through the main entrance, firing around the doorway while the president screamed something incoherent.
Jason followed a moment later, entering in a fast, low-rolling crouch. He sprang toward Henrick, grabbing the back of her neck, where he expected her Link antenna to run.
His nano breached her skin and cut her connection just as she rounded on him, a snub-nosed flechette pistol buried in his abdomen. She curved her mouth into a satisfied smirk as her finger tightened on the trigger.
Already plunged deep into his altered state, Jason’s L2 reflexes lent him an inhuman speed as he flung himself to one side. Everything and everyone around him froze in time as he watched the flechette darts wing their way across the office, tearing into the expensive woodwork.
He reached for the snub-nosed weapon, wrenching it from Henrick’s hands, and the force pulverized her fingers as his enhanced strength tore the slider off the pistol, before he pivoted and threw both components at a soldier that had come through a hidden entrance next to Calista.
Jason could see the man smirk as his rifle swung toward the Avon Vale’s captain. But the GSC soldier wasn’t wearing a helmet, and when the pieces of flechette pistol hit the man’s head at over two hundred and fifty kilometers per hour, that smile was gone—literally torn off by the impact that also crushed his skull.
Even before the soldier’s body began to fall, Jason turned back to Henrick and saw her eyes widen as the pain receptors in her hand finally got the message to her brain that she’d suffered damage.
Accurately judging that she was incapacitated—at least for the next few seconds—Jason focused on the remaining two soldiers, one of whom had just pulled out an EM grenade and was preparing to launch it at Tobias.
Jason leapt over Henrick’s desk, using it as a launching point from which he catapulted himself toward the man wielding the grenade. He reached the man just as the soldier was about to lob the device. Jason slammed into him, knocking his target’s hand away. It grazed the activator—and the grenade went flying.
Jason wrenched himself off the man and lunged for the grenade, whipping the Elastene bands off his hands and wrapping them around the tiny bomb, hoping against hope that it would form a viable Faraday cage before cradling it to his body. It was the best he could do to protect the AI who had been his mentor and friend all his life.
He felt a vibration and a slight pulse…and then nothing.
Time resumed, and Jason looked up from where he’d landed in time to see Calista slug Henrick’s final soldier. The man’s head snapped back and he dropped, down for the count.
<…Tobe?> Jason ventured cautiously.
The rational part of his mind told him that if the pulse had gotten out, Calista’s powered armor would have shut down as well, and as badass as the captain was, he knew she didn’t pack that good of a punch—at least unaugmented.
Still, it was a relief to hear Tobias’s voice fill his head.
Jason was about to reply, when Landon interrupted.
Jason turned to look at ‘Acting President’ Henrick, who was still standing behind her desk, a look of dumbfounded shock on her face.
Henrick squared her shoulders, though she was also cradling her injured han
d.
“You’ll never get—” she began, but her words were cut short as Tobias turned and shot a soldier as he ran into the room.
The man’s head exploded, brains spraying across the wall, and Jason did his best to hold in his own revulsion as he raised his pistol and aimed it at Henrick’s head.
“If we die. You die. Slow.” Jason ground out the words between gritted teeth as he reached for his lightwand with his free hand. Flicking it on, he brought it up to the hand Henrick cradled. “Next one of your goon squad that comes in here, I slice off a finger. Someone comes in after, you lose another.”
“You wouldn’t!” the woman gasped.
Before Jason could respond, Tobias nodded for Calista to cover the entrance as his armored frame stalked toward Henrick.
None of the Weapon Born’s usual brogue was in evidence; the words he uttered held the sharp edge of a carbon blade and were as cold as the frozen depths of space.
“You’re right. Jason’s a good kid. But I’m Weapon Born—I was made from death, and it’s been my trade most of my life. Tearing apart a piece of organic filth like you would be pure joy for me.”
* * * * *
“I’ve got the last two of our MFRs on those cruisers,” the man on the weapons console announced, his worried eyes meeting Landon’s. “But after that, it’s just the Vale’s beams, and we’re not going to scratch those cruisers.”
Landon surveyed the battlespace, tallying the GSC ships that were boosting toward the Avon Vale. There were fifty in total, and while the Vale was burning for the FSTC line at top speed, the enemy would be in beam range of the Enfield ship before Admiral Berrong’s ships could provide material aid.
To make matters worse, the holotank showed the last of Charley’s fighters falling to the GSC destroyers surrounding the elevator, the enemy ships already disgorging dropships bound for the planet’s surface.
Scan showed three assault craft already in the stratosphere, and despair welled up in Landon as he tasted the bitter knowledge that, once more, he’d failed. His charges, the people he was to protect from harm—they were all going to perish.
“Launches from the surface!” Scan cried out, and Landon’s attention snapped back to the holotank to see missiles streaming from around the elevator, first striking the three dropships breaching atmosphere, and then the others in space.
Several hit the destroyers as well, nuclear fireballs blooming in the space around the elevator.
Landon was about to reach out to Logan in congratulations, when signatures for dozens of missiles lit up around the Avon Vale.
“Oh shit!” someone on the bridge cried out, but Landon could see that the missiles weren’t headed for the Enfield ship; they were speeding past it.
Having originated from the FSTC picket, their vectors were sending them streaking toward the oncoming GSC vessels.
Moments later, the GSC craft broke off, some taking hits from the missiles, but many more evading the strikes.
“I have Admiral Berrong on comms,” Hailey announced.
“Put her on the tank,” Landon said as he faced the woman, letting his gratitude and relief show on his face.
“Sorry I didn’t let you in on that, Landon,” the admiral said. “I had to seed those missiles without telling you—until I got authorization to fire the shots.”
Landon nodded, making a point to clearly show his appreciation. “Are we ever glad you got it, then.”
Berrong gave a rueful shake of her head. “I didn’t. But the GSC ships crossed the non-aggression boundary line, and I had prior authorization to fire on any ships passing it that I deemed had ill intent. Do you agree that the GSC had ill intent?” The admiral had a twinkle in her eye as she asked the question.
Landon chuckled. “Not a doubt in my mind.”
Suddenly, Berrong looked to the side at the same time as Hailey spoke up.
“Sir…it’s the president, she’s broadcasting stand-down orders for her fleet!”
“Sweet mother matrices,” Landon whispered as the FSTC admiral turned back to him. “I guess our little coup has succeeded,” he told her.
The woman before him nodded gravely. “So it would seem. Now I suspect the real work will begin.”
Landon was only half-listening as he reached out to his teams, confirming that they were all still alive and well.
Jason’s report was last, and as he completed it, Landon heard him add in a whisper, awe evident in his voice.
DÉTENTE
STELLAR DATE: 09.14.3246 (Adjusted Gregorian)
LOCATION: Voyager Spaceport
REGION: Galene, Tau Ceti
Terrance and Khela ended up crouched behind Logan’s battle frame, Charley’s less rugged body tucked between them. All four hovered as close to the bunker as they dared; Terrance faced one way and Khela the other, as wave after wave of soldiers peppered them with fire. Khela’s two Marines, Xiao and Lena, provided cover as best they could, their chainguns serving as a powerful deterrent to the GSC contingent determined to take them down.
The profiler didn’t respond. Terrance chanced a glance his way and knew the image he saw would be burned into his memory for a good, long while: Logan stood frozen, the gleaming bluish-silver of his battle frame locked in a stance of utter concentration, one four-fingered hand wielding a thick strand of network cable while the other brandished a bandolier-fed chaingun, aimed at the row of vehicles that had been shot to hell from the day’s skirmish.
One minute, the bunker was sending fire screaming into the skies to meet the dropships head-on; the next, the chatter of enemy weapons ceased altogether. Terrance didn’t allow his aim to waver, his slug thrower tracing a slow arc back and forth across the row of vehicles that the last group of GSC soldiers had used for cover.
Nothing moved.
Landon’s voice broke in over the tightbeam.
Into the silence fell the sounds of rounds being unchambered, and after that, the clunk of ordnance tossed to the ground. A shout, carried on the wind, ordered arms down and weapons holstered. Slowly, soldiers emerged, and as it became apparent that Henrick’s cease-fire was in place, Terrance sent Khela a look. She spared the spaceport one last, sweeping look before nodding and securing her own weapon. Taking his cue from her, Terrance lowered his as well.
As the three scattered teams called in their status across the spaceport, Terrance bent to examine the progress his combat nano had made on the dent from the GSC slug in his armored leg. He heard Khela begin to speak, and something about her tone—a hitch in her cadence, the barest slur to her speech—warned him.
Snapping his head around, he leapt up just in time to catch her as her eyes rolled back in her head and she began convulsing.
“Xiao!” he shouted as he lowered her to the ground and knelt next to her, frantically searching for her armor’s release. “Help me get her out of thi—”
A gauntleted hand arrested his frenzied search, and he fought to wrest it free. He turned on Xiao, but found himself facing his own reflection. He saw the wild desperation in his own eyes mirrored in the Marine’s visor for the briefest moment before the man retracted his helm.
“It won’t come off, sir. The damn phage has welded it to her torso.” Xiao’s voice was gentle, an incongruous counterpoint to the choking sounds coming from the woman before him.
He saw blood bubbling from the side of her mouth and knew the convulsion had caused her to bite her tongue; he tilted her head to the side just as L
ena slapped a sedative medpatch to the side of her neck.
“This is worse than before, Xiao,” the woman’s low voice broke in. “Hana’s memory fragments….” Lena looked up, past Terrance’s shoulder, and her voice trailed off as he felt something push him gently to one side.
From the corner of his eye, he saw a four-fingered, burnished silver hand rest itself lightly on Khela’s armored chest as Logan’s voice came across the Link.
Terrance saw, projected over the combat net, the thread of rectification nano the AI was weaving into Khela’s torso, colloidenes that would stabilize her until they could get her up to the Vale.
He knew she couldn’t hear him, and yet he couldn’t stop himself from holding her, making soft reassuring sounds as they awaited the shuttle that had been dispatched to return them to the ship.
“I’m not going anywhere. Hang on, I’ve got you.”
RECOVERY
STELLAR DATE: 09.17.3246 (Adjusted Gregorian)
LOCATION: Avon Vale
REGION: Galene, Tau Ceti
Khela opened her eyes to find herself staring into Terrance’s clear blue depths. His eyes smiled down at her as the man reached up to brush a strand of hair out of her face.
Wait. Hair?
“Hello,” Terrance’s deep voice rumbled softly. “How do you feel?”
Khela reached up to touch her forehead. The nanofilament that had embedded itself into her face months prior was gone; her hands met smooth skin. They wandered further up and encountered a soft fall of hair. She ran her fingers through it in wonder, automatically reaching mentally for—
With a bittersweet pang, she realized the remnants, the fragments of Hana that had remained within her, were gone. Silence greeted her as she sought her friend’s essence, and she squeezed her eyes shut, tears leaking out from behind them, trailing down the sides of her temples in a slow stream.