The Razor's Edge

by Seanan McGuire

  “Ramirez said the MinSha made a sterilization pass over the dropship; they probably didn’t want our equipment falling into the hands of the Balcons.”

  “Why would … they think … that?” Simmons could feel full consciousness starting to return, the pain fading; they must have dosed him with a shitload of nanobots from one of the medkits.

  “Well, they were probably worried about the Balcons because there were a lot of them around. They were, after all, helping us unload the dropship and pull people out of the wreckage.”

  “Helping?” The Balcons were the enemy. The planet had two races, the ruling Techkons, who had been duly elected in free elections, and the rebel Balcon race that Simmons’ merc company, Death From Above, had been contracted to defeat. The Balcons had captured … what was it? A mine. The Balcons had captured a Techkon red diamond mine and were holding hostages. Death From Above had been hired to go into the mine and free the hostages, which included the president of the Techkon society.

  A second face came into his vision. A Balcon! Simmons struggled to get away from the creature, but it held up an open claw.

  “Easy!” it said. “I am Ishtok. I am here to help you.”

  Simmons relaxed a little; Cardelli didn’t seem afraid of the alien. Still … “I don’t get it,” Simmons said. “You were helping us? Why?”

  Ishtok smiled, revealing a mouth of very sharp teeth that gave Simmons the shivers. “We helped because we could,” Ishtok replied. “Your people needed assistance, so we provided it.” He paused and then added, “We lost a lot of people when your people bombed the wreckage.”

  “I told him those were the MinSha and not our people,” Cardelli said, “but to him, an off-worlder is an off-worlder.”

  “That is true,” Ishtok replied. “Our society just wants to be left alone. The arrival of you Humans has upset the balance.”

  “I can honestly tell you,” Simmons said, groaning as he started stretching his limbs, “I would rather be anywhere but here.”

  “Oh, they also said they were sorry for shooting us down,” Cardelli interjected. “They also shot down the other dropship. There weren’t any survivors from that one.”

  “Yeah, I’m sure they’re sorry,” Simmons replied. He tried, but couldn’t keep the sarcasm from his voice. A thought occurred to him. “Wait, how are we even talking?”

  “He has a two-way translation pendant,” Cardelli said.

  “Those things are darn expensive,” Simmons said, rubbing his left eye to break it free from the dried blood. “I’ve only seen a couple in all the contracts I’ve taken.”

  “Indeed, they are very expensive,” Ishtok replied, holding up the golden pendant. “This one was especially dear; it cost about one thousand Balcon lives to procure. It was worth it, though, as we now have the ability to talk with you off-worlders. That is the one thing that has most hurt our cause—the Techkons can talk to you Humans, but we never could. Their lies convinced you their cause was just; now we have the ability to state our case as well.”

  Simmons rolled to his side, feeling a little better. He just might live after all. “How many doses did you hit me with?” he asked Cardelli.

  “I used an entire medkit,” the trooper replied. “All ten doses. Sorry, Sarge. I know we’re not supposed to do it like that, but you were pretty fucked up.”

  “No, I appreciate it, Cardelli. I’m starting to feel better.” He looked at his left arm; the dead skin was sloughing off, and he could barely tell it had been injured, much less cooked to a medium rare. Simmons flipped his legs off the table he was lying on and sat up. As he stretched his neck, he took the opportunity to look around.

  He was in what looked like an enormous tent that had to be in the middle of a forest somewhere. The tent was nearly two hundred feet on a side, with numerous tree trunks extending up through the roof about twenty feet up. The tent appeared to have been sewn in place; each trunk had a hole through the top, with some sort of foam sealant around the gap to keep the rain out. It was also probably hard to see from the air—the color of the roof overhead was an exact match of the hard-packed earth underneath it.

  Simmons stretched, scanning the activity around him. At least eighty of the Balcons could be seen. One group was gathered around a table looking at something, while others were cleaning weapons or sleeping in small, square beds, curled up like his German Shepherd back home. At one edge of the tent stood three CASPers; Corporal Ramirez was working on one of them.

  “I see you brought three of our CASPers—”

  “I’m sorry, that word did not translate,” Ishtok replied. “I assume you mean your metal suits?”

  “Yes, they are CASPers. It stands for Combat Assault System, Personal. It’s what we wear into battle. They have a wide array of weapons and sensors. If you’re letting us have access to them, you must be fairly confident you can convince me to switch sides.”

  “As I said, it was worth a thousand of our people to talk to you; we have barely two hundred more here, plus the ones in the mine. There are probably only two or three thousand of us left, scattered about the rest of the planet.”

  “You also have the Techkon president in the mine, if I am not mistaken,” Simmons noted.

  “We do. However, they have our queen. They are holding her in the village outside the mine. Without her, we are lost.”

  “Obviously, there is a lot more to this conflict than what we were led to believe.”

  “Indeed,” Ishtok replied. “Both of our races are indigenous to this planet, although we originated on different continents. We both achieved sentience at about the same time and we have lived together, more or less peacefully, for most of our history. The problem we have is that my race lives longer and has fewer children; the Techkons are shorter lived, but have entire broods of children. I guess it was to be expected that, at some point, they would come to think they should rule us, since they outnumber us by almost one hundred to one.

  “There was a war, which we lost, and our numbers were decimated. Those of us that survived fled here, hoping they would leave us alone. Unfortunately, the Techkons followed us, intent on genocide. Many of our people took refuge in the mine and they surrounded it, capturing our queen in the process. While they were focused here, I led a strike force into their capital and captured their president at the same time they took our queen. I was able to get their president into the mine through a secret tunnel that has since been destroyed and a stalemate ensued.

  “When it became obvious they had no intention of trading our queen for their president, I organized all of our remaining forces, intending to lead a strike that would recapture our queen. Unfortunately, they must have been expecting that; two days before our attack would have occurred, a force of humans arrived and set up defenses around the village; to attack them now would be suicidal. Still, it is the only option we have. We must get our queen back.”

  “Their society is a little like the wolf packs back home,” Cardelli said. “Except that this group’s alpha male is actually a female. She is not only their civil leader, but also their religious leader. They worship her.”

  “So what is your end-game?” Simmons asked. “What are you after, besides your queen? What happens after you get her back?”

  “We want nothing other than to be free and left alone. If they cede us this land, they can have the rest of the planet. We just want our freedom.”

  “Really?” Simmons asked. “We were told that your race wanted to rule over the Techkons, and that your race was the oppressor.”

  “We do not want to rule them,” Ishtok replied. “I swear this on my queen’s life. If you can get her back, we will give them their president back, and they can go back to their towns and leave us here.”

  “That’s their most sacred vow,” Cardelli said. “If one of them breaks it, they are thrown out of the pack and left to wander in the wilderness.”

  “So we can solve everything by getting your queen back?”

  “Absolutely
,” Ishtok said. “As I said, we do not want to rule them.” He drew a golden chain from under his tunic. At the bottom of the chain hung a huge red diamond in a golden setting. “Also,” he continued, “we can pay.”

  Simmons’ eyes widened as he took in the gem, then he looked back to the CASPers. Ramirez gave him a thumbs-up; he had fixed whatever had been wrong with the suit. “Why don’t you show me where they’re keeping your queen, and then we can discuss it further.”

  * * *

  Sergeant Simmons crawled over the crest of the hill on his elbows and scanned the valley below. The product of an ancient meteor strike, the crater was a couple of miles across and about half a mile deep. On the far side of the valley, the mine was visible as a large black nothingness in the side of the opposite slope with two CASPers standing guard. Next to the mine was a small village, with a large number of the Techkons walking around, with a few humans interspersed periodically. The Techkons looked more like dogs than the Balcons; they were smaller and tended to walk on all fours. Around the village was a series of guard towers; two of them appeared manned. From one of them, a flag flapped in the breeze.

  “Shit,” Simmons said, pulling out his targeting scope.

  “What?” Ishtok asked as he crawled up next to the sergeant.

  “It’s just …” he focused on the flag. A woman on horseback, firing an arrow from a horse bow, filled the scope. Damn! “Yeah, that’s what I was afraid of.”

  “What?” Ishtok asked again.

  “The mine is being guarded by The Golden Horde,” Simmons replied. He heard Corporal Ramirez swear from behind him. “They are one of the premier Human merc organizations. If they’re defending the mine, I’m sure they’ll have sensors—” A light began flashing from the tower with the flag. Simmons sighed. “—all the way out here. Stay down, Ishtok, and scoot back.”

  Simmons stood up and waved his arms over his head.

  “What are you doing, Sarge?” Ramirez asked in a stage whisper.

  “They know I’m here. I’m letting them know that we’re friends and that we come in peace.” The light stopped flashing. “Okay, they’ve seen me. Let’s go back and get the CASPers; I’ve got a plan.”

  * * *

  Simmons climbed up the frame of the deceased first sergeant’s CASPer. As the senior person remaining, he had chosen the one with the best comms suite. He chuckled; Private Cardelli probably wouldn’t even know half the controls in the upgraded CASPer … but then again, he wasn’t sure he knew all of them either. Careful not to go too fast, Simmons turned around and backed into the frame. Normally, a trooper entered a CASPer from a boarding ladder; since the Balcons didn’t have any, he had to make due. He slid first one leg and then the other into the suit, pointing his toes and wiggling his leg to get it all the way into the unyielding plastic. It was a little harder from the different angle, but he managed, finally pushing his legs into place. Happily, the first sergeant was his size so he didn’t have to change any of the fittings inside the suit.

  Simmons snapped the cables on his haptic suit into the CASPer’s ports and checked to make sure he hadn’t left any dangling. He put on his helmet and activated the haptic skin sensors built into it. Everything in place, he rotated his shoulders and flexed his arms backwards into the arm holes.

  Simmons looked down at Ramirez and nodded. “Ready.”

  “Cool,” Ramirez said. “Here comes startup.”

  Simmons watched the power indicator change from blue to yellow as the suit’s motor started. The hydrogen-powered generator came to life and the suit vibrated slightly.

  “Good start,” Ramirez advised.

  Simmons made the okay sign with both hands, and the suit’s status indicator switched to the green ‘operate’ symbol. “Closing canopy,” Simmons said. He flipped the switch and the clamshell canopy rotated down and sealed. The suit pressurized as it came to life and he stretched his jaw to pop his ears. He monitored the suit’s systems as they came online, then checked the exterior cameras, which gave him the same view he would have had if the canopy had been glass and not hardened steel.

  The monitors showing his suit’s status stabilized with no warning or caution lights on the indicator panel. Power output, backup battery, and life support were all in the green section of their bar indicators, and his fuel status was at 87%. That was plenty for what he needed to do. He turned on the exterior speakers with a finger motion and reported, “Good start. All systems green.”

  Ramirez left to go assist Private Cardelli and Simmons ran through his weapons. The magnetic accelerator cannon on his right was operational, with a full load of MAC rounds in the can on his back. He held out his left arm and checked for people—all clear. With a motion, the meter-long blade snapped out and locked into place. He smiled as he snapped it shut; you could always count on the blade for close encounters of the wrong kind.

  There was also a handheld laser rifle clipped to his right leg; he pulled it off and checked it. Operational, with a full charge on the battery.

  The icon for Cardelli’s suit switched to green in his head’s up display as Cardelli went operational and his suit linked with Cardelli’s. Now Simmons could see Cardelli’s status. Yellow in the right leg where it was damaged in the crash, but his weapons were operational—an arm-mounted heavy laser and a missile pack on his right shoulder. After a quick glance at the other suit’s indicators, Simmons opened his canopy and climbed down to help start Ramirez’s suit. While it went against company policy to leave an unmanned suit running, there was no other way around it.

  Ramirez’s suit started on the second attempt—it was someone else’s suit and Ramirez missed the fact that the other operator had it configured differently—but then he had a good start on the second attempt once he fixed the settings. As Ramirez’s canopy closed, Simmons climbed back into his own CASPer and shut the canopy. A quick glance at Ramirez’s suit showed he was already operational.

  “Are you sure about this, Sarge?” Corporal Ramirez transmitted over the secure laser link as he settled back in.

  “Yeah, we have to do this, and we have to do it now,” Simmons said. “Now that they’ve seen me, they know that some of us survived the dropship crash. If we don’t go report in, they’re going to wonder where we are and what we’re doing. At some point, they’ll send out a patrol, and I don’t want them to find us with the Balcons.”

  “Because what we’re doing is wrong?”

  “No, what we’re doing is right,” Simmons replied. “The Horde chose to support the wrong side—the oppressors. We’re going to help liberate the Balcons and give them a chance at freedom.”

  “Yeah,” Ramirez added, “as far as the Horde goes, it sucks to suck. I applied for a position they had open and they wouldn’t even consider me. Wiping out a few of those bastards won’t hurt my conscience at all, especially since we’re going to get damn rich doing it. Have you seen the size of the red diamond Ishtok has around his neck? That’s gotta be at least two carats.”

  “The money won’t hurt,” Simmons admitted. “They promised us five of those. They are worth at least a million credits each. We can easily retire comfortably on that and not have to do a day’s work the rest of our lives.”

  “Well, there is that,” Cardelli agreed, sounding mollified.

  Cardelli came from a poor family; Simmons guessed they could probably live five lifetimes with that amount. All 15 of them. “So we’re good?”

  “Yeah, I’m good,” Cardelli replied.

  “I’m in,” Ramirez said. “Let’s do this.”

  “All right,” Simmons said, selecting the outside speakers so the Balcons could hear, too, “let’s move out.”

  * * *

  Simmons led the other two CASPers down to the Techkon village, having left the Balcons outside the valley. They would come running once the shooting started.

  Simmons wasn’t surprised to see a trooper in a Golden Horde uniform waiting for them just outside the perimeter and had ordered his men to leave
their weapons unpowered so there wouldn’t be any misunderstandings. The man was shorter than average and had Mongolian features; he also had at least two sets of pinplants that Simmons could see. The brain implants would give him the ability to contact his peers at a moment’s notice, as well as the ability to download a lot of information quickly.

  “That’s close enough,” the Horde trooper said, holding up a hand. He didn’t point a weapon at the group, but the weapons in the two manned towers had been following them for a while. “Identify yourselves.”

  “I’m Sergeant John Simmons from the merc company Death From Above. With me are Corporal Ramirez and Private Cardelli.”

  “I’m Sergeant Enkh from The Horde. Where in the Blue Sky have you been? You should have been here a week ago.”

  “Our dropships got shot down,” Simmons replied, a touch of irony in his voice. “You may have heard that.”

  “Yeah, we knew you got shot down; if we’d had more troops here, we might have come looking for you. But that was a week ago.” He paused and then, in a suspicious tone, asked, “Where have you been since then?”

  “I got messed up pretty badly in the crash,” Simmons said. “The guys couldn’t move me while I healed. It took an entire medkit to put me back together again. My two troopers took turns standing guard over me until I pulled through.”

  “Did you see any of the enemy?” Sergeant Enkh asked.

  “A few,” replied Ramirez. “They tried to sneak up on us, but a few MAC rounds showed them it was a bad idea to mess with us. They came back a second time, in greater numbers … but that just meant there were more dead bodies when they ran off again.”

  “Well, the captain is going to want to see you. Tell your men to wait here, Sergeant, and come with me.”

  “Is it okay if Corporal Ramirez goes up to get a closer look at the cave?” Simmons asked. “We’re supposed to get their president back and I’d like him to begin gathering intel on it.”