by Jeff Young
Kiersey cut himself off. Time to rein it in and focus on the task at hand, he thought.
“Eyes ahead, Kiersey. No way you get to keep looking at my ass.”
Shaking his head, Kiersey stopped his impromptu burial to stare at Bangs. She wasn’t just all talk; she had a bad habit of acting out of hand as well. Taking her LinAcc rifle in one hand, she proceeded to wriggle suggestively. In a motion almost too fast to see, Bangs dropped the rifle into her cradling hands and whipped around so that its bore faced Kiersey for a second before it swung away.
“Bangs!” Roberts’s voice cut through the comm. “Get on point and cut it.”
She looked at Kiersey a moment longer, shouldered her weapon, then slapped her ass before moving ahead. Shaking his head, Kiersey turned away from her antics. Tapping the contact plate on his temple twice, he brought up the enhancement and overlay to his vision. He pushed the viewpoint up and out until he could see the team highlighted in ghostly blue throughout the valley floor. The Mosquito.net system of microaerosats that he’d deployed spread and increased their coverage. Each one of the team had an aerosat shadowing them, and Kiersey could view any individual. More importantly, so could Roberts. To his left, Anderev flanked Kiersey while Breadle and Peake brought up the rear. Heyer and Michaels ranged to the right, and Roberts stayed to the center.
“Move out,” came Roberts’ order.
Pulling the viewpoint even higher, Kiersey looked over the terrain. The team worked its way up the valley toward the highest point in the area and the targeted lookout emplacement. One valley over, the secondary team moved slower, keeping to the hedgerows and avoiding the open areas of the tilled fields.
Kiersey continued to spread the net, carefully maintaining a cautious overlap of each of the aerosat elements. Everyone had their specialties, and this was his. He felt a brief jab of satisfaction at the way he performed as the commtech.
While he’d listened earlier to Roberts’s impassioned briefing about the necessity of securing Cansec, the Sylvan Seven world of their current assignment, Kiersey had trouble squaring what they were told with the limited amount of resistance the team encountered. Where were the dangerous rebels that Roberts warned them about? The Ross dropped teams now for two weeks, and they’d encountered little resistance. The thought hit him. He’d served in enough action on heavily colonized worlds to know that the boy he’d buried could have easily carried a sizeable explosive device into a trusting company and wreaked havoc. But everything Kiersey saw pointed to someone who’d wandered out into the woods and died of natural causes. He tried to focus on that.
Anderev’s hand on his shoulder brought him back into focus. Blinking, Kiersey readjusted his vision and nodded at the veteran combat specialist. With two fingers, Anderev gestured him forward and then loped off to the left, resuming his position. The valley turned, and now Kiersey could see the rise ahead. He pushed several Mosquito.net ’sats ahead of them toward the target, keeping them high and spread wide. The group of ’sats pinged him back—one kilometer ahead, there were three IR sources that bore metallic returns moving toward the team.
Kiersey flipped the info over to Roberts, and the lieutenant called Bangs to a halt, sending the flankers ahead. Moments later, weapon fire tore through the quiet tree-covered hillsides of the valley.
~*~
Transcript of Committee Hearing, Sylvan Seven Atrocities
General Pressman: The war stalled. We were unable to continue to promote an effective campaign against the renegade worlds. The systems, which were dependent upon the support of the renegades and were within reach, recaptured, and opposition quelled. The remaining seven worlds continued to resist. We had the troop carriers, the troops, and the desire to finish the conflict, but we no longer had the backing or the finances. We were not given the option to stop the conflict.
Senator Wellheim: I’m sorry, general, maybe I misunderstood. You told me you couldn’t continue.
General Pressman: Under traditional methods, we had no means of an assured victory.
Senator Wellheim: You seem to be implying that you considered alternatives: alternatives that perhaps were outside of Article II of the Geneva Protocols.
General Pressman: I’m stating a fact. Implying nothing. You already know what we did. You just need to hear me say it. It will go quicker, be more efficient, and cost less overall if you do not interrupt.
There were several radical ideas proposed, most of which were summarily dismissed. The final solution depended upon the fact the selected troop carriers were prepared to make the nadir transition to return from the fringe to the central stars, and that redeployment would take an unacceptable amount of time and cost. Given that each nadir jump takes four objective years and one year subjective time, the task force of seven ships was twelve years out. All ships were contacted, new orders were issued, and the task force turned about.
Senator Wellheim: Let me stop you there, general. Your use of the word contact is a bit of a euphemism, isn’t it?
General Pressman: The ships’ military-class AI’s were contacted and given new orders, which were not revealed to the human complement.
Senator Wellheim: Wasn’t one of those orders to ensure the failure of the refueling drones?
General Pressman: We made sure that what was necessary was done.
Senator Wellheim: You are content with the result?
General Pressman: We achieved the reacquisition of the colonies. That is the only result that matters.
~*~
“What the hell was that? What kind of idiot makes that much noise?” Peake asked over the comm.
Kiersey swung his bar-buster around at the sounds from ahead. He snugged his helmet down on his head, his fingers briefly catching on the hanger hook attached to the back. The rectangular bar-buster hummed in his hands when the weapon’s field went live. His gun had limited accuracy, but the amount of ammunition it could sling made up for that failing. As the hostile fire ahead started up again, Kiersey realized what bothered Peake. All the combat team’s weapons were silent until impact. The older-style slug throwers made a racket and gave away their user’s positions. When Kiersey looked at the view from the net, he realized there were no IR spikes in the area that matched the trajectories of the enemy fire.
Sweeping his view over the team, he found Breadle down and Peake standing next to his fallen comrade, firing his bar-buster. Breadle rolled over onto his side, trying to get up on one knee. Roberts received all the feed and made the intuitive jump before Kiersey did, redirecting the fire from Peake and Anderev up into the canopy of the trees. As lucky as ever, Bangs crouched untouched behind the stump of a toppled tree, her LinAcc pointed toward the incoming hostiles. Kiersey picked them out, painted them, and passed the info along to Roberts. Seconds later, the first one slumped forward, promptly followed by the next. The final combatant turned to make a run for it, but Bangs’s headshot brought his limp form to the ground.
Kiersey fanned out the aerosats, looking for more movement. Then he caught an image from Anderev and quickly forwarded it to Roberts—the fire the combat group received came from two automated systems embedded in the trunks of large trees.
At the base of the nearest tree, Heyer looked up at the splintered remains. “Why the hell do that?”
“The tree covered up the metallic ping and soaked up the heat signature. It’s high enough to give the system good covering fire, and lastly, a bunch of farmers don’t think like we do.” Anderev’s delivered his assessment in a clipped tone.
“Too right. Only a bunch of farmers could figure on kicking the Federate and not expect a response,” returned Bangs as she got to her feet.
Kiersey began a broad sweep looking for any emission from more emplacements, resetting the parameters to catch the limited exposure of the embedded traps. Roberts turned his attention to Bangs’s feed, and Kiersey found himself following along using the ’sat that shadowed her. She crept up on the casualties and then came to an abrupt halt.
> “What is it, Bangs?” Roberts sent.
When she turned, the body at her left came into view. At first, all that Kiersey could see were the muddy boots and non-mutable camouflage, then Bangs walked closer. The cylinders strapped to the dead man’s face were unmistakable.
“Go to BW-1. All team, BW-1. Now,” Roberts barked over the comm.
Bangs’s chatter reduced to a constant stream of profanity that Kiersey chopped off. Her shoulders shook once, then she reached around and pulled the filter clasp across the front of her helmet like they all were doing. Then her LinAcc came back up, and she straightened. He’d seen Bangs like this before. Someone was going to die and soon. He was just glad she was in front of him. Kiersey dialed back his viewpoint, and a twitch raced up his spine. Who knew what bioweapon they were all exposed to?
~*~
Transcript of Committee Hearing, Sylvan Seven Atrocities
Senator Wellheim: Correct me if I’m wrong, general, but I understand that you gave your troops something extra.
General Pressman: All troops were inoculated with a new full-spectrum antigen.
Senator Wellheim: Well, that makes sense; you don’t want your troops coming down with anything once they are groundside.
~*~
Leigh patched up as much of Breadle’s side as she could while Kiersey and Peake watched over her. Kiersey stole a glance at Roberts. From his tense stance, the lieutenant was having a heated encrypted conversation with command onboard the Ross. Once Roberts secured evac for Breadle, Kiersey saw him send Peake to help the injured man to a clear LZ. Pushing the net farther, Kiersey kept scanning for enemy signatures. Now that he had a template from the automated guns in the trees, he identified two other emplacements. He caught Roberts’s comm lighting up.
“Leigh,” Roberts sent, and the medic jogged over to him. “I need a report, and I need it yesterday. What the hell did we just step in? How bad is it?”
Leigh looked away briefly. “Sir, I’m not certain what we’re up against, but it’s fairly virulent. When I knew that we were looking for a pathogen, something that I found from the casualty we discovered earlier made better sense. The boy shouldn’t have died from exposure. It just doesn’t get cold enough during this season. His cause of death must be due to whatever the rebels released. I’m still trying to narrow it down, but there were some unusual viruses in his system.”
“Are we safe?” Roberts asked.
“Our new antigen treatment should cover most of what the opposition could throw at us.”
Roberts put a hand on Leigh’s shoulder and turned her away from the team, their comm’s chatter switching to encrypted. Kiersey considered what had just happened. Roberts wasn’t very subtle when it came to communication. If Kiersey didn’t know any better, he’d swear that the encryption slip was deliberate. He didn’t get any time to think about it further because Roberts redeployed the team and once again started them toward the highest point. Kiersey could still hear Bangs mumbling under her breath as they struck out.
A body lay in the clearing at the base of the rise. The metal in the gun it held pinged on the Mosquito.net, but its temperature had dropped enough that the IR could not immediately discern it. After making their way around the two tree emplacements, the team continued on to the objective. At the foot of the hill, the trees were cut down to give the defenders on the heights the advantage of a clear line of sight. Except, when Kiersey flew the aerosats over the landscape, he found no IR spikes or metallic pings other than the fortified position on the hillside identified from orbit by the Ross. Where are all the defenders? he wondered.
Kiersey brought a group of aerosats level with the front of the opening in the hillside that led via a switchback tunnel up to the keep above them. Nothing. Still no heat signatures. Once inside, the ’sats found the bodies of two guards, one of them with his arms outstretched, futilely reaching for a cylinder mask. Beyond that, there were more dead, all of which were cold enough that Leigh couldn’t even guess at a time of death.
“What the hell happened here?” Heyer mumbled.
Roberts stood, considering the scene before him. Kiersey watched him shake his head briefly. Then the lieutenant spoke, sending Bangs in to lead, followed by Heyer and Michaels. Kiersey looked at the ’sat readings again.
The cave ran straight back for fifty meters before starting to ascend. Roberts sent him a brief message, “Stay here with Anderev. Move some aerosats over our back trail and continue to push forward the ones in the cave.” With that, the lieutenant motioned Leigh ahead of him toward the dead guards.
Kiersey picked a ’sat near Bangs and watched as she moved further into the cave. Still twitchy, her shoulders jerked back and forth. More bodies slumped against the sides of the cavern.
“This is bad,” Michaels sent over the band. “It’s like they didn’t even know what they set loose.”
“No chatter,” Roberts replied from where he stood over Leigh as she examined the guard’s body.
The furthest ’sat picked up an IR spike. Kiersey relayed the highlighted view to the rest of the team. “You’ve got a live one all the way at the back of the cave. There are some metallic pings from around the combatant.”
“Bangs!” Roberts sent, cutting across Kiersey, but she was already in motion, the LinAcc’s barrel swinging in front of her as she tracked the enemy.
“What is this stuff?” came from Heyer, down on one knee in front of several bags made from coarsely spun fiber.
Roberts started to move away from Leigh. “Bangs, I need them alive. We need to know what’s going on here.”
“There’s more over here. It’s really fine,” Michaels answered, something white and powdery spilled out onto the floor in front of him. “There’s something buried under all of these bags. Look at the way they hump up in the middle.”
Kiersey saw Anderev move in the corner of his eye. The combat specialist also watched the feed from the cave in a reduced window, according to Kiersey’s log. A brief, sharp breath came from Bangs’s feed, and a muffled thump as the LinAcc’s ammunition found its target.
“Damn it, Bangs!” came from Roberts.
Kiersey flipped back to the feed from the ’sat shadowing Bangs just in time to see the thumb on her victim’s hand rise.
In the cave, the team’s audio caught the pop of small explosions. The ’sats images were overwhelmed by the fine white particles that shot into the air as the bags were destroyed. Kiersey’s mind worked at putting everything he saw together when Anderev slammed into him, throwing them both to the ground. The feed from the ’sats vanished into bright-white overload. The ground shook momentarily, and an orange lance of fire jetted from the cave across the clearing into the surrounding woods. Kiersey felt himself rolling away from Anderev, his ears and eyes overwhelmed despite the protection of his helmet.
He came to rest on his back. Blinking his eyes, Kiersey looked upward in time to see a tree flying through the air. Its roots came down, striking him in the chest and shoving him along the ground for several meters.
A smell of something other than burning wood lingered when he came around. At the edges of Kiersey’s awareness, he could hear Anderev muttering. He heard snatches of “Flour, of all things, damn primitives,” and then “You’re not going to like this, but I can’t carry you.” The burning scent got stronger, and when he dug far enough into his memory, Kiersey realized that it smelled just like incinerated flesh.
~*~
Transcript of Committee Hearing, Sylvan Seven Atrocities
General Pressman: We gave our soldiers much more than just a new antigen.
Senator Wellheim: Enlighten us.
General Pressman: Ships by nature are very difficult to keep completely clean in a biological sense. They are breeding grounds for all kinds of new bacteria and phages, all altered by the incidence of cosmic rays and other radiations. By giving our crews the full-spectrum antibody, the infectious agents were encouraged to adapt, becoming more and more virulent over tim
e. The soldiers, of course, would be fine.
Senator Wellheim: I note here on this report that the full-spectrum antibody does not necessarily destroy these hostile agents but rather stops any effect on the troops. General, do you have any response to that? No, I didn’t expect you would.
~*~
This dream is really the worst, Kiersey thought as the feeling of floating continued. He had a few snatches of memory that kept coming back and made no sense. A disturbing tugging sensation, a release, and then a feeling like he sailed through the air as if he suddenly weighed nothing at all. It reminded him of the way the tree flew in the moments before landing on him. Then there were a few seconds of very distorted vision as if he were hanging upside down and swinging back and forth. Through all of this, he could smell that horrendous odor once again of burning flesh.
“OPS-AI, give him visual.”
Kiersey worked over the new stimuli for a moment. That’s Anderev’s voice, he realized, and then he could see. The image before him wavered, and Kiersey recognized the infirmary onboard the Ross. He’d made it. He tried to turn his head in the direction that Anderev’s voice came from, but nothing happened. The staff must have him secured, which made sense since he’d probably injured his back or neck. He heard a chair scrape on the flooring, and Anderev came into his line of sight.
The combat specialist was missing an arm. The slope of his shoulder cut off abruptly, and a reddish-blue bandage covered its absence. Burns colored what was visible of the rest of Anderev.
“It’s not as bad as it looks, but when it itches, then it is that bad,” Anderev grated out. “Sorry, smoke inhalation,” he continued, pointing at his throat. “But what I’m really sorry about is that I couldn’t carry you out... ” his voice trailed off, and he looked away.