“Omalas, aye.”
“Still alive,” Marino barked. “Got my dick and both my balls.”
“I don’t give a shit about your dick unless you sprout two of them,” Prakash said. “Then we’ll worry. Otherwise you keep your goddamn dick to yourself.”
“What if my dick falls off?”
“Hardly a life-threatening injury,” Prakash said. “You men and your delicate fucking dicks.”
I laughed. Why did I laugh at this stupid joke? Because it meant we were alive.
The CO, over the platoon channel. Captain . . . no . . . Lieutenant V? Shit. I needed the coms map up. “Heavy fire! Stay down! Wait for coms!”
Red Martian dust puffed all around us. Coms with base were offline; our heads-up displays were dead in the water. I felt naked, alone, like I was missing half a world, and yeah, maybe I was.
They said Mars was mostly habitable, made that way by atmo plants and terraforming projects funded by the corps in the early days, before the Martians betrayed us and went dark. But hearing it’s habitable and sucking oxygen through a mask while your elbows churn up dust that won’t settle is slim comfort. Marino had dropped to Mars before; he’d only talk about the dust if you got him going. No useful intel there.
The whump-whump of artillery fire. The ground shook. I had my rifle up, but the dust was so bad I couldn’t find a target.
“Are we taking fire?” I said over our squad channel.
“Can’t see shit,” Prakash said.
“Hold,” Jones said. “Don’t hit a friendly. Wait for a shot.”
“Sitting fucking ducks,” Marino muttered. “Same every goddamn time.”
My heads-up was giving me heat signatures on what looked like another force on a ridge just to the north of us, but I couldn’t determine if it was friendly or not. All the corps used slightly different tech; even when they teamed up to fight Mars they knew enough to guard their IP. Flagging a force as Evecom or ShinHana would have helped us on the ground, but also would have opened up their secure systems to ours. In truth, it would have been fairly easy to hack, pretending to be one force and not another. Martians could be passing themselves off as corps easily if all they had to do was emit a specific digital tag.
The ground rumbled.
Something hit my head. I yowled, thinking it was shrapnel. The object rolled into the dust next to me. It was a large white bird about as long as my hand, body limp. Another bird tumbled to the ground ahead of me.
“Poor babies,” Omalas said in her soft, deep voice.
I gazed up; a cool wind blew away the dust. A large flock of white birds moved across the butterscotch sky—right through the artillery fire. They dropped in pairs, in groups; feathers exploded above us, drifting lazily on the wind. Gravity here was low. They seemed to barely beat their wings, and when they fell, they fluttered to the ground like leaves.
The artillery ceased. Chatter on our platoon channel.
“Strike on their position was successful,” the CO said. “Wait until the dust clears, then secure your area.”
We had come down just behind a great stone ridge. Jones led our team up the left side of it, scanning for hostiles. Our boots crunched over gravel and harder layers of rock beneath. A fine yellow-green lichen grew over the rock. Here and there I spotted leathery-looking succulents, like cacti, that sprouted giant white flowers.
“I thought Mars was mostly dead,” I said.
“Not at all,” Prakash said. “That’s how they could come back and engineer Canuck. They learned here.”
“Sad to be at war,” Omalas said, “with a people who can create all this beauty.”
“Earth is nice too,” I said. It just came out. Like there was much of an Earth left at all, from where I’d just been.
“Save your air,” Jones said. He was panting, even with the mask on.
After we’d secured the position, the CO brought together the platoon and said, “For those who weren’t paying attention! We’ve lost contact with a frontline outpost on Tempe Terra. They were tasked with bringing down the defenses for the bombardment of the Utopia Basin. Our orders are to determine what happened to the formation, and—if necessary—resecure the position. Those defenses over the Basin need to stay down.
“Jones, Estes—I want your squads guarding our ass. Garcia, Khaw, Tanaka, your squads are with me. Swihart, take that ridge up there and give us tactical support with Leichtner and her sniper shot. Marked it on your display. Are we understood?”
“Understood, sir!”
I stumbled after Jones as he waved our squad forward. We waited for the bulk of the platoon to go ahead of us and took up the rear. That gave me some time to get my bearings.
“You all right, Dietz?” Jones said. He put his hand on my shoulder. I jerked away from him.
“Fine.”
Mars. I’d decided to go to Mars. Was it a coincidence that I’d dropped to Mars, or had I helped make this my next drop by . . . willing myself here?
I patted at my trousers. Felt the round heft of Andria’s pocket watch. It was real. All that had been real. A wave of vertigo overcame me.
“Didn’t expect this,” I muttered.
Prakash said, “I’m sure the chief executive of war will do better at keeping you personally informed.”
“Bad drop. Sometimes I don’t know who we’re fighting.”
“The bad guys,” Prakash said, and snorted.
“They already told us what we need to know,” Jones said. “You ask way too many questions, Dietz. Stick to the—”
“The brief. Sorry. Asking questions must be the ghoul in me. Citizens are better at following orders.” It just came out. Like old times.
“So are soldiers,” he snapped. “What’s wrong with you? Your helmet is scuffed. Your gun looks terrible. Why are you wearing that old slick instead of Mars grade? Shit, this isn’t . . . you didn’t leave the barracks this way.”
“It’s a long story, Jones,” I said. “Let’s just . . . complete this mission.” I was still waiting for coms and the comforting blink of the heads-up display. It wasn’t going to tell me much more than the CO had, but I’d have the chance to figure out who was alive and who wasn’t. I almost told him, “I’ll tell you everything back at base,” but I don’t think I had, last time. I wasn’t sure if I got do-overs or not. So far, not, but if I could control it?
I didn’t know.
Last night I was eating out of a can of beets I scavenged from an abandoned diner in Fortaleza, I thought. Bet my shit was going to be red with those beets. But here I was on some Martian jaunt. How many times had they told me I’d been to Mars? That awful Mars recon mission I had no memory of, and . . . there was only that other one, when Lieutenant V said I was some hero. This had to be that one, right? My brain needed the logic of that. My mind wanted to untangle the pattern and make sense of it.
Control the construct.
Jones headed after the rear of the platoon.
“Heads-up, Dietz! Eyes on my six!”
“I’ve got you.” I raised my rifle. He was right. My gun was dirty. We’d gotten lazy in those last days of the war. My hair was damp and scratchy inside my helmet. I hadn’t cut it in weeks.
The vertigo came again, stronger this time. I paused. Squinted. Keep it together, I thought. You know this drill. Let your body lead. It knows what to do.
We trudged through the shifting Martian sands. The lower gravity was a blessing; I had trekked over sandy beaches along the Atlantic before, and it was always a slog. Here, we could step more lightly. The air was cold, thin, but not deadly. Red, yellow, and gray lichens carpeted the stones. Little white flowers and tiny fungi littered the ground. I stepped over them carelessly, wondering how many people had sweated and died to make anything at all grow in what had once been a hostile wasteland.
The ground rumbled. I sweated hard in my suit, my body suddenly reminded of the artillery in Canuck, the blazing prairie and choking smoke. I felt the warm, many-tentacled fingers of anxie
ty unspooling in my chest. Deep breaths. Keep it together.
Omalas opened a two-way channel to me. “How are you, lovely?” she asked.
“Not good.”
“One foot in front of the other.”
“Trying. Yeah.” Saliva poured into my mouth. My stomach heaved.
I flipped up my visor and tore away my mask. I heaved again, all over the pristine Martian soil. I sank to my knees, coughing and choking. Mars smelled of salt, rotten eggs, and my own vomit. “Pleased to meet you, too,” I said to the dry red soil.
Omalas came over and whacked me on the back.
“I’m fine,” I said, coughing. Fine.
“You’re vomiting blood,” Omalas said gravely.
“It’s just beets.”
Jones came over. Stared at the vomit. “Where did you get beets?”
Those fucking beets. “It’s nothing. I’m just nauseous. Bad drop.”
Jones flipped up his visor and stared at me, eyes wide, brow furrowed.
It occurred to me I probably looked like shit.
“Dietz—”
“Stick to the brief,” I croaked.
I saw the bob of his Adam’s apple as he swallowed. A nod. He flipped his visor back down, replaced his mask. “We’re going.”
I spit a couple more times, then put my mask on and secured my visor.
We came over a low, sandy rise. The mangled ruin of siege artillery met us first. Their bulbous forms lay shattered and overturned like sad, menacing giants. Sand built up at their bases, carried there by the persistent wind.
“Watch for mines and booby traps,” the CO said over the platoon channel.
Our squad waited for the ones ahead to scout out a path. We kept our attention to the rear, scanning the low hills behind us for insurgents. When the last squad was clear, we went after them, winding our way through the towering masses of artillery. I wondered if these were the same type of artillery that had shot at us in Canuck . . . that would shoot at us. Through the maze we went; we kept chatter to a minimum. The squads at the lead would take the worst. I knew Tanaka, Sandoval, and Landon were up there. Deathless? I hadn’t checked for her. Tau wouldn’t be here yet. At least I had my own squad near me. Unless something happened that I didn’t understand, it was possible we’d live through this one. Unless that wasn’t how it worked. This time-shifting shit was a pain in the ass.
Omalas and I were the last two to come around the final corpse of the artillery. Below us, a Martian settlement lay across a two-kilometer-wide stretch of the basin. Willowy trees lined circular footpaths. The remains of a suspended tram or train system that connected the settlement across the basin gave off threads of smoke. The modular panels of the geodesic domes of the housing would have all been printed here on Mars. What I didn’t expect was the yellowish vegetation twining up over the seams of the domes. Pops of blue and lavender peeked out from the wreckage of shattered domes and apartment buildings stacked four and five stories above the basin floor.
On the other side of the settlement, nestled into a rocky outcropping, was the base we’d lost contact with. From here I could already see the communications equipment was damaged. Char and peeling organic skins gave the exterior a patina like something sucked up from the bottom of a flooded basement. Beyond the base—fields and fields of those willowy trees with needles that grew straight up, like cypress trees. The forest went on as far as I could see. I wondered if the trees were a food or building source. They must have gone on far enough that logistics figured chancing us through a kilometer of the settlement was a better option than going through the trees. I imagined the city would give us better cover if it turned out the base had indeed been overrun by insurgents.
We descended into the settlement, keeping to a route that local drones told us was clear of obvious traditional mines and human-generated heat signatures. That no one had shot down the drones yet was, I figured, a good sign. I didn’t want another Canuck.
The streets of the settlement lay dormant. Bits of trash skittered across the porous roads. I had never seen such narrow byways; not much larger than pedestrian and bike paths back home. A few abandoned vehicles lay in the streets, rickshaws powered by compact solar cells.
A flurry of movement ahead of us. One of the squads at the front let off a shot. The pulse burst disintegrated the entire side of a cracked dome. The structure above it rocked dangerously in the Martian wind.
“Hold fire!” Tanaka, over the platoon channel.
“What was that?” the CO said.
“That was me,” Sandoval said. “Sorry. Some kind of animal—”
“Just a . . . cat, or something,” Tanaka said. “Martian cat?
“There’s cats on Mars?” Landon said.
“Or something,” Sandoval said. “Sorry.”
“I see it.” Prakash padded a few steps down a side street.
“Stay with the squad.” Jones raised his rifle.
“It has six legs,” Prakash squealed. “This shit is fantastic.”
I cast a look ahead where the CO and the front-facing squads were moving again. The bulk of the base loomed over the settlement; its physical presence became more ominous the closer we got. I caught the glint of something up on the walls of the base. A scope? Reflection from a helmet?
Prakash jogged toward us.
I was feeling all right about this drop, maybe because other people had told me how great it’d gone.
Getting cocky is always a mistake.
Getting cocky gets people killed.
Guarding the rear of the platoon, we had good reason to figure the worst of what we were headed into had already been poked with a stick and not come up hissing.
I was suffering from severe jet lag . . . time lag, maybe. I had no business being here.
I heard the shot.
The force of it blew Prakash back on her ass. Her head whipped against the ground.
I went to my stomach. Jones took cover behind the nearest dome. Omalas sank next to me. Marino screamed and fired his rifle in the air. A second shot exploded the dome next to him. Marino staggered forward. The dome took the hit cleanly. What the sniper was using clearly wasn’t a pulse rifle, or Prakash and the dome would have been in pieces.
“Prakash?” I said. It killed me that I yearned to gather her up into my arms, even knowing how this ended for her. Keep it together, Dietz.
“Hurts like hell,” she said.
“Is your suit punctured?” the CO said.
“No. Didn’t get through the armor.”
“Stay down,” the CO ordered. “You move, you make noise, they’ll shoot again.”
Prakash stayed down.
I scanned the surrounding buildings. The base had no line of sight on her. The shot had to have come from somewhere in the settlement. The many-faceted eyes of the geodesic domes glimmered back at me. I’d get these fuckers.
“Can we get a heat signature sweep?” I said. “Is there a drone?”
“Already en route,” the CO said. “Jones, eliminate the sniper. Tanaka, your team has rear guard. We are going to continue advancing.”
Shit, I thought. She was leaving us alone in the settlement? I knew a single sniper could do a lot of damage, but the mission objective reigned supreme. You want to believe your CO loves you, and maybe some do, but whatever her orders were, breaking us away from the platoon was considered a worthy risk.
“Watch for more ahead,” Jones said.
“We’re clearing,” Khaw said.
Fuck you, Khaw, I thought. You didn’t clear this one. Anybody who tried to go in after Prakash was going to get hit.
Fuck it, I thought. I’d already lived through enough of this war.
I ran.
The shot came past just as Jones yelled, “Dietz!”
I saw the flash. The telltale fire of a midlevel sniper rifle. That was some precise, old-grade shit. One street up. It had come out of a bit of the broken topmost dome on a three-level.
I dropped and rolled.
>
Two shots hit the dirt next to me, sending up puffs of Martian soil.
I found cover in the shadow of an abandoned rickshaw.
The sniper had hit my helmet. I didn’t dare take it off to inspect it, but I sucked in the sulfur-smelling air.
I hesitated. If I shot and hit nothing, I’d give away that I knew the sniper’s position, and they’d have a chance to run.
Jones must have sensed my hesitation. “Wait for the drone,” he said.
My heads-up had the drone en route, about thirty meters up and to our left. Ten seconds. The drone swooped low. I caught the gleam of it.
The drone operator must have thought the drone was well out of range.
Three quick shots shattered that notion. The drone dropped like a stone; a wounded mechanical bird the size of a basketball.
“Fuck this,” Marino said. “I got a sight on it.” He let off his pulse rifle, firing six bursts at the busted wall of the dome.
“Omalas,” I said. “You come with me?”
“Hold on,” Jones said.
“You and Prakash go in the back,” I said. “Marino and me will take the side entrance. Marino? You listening?”
“Anything that involves killing shit,” Marino muttered. “Tired of being a fucking target.”
“What if that—,” Prakash said.
“Marino!” I said. “Covering fire while Prakash evacs.”
“Goddamn right.”
We both fired at the dome. My shots went high. I corrected. I’d forgotten about the gravity. Hunks of organic sealant shattered; rained across the street at three-quarters speed, like feathers back on Earth.
Jones swooped in next to Prakash and laid down more covering fire as she darted for the relative safety of the next building.
I scrambled to keep up with Marino as he made for the rear entrance. I sure hoped there was a rear entrance. . . .
What we found was another side entrance. Marino kicked in the door with some help from his pulse rifle. I reached for his shoulder to indicate I was ready to breach, but he didn’t bother waiting.
It was a wonder he hadn’t been killed yet. Why did idiots die last?
The Light Brigade Page 21