We Dare

by Chris Kennedy

  Ocelot surveyed the damage she’d wrought, and slung the Tsiyyoni carbine over her back. Satisfied that the pressure was off the Ridians, she leapt back to the ceiling’s rafters and disappeared before the warbot pilot could notice his surviving infantry support was KIA.

  * * *

  Nothing’s gonna kill that thing but a shaped charge, Kratos thought to himself. Do or die time.

  The warbot’s missile rack was gone, and the pilot’s attention was on the Ridian armor. Kratos cursed and pulled one of his last shaped penetrator charges from his harness. He vaulted out of the storefront and dashed across the street, angling right, but the warbot caught the movement. The chainblaster was mounted in the warbot’s right shoulder and swiveled to track. Bolts of energy struck the pavement behind Kratos as he ran, but he cut the angle and the bot couldn’t keep up. He leapt on the stricken warbot’s leg and slapped the charge against the pilot’s compartment. He triggered his hoplon shield and ducked down behind it.

  Nothing happened.

  He’d forgotten: his shield was offline.

  A monstrous hand grabbed him around the waist and heaved him up into the air. A second hand crushed everything from his pelvis down, broke his legs off, and threw the shattered remnants away. Pain circuits cut in, and he screamed, firing his carbine at point blank range into the bot’s chest, stitching it with little molten craters. His pain circuits maxed and cut out when they grew too intense. Critical warning symbols flooded his HUD.

  Do or Die?

  Embrace the power of ‘and,’ he thought, and triggered the shaped charge from a distance of ninety centimeters.

  * * *

  Epilogue

  Dear Mr. and Mrs. Jakobou,

  It is my sincere regret to advise you that your son Karlos was killed in action on May 23rd, 2634, standard calendar. I served with him in the Hellenic Augmented & Robotic Defense Corps and he left service a few years after I did. He went by the callsign “Kratos,” was a fine soldier, and an essential part of my team.

  Karlos didn’t speak about his family often, but I know he was grateful for the time the Lakonia Project bought him among these stars that we call home.

  We recently undertook a contract to rescue and extract a number of VIPs from Montoya Three. You may be familiar with the chaos and anarchy that has consumed the planet there and have probably heard some terrible stories accusing me and my team of horrible things. Please rest assured we are innocent of what we are accused of—our mission was, in part, to save the lives of two dozen innocents trapped on the planet’s surface as their planet tore itself apart around them. We arrived on planet and witnessed The Urbicide, but we had nothing to do with it. We are being blamed for it regardless.

  Our lander had already extracted the civilians, but there were so many we couldn’t all fit in one lift. As we waited for our own extraction, we came under attack by an enemy mecha and some supporting forces. Several of us were damaged in the fighting, as the mecha out-massed us ten to one. Kratos was damaged, disabled the mecha’s legs with demolition charges, and then damaged again. Our weapons were too light to destroy the mecha, and, heedless of the danger, your son charged the warbot. Karlos was a highly trained sapper and used his last demolition block to stop the threat. He couldn’t escape the danger radius of the explosive and died in the blast.

  Karlos was my friend, and, despite his synthetic exterior, he remained very human inside. By my count, his skills, knowledge, and expertise helped Myrmidons Inc. save more than three hundred fifty innocent civilians from violence, capture, slavery, or worse. It was never about the money for him—whatever he earned, he reinvested right back into the company.

  Enclosed are his personal effects. He has personally been cited by three heads of state and five ambassadors, and he has received civilian honors in four systems. I am enclosing the medals, ribbons, plaques, and real pulp-paper accolades he received over the years. The last one, the Windsor Meritorious Service Cross, is new, and is the second highest award Rideau issues. You will note that it is in the shape of a Greek cross—I believe this is deliberate—and is one of the first instances where an allied military medal was issued to someone who is technically a civilian.

  I understand they will be interring his remains at the Leonidas Cemetery on Attika, at a date and time to be determined when you may attend. Duke North, Governor General Listowel, and Ambassador Mylette plan to attend and honor your son’s sacrifice. I wish we could meet, but allegations by the Escobaran government mean bounty hunters are searching for us, and our presence would put everyone at risk.

  Per his Will, I am further enclosing a draft for fifty percent of the value of his shares of Myrmidons Inc. The remaining ¥6,556,762 is being donated to the Children’s Hospital, Cybernetics Division on Sparta Four. He said you’d understand.

  My deepest condolences,

  Damien Xanthopolous, C/S Bellerophon

  CEO, Myrmidons Incorporated

  * * * * *

  Jamie Ibson Bio

  Jamie Ibson is a new writer from the frozen wastelands of Canuckistan, where moose, bears, and geese battle for domination among the hockey rinks, igloos, and Tim Hortons. After joining the Canadian army reserves in high school, he spent half of 2001 in Bosnia as a peacekeeper and came home shortly after 9/11 with a deep sense of foreboding. After graduating college, he landed a job in law enforcement and has been posted to the left coast since 2007. He published his first short stories in 2018 and more are slated for 2019. He’s pretty much been making it up as he goes along, although he has numerous writer friends who serve as excellent role-models, mentors, and occasionally, cautionary tales. His website can be found at ibsonwrites.ca. He is married to the lovely Michelle, and they have cats.

  # # # # #

  Yellow in the Night by Philip Wohlrab

  Now

  Undisclosed Military Installation

  Oh boy, were we in trouble.

  I knew the moment we hit the target, and it wasn’t what we thought it was. When the Undersecretary for Civilian Security, Democracy, and Human Rights walked into the small conference room? I knew we were fucked.

  “Major Holt, do you know what you have done?”

  “Shot a bunch a bad dudes in the face, oh, and your boss,” I replied.

  “Yes, the President wasn’t too pleased to find out her Secretary of State was shot by the U.S. Army,” he stated in a cold voice.

  “Well sir, she shouldn’t have been vivisecting a young girl,” I said, my voice dry as the Sahara, “and Mr. Wallen, you should know that my ‘plants allow me to see you behind that smoked mirror. You might as well join us.”

  I could hear, and sense, Wallen’s shock. He wasn’t used to working with Phoenix Team and had only a limited understanding of our capabilities. The under-secretary harrumphed at that, but I couldn’t care less what he thought. I was tired, dirty, and desperately wanted a drink—oh, and to unsee everything I had just witnessed over the last forty-eight hours, so fuck him.

  * * *

  48 Hours Ago

  Undisclosed Military Installation

  “Come in ladies and gentlemen; we have information on a target of opportunity, and we don’t have a lot of time to plan this, so shut up and sit down.” The voice was gruff, coming from Colonel Vandermeer, a short, solid, woman. “This is Mr. Wallen. He is going to be the liaison from the State Department on this case. Mr. Wallen, if you would be so kind?”

  Wallen stepped forward, a short guy, greying at the temples, and a tad heavyset. The first thing I noticed about the guy was his furtiveness.

  “Uhh, so thank you Colonel. Umm, troops, I am Mr. Wallen, and as the Colonel said, I am your liaison on this mission. The information for it came through sources connected to the Bureau of Intelligence and Research.” I scratched my head at that one, I knew they existed, but our ops were usually generated by other alphabet soup agencies, not State Department. “We have intelligence that a Red Banner team is holing up in a villa outside Punta Prima on the island of
Menorca; what it is doing there, we aren’t sure, but it may be related to last month’s attack on Toulouse. Red Banner forces have been known to operate from the Balearic Isles before, but usually only as a transfer point, given how little of the area is actually patrolled by Spanish or French authorities.”

  “Excuse me sir, but how do you know these guys are Red Banner or connected to Toulouse?” Sergeant First Class Ben Tooley asked.

  Mr. Wallen appeared annoyed to be asked that question, and it clearly showed. He said with a sneer, “Uhh, we have our own means of developing sources, and I would rather not go into that, uhh,” he glanced at Tooley’s collar tabs, “Sergeant.”

  “Be that as it may Mr. Wallen, Sergeant First Class Tooley raises an excellent question,” I said. “Look sir, we are the very best at what the Army has to offer in terms of Special Forces; this mission profile as presented so far is a job for local forces. Red Banner isn’t known to have any synths or ‘plants. Why do you need us? This sounds an awful lot like overkill to me.”

  Mr. Wallen still had the annoyed look on his face, but he went on, “Well, Major, we suspect that there are others mixed in with this Red Banner force. We suspect operatives of the Chinese People’s Liberation Army’s Siberian Tiger Forces are with them.”

  There was a collective deep inhalation of breath from my group. The Siberian Tigers were one of the many PLA Special Forces units. They were good, and just as implanted as we were, with combat enhancements.

  “Have you been able to confirm this?”

  “We think so. Our operative on the island reports that there are Chinese nationals in Punta Prima.”

  “Is this the guy running your source?”

  “No, he is independent of the source; that came in via other means.”

  “What other means?” asked SFC Tooley.

  “I am not at liberty to discuss those.”

  There was a grumble at that from my troops; I was annoyed too, but we needed more information to plan so I moved the conversation along.

  “What information do you have on the villa, its local environs, how big it is, any security systems or drones?”

  “I have prepared a packet on what we know of the villa; it will be forwarded to your ‘plants once it has been scrubbed by your security screen.”

  Wallen was referencing getting information through our firewalls. The dangers of cyber warfare were understood as far back as the early 21st century, but cyber warfare had advanced enough that a skilled hacker could take over bioplants. Because of those dangers, our ‘plants were configured in such a way so as to not take incoming transmissions without being first scrubbed through our security pads. After a few minutes of interfacing and scrubbing the downloads, the information was directly transmitted into my brain, as well as those of my team. As I scanned through the information, I wasn’t impressed.

  “Mr. Wallen, there are hardly any details on the villa here. Nothing about personnel, other than perhaps five to six guards. Hell, there is nothing on whether they have drones or jaguars. The last thing I want to do is hit this place and find 150 pounds of combat-enhanced angry kitten trying to eat my face,” I said.

  “Uhh, you guys are a Phoenix Team; don’t you have things that can counteract?”

  I pinched the bridge of my nose for a moment before answering, “Mr. Wallen, have you ever been on an op before? Do you know what you are asking?”

  “What? An operation? Don’t be ridiculous; that would be dangerous. That is what you guys are for.”

  I glanced around the briefing room and motioned to where two of our cats lay snoozing on their perches. For their part, the two cats looked content and sleepy.

  “Mr. Wallen, those are Pixie and Babou. Notice anything about them?”

  “They’re your combat cats, but I fail to see where you are going with this—”

  “Right. They are our scouts, and they are better than drones; they have senses that electronics can’t duplicate. They communicate with Sergeants Muhler and Jenkins there, who are our cat specialists. The problem is that if the Red Banner guys have Jaguars, or—the gods forbid—the PLA Siberian Tigers have one of their Great Cats, they are both orders of magnitude bigger than even Brutus over there.” I motioned to the Combat Cougar lazing on his bed. “What kind of car do you drive Mr. Wallen?”

  Wallen was startled by the question but answered anyways, “A Honda Civic, why?”

  “Well Mr. Wallen, a Chinese Great Cat is as long as your Civic, and masses almost the same.” I was exaggerating, but not by much. He visibly gulped while I went on, “So again, Mr. Wallen, have you told me everything there is, or are you holding stuff back?”

  “Look, Major, I have given you all the information I know.” Here Wallen glanced down at his feet, and I knew he wasn’t being honest. “All I can say is that it’s a Red Banner team mixed in possibly with some Siberian Tiger Forces guys. We need you guys to fix this before we have another incident like Toulouse.”

  “Alright, what makes you think these are the guys that blew up the Airbus production facility?”

  “Well Major, we have imagery of what appears to be Red Banner guys exfiltrating the area. CCTV caught their getaway vehicles going down the A61 to the A9, and eventually escaping to sea via the port at Valras-Plage. Overhead imagery shows boat traffic that appears to be heading for Menorca.”

  “What is your reliability on this?”

  “Seventy-five percent.”

  I gave Mr. Wallen a sharp look at that. I don’t mind kicking doors and shooting bad guys in the face, but let’s face it, the US taxpayer has spent on average about 25 million bucks on each of us. I couldn’t believe the DoD was going along on this, based on this level of intelligence. I couldn’t believe that Colonel Vandermeer was sitting there not interjecting either. My team was sub-communicating their disbelief on our private channel amongst themselves. I had to tell them to can it, so I could think.

  “Alright Mr. Wallen, we will take it from here. If you have any further intelligence that you can pass along, or that comes up, send it our way. In the meantime, we have a mission to plan. If we need something more from you, we will call.”

  I motioned for him to leave the briefing room, but he didn’t look pleased with being dismissed. He was some kind of “big cheese” at State; but here, he was nothing more than a source. He gathered his few things and stalked out of the room. The team gathered around the holo-table so we could pull up the satellite data for Menorca. I touched a few controls and dropped the magnification down onto the town of Punta Prima. It was located on the southeast corner of the island, a small resort community for the rich and powerful. It didn’t always used to be that, but with the changing world economy, only the rich and powerful could afford the island anymore.

  “Seems a strange place for a bunch of terrorists to hole up,” remarked Staff Sergeant Lauren Jenkins. “Why go to a place that is the playground of the rich?”

  “Well, given the amount of recruiting that Red Banner does among the children of the wealthy, I can see it,” remarked Tooley.

  “I never got that, why would you seek to overthrow the very system that provides your wealth?” asked Staff Sergeant Hailey Muhler.

  “For some, it is pure adventurism, a way to get a new high.” I scaled the overhead imagery in to a zoom level we could use. “For others, they feel guilty about their wealth and seek to find some kind of meaning in their lives. It isn’t a new phenomenon, and most of their parents see it as a way to keep the children distracted. It isn’t like Red Banner has ever managed to be successful, nor do they cause much damage, which is why I have to wonder why we are being included in this at all. This is like dropping a sledgehammer on a gnat. The only thing I can think of is that the Siberian Tigers really are there, but that’s an odd play for them. China owns most of Airbus now, why would they blow up one of their own major production facilities?”

  Tooley said aloud what we were all thinking. “Boss, this one stinks. I don’t know what State is up to,
but I have a feeling we are getting into something that isn’t what’s being advertised.”

  “Agree, so what that means, Team, is we need to be on our toes. Fortunately we have the cats to help out, but we need to be prepared, too…”

  * * *

  36 Hours Ago

  Outside Punta Prima, Menorca

  One of the nice things about Menorca was that most of the island had gone back to nature. As the world economy collapsed in the 2050s and the population died off, there were fewer and fewer people to populate Menorca, and it gradually turned into the playground for wealthy European or North African elite. Operationally, this was a two-edged sword for us. Sure, there were fewer people to hide from, but that also meant there were far fewer vehicles moving around on the island. This meant we would be walking, but first we had to get on the island.