by Mel Odom
His additional weight caused the aircar to wobble and Sage knew all of the Phrenorian warriors aboard must have known they had an unwanted passenger. Clinging to the aircar with one hand, he drew the .500 Magnum with the other and shoved his arm and shoulder above the edge.
The Phrenorian warrior had released his hold on the 20mm cannon and pulled his rifle up. A plasma blast just missed Sage’s head and the heat melted the face membrane to his skin. Although he didn’t care for the AKTIVsuit’s chem suite or the way the onboard AI doled out treatment so easily at times, Sage missed the pain relievers it could have pumped into his system. The side of his face was a mass of writhing agony.
He shouted in pain and rage but remained focused as he dropped the Magnum’s sights over the Phrenorian’s thorax. He squeezed off two rounds and the frangible bullets blew holes through the armor, driving shrapnel into the warrior.
Already dead, the Phrenorian toppled from the aircar as the pilot continued bringing the vehicle around.
Ignoring the pain in his face and his eye, Sage shifted his attention to the gunner. The warrior hung limply in the seat harness. From the amount of blood staining the inside of the windscreen, Sage guessed that one of the gel-grenades had blown the undercarriage up through the seat.
Sage pulled himself up and sprawled on the rear deck of the aircar. He took a fresh grip on the 20mm cannon’s gimbal support shaft and aimed the Magnum at the Phrenorian pilot.
“Put us down now!” Sage ordered. He expected the Phrenorian to try for a weapon, and he was prepared to leap from the aircar if he had to.
He didn’t expect the Phrenorian to push the aircar into a nosedive and scramble back toward him. He used the pistol to block his attacker’s primary claw from his face, then swung around the gimbal shaft to plant both feet into the Phrenorian’s chest. At the same time, the barbed tail sank into the aircar’s body with a hollow boom.
Propelled by Sage’s kick and unable to compensate for the tilted surface of the aircar, the Phrenorian fell away and dangled by his tail. He flailed all six arms while trying to gain purchase. The aircar continued on, out of control. Its engines screamed as they struggled against gravity that would no longer be ignored.
Instinctively, Sage clung to the shaft as the vehicle tilted to a forty-five-degree angle and crashed into the second floor of a three-story building. He threw his free hand over his head and hung on as the aircar plowed through the wall.
Plascrete chunks rained down on him and the 20mm cannon snapped off. Blackness rushed up to meet him.
The Carmine Belelt-Cha
North Makaum Sprawl
1751 Hours Zulu Time
Kiwanuka led her team down the winding stairs that had taken them up to the Carmine Belelt-Cha bar. She kept the Roley pointed ahead of her and stunned two gunmen who’d lain in wait at the bottom of the steps.
“Sage?” she called over her comm as she reached the street. She swept her gaze through the rolling yellow clouds of tear gas and tracked her fallen soldier.
An armored Asian man sat with Private Zhu in the scattered and burning debris of what had been a shop.
“I’m Fachang,” the man said. He held his hands and his weapons up. “I’m with Sage.”
Kiwanuka logged Fachang as a “friendly” on her HUD’s IFF system and his color status changed from questionable yellow to blue. “I’m Sergeant Kiwanuka. Where’s Sage?”
Fachang pointed to a building two blocks away. A huge hole gaped in the side on the second story. An instant later, an explosive mix of flames and debris vomited out of the hole.
“Sage!” Kiwanuka covered her face as falling debris thudded against her armor.
No response came over the comm.
A plasma charge blasted Kiwanuka between the shoulder blades and staggered her. As she turned, Pingasa stunned the plasma rifle wielder and the Lemylian warrior dropped unconscious into the street.
“Staff Sergeant Kiwanuka,” Halladay called over the comm.
“Sir,” Kiwanuka responded as she took cover behind a low wall that now held back a burning section of the jungle that had invaded the sprawl.
“Get your team out of there. Sage said he had an exfil route. Use it.”
Kiwanuka pushed away the confused knot of feelings that swirled within her. “Sage isn’t here.”
“Huang’s nephew is,” Halladay said. “Get your team out of there, Staff Sergeant.”
“Sage may need help.”
Halladay was silent for a split second. “Sage is either dead or will find his own way, Staff Sergeant. You need to get your people out of there now or we’ll lose all of you. That area is being overrun by the Phrenorians. Is that clear, soldier?”
Kiwanuka took a breath. “Yes sir.”
She knew Halladay was right, and she owed it to her troops to bring them home. So far she hadn’t lost any of them.
She turned to Fachang. “Show me the exfil point.”
Fachang nodded. “Someone will have to carry this man. He’s alive but unconscious. I can’t carry that suit with this armor.”
“Understood,” Kiwanuka said. “Culpepper.”
“I’ve got this, Staff Sergeant.” Culpepper stepped forward and shoved debris off Zhu, then leaned down and picked up the wounded soldier. He settled him over his shoulders in a fireman’s carry.
Fachang got to his feet. “This way, Staff Sergeant.” He ran toward an alley in the direction of the pin showing on Kiwanuka’s HUD.
Kiwanuka hesitated only a moment and stared at the building where Sage was supposed to be. Then, because she was responsible for her team, she sprinted after them and sprayed suppressive fire behind her, chopping down any who were foolish enough to attack their group.
TWENTY-SIX
Sprawl Provisional Protectorate
Makaum
27706 Akej (Phrenorian Prime)
Standing on the rear dock of the aircar, Zhoh manned the 20mm cannon and strafed the retreating Terran soldiers. They were too quick, though, and all of them managed to duck safely into an alley. The 20mm rounds collapsed the side of a building and felled two trees, setting all of it on fire when the secondary incendiaries cooked off.
Zhoh ignored the ball of pain that currently resided in his thorax. He told himself that he wasn’t dead, wasn’t dying, and would heal. Lannig would see to that. “Mato.”
“Yes,” Mato responded.
“Where are the Terrans fleeing to? They are not headed in the direction of their fort.”
Mato was silent for a moment and Zhoh knew the warrior was checking his tablet, scouting through maps of the sprawl.
“I don’t know, General. I don’t see any reprieve in the direction they’ve gone.”
Zhoh seethed and started to give the aircar pilot orders to pursue the fleeing Terran soldiers. However, following them might only lead to a trap. The Terrans were crafty and were content to fight from hiding and to spring ambushes rather than meet on battlefields where strength and skill decided the victor.
Still, it was a risk he was willing to take.
“But I do have something for you,” Mato said. “I monitored some of the comm traffic that was going on. Master Sergeant Sage is among the Terrans there.”
“Then I will pursue him.”
“He’s not with the group, triarr. He got separated. I am marking his position on your visuals.”
Almost immediately, a blue dot formed on Zhoh’s HUD. According to it, Sage was less than eighty meters away, on the opposite side of the street from the fleeing Terran soldiers.
“What is he doing there?” Zhoh asked, thinking perhaps his enemy was laying a trap.
“Sage attacked an aircar, General,” Mato said. “He successfully brought it down but did not escape it when it crashed into that building.”
“He is still inside?”
“Yes.”
“Is he alive?”
“I do not know,” Mato admitted. “I have assigned warriors to that area, but there is resistance i
n the street. The local populace is confused as to who started this battle and is attacking indiscriminately out of fear.”
Shifting on the aircar, Zhoh looked back toward the embassy. A group of warriors with fire suppression equipment battled the blaze left in the hollow where the aircar dock had been. Drones, now with their weapons revealed, zipped through the air and protected the embassy’s perimeters.
“They will be delayed reaching you,” Mato said.
“Assign one of the drones to me,” Zhoh said. “I’ll find out if Sage yet lives.”
“Are you ready?”
Zhoh brought up his drone interface and took over piloting the drone as Mato linked it to him. “Yes.”
Occasionally, shots were fired at the aircar, but the vehicle’s defenses held and the two Phrenorian warriors returned fire, driving away or killing anyone who dared shoot at them.
Zhoh reveled in the feeling of being in command as he stood on the aircar’s fighting deck. He had missed the sense of being in control of his destiny, of his lannig, but now that he was once more in battle, no longer held back by a cowardly commander, he intended to make the most of his new position.
Makaum would fall. He would break it and bend it into another resource planet for the Phrenorian Empire. Then, once he’d handed the planet over, he would be recognized and would be given other commands that would bring further glory.
His mate and her father would be made to pay for their cowardly actions against him.
In control of the drone, not as smooth with piloting as he would have liked, Zhoh used his secondaries on the touch pad to send the craft skimming toward the building where Mato had said Sage still was. Zhoh wanted control of the drone. He hoped the Master Sergeant was not yet dead. He wanted to kill the human himself. Sage had proved himself an honorable opponent.
If Sage had been Phrenorian, they might have been fellow warriors. They would have conquered all.
The drone slowed as it approached the gaping hole in the side of the building and Zhoh peered through its vid feed. Smoke trailing from the crash site blinded the drone for a moment, but momentary glimpses gave an indication of the area.
The aircar remained mostly intact and the fighting deck jutted through the hole. Hung by his own tail, an injured Phrenorian warrior dangled below the aircar’s rear defensive plates. The warrior was dying or lapsing into unconsciousness and his limbs worked pathetically to pull him up or seek his release.
Zhoh didn’t care. Either way the warrior would have died gloriously in battle. Only a little time separated when. He flew the drone past the wrecked aircar and moved slowly now because the opening was narrow. The hull bumped against the sides of the opening.
The aircar guards continued returning fire at ground-based snipers. Zhoh decided then that the embassy’s defensive perimeters would be expanded. They had held back from doing that at Rangha’s command. Knowing everything he did now, Zhoh felt certain it was so the dead general could maintain his illegal arms trade more easily.
A moment later, the drone slid inside the building. Zhoh switched the powerful lights on and illuminated the room. The warrior in the front passenger seat lay still in death, half buried under rubble that had spilled from the building’s ceiling and surrounding walls.
Turning gently in the tight space, Zhoh maneuvered the drone around and scanned the area more thoroughly. Then he made out a human boot standing at the rear of the aircar. As he tracked up the armored leg, he spotted Sage behind the 20mm cannon on the aircar’s fighting deck just behind the overhanging debris that covered the back section of the vehicle.
Blood and some kind of torn material covered one side of Sage’s face. One eye was bloodshot and filled with pain, but the human swung the 20mm cannon around.
Not at the drone as Zhoh would have expected, but at the aircar hovering just on the other side of the wall.
“Get back!” Zhoh shouted.
Operating on instinct, he forgot about the drone and pulled his rifle up. He almost had it level when the wall blew out. He shouted his command again, but the roar of the cannon buried his words.
Chunks of plascrete blew out of the building and hammered the aircar. Dents covered the side facing the attack and only fragments of the windscreen remained. Dust and smoke boiled out of the room.
Zhoh fired repeatedly into the side of the structure and blew out sections of the wall as he hunted Sage.
Taoldir Street
North Makaum Sprawl
1754 Hours Zulu Time
Return fire from the Phrenorian aircar chopped into the building and drove Sage to cover. He leaped forward toward the front of the wrecked aircar, dropped behind it, and took shelter as he unlimbered the Roley.
“Sage!” The voice broadcasted over a public address system from a Phrenorian system. “I know you’re in there!”
Sage didn’t reply. He knew his chance of knocking down Zhoh and his aircar was small, but he’d had to take it.
“You could have asked me for personal combat!” Zhoh shouted.
Falling debris had trapped the drone against one of the surviving walls. The unit jerked and shuddered as it tried to get free. At least the damage had snapped the 20mm cannon from it, reducing it to a large vid cam.
“I would have honored such a request,” Zhoh said. “Instead, you tried to assassinate me.”
Sage looked around the room desperately. “It wasn’t me. It wasn’t any of my people.”
The room had housed people before it had become collateral damage. An arm lay visible at the back of the room, through the shattered remains of a wall. Sage couldn’t tell if the limb was still attached to the victim now buried under the debris, but the onboard limited AI of his present armor detected no life signs.
“You lie!” Zhoh thundered. His amplified, artificial voice ricocheted inside the space.
Another wave of depleted uranium rounds splintered the debris. Sage kept his head low and tried to block out all the pain coming from the side of his face.
Sage turned over, rose to a crouch, and tried to peer through the makeshift plascrete curtain formed by buckyball strands woven through the material. “I’m not lying.”
The buckyball strands hung in chunks and deflected rounds and beams alike.
“The Terran military didn’t pick this fight today,” Sage said. “It was the work of someone else. Probably the same people who killed Wosesa Staumar and General Rangha. Someone is pulling your strings, Zhoh. They want us to fight.”
“I want to fight,” Zhoh said. “You want to fight.”
Sage knew that was true and didn’t argue. He felt alive now, in this battle, and he knew he should have felt remorse at all the death.
“There will never be peace between our worlds, Sage,” Zhoh continued. “There can only be one victor in this war, and it will be the Phrenorians. It will be me. I am now the general in charge of the Phrenorian forces on Makaum. Things will be done differently here.”
General? The thought left Sage chilled. Zhoh was a battlefield officer. He lived for war, unlike General Rangha. This current action was only a preview of the hell that would come.
More rounds chipped away at the hanging plascrete.
The drone shifted in the debris and succeeded in knocking some of it off. It rose higher, gaining a few centimeters in altitude. The weapons gimbal rotated at the top a few times.
“Your robot viper has had its fang yanked,” Sage said. “You’re not going to be able to use it.” He laid his rifle on the aircar for support and considered his situation.
No help was coming.
There was no way out except the way he’d come in because the debris formed barriers all around him.
The drone suddenly reversed and smashed against the barrier, rocking it and knocking free a few chunks of plascrete. When its backward momentum ground to a halt, the drone shot forward again and powered toward Sage.
He ducked behind the aircar and the drone bounced from the vehicle’s body and smashed against
the pile of debris. Plascrete scree skidded down and a small dust cloud blossomed.
Then the drone reversed and smashed against the outer barrier, almost tearing free. Sage realized that Zhoh was trying to destroy the barrier. Once it was gone, Sage would be trapped.
TWENTY-SEVEN
Taoldir Street
North Makaum Sprawl
1753 Hours Zulu Time
Sweating, bleeding, and hurting, Sage ran his hands over his borrowed combat harness and searched for the explosives ordnance every soldier was supposed to carry into the field. Shaped charges were used to take down doors and walls for search and rescue missions, and they were employed against enemy vehicles and munitions stores.
He located both bricks of Beryllium+8 and attached thermal triggers that could be detonated by remote control and turn the material into a highly explosive bomb. After a quick application of sticky foam from the abbreviated med kit to the explosives, he ducked again as the drone smashed against the debris pile. This time, when he was as certain as he could be that he couldn’t be seen by the drone’s vid cam, he slapped both B+8 bricks onto the weapon’s carbonized skin.
The sticky foam instantly bonded with the drone’s body, and when it sped toward the barrier this time, the B+8 bricks went with it. More debris rained down when it hit, but the bricks stayed in place.
Sage stood and made a show of firing at the drone, but he deliberately missed most of his shots. He wanted Zhoh to think he was frightened and frantic.
The drone ground to a halt once more, but there were holes in the barrier now. Daylight showed through those openings and afforded glimpses of the Phrenorian vehicle poised outside like a predatory avian. Sage shifted his aim through the hanging pieces and hit the aircar’s pilot at least once because black blood sprayed up from his shoulder.
The pilot ducked and flailed and managed to jockey the aircar back.