by Annie Bellet
The others crouched low around her, turned outward, side-arms drawn and eyes scanning warily. Ilvic flipped the device on and entered her code. A green topographical map of the debris crater appeared. For a terrible held breath of a moment, there was no red dot and Ilvic worried they’d been wrong, that the ship recorder wasn’t in this area at all. Or that maybe the Spidren had figured out what it was and destroyed it.
Then the red dot appeared. The recorder was intact and still responding, just ahead of them in the large chunk of ship where she had prayed it would be.
She memorized the map and shut down the device quickly. She tapped Anders on the shoulder as she rose and motioned toward the scorched chunk of ship not sixty paces ahead. Anders tapped Khemett, who tapped Qazi, each relaying the information with a quick gesture and jerk of the head.
Orujov caught Ilvic’s eye, the slender woman jerking her thumb to their right. Ilvic followed her motion and saw the mound of earth Orujov was pointing to. The top of the mound was fairly flat, the earth churned up by the crashing ship and the grass on it dead from exposure of its root balls to the hot sun. It would make a good sniper position, covering this part of the crater.
Ilvic nodded and made a circular motion with her hand, palm facing the ground. Orujov acknowledged the unspoken order by tapping two fingers to the brim of her helmet in salute and set off at a shuffling jog. The other four crouched again, waiting to give the sniper time to set up. After a count of one hundred, Ilvic rose and looked right. She could barely make out the sniper woman’s still form and the long shape of the black BFG 50c.
Ilvic and her team crossed the debris field quickly, keeping their bodies low as they could, heads swinging left and right, tension visible in every motion. Anders entered the ship remains first, ducking back out into the sunlight to motion the all-clear for the first chamber. Ilvic slipped in, giving her eyes time to adjust to the sudden dimness. The ship stank of burnt electronics, hot metal, and something sickly sweet underneath, a smell she’d learned to associate with old, decaying blood.
There were enough holes in the structure to let a little light in. Ilvic picked her way through the debris-strewn room to where one of the doors hung off its hinges from the ceiling. She realized as she looked at the door that the ship was sideways, dug into the soil. They were going to have to climb up into the bridge.
She motioned her team in close and risked a whisper.
“Khemett and I will go up into the bridge,” Ilvic said. It made sense as she and the wiry Khemett were the lightest and the best climbers. Khemett was the only one in the United Fleet who had ever beaten her rock wall speed record. They were also tall enough that they could chimney climb their way to the bridge if they had to. “Qazi, Anders, you give us a boost through the door and then stay here, one watching for us, one watching the outside, clear?”
“Crystal, Commander,” Anders said as Qazi murmured “Yessir,” in his musical accent that made it sound like one word.
Though she hated it, Ilvic sent Khemett up first. If there were a Spidren lurking above, they had to protect the mission commander. She had the device that would let them extract the recording cylinder even with the ship offline. She knew the mission parameters. She hated that her life was somehow more important than theirs, but they’d all known it before leaving. She’d made it clear this mission had a poor percentage prediction of success, and even more clear that the stakes were too high for any soldier’s life to be above the mission goal.
Her team was the best of the best and perhaps more importantly, every one of them was married to the Fleet, career soldiers who’d dedicated their lives to the war with the Spidren. Everyone on this mission had a personal stake as well, she’d looked into the pool of volunteers and picked each man and woman for not only their skills, but because of the losses they’d suffered, losses as deep as her own. The knowledge in the Starwolf’s recorder could turn the war, could lead to the wholesale destruction of the Spidren. Ilvic had picked those volunteers who would want such a thing for personal reasons, who would want it more than life itself.
Khemett’s taps echoed down to them and Ilvic shoved away her thoughts and nodded at Anders. The big man boosted her up and she dragged her body through the doorway and into the corridor above. The faint painted lines on the sides of the corridor showed they led to the bridge. Khemett was braced in another doorway about ten meters above Ilvic’s head. Chunks of melted wiring hung from the walls and opened panels gave Ilvic some purchase as she pulled herself upward, her feet splayed across the corridor, boots clinging to the side. Her arms burned and she regretted the weight of her combat vest, but she’d need it. She hauled herself up, clutching at panel edges and wires, finally reaching Khemett who then disappeared through the door.
The bridge was almost intact except for the front viewport. Its Aerogel had cracked and melted beneath what Ilvic guessed had been one of the Spidren’s acid beams and the milky shards allowed a fair amount of sunlight through, though the ships remains kept that edge in shadow.
Dark smears and splashes were the only sign that humans had died here. The Spidren never left behind bodies. Ilvic turned her thoughts away from that, as well, breathing through her mouth so she wouldn’t have to smell the decaying blood as much. Khemett had pulled himself up onto one of the consoles and had his side-arm out again, sitting in a way that he could keep watch on the sky through the shattered view port.
Ilvic had to clamber sideways around the edge of the bridge to get to the main information bank. She curled her arm through a clot of wiring and braced her toes on what was left of someone’s chair, thankful that Fleet chairs were bolted securely into the floor even on ships with gravity generators. She used her free hand to pull the little black box out of its pocket in her vest and fire it up. Hair rose on the back of her neck and she shoved the shivers away. Too much use of electronics, she knew. But she had no choice.
The device booted up and she keyed in a different code. A red light came on in the console above her and then a silver cylinder about the size of her forearm and the thickness of her wrist slid free. She had to drop the little black box to catch the ship recorder and the box crashed down into the piles of charred debris twenty meters below, its screen still lit.
“Fuck,” she muttered. No chance of avoiding Spidren attention now. Best she could hope for was that they would be far away and there would be time to get to the ship and bamph before they arrived en masse. She jammed the recorder into a vest pocket, sealing it closed carefully.
“Company, Commander,” buzzed Orujov’s voice in her ear. “Two bugs, half a klick out and coming in by air.”
Fliers. They were smaller than their ground-based cousins and had soft spots under their wings in the back, but they spit acid with surprising accuracy over surprising distances. Where there were two, there would be more following soon.
“Golden egg acquired. Abandon stealth, kids. We’re going out hot.” Ilvic motioned for Khemett to head down and then followed him as quickly as she dared without risking injury.
Qazi and Anders met them at the bottom, both looking to Ilvic for orders. Her heart sped up and the now familiar cold and runny feeling in her stomach and bowels twisted through her.
“Orujov,” she hissed into the subvocal mic.
“Sir?”
“Do you have a shot on the bugs?”
“One clear,” came the reply. “Two is on the ground behind debris. No shot, repeat, no shot on two.”
“Take it, fire at will, we’re going to make a run for your position.” Ilvic motioned to her team. “Anders first,” she whispered aloud. “Khemett and Qazi bring up the rear. Protect the egg.”
They all saluted, fingers brushing helmets.
“Stay glacial,” she whispered.
They broke from the cover of the ship at a dead run, guns sweeping the area around them as the sharp report of Orujov’s BFG 50c cracked and reverberated across the crater. A flier hit the ground just to Ilvic’s left, its head explo
ded in a mess of green and red chunks, its fuzzy wings still twitching.
Another flier screamed behind them but Ilvic didn’t look back. She smelled the hot ozone of Khemett’s or Qazi’s lazgun as one of them turned and fired. Another scream rang out as she reached the edge of the crater on Anders’ heels, this one human.
Despite herself, Ilvic turned this time, even as her instincts pulled her over the edge of the crater and had her ducking behind the mounded earth. Khemett dashed up beside them, running backwards with his gun flashing as he pulled the trigger over and over.
Qazi rolled on the scorched ground twenty-five paces away, his face and helmet covered in slick glowing acid, his screams now little more than pained gurgles. He was clearly still conscious. Ilvic raised her gun without thinking and took the shot. Qazi stilled and Ilvic swallowed bile, her hand shaking as she lowered her gun and dropped behind cover again. She added Qazi’s name to her nightmares and shoved the guilt away. He’d known the risks and at least now he’d died quick instead of melting away from the acid.
The thought didn’t help. It never did.
The second flier veered away from Khemett’s shots and dropped down. Skittering sounds echoed from their left as cabin-sized Spidren raced over the yellow grass toward them and more fliers dotted the skies. Even from this distance Ilvic could make out their glinting red eyes and slick, hard shells.
“Fuck fuck fuckity fuck,” muttered Khemett and Ilvic agreed. More of the bugs had found them than she’d expected.
“Run, Commander,” Orujov said, shifting her position on the ground to get a better angle on the approaching Spidren. “I will hold bugs back long as I can.”
“Give me your sonics, sir,” Khemett said, crawling up beside Ilvic as she half rose, ready to run again.
She saw his plan in his calm face and clenched her teeth against arguing. It was one thing to ask her soldiers to give up their lives for a cause; it was another to watch them die right in front of her. There was no choice and she could hate it all she wanted as long as she acted. She didn’t have to like her job, she just had to do it.
Blinking away hot tears she yanked her two sonic grenades free of her belt with a grimace and handed them over. Anders did the same with one of his two and Ilvic nodded to him.
“When Khemett goes, we go,” she growled, her throat tight, sour with bile and unshed tears.
This time it was she and Anders who saluted Orujov and Khemett, Anders muttering for them to go with god.
Khemett broke from their meager cover and charged off to the right, flipping the switch of the first grenade. The sonics wouldn’t kill a bug, but they disoriented and slowed them and made taking eye-shots easier.
Forcing herself to turn away, Ilvic stumbled to her feet and set off on Anders’ heels again, the two of them running in a weaving pattern over the rocky ground for the Pigeon and their extraction team.
The whirr of wings warned her and Ilvic dodged behind a boulder just as a glob of acid splashed into the ground where she’d cross only a moment before. She turned and took a shot with her lazgun, punching a smoking hole through the flier’s wing and sending it crashing to the ground. Three more fliers zoomed toward her as the concussive waves of the sonics pressed in on her eardrums, followed by cracking reports from a sniper rifle. Orujov and Khemett were still alive, still fighting.
Anders grabbed her arm and she resumed her charge over the rough ground, the river now in sight and the long shadows of the spires stretching dark fingers towards them. They reached the ropes before the fliers caught them, Anders turning and firing a covering pattern into the air with his lazgun, forcing the fliers to dodge and slow as Ilvic looped the line through her belt.
Lazgun fire smashed into one of the fliers from above. Haasen and Jang were still alive as well, and providing cover. Ilvic swore in relief.
“Anders!” she yelled and he stumbled backward and grabbed a line. “Pigeon take us up, got unfriendlies!”
The motors kicked in, the mechanic pullies yanking them upward. It was all Ilvic’s tired arms could do to hang on as she kept her feet out to protect against slamming into the striated rocks. Haasen’s strong arms pulled her over the edge of the mesa and she staggered forward.
A flickering ball of hot acid slammed into Haasen’s chest, the thin blond jerking backward with a scream. Acid splashed Ilvic’s left side, fiery pain and the sharp stench of burning synthetics freezing her in place for a moment.
“Commander!” Anders grabbed at her good arm, throwing her at the Pigeon and into Jang’s waiting arms.
She jerked around as Anders yelled again, pulling away from Jang and knocking him back into the transport as Nazar started to lift off.
“Wait!” she yelled, bringing up her side-arm to try to cover Anders. He was down on his knees on the dusty plateau, acid burning away one of his legs, blood oozing from his ruined thigh. He raised green eyes to hers, his face dirt-smeared and utterly serene. Two fingers touched his helmet brim and then Jang dragged her backward and the transport door slammed shut.
The air filled with the freezing chalkiness of the neutralizing agent that Jang quickly sprayed on Ilvic’s acid-splashed side. The pain receded enough that she could think again and she swallowed a moan.
“Strap in, this is going to get hairy,” Nazar’s gruff voice said over the intercom.
Ilvic shoved Jang toward one of the jump seats with her good arm and then pulled herself into the one behind her, yanking as much strapping into place as she could so the g-forces of leaving orbit didn’t throw her around the cabin. She closed her eyes as the ship dodged and weaved, sharp turns disorienting her until she wasn’t sure they would even make it into orbit, much less back through the web. The g-forces of acceleration made it impossible to tell when the weightlessness of open space hit, but Nazar let them know when they were free of the planet atmosphere.
“Approaching web, smoke ‘em if you got ‘em,” Nazar muttered over the com.
Ilvic waited, holding her breath, to see if they would end up like bugs on a windshield.
Nazar threaded the needle, her sigh of relief audible over the com. “We’re through,” she said. “No unfriendlies on the screen. Making for the edge.”
Their command ship, the Lumitana, was hidden in the electrical storms of the outermost planet, a Jovian giant. They were almost out safe. Last stage of the mission. Golden Egg secure.
Ilvic unsealed her vest pocket and slid her good hand inside. The smooth surface of the cylinder felt warm even through her glove. Inside was knowledge as precious and intangible as hope. She curled her hand around it and clung on as hard as she knew how.
* * * * *
Somebody Else’s Problem
Roosevelt Park slid by outside the bus window as Verity Li found her usual seat five back from the driver and sank down onto the scarred plastic. It wasn’t a long bus ride home from the Office of Banned Magic satellite building adjacent to Michigan Central Station, but every afternoon it seemed to stretch on a little bit longer. Knowing they were on their way home, her magic-sniffing rat, Ruby, stirred inside Verity’s sweatshirt pocket, sticking the tip of her pink nose out.
Verity glanced around, the bus interior shadowed and dull from behind her sunglasses. Most of the seats were full, some people already standing as preference, but no one paid any attention to her. At work she had to wear the lettered jacket that said Detective and OBM in big, easy to read letters. Here she was just another commuter in jeans and a hoodie, bundled up against the September chill.
She leaned back and closed her eyes, opening her mind to Ruby’s through their tattooed spell-link, letting her cat-sized friend tell her about the world through their joined noses.
Someone had stuck fresh gum to the bottom of the seat. Ruby was interested in that but Verity slid a hand inside her sweatshirt pocket and stroked the rat’s super fine white fur, keeping her in place with a little tug on her harness. Grease. Dust. Human sweat. Stronger smells of charms, the fresh mint of protectio
n charms and the pine sol bite of charms that were supposed to ward off the common cold. All legal magics, the kind of minor things that anyone over the age of eighteen could purchase from licensed venders.
The bus stopped and a new wave of scents slipped over her. Wet cement. Half-eaten yogurt. Then a sharp, fake-watermelon scent found Ruby’s nose. She twitched and gave her signal squeak.
Verity opened her eyes and tightened her grip on Ruby’s harness. That was the smell of a banned kind of magic, invisibility. She looked around, spotting the offender by where her eyes refused to stick, the person a blurry outline that her brain didn’t want to focus on. Ruby could have taken her right up to the person, if she’d asked. She reached into her jean’s pocket and pulled out a Pez dispenser, dropping a banana pellet into her sweatshirt pouch and mentally sending calming thoughts to her rat.
It was misdemeanor level magic. And she was tired, off duty, and wanted to stick it in her SEP file. Somebody Else’s Problem. If the kid, because it was probably some stupid kid, was over twenty-one, he or she would be fined and have to register in the Spell Offender list. Cameras would catch anything they did, since charms like that only really worked on the human eye, and not perfectly.
At her stop, she walked past the blurred shape of the kid to exit the bus.
“You overpaid for that spell, idiot,” she said over her shoulder.
Her building was a new high-rise, part of the “urban renewal” effort a few blocks from One Detroit Center. Half the floors had been designated as affordable housing, with a break for government employees. Which meant that no one bothered to renew charms against leaks, breakages, outages, and anything else, or do the manual labor half the time. Tiny HOA fees, tiny benefits.
At least Ruby was always happy to be inside the dingy walls. This was her favorite time of day. Home meant pineapple treats and videogames on the giant touch-screen television that Verity had sunk three month’s overtime into.