Hard Drop

by Will van Der Vaart

  The barrage picked up as the truck roared towards the facility gate. Tyco went almost flat, barely peeking above the wheel, feeling the bullets whistle by. They missed by inches and less, smashing against the metal truck frame and crumpling it mercilessly. He felt a second tire burst beneath him, and the truck shifted again, cutting back and forth across the asphalt. Tyco kept a tight grip on the steering wheel, sweat dripping between his fingers and the baked leather, staying on the road by sheer force of will. Bullets ripped into the seat behind him, pounding the fabric. A ricochet pinged off his chest armor, unexpected and doubly painful for it. He gritted his teeth and groaned through them in pain, shoving his foot down against the pedal to close the final few hundred yards to the security gate.

  “Brace yourself – !” he shouted, and Flip looked up instinctively, eyes on the gate, unable to resist the temptation to look.

  It was a mistake. A bullet smashed into her armor, rocking her back in her seat and knocking the wind out of her lungs. Another smashed into her arm, drawing blood and pulling a scream from between her lips. A third rocked into her torso, cutting it short, and she slumped forward.

  Tyco looked up one last time, correcting their course as they barreled towards the gate. It was close now, looming large through the windshield as the truck barreled towards its heavy chain link unstoppably. The air was electric, charged with the steady hum of high-speed lead as it whistled past, ripping the truck’s interior to shreds. Tyco sat low in the seat, ignoring the danger, bent on keeping the truck on course. He kept his head low and plowed headlong into the gunfire. There would be no mistakes this time.

  His shoulder exploded abruptly in red-hot pain as the gunners found him at last. The bullet flung him backwards against his seat, throwing him sideways and spinning the wheel uncontrollably in his hand.

  The truck veered sideways, its metal rims screaming over the concrete as momentum carried the frame forwards. The naked rims dug into the concrete, catching and rolling the truck over on it side. It slid sideways, veering crazily, and smashed through the main security gate, sending the heavy metal links airborne before coming to a hard, crashing stop against a solid metal pillar.

  Tyco lay dazed on the ground, staring up as the blue sky through the passenger window went white, then grey as the debris cloud washed through. He closed his eyes and the world went black.

  He came to as he was pulled roughly from the truck, his shoulder screaming in pain as it caught against the window. His eyes watered and his head spun as he landed on his feet, unable to bring the world around him into focus. It was a grey blur, darkened strangely as if night had fallen, though the air around him felt hot and smelled of fire and cordite. MAP-11 released him, placing him down on the tarmac against what was left of the vehicle. Every window was smashed, and the rear doors had been ripped from their hinges. Chip was nowhere to be seen, and even as Tyco adjusted to the light, MAP-11 was on one knee, reaching deep inside the truck.

  The barrage that had greeted them as they had approached the base had stopped, leaving an almost otherworldly silence behind. A quick look around the ground showed Tyco clearly why: the shattered bodies of a half-dozen turret guns lay on the ground around the APC, splintered where they had fallen from their emplacements. That much, at least, the impact cloud had done for them. Tyco rose slowly, steadying himself against the side of the APC, then fell back against it, closing his eyes in pained relief.

  He opened them to find MAP-11 staring down at him, his breathing deep and steady. The creature stood tall in the dim grey light, his arms delicately cradling Flip’s body.

  She was wounded, bleeding freely where the bullets had gone through her body armor. Her head slumped back and her eyes were closed, though her chest heaved visibly over MAP-11’s arms. The crash had left her unconscious, Tyco could see that, though how serious her injuries were was unclear.

  Tyco looked up weakly at MAP-11, slowly nodding his head. “Thank you.” He said, simply.

  MAP-11 nodded in return and turned abruptly, swinging away from the APC and heading back into the base, towards the hangars. He carried Flip easily, her frame hardly a burden as he lumbered across the tarmac. Tyco watched them go, then turned and, breathing out from the effort and pain, fell to his knees on the hot tarmac. Wincing, he crawled back into the APC through the shattered window, reaching for the med kit he knew he would find behind the driver’s seat. Judging from what he’d seen of the base’s condition, they weren’t going to find anything here. His fingers searched through the wreckage, fumbling over broken glass and twisted metal until they found it. His hand closed around the kit’s cold metal handle and he pulled, groaning with pain, wrenching it out from under the seat and crawling back out onto the tarmac.

  He rose to his feet gingerly, his legs aching as he brushed the dust from his knees. There would be time to worry about that later; for now, he would see about his soldiers.

  TWENTY: CHOICES

  He found her in the facility’s control room. The evacuating troops had sealed the door behind them, but it had been no match for the creature’s massive strength. It had been torn from the wall, and now hung loosely from one of its reinforced hinges. The room beyond it was small, seeming almost like an afterthought given the size of the runway and hangars, but its walls were packed with high-powered communications equipment. The lights blinked green as Tyco entered through the broken door.

  MAP-11 had laid Flip out carefully on a solid wood table. She was awake, her breath ragged, groaning quietly every time she exhaled. She looked up at Tyco as he entered, nodding once by way of pained greeting.

  The creature stood over Chip, once again tending to him, the shard extending beneath his skin. Tyco stared at it incredulously, but Chip’s steady breathing was reassuring, and besides, there was not much better that could be done for him.

  Tyco turned his attention to Flip’s injuries, ignoring her weak attempts to wave him off. With a practiced eye, he examined her injuries. She had been lucky, lucky as you could be driving blindly into a hail of bullets. The shot that had found her midsection had only grazed it, cutting through her side, painfully but not fatally. The blood there had clotted, and her uniform shirt now hung brown and dry from her skin. Her lips were parched, and the cut on her forehead still bled, but less now, its flow slowing to a trickle. The wound on her arm was ugly, mud-caked where the settling dust had covered it, but a little cleaning would take care of that. Her body armor had caught the rest.

  He stood and removed it now, unclipping the last links carefully, trying not to open her wounds again. She groaned and closed her eyes tightly as it came free, but made no attempt to stop him.

  “Lucky girl.” Tyco muttered, as the armor fell away and the limitations of her wounds became clear. There was nothing there that the meds and clot-bonds wouldn’t fix. Even the more serious burns where she had skidded across the asphalt wouldn’t kill her.

  Tyco lifted the aid kit onto the table with a weary sigh. This was going to hurt, he had no doubt of that, and he hoped earnestly there would be something in the kit to help. He snapped open its locks and stared inside, praying there would be something, anything of use inside.

  It fell open and he sighed, shaking his head in tired frustration.

  The rebels had been through it. They had taken the dullers it should have contained, as well as all pills and alcohol. Even the disinfectant wipes had been torn open, their contents no doubt sucked dry for their distilled contents. The remnants had been left inside, ragged and filthy. All that remained were a handful of thick gauze pads, still in their clean wrappers, and a length of clot-bonding tape. Tyco removed them from the case and dumped the empty wrapping on the floor. They would have to do without anesthetic. As for his own wounds, well -

  Setting his jaw, Tyco ripped open his uniform shirt, groaning as it fell off of his shoulder and revealed a deep, ugly, bleeding wound in his shoulder. Hog’s flask fell from his side and clattered loudly onto the table. He picked it up sadly, wiping the
dust from its side.

  “You want to clean those yourself?” He asked Flip, indicating her wounds. She nodded gratefully. He dipped Hog’s flask against a bandage and handed it to her.

  “Not what I’d want to use it for, but still…” He said, bracing the flask against his chest and quickly unscrewing the top. He held a second gauze pad against its mouth and flipped it, once, then twice, until he felt the cloth wet under his fingers. Taking a deep breath, he plunged it against the wound in his shoulder, shaking with agony as he swabbed it. The alcohol burned in the wound as it cleaned. Tyco set his teeth and rode out the pain until it numbed. He opened another pad and strapped it down tightly, tying it off with a thick roll of tape.

  He ripped the end and let his head fall, shaking as he fought off the blackout he felt coming. When he looked up again, it had passed.

  Flip had fallen asleep, or passed out, her hand holding the gauze pad fallen flat against her skin He’d have to finish the job for her.

  “Sorry about this.” He said, steadying himself against the table as he ripped open yet another pack. Slowly, carefully, he reached towards the wound at her side with the gauze pad, swabbing the dried blood from its edge.

  She groaned quietly at first, as he worked away the grime from the edges of the wound. He moved the swab quickly and nimbly, trying to press as lightly as possible, but when the cloth reached the open wound, she cried out, and her eyes fluttered open.

  “Sorry…” he said again, his hand pausing over the wound, pulling back for fear of hurting her.

  She breathed deeply, steadying herself until the pain subsided. “It’s alright.” She groaned, letting herself slide back onto the desk. “I can take it.”

  Tyco handed her the flask and continued, pausing only to open fresh gauze pads when the old ones became clogged and laden with dirt and blood.

  “Thank you.” She said, later, when he had finished taping the gauze to her side. He leaned back against the table behind him, tipping the flask up to his mouth, finally allowing himself a healthy sip of what remained. He met her eyes silently, nodding and looking away, the question on his tongue weighing heavily on his mind. He looked back to find Flip staring back at him expectantly, a knowing smile on her lips.

  "Why did you kill him?" He said, at last, steadily holding her gaze.

  "Why do you ask, Cap?" She answered coolly, and it seemed to Tyco that she was almost amused in spite of her injuries. It infuriated him. "Do you think he didn’t deserve it?"

  "No." Tyco said, his voice growing calm as the words came out. "I want to know if you killed him because of what he made here." He nodded towards the dark, looming visor of MAP-11 that stared at both of them from the far end of the room. "Did you kill the doctor because he created him?"

  Flip followed his gaze to the creature. She thought carefully before answering, weighing the security implications over in her head. "No." She said, quietly. "He’s exactly what they ordered.”

  Tyco nodded, the words sounding heavy and grim in his ears. “And the implants? The chips they put into the soldiers?”

  “Those too.” Flip shrugged. “They were the primary project here. The file says partial success.”

  “Then why…?” Tyco asked, his voice trailing off in confusion. The question hung in the air. Flip stared back at Tyco, her eyes sparkling as she watched the uncertainty play across his face.

  “He was stealing.” She said, at last. “Misappropriating funds. They were going to send someone before the rebellion, but then, well...” She glanced at MAP-11 easily, putting one hand against her side as she turned her head. “They sent me to see what happened to the doctor. No one thought that the creature would work. No one thought he’d actually create it.”

  “So that’s what we came for?” Tyco asked, his heart catching in his throat. “For a fraud investigation?”

  “Don’t, Commander.” Flip answered coolly, her voice razor-sharp. “We both know what we signed up for here.”

  Tyco stared at her, wondering how he’d mistaken her for the green and unassuming recruit he’d seen in the launch bay. The woman before him now was hard-boiled and cynical, as much a part of the Admiralty elite as Lieutenant Sorenson before her. She turned away from Tyco, dismissing him wordlessly with a nod of her head, treating him like a junior officer.

  But there was something else, too, something he’d forgotten until now, something he’d noticed on this mission. Something he’d forgotten until now. And the memory of it sparked a thought in his head, an answer for her cocky self-assurance. Evidence that she wasn’t quite as secure in her answers as she was letting on.

  “Did you call in our position?” She asked, glancing at the communications portal that dominated one side of the control room.

  “No.” He answered, absently. “Not yet.”

  “You should’ve done that first.”

  Tyco didn’t answer that, letting the silence hang heavy in the room.

  “What will you do with him?” He asked, a last. It was obvious who he meant, and Flip answered without meeting his eyes.

  “That’s up to the Admiralty.” She sighed shortly. The pain had made her drowsy and irritable. “We’ll be up for medals.” She offered. “Or promotion. Try to focus on that.”

  “Is that why you backed up his project files down there?” He asked, casually broaching the question that had risen to his mind.

  That did get her attention, and she stared at him across the room, unspeaking.

  “We weren’t sent for that, so either they already knew about it or didn’t care. Which makes me think you wanted evidence. Just in case.”

  “Just in case?” She asked, steadily holding his gaze.

  “In case that promotions didn’t come through.” He answered, directly and sweetly.

  Flip clenched her jaw and stared back at him with a grin playing about her mouth. “You have your job, Commander.” She answered. “I have mine.”

  “And when I get you home, you can tell them that.” Tyco answered, rising from his chair. Without another glance back, he stepped from the room, out through the door and onto the blistering tarmac.

  A warm breeze washed over him from behind, carrying pieces of ash with it. One fell in Tyco’s hair, and he picked it out with his fingers. Pausing before he dropped it, he recognized the veiny imprint of a leaf in the ash. The bombardment had been so heavy, and the fire so hot, that it had not had time to lose its shape before it was reduced to embers and flung up into the clouds.

  He dropped it again, letting it flutter to the ground intact. He turned, raising his eyes to face the gates and the desert beyond them. He stared out along the road into the distance, watching as the dust settled slowly before his eyes.

  Behind it, far away now, the ugly dark fires stretched along the horizon, marking the limits of the city they had left behind them. The sky overhead rippled outwards, the ash cloud spreading until it obliterated what little blue remained, turning the horizon a deep, macabre red.

  Tyco sat, staring upwards at it, holding his gun in hand. There was nothing to do, now; both Flip and Chip were stable, and there was no one left to fight. MAP-11 had been silent as ever as he had left the room, staring blankly back at him through his tinted visor, his breathing deep, but uneven, hinting at the pain he felt. Tyco sat outside on the slope, fingers turning over the dogtags of the soldiers he had lost, eyes open and unblinking. He alone had come through the day with little more than a scratch. In other circumstances, in the company of his soldiers, it might have felt like a miracle, a blessing. But now, alone on the concrete runway, there was no joy, no celebration. Only the emptiness of soldiers lost.

  The legion had casualties, of course; they were a fact of life. You might even get used to them, little by little. Sometimes a third, sometimes even half of the unit might be dead or missing after a mission, but the Legion went on.

  But this – a near-complete loss – this was too much. It had never been like this. They were too good, too precise, too well-traine
d for this to happen. No matter how badly command fouled it up, they always had options. They always had outs. They always had each other.

  Tyco had learned long ago not to second-guess the decisions he made, not on the day, not in the field, but there was little to stop him now. Because that was the truth of it: there was nothing to do, nothing but wait for the cloud to blow over and the rescue ships to pick up their signal.

  More than once, he eyed the mountains beyond them, the brown and yellow hills, parched by the desert dryness, rolling away under the red sky. His throat was parched and his rifle was heavy in his hands, but still they beckoned him, promising an exit, a retreat, a new road away from the brutal negligence of the Admiralty’s interference.

  More than once he decided to rise and answer their call, but found himself, long minutes after, still sitting in the same spot, held in place by a memory and an obligation.

  There, in the quiet moment after the storm had passed, Tyco remembered.

  The assault on the Portnow's bridge had lasted a brutal 15 minutes. Tyco and the Captain had arrived near its end, even as the marines surged up through the maintenance corridor, flanking the remaining handful of defenders and opening fire. They had wilted, the wild men, falling to the ground as the unit cut through them with precise, direct gunfire. Not one of them had even attempted to surrender. One by one, the soldiers exposed their distended forms, tearing through their blood-soaked layers until the skin showed through and they stared into the horrible, snarling faces of the men who had murdered and brutalized two crews.

  The silence that followed was total. The troopers advanced slowly, some double-checking their rifle displays for heat signatures, others staring around into the darkness of the bridge, on edge and wary of another ambush.