Madame Guillotine

by Jason Anspach

  Normal Legion protocols indicated KTF in effect. But this was not a normal Legion assignment. This was babysitting.

  They had been pulled from normal unit rotation to do some time in what was called the “crisis management teams” that were the precursor to Legion Dark Ops. It was in these teams that one learned to work with other military and governmental organizations—something that was part and parcel of life as a Dark operator. Though as Shaker saw it, there wasn’t much to learn beyond patience and the ability to suffer incompetence while still trying to get the mission done.

  Anything but a five rating during this assignment meant no go for Dark Ops. But that was all career stuff. And Sergeant Sean Lopez, Shaker as he was tagged, couldn’t’ve cared less about it at that moment. Diving into the alley to get the marine officer had been his only concern. That was the one mission objective that needed to happen for today not to be a complete mess.

  And as the QRF got deeper and deeper, followed through the warren of alleys by the black-and-red-clad mob of wannabe ninjas, it was clear the group of pros they were chasing could easily go to ground inside any of these buildings and quickly disappear into the extensive underground transportation system built back in Detron’s halcyon days.

  Which meant the QRF was just a desperate second from losing their quarry.

  But they received intermittent updates from the shooter in the Reaper bird, and these indicated that, so far at least, the legionnaires on the ground were roughly on the right trail.

  “Don’t like this one bit,” said the usually stoic Cave.

  Cave was a staff sergeant who’d just finished up a rotation as a line platoon sergeant. He and Shaker had been in roughly the same time and knew a lot of the same people. Both had the same goal—Dark Ops—and both knew exactly what it took.

  “Pull back?” asked Shaker, breathing heavily. Not from the exertion of the double-time they ran with weapons ready, but because of the anxiety creep he was starting to get as things progressed. He felt the same as Cave. Didn’t even need to explain the reasons.

  They both knew they were on the verge of getting in too far over their heads. Allied units were busy with the clown show of the crash, the political oversight, and the dog-and-pony circus of the show of force being put on by the House of Reason for the media. If they got into something… backup was not likely to be fast in coming.

  There was a long pause before Cave answered. They had come to an intersection, automatically breaking into teams of two and hugging the wall. One covering forward, the other covering the rear. Everyone knew their job, even Beers, the new E-5. Good kid. Survived a bad counterinsurgency on Ilon. Did something that got him fast-tracked for the CMTs.

  “We still got a chance to get her back?” asked Cave. His breathing was rock steady. You’d think the fear creep wasn’t there for him. Unless you knew him well. Which Shaker did. His number two was concerned with what they were doing.

  Reacting.

  Instead of acting.

  That was always the worst thing to do.

  “We’re close, according to Reaper,” replied Shaker over the L-comm, nodding his bucket at the SLIC above. “We can still get her. Or we turn back now and call for an extraction off one of these rooftops. Then she’s gone and it’s a whole thing.”

  “Bad day,” muttered Cave.

  “Yeah,” replied Shaker.

  Beers and Lightspeed said nothing. Too busy watching their sectors. This wasn’t a vote. This was a check on mission. Making sure they were doing the right thing. Making sure they weren’t going to get anyone killed unless they wanted them killed.

  “New ping.”

  They all saw it in their HUDs. The Reaper team in the SLIC above had spotted the capture team, now two blocks east of their position. Down the alley to the right. Then turn left. There was a Soshie technical inbound on that loc, which probably wasn’t a coincidence.

  “They’re getting her transport. We’ll lose her then,” said Cave.

  “How the hell did a bunch of protestors mount an N-50 to a speeder?” asked Beers. “Like, how?”

  “Doesn’t matter,” said Shaker. “This is our chance to make sure we don’t lose her. Lightspeed, you stay back and lay down cover fire on the mob behind us. Shoot over their heads and keep them back because we’re probably going to get into a thing taking the featherhead back. Beers, you and Cave on my flank. Full-out sprint—watch for ambushes. We rush the next two blocks and try to catch them before the technical arrives on scene.”

  It was a bad plan. Shaker knew it even as he spoke. But it was the only chance to get an engagement before the transport arrived.

  The biggest problem was running full-tilt through blind alleys. That was a sure way to blunder straight into an ambush that had been left along the back trail for just such a contingency. Then again, maybe running would give them the element of surprise. They’d trained to move quickly and engage during assault school, and it was a standard drill in the line units. Chances were, they could cut the possible ambush’s reaction time by getting up on them quickly and shooting fast.

  So…

  “Weapons free,” said Shaker. “Screw Betae. I’ll take the hit.”

  Then…

  “Go.”

  * * *

  Reaper Actual watched from the bird’s-eye vantage the hovering SLIC provided. Oh-Two was an excellent pilot, but she knew he was nervous flying in close to the ramshackle apartment buildings in this section of Detron. She watched as the Legion QRF tagged Switchblade split up, with three of the four legionnaires surging out in a rough wedge and running off down the alley. That would take them to another stretch that ultimately led to where the unit had extracted the weapons officer.

  “How long on that technical?” she asked Oh-Two.

  She had everyone tagged within the scope’s map view. With a rotation of her thumb she could zoom out on the N-18 and see the entire sector, or zoom in and see a good sight picture on a single target. Headshot close. Her specialty.

  “Fifteen seconds at best. Sled’s moving fast and not braking for anyone, including some children it almost ran down a few blocks back. These guys are coming for our guys, that’s for sure.”

  Who brings their children out for something like this? That’s what Reaper Actual wanted to ask. But that detail wasn’t pertinent to the mission. So she said, “Weapons?”

  “Tagging a mounted gun of some sort. Black market, definitely—maybe an N-50? It’s got a cargo module, and that’s where they’re going to put the weps officer if I have to bet my flight pay today.”

  “Those legionnaires aren’t going to arrive in time,” Reaper Actual said.

  The legionnaires were highly conditioned, but her tracking indicated they wouldn’t arrive until the sled was already in place at the scene. Then there’d be a confrontation and probably a whole bunch of shooting.

  Over the throb of the repulsors and the idle of the SLIC’s engines came the high-cycle whine of blaster fire. She checked the one leej Switchblade had left behind. Bright traces of blaster fire were coming from his SAB at unseen targets down the alley. Most likely the mob.

  “They firing, Amanda?” asked Oh-Two.

  “Looks like it. Can’t tell if they’re getting hits. But it looks like they’ve upped their posture. Request permission for me to support.”

  “Roger.”

  * * *

  The legionnaires ran into a hail of blaster fire coming down at them along the last alleyway leading to the target. The transport had already arrived, and the pick-up was going down.

  For one second there was nothing but shadowy afternoon darkness due to the tall buildings clustering along the warren, cut by occasional shafts of dusty daylight, and then in the next second it was like some special-effects movie where the hero flies his starfighter down a trench to blow up the Savage hulk and save the day.


  Blaster fire came at them in hot volcanic red bolts, indicative of black-market blasters of the military-grade variety. Shaker’s HUD was tagging no less than eighteen combatants that he could see. And the captured marine officer.

  His intention had been to show up and tell them to lay down their weapons, if any more than the guy who murdered the pilot had any—which still hadn’t been confirmed by any external intel. Lay down weapons and surrender the officer. He’d even made up his mind to pull back for extraction as soon as he got gloves on the officer. No prisoners. Too much confusion. Things could go bad in the chaos. Just get the featherhead and leave. No KTF.

  But the pro capture team had decided the play by opening fire first. So, it was going to be a fight. Plain and simple.

  KTF in effect, only it was the other guys shooting first.

  Shaker didn’t like that.

  Beers, young and agile, moved like a rabbit, darting for cover behind a solid steel trash receptacle that suddenly took a fusillade of incoming, leaving molten scars along its surface. Cave merely dove and hit the ground, skidding forward and bringing his N-4 up to engage in the same instant. Within seconds he was dropping tangos who either hadn’t chosen cover or had come out from behind cover to lay down more fire.

  Shaker hugged the wall, selecting full-auto and dumping a charge pack at everyone along the right flank. He made sure not to shoot near the captured flight officer, who was being held by two large thugs in red-and-black ninja gear and military-style tactical carrying harnesses.

  Fifteen seconds of furious shooting saw three quarters of the capture team dead and the leaders scurrying back out of view. The technical sled, no longer waiting to be loaded up, was now moving at a high rate of speed over to a courtyard beyond the alley.

  A mounted gunner oriented his weapon toward the legionnaires and opened fire wildly, spraying a wall well above Beers’s head and sending old brick raining down. Beers, who had picked up Cave’s six as the big leej surged for the alley, hit the mounted gunner with three shots in the chest.

  Perfect trigger pulls.

  Excellent grouping.

  The shooter side of Shaker noted it all admiringly as he slapped in a charge pack and followed Cave and Beers into the courtyard, sweeping up the flanks for his position in the three-man assault. It was textbook form of a much-practiced SOP.

  “On your six and loaded,” called out Shaker, letting his team know he was ready to cover them while they slapped in new charge packs.

  Cave engaged two shooters on the right flank and took a direct hit to his armor. It hurt like getting hit by a flying jackhammer, Shaker knew that. He’d been hit before. But Cave, who stood six four, didn’t seem fazed in the least. Except that his arm was apparently broken and now useless. He let the N-4 hang limp in its sling and pulled his sidearm with his off hand. He fired at targets engaging them from inside a building on the right flank.

  “Take out the driver!” shouted Shaker over the comm as he held off incoming fire from the left side of the courtyard.

  “On it!” Beers shouted back.

  Eager and amped up for payback, the kid ran forward quickly, not bothering to fire. He slammed into the side of the technical sled, bounced off of it, and with weapon up, began shooting into the driver’s compartment at point blank.

  All that happened and now Shaker had a full confirmation they were in a whole lot of trouble, even though Beers and Cave seemed to be holding their own on the right flank. Because this was the point where Lightspeed’s vitals grayed out in his HUD. They’d walked into the ambush he’d feared was waiting for them. Only later than he’d expected it.

  Fire was coming down on them from as high as the second and third stories. Shaker felt a blaster bolt sizzle past his shoulder and explode onto the old paving below. Then he heard Beers yell that he was “Hit!”

  Shaker stumbled backward, pouring fire into a third-story corner window of a building that must’ve been built back during the golden age of the planet. It had a certain style, like the architect was proud of his work. Wanted to make something beautiful and timeless.

  The stream of blaster fire ruined the window, splattered the shooter’s head, and caused him to pitch forward through the shards of melted and smashed glass down to the courtyard below.

  An increase of fire chased Shaker to the side of the technical. It wasn’t cover for everything coming at the team, but it protected them from some angles at least.

  When he turned his bucket to scan the left flank, he saw that Cave was down. The HUD display indicated what his eyes confirmed. Another team member gone.

  The marine weapons officer, the featherhead, was also dead. They’d shot her through the head now that they had a chance to get a legionnaire. Cave must have gone for her thinking he could help.

  They were still shooting his lifeless corpse as though taking target practice. Cave still gripped his sidearm, his body jerking with each new defiling hit.

  “Sket!” Shaker dumped fire at the shooters taking potshots at the lifeless body of his friend. He drew a bright line of fire across the first story; that backed them off. But it had been wild, inaccurate, and stupid.

  The N-4 was empty, and he pulled another charge pack in one deft motion. Anxiety and fear creep were gone. Leadership was out the door. All the decisions that could be made had been made, and they’d led to this short, violent firefight.

  This was what he knew. Shooting and killing.

  Beers crouched down beside him, shooting back from the front of the sled. Shaker could see a big smoking hole in the back of the kid’s armor. Below the melted armor lay burning synthprene and cooked flesh.

  Must hurt like a son of a gun, Shaker thought as his fingers did the reloading trick of getting a new charge pack in without the slightest bit of thought. Part of his mind was struggling—still reeling that things had gotten this bad this fast. Kicking himself for not pulling back when he—

  Shut the hell up, he yelled at himself.

  And with a roar of “KTF!” he went out shooting, vowing to make every last one of them pay before he was dead.

  04

  “This is bad,” said Oh-Two as he held position over the sudden firefight on the ground, keeping one eye on the scope’s feed. “Command has to be seeing this!”

  But if they were, they didn’t have anything to say about it. Both the shotcaller and the point who seemed to be running things had gone silent. Maybe dealing with the situation at the crash site, maybe reacting to any one of a dozen other firefights that had broken out across the sixteen-block operations zone of riot-fevered Detron.

  Marine commanders were requesting permission to return fire while hullbusters on the ground were calling in medevacs and doc-drops for wounded troops. It wasn’t clear, at that moment, who exactly was in charge of the disaster unfolding beneath Reaper 66.

  Reaper Actual swore from the cargo deck. “Kelhorned nightmare down there. Command needs to be doing something.”

  “What the—?!” shrieked the pilot as he yanked the bird above a sensor tower, barely avoiding a collision.

  Someone had no doubt illegally attached the tower to the rooftop, as it was devoid of sensory warnings, flashing lights, or any of the other regulated safety protocols. The city was littered with flight hazards for those who flew close to the deck, as the marines liked to call the ground and buildings.

  “Damn it!” yelled Reaper Actual as she pitched and swayed from her shooting platform.

  But Oh-Two could tell it wasn’t because of his flying that she swore. That was just part of staying alive and aloft, and Amanda knew that. “What just happened? I missed it!”

  “Last two leejes are down. They dusted a bunch of hostiles, but they’re definitely down. Request permission to engage again. Wait! One’s still moving.”

  Oh-Two opened the comm channel to make the request, and then heard her fire from the back
of the ship.

  “Engaging…” she muttered over comm. Her voice low and businesslike as she began to put bolts into targets on the ground.

  The point came back over the comm. “Reaper Team… are you engaging ground targets at this time? Over.”

  Oh-Two opened his mouth to reply and then closed it again. Unsure how to handle the situation.

  “Reaper Team, you are in direct violation of mission parameters. Confirm: are you engaging ground targets? Over.”

  Oh-Two didn’t bother to confirm and decided to move on to explanations, hoping clarification would provide some sort of retroactive permission for what was already happening. All the while he tried to give his shooter a good sight picture of the alley to assist the legionnaire they saw moving from the SLIC. She was trying to help him. He needed to help her.

  “Command, we have a Legion team down. Confirming two wounded and engaging to assist…”

  “Negative on assist at this time. Stand down and return to base immediately.” The point’s voice held little emotion beyond a strident passive-aggressive rage that seemed barely contained.

  “Sir…” tried Oh-Two.

  She fired again.

  Oh-Two checked the scope feed and saw a dead rioter who’d been carrying some type of military-grade assault blaster. He lay sprawled on the street, hardly anything left of his head. A second later the wounded legionnaire crawled into view, dragging the body of another legionnaire—not clear if he was dead or alive—out of the courtyard despite the ongoing chaos.

  Oh-Two swore, rage and fear becoming one.

  The rage won out.

  “Dammit, sir! You’re seeing what I’m seeing. Positive ID on at least one wounded legionnaire, probably two. They’re trying to get out of there and Reaper Actual’s keepin’ ’em off. We’ll leave when you have a rescue organized and on site!”

  “You have your orders, Reaper 66. Return to—”

  Oh-Two cut the comm.

  “I got most of ’em,” Amanda reported. “No one’s moving in the alley who isn’t a leej.”