by TS Hottle
Sure enough, the arcs of the enemy's shells left an opening the Falcon could fly over. As a bonus, her main orbital thruster still had half a tank of fuel. "Hancock, Black Leader, be advised I am dumping my orbital fuel and will fly on jets to Ft. Simmons."
"Black Leader, Hancock Flight. What the hell are you doing?" The voice of Reaper, aka Commander Quentin Austin, sounded agitated.
"Picking up our boys, Reaper," she said. "Then Boutros Ghali can nuke it from orbit all they want."
"You are flying directly to that nest, Lieutenant. Pull out and form up with your squadron."
"Can you guarantee our men and women won't get burned by the blast?" In her window, the artillery barrage and its firing arcs grew as the Falcon sheared off treetops.
"I can get you ten more minutes, Suicide. But if this fails, you may wait days for an extraction."
"Reaper, I am the extraction. Suicide out." She had no doubt that, at that moment, Reaper and Force Admiral Burke began arguing like an old married couple. She throttled up on the jets. As she passed beneath the first firing arcs, she keyed the emergency fuel dump for the orbital thrusters.
"Warning," the on-board AI intoned, "fuel dump. Vehicle will not have sufficient reserves to achieve orbit."
"Yeah, no shit, Sherlock." She keyed the aft camera. It filled her with joy to see the forest around the artillery battery erupt into orange flame. A triple-A round, however, clipped the port stabilizer.
"Warning," the AI droned again. "Port stabilizer damaged."
She pulled the display off the console into a holographic display. They had sheered away the stabilizer beyond the orbital maneuvering thruster. "Jettison maneuvering thrusters. Go to aerial controls to stabilize."
"Warning: Loss of orbital…"
"Just do it." Why they called the on-board computers on these birds artificial intelligence escaped her at the moment. Two booms told her the orbital engines had detached from the ship. Her bird began shaking as it became dependent on the atmosphere for lift and drag, the two forces fighting with each other.
It didn't matter. She found a clearing near the lake where the Marines had been pinned down. The ship's ventral thrusters could draw fuel from the jets to allow her a vertical landing. Hopefully, she wouldn't need to glide into Ft. Simmons.
She dropped the ramp Navy Spec Force would normally use when Falcons landed, then made her way aft to the passenger compartment. Several sweaty, dirty Marines, some bloody, some being helped or carried by their comrades, bounded up the ramps. One of them looked pale, his eyes wide, his breathing shallow.
The captain was the last to come up the ramp. Suicide triggered it to close as he made his way up. The captain trotted over to Suicide and grabbed her by the upper arm.
"That was some amazing flying," he said. "Captain Farnum, 82nd Company."
"Lieutenant Cui Yun, CNV Hancock," she replied. "Looks like that one didn't handle the barrage so well."
Farnum grinned. "Rookie. First time pinned down. They all look a bit green their first time."
Suicide crouched with her hands on her knees to better look the soldier in the eyes. He sported the bars of a second lieutenant, but she could tell he might have been a NUB, a derogatory term for appointed officers that stood for "Nominally Useless Body." Yet if he paid attention to Farnum and his platoon, he might live long enough to make first lieutenant. "You okay, soldier?"
The scared man, a boy really, looked up at her. "You really flew under their artillery fire?" He had an Arean accent, flattening his r's and speaking more clipped than either the Asiatics or Tiamericans on neighboring Tian.
Suicide winked. "That's why they gave me the call sign. What's your name?" She bit down on calling him boy.
"Kray," he said. "Lucius Kray. Second lieutenant."
"Well," she said, "Kray, Lucius, Second Loot, you owe me a beer."
Behind her, Farnum laughed. "Lieutenant, I seriously doubt anyone aboard this Falcon is going to let you pay for your drinks again."
13
By all rights, Suicide thought, the Farigha below her should not have existed. Like Mars, its original parent world, red dust covered the surface. There, the similarities ended. Patches of green lichen covered large areas around the equator. The ugly scars of Gelt orbital strikes also ringed the equator.
Yet traffic above Farigha proved a challenge. Switching the ship's transponder back to the Goldeneye, she found herself waiting for lane assignments. Most of the ships bore the markings of Metis, provisionally Farigha's parent world. Quite a few also bore the clasped gray and brown hands of Hanar. None, Suicide noted, sported the symbols of the Office of Colonial Development or the Compact Navy.
The Goldeneye passed near a giant, flat wedge of a ship. The markings on her hull gave her name as the Bova with the flag of Metis at various points. After the invasion of Amargosa, core worlds began building their own warships. Most placed them in the service of the Compact Navy. Metis had not. And, Suicide knew, Metis had not stopped building ships. The Minerva, which had run interference for them at Amargosa, was only the first. The Bova was the largest. And like the Goldeneye, the Bova hid its projection drive.
"Farigha Traffic Control," said Suicide, "this is Goldeneye on an unscheduled stop out of Amargosa."
She waited as a babble of voices, once unthinkable for this planet, filled the comms. A voice soon answered her.
"Goldeneye, Control. State your business."
"I have two wounded aboard, an Amargosan Citizen and Lady Jayne Best. One is shot. The other has more serious medical issues I'd prefer not to discuss over an open channel."
"Stand by."
"Well, it's not like I'm going anywhere." JT sounded weak despite his attempts to be a smartass. He lounged in the engineer's harness, pale with eyes barely opened.
"I hope you do soon," said Boolay. "I'm tired of sitting in this butt hugger."
JT started pulling himself up.
"Sit." Suicide had turned in her seat, scowling at JT. "You shouldn't be up here, anyway."
"It's just a flesh wound, mom."
"Uh-huh. You're bleeding out. Now die quietly. I have to get you some help."
JT managed a weak laugh. "Might want to get Lady Jayne help first."
"Working on it."
The stern of the Bova passed overhead and disappeared behind the Goldeneye. The ship passed over Farigha's terminator. A spider web of lights stretched out from the equator. So, they were settling the rest of the planet now. Or were those lichen and algae farms, with their attendant towns, springing up? Free of Mars and the OCD, this world no longer waited for terraforming to complete. Humans would bend it to their will without interference from Earth?
"Goldeneye," said the voice of Control, "begin deorbit burn for Solaria. The Chief Administrator will meet you upon your arrival. Welcome to Farigha."
"Acknowledged," said Suicide.
"Chief administrator?" said JT. "Amargosa has a governor."
"Amargosa is a Class-E world that's been settled for a hundred years."
"And now has a few million lycanths who apparently can vote."
"The chief administrator was the only living being on Farigha only two years ago." She looked down and noticed the gaps in the ring of lights at the equator. "Frankly, I'm surprised he came back."
"I'm surprised he came here in the first place," said Boolay. "Why is it you monkeys insist on trying to turn dust balls and rocks into habitable worlds?"
"Everyone needs a hobby," said JT.
Solaria functioned as Farigha's capital, being one of two habitats not destroyed in the Gelt's aborted invasion of the planet. The other lay abandoned until the Compact came to rebuild the place. The Border Guard hastily erected a spaceport away from Solaria as soon as the planet had been cleared for resettlement. Suicide put Goldeneye down near on a landing pad near the main terminal. She took some flack from the ground crew when they realized they would need an inflatable airlock to connect with the ship.
"You never to
ld us this was a Zaran spacecraft," the crew chief groused. "And why does it say Arcanum on the hull?"
"Remind me to explain to you the meaning of 'unscheduled' when I step off the ramp." She did not have time for a crabby ground chief. If the transponder was good enough for the local authorities, it should be good enough for the chief.
She watched as a transition tube emerged from the terminal with the inflatable lock attached to it. Normally, one would hear a "thump" through the ship when an airlock attached. The inflatable lock made no such sound, at least not until its nanite matrix hardened it against the Goldeneye's hull.
"Goldeneye, this is the terminal," said a different voice, this one with the "Aw, shucks" smoothness of a Jefivan urban drawl. "Request you lower cabin pressure to equalize with Farigha infrastructure. The chief administrator is waiting for you. Welcome to Solaria, Commander."
"Good to be here." She reached over her head. "Commencing cabin depress now."
"I'll see myself down," said JT, pulling himself out of the engineer's harness.
"You'll do no such…"
His eyes rolled up, and he sank to his knees.
"Is he supposed to be that pale?" asked Boolay. "I thought even your euros had some color to them."
Color JT did not have. Suicide felt for a pulse and found one, erratic and weak. "Mitsuko, get your medic and a stretcher up here. JT's down."
Her stomach turned. Still, as three of Mitsuko's team, including Partlow, crowded the cockpit, she rose to her feet, straightened her spine, and put on that stoic mask that had served her for years. "Madam Best is priority, but don't let them forget him."
The medic shook his head. "Told him he needed rest and a plasma pack."
"Stubborn," said Boolay. "Just like his mother."
Suicide turned to the Zaran. "What do you know about Madam Dasarius?"
"I was talking about you."
They wheeled JT off first, moving quickly. Mitsuko's medic barked something about needing blood packs and a surgical nanite swarm.
"Is the bullet still in him?" asked a waiting doctor.
"Probably."
Jayne Best came off the Goldeneye next, her stretcher moving more slowly.
"She needs a helluva lot more than blood packs," he said. "How much type O do you have on hand?"
"Might need to hook her up to some live donors," said the doctor. "What happened to her?"
"They harvested some of her bone marrow."
"Then," Mitsuko added, stopping as she followed JT's stretcher, "they were going to carve her up into tissue samples."
"Who are these people?"
Suicide had just stepped up beside the doctor. "Probably the ones who convinced the Gelt to bomb this planet." She saw a casually dressed man stroll up with a rather ethereal-looking brunette woman at his side. She couldn't be sure, but the woman's hair seemed to float. Maybe it was a draft between the ship and the terminal. "Administrator Farno?"
The man extended his hand. "Call me John. They'll have to shoot me before I put up with this formal nonsense." As Suicide shook his hand, he said, "This is my wife, Persephone. She helps me run this place, which is to say she keeps me from micromanaging everyone."
"It's harder than you might expect." Persephone wore a mischievous smile. Something about the woman's color was off, as though the ambient lighting did not affect her the way it did everyone and everything else.
Is she a hologram? Suicide wondered until Persephone offered her hand as well.
"Welcome to Farigha," said Persephone. "Pardon our mess. We're still rebuilding. And repopulating."
Suicide's eyes met Farno's. "That's right. You were the sole survivor of the original Farigha's destruction."
"Guilty," said Farno. "If it weren't for this dome… And her… I'd be dead, and the Compact might never have come looking for us. Now they're gone for good."
"Maybe," said Suicide. "Metis hasn't decided which way it's leaning."
Farno smirked. "Personally, I think they're gone. We have more say than we had under Mars, and the only Compact ships that show up are civilian." He gestured up the access tube. "So, what happened to your two friends? Was that woman Governor Best's wife?"
"The same."
"What happened?"
Suicide recounted everything from Naomi Best landing on her doorstep to the bombing of the Thulian Colony and the lycanth settlement where the Bests hid their daughter Carolyn, from taking the Goldeneye to Gohem and Marilyn to extracting Jayne Best from Walton.
Farno whistled. "Surprised more of you weren't shot. Or worse. I've heard horror stories about that place."
"It's largely abandoned, except one district." Suicide turned to make sure Persephone was addressed, only to find her gone. "We believe an organization called Juno has taken that area over, using locals for their security."
Farno scowled. "That the GMO company that was here a month before we got bombed?"
"Metis believes that company was a front. The real organization has an agenda no one seems to understand yet." She looked ahead to see Persephone standing in the hatchway.
"I have information from the Compact on them," said the woman, who appeared to float above the floor. "Cybercommand has devoted vast resources into them. Regardless of what the interim administration thinks, Cybercommand thinks they're a threat."
And since when does Cybercommand share information with a small colony world that may not be part of the Compact anymore? "They most definitely are."
The access tube sealed shut behind them with a muffled thump. They stepped out into a large, but empty, passenger lounge.
"Will Lady Yamato's troops require lodging?" asked Farno. "We can arrange it."
"I would check with her. They're here as part of Bonaparte's planetary guard. The Court there is granting us assistance."
Farno stopped and turned to her. "The Court. And what does the Compact Navy think of that?"
Suicide spread her hands. "The Navy seems to think it's a great idea. The administration…"
Farno gave a thin smile. "Is persona non grata here. Unless we…"
A klaxon interrupted them.
"Dome breach?" asked Suicide.
Persephone appeared to be in a trance for a moment. "There's a Gelt warship in orbit. Weapons systems are cold, but they are demanding to speak to the Chief Administrator."
"Tell them," said Farno, "the Emperor of 2 Mainzer will deign to speak to them when he returns to his throne."
Persephone turned around and glared at him. "John…"
"You keyed into the comm system?"
"Always."
"Tell them the Chief Administrator is on his way to his office and will speak to them shortly. And ask them what they want." He turned to Suicide. "I'll escort you to the hospital first."
"Thank you," said Suicide.
It took three hours for the surgeons to operate on JT. Nanites could do most of the repair work. The bullet, on the other hand, had to come out the old-fashioned way. Regardless of whether human or mechanical hands extracted the offending slug, his wounds would get worse before they got better.
Suicide went to the recovery room and sat with him. Even with the anesthetic still in effect, pain contorted his face. She did something she had not done since Priya died. She took his hand and squeezed.
"He lost a lot of blood internally."
She had not heard the doctor come in, which disturbed her. "Is he all right?"
"He is." The doctor was a tall man with a mess of black hair that did nothing to reveal his ancestry. "Dr. Baker. I'm the thoracic surgeon here in Solaris. That is, when I'm not the pediatrician, cardiologist, or gynecologist." He looked down at JT. "Had the bullet gone straight through him, we could have cauterized the wound, cultured stem cells from his own body, and let a surgical swarm of nanites do the rest. The bullet, however, left a complication."
Suicide looked down at JT and realized he was not in pain. Fever gripped him. "How bad?"
Baker drew a long breath and let i
t out slowly. "Fortunately, Walton's bacteria and equivalents have only been exposed to humans for about a hundred-and-fifty years. But it did take us three tries to find the right treatment. He has the first case of nanobiotic-resistant infection I've ever seen. Read about it, but never actually seen it. We tried mersa drugs, but that did not work. So, we went old school. Have you ever heard of a drug called 'penicillin'?"
"Isn't that an herbal remedy?"
"Extract of mold. We basically injected Mr. Austin with mold."
"Is it working?"
"We'll see. So far, the counts look good. But Mr. Austin is not out of the woods yet."
"Thank you, Doctor." She sat in silence after Baker left, still holding JT's hand. His bullet locket lay atop his tunic. It contained the ashes of a young woman named Lizzy. When she met JT, he and Lizzy had been married for less than a day. Hours later, Lizzy died, the victim of a Gelt heat ray during the invasion of Amargosa.
Suicide had taught him about bullet lockets, a tradition she herself learned the hard way. No one ever explained to her the origins of the tradition of taking a loved one's ashes, or the ashes of something they possessed in life, and putting a small amount inside a round from a large-caliber rifle. It had probably pre-dated the Compact. If so, the origins remained lost even to legend.
Suicide wore two, and seeing JT's face contorted by fever, she prayed to whatever god she could think of that she would not wear a third. The so-called Children of Amargosa had become her children as well. But of those five—Six, she corrected herself. Mitsuko Yamato had found herself pulled into that group. Of the six, though, JT actually called her mother.
True, she had lost Akrad's baby, and that pain never left her. She would, however, not have been a good parent to an infant or a child. JT, however, stunned her by calling her the mother he never had. Never mind that his mother still lived. She also ruled a corporate empire her son wanted no part of.
Under Martian law, JT had been an adult the day he and Suicide met. He had only turned sixteen a few days before. An alien invasion was not the best environment to transition to adulthood. That made his arrogance more forgivable. War had forced him to grow up much faster than he could in his mother's gilded cage, but he was still only nineteen. She wanted him to see twenty, wanted him to rejuvenate at twenty-five. She wanted her ashes to hang around his neck, preferably decades from that moment.