Victory on Terra

by Terry Mixon

  Surprised that he wasn’t dead, Talbot blinked and shifted the debris. It wasn’t the building that had collapsed on them, only the panels set into the ceiling of this floor.

  They staggered to their feet again and made their way deeper into the building until they found a stairwell that went down into the tunnels. Only once they were there did they even begin to start to feel safe.

  “Let me take a look at that,” Kelsey said as she turned to look at the broken-off arrows in his side.

  He blinked at them stupidly, not even remembering having been shot. When had that happened? Maybe when he’d jumped for the first building? He didn’t remember getting hit, but his adrenaline had been through the roof. Now he could tell that the painkillers in his pharmacology unit were keeping the agony at bay.

  “We’ve got to keep going. Lily can take a look at me as soon as we get back, but we can’t stay here. If the building comes down, it could still kill us. We’ll run into some of the scouts in this area soon. They’ll help us get to where we need to be.”

  Reluctantly Kelsey nodded her agreement, picked him up, and set off. They wouldn’t be able to find out how effective the ambush had been until later, but he was pretty sure that they’d put paid to the majority of the invaders.

  This fight was over.

  Carl was glad that Julia was doing the heavy lifting by the time they’d reached the base of the final set of stairs. He couldn’t imagine having had to carry both sets of armor down like she’d done. Even just his tools and the charging equipment had been almost too much.

  Once they reached the platform at the maglev train station, he quickly found access to the power conduits. With the equipment that he’d brought, he knew that he’d be able to make a decent estimate of how much power was currently flowing and then guess at how much they could utilize for the life-support systems without alerting those on the other end.

  Recharging the armor, weapon magazines, and power packs wasn’t going to be that much of a draw. Nowhere in the league of keeping life support running for the area they’d need to allow unfettered access to this level.

  As soon as he had the charging station spliced into the power circuits, he connected the cables to the armor where Julia had set both sets against the wall. He smiled in satisfaction when the power started to flow, and he was finally able to begin running self-diagnostics on them.

  The batteries seemed intact and would probably hold a charge. Nothing negative leapt out about the armor in general, either. The suits appeared to be in decent condition. Carl crossed his fingers and hoped that continued to be the case as they drew more power.

  He laid out the rest of his tools and began removing the parts of the armor that weren’t required to be connected to the charger. Adjusting a suit for Julia was going to be difficult. She had the same slight frame as Kelsey did—obviously—and the only way that he’d been able to manage that the first time was because he’d had a lot more equipment at hand to customize things.

  He’d make it work. It wouldn’t be a perfect fit, but she’d be able to use the armor.

  The work was somewhat mind numbing. When Carl looked up about half an hour later, he found himself alone. Julia must be scouting the area, he decided.

  Now that they’d gotten access to the cache and he’d had an opportunity to charge some of the magazines, they were no longer unarmed. He swapped out the magazines that had now fully charged and inserted one of them into a flechette pistol, which he put into a hip holster. Another powerpack went into the stunner on his off side, situated in a cross-draw holster like Kelsey favored.

  Completing the initial work on Julia’s armor took about an hour. Making modifications to the set that he intended for his own use took maybe twenty minutes. Yay for being almost regular sized for a Marine Raider.

  By the time he’d finished, the armor’s power cells were at about sixty percent.

  “How’s it looking?” Julia asked from beside him.

  He jumped a little and scowled at her. “Do you have to sneak around like that?”

  She gave him an apologetic smile. “Sorry. I thought you’d heard me coming. I’ve been wandering around the platform, looking to see what I could find. It seems as if whoever was here cleaned everything out pretty thoroughly.

  “I did find the operations center, though. It has a big map of what looks like the maglev tunnel network. Want to take a look?”

  “Sure,” he said as he stood. “This needs to finish charging anyway. Take a flechette pistol and stunner. Better safe than sorry.”

  Once she’d armed herself, she quickly led him through a door set into the wall behind one of the decorative columns. He hadn’t seen it, and that was probably by design. On the maintenance level, they’d want to keep people from wandering where they weren’t supposed to be.

  Behind the door was a control room that wouldn’t have been out of place aboard a warship. Lots of consoles, and as she’d said, a large map on the front wall. It only took a single glance to recognize that it had to be a map of the layout for the maglev train network, as she’d guessed.

  He gave it his full attention, centering himself in the open area in front of it with his hands on his hips. Several incoming maglev lines fed into Frankfort.

  There was a switching station maybe ten kilometers away that allowed for a single set of tunnels to feed into multiple outlets. The tunnels were bidirectional, with spare slots for the trains to use when workers were maintaining them.

  Some of the incoming lines fed into the areas just under the city, but others would be for maintenance use, like the one down here. Others would be situated in the middle levels for the delivery of supplies and equipment. The uppermost levels would’ve been for passenger travel.

  Since Frankfort was at the center of the map, that made it easy for him to see what lay in the direction of the Imperial Palace. The answer was, unfortunately, nothing.

  There was a line leading directly to Imperial City, but the megalopolis had been utterly destroyed by the kinetic strikes a century ago. There was no telling how far away the maglev tunnels would be damaged, either.

  The map was obviously meant to have lights where trains were located, but there were no brightly lit dots indicating active trains. Carl had no idea if that part of the system was broken or there really was no traffic. That would take some digging into the system to determine.

  Interestingly, there was a substation short of Imperial City that looked like it might be a spur that had once served the Imperial Palace. There was no train line designated from there, but it didn’t take a genius to figure out that there would be security concerns with having that data widely available.

  The existence of a spur line was something of an assumption, but it had to be a valid one. They wouldn’t cart all the supplies and people that needed to go to the Imperial Palace over land or through the air. Not only would there be too much traffic, but the security people would also want to control access, and a maglev spur would be perfect for that.

  He gestured toward the wall as he turned to Julia. “It looks like we’re going to be able to take one of the tunnels and get fairly close to the Imperial Palace. If I’m not mistaken, there’s a spur station that will lead down a secure line directly to the palace.”

  “Okay,” she said, eyeing the map. “So how are we going to figure out where the people who stole the fusion plant went? They could’ve come from just about anywhere, based on this map. We’re supposed to be tracking them down, but we don’t want to run into them without at least knowing a little more about who we’re dealing with.”

  “I’ll be able to figure that out in relatively short order. Once I’m plugged into the control system, I’ll be able to see which train visited last and maybe even where it came from and went to. Since the power is on, that probably means the command-and-control network is active, so I might be able to call it directly back to us.

  “If it comes from the direction we need to go, we’ll have to deal with the thieves i
mmediately. If it’s coming from somewhere else, the admiral may decide that it’s best to just avoid conflict for right now. This problem isn’t one that we can afford to get bogged down in.”

  Julia shrugged, turning to look at the rest of the dim room. “That sounds good to me. I think I’ve seen as much fighting as I can stomach for the moment. How long is it going to be before the armor is fully charged?”

  “It was at sixty percent when we came here, so it’s probably over seventy percent now. Let’s go find out.”

  Together, they made their way back to where he’d left the armor charging. He was pleased to note that both batteries were at seventy-five percent. That would be more than enough to get them suited up and complete the testing process. He could leave the cables plugged in to continue charging the armor while he did the final work of fitting Julia’s set.

  Reassembling Julia’s armor only took a couple of minutes. He’d already shortened the arms and legs as much as he could, so he only had a few final adjustments left to make. It wouldn’t be completely comfortable, but at least she’d be able to use it.

  He plugged his testing equipment into her armor and was pleased to see that it had no major malfunctions. There were a couple of small parts and control circuits that needed replacement, but he had the spares available and would be able to quickly get them swapped out.

  After ten minutes of doing exactly that, he pronounced her armor ready.

  “I’ll head back to the platform while you get yourself ready,” he said as he started to turn away.

  “That’s not going to work,” she said with a shake of her head. “I’m going to need someone to hold the armor while I get into it since we have no racks.”

  Carl blinked, unsure if that was the best idea. “I’m not sure I can do that without compromising your dignity. If I’ve got to position the armor, that means I have to see what I’m doing.”

  Sadly, they hadn’t found any skinsuits in the Marine Raider cache and hadn’t been willing to spend the time to open every single crate to locate them. The armor was meant to mold around a person wearing a skinsuit, but it would work almost as well on bare skin. Clothing would hinder the operation of the armor, cause chafing, and prohibit the use of the built-in plumbing.

  “Your virtue is safe with me,” she said dryly. “While I doubt that I’ll ever be as comfortable stripping down in front of the universe in general as Kelsey, we’re adults. You’ve seen her naked before, so you’re not going to see anything you haven’t quite literally seen before.”

  That was easy to say, but Carl knew it wasn’t going to be that easy in practice. She might look exactly like Kelsey, but Julia was a different person. He felt embarrassed as she began stripping down, even though she’d turned her back. He averted his eyes as much as possible and held the armor up to block most of her form.

  The armor wasn’t light, so he wasn’t going to be that adept at turning his head while moving the parts of it where they needed to be for her. He’d be draping it over her rather than allowing her to slip inside it.

  Julia kept her back to him, and he only had to look at her once she started backing up. He aligned the armor and made sure it slipped over her slim form. He had to hold it still as she worked to get her plumbing connections in place and sealed up.

  That made him feel really self-conscious. He could only imagine how awkward she felt.

  “How does it feel?” he asked, relieved when the process was over and she was inside the armor a few minutes later.

  “Kind of weird,” she admitted. “I’m used to wearing a skinsuit. I’m sure that feeling will fade. Are you okay? You look a little red. The armor wasn’t too heavy, was it?”

  Carl flushed a little brighter as she smirked at him, showing that she knew it wasn’t the weight of the armor that had gotten to him. “At least I’ll get my revenge. If you’ll hold up the other set of armor, I’ll get myself ready.”

  He turned his back to her and quickly stripped off his clothes. He was feeling pretty good about not burning with embarrassment right up until she spoke.

  “You’ve got a cute butt.”

  “That’s harassment,” he said with as much dignity as he could manage. “My face is up here.”

  She laughed. “Relax. I wasn’t staring at your butt. Not really. Barely at all.”

  Carl sighed and backed up to where she held the armor out for him. He quickly attached the plumbing and slid his arms into the sleeves. Once he had the upper torso secure, he got the legs sealed up and verified that all the latches were secure.

  He turned to face Julia and squatted, moving his body around as much as he could so that the armor would settle. It actually felt reasonably comfortable.

  Mirroring his motions, Julia did the same. “It feels a little rough in places, but I think this will work. What do we do now?”

  “Let’s check the charge levels.”

  Both sets of armor were at more than ninety percent now. If he was being persnickety, he’d wait until they were fully charged, but this was definitely good enough. He disconnected the power cables and secured them nearby with the charging equipment.

  “We’ll go up floor by floor, and as I find the life-support system that feeds the stairwells, I’ll get it turned on and do what checking and replacement of parts that I can,” he said. “It should still be in pretty good shape, considering that they had this all operational just a couple of years ago. I’m guessing that it’s going to take us probably two or three hours to get everything we need online.

  “Once we get back up to the middle levels, I’ll strip parts from another lift, and we can get this one working again. That’ll add another half hour but make accessing this level much easier.”

  “So we’ll allow three hours for the process,” she agreed as she started back toward the stairs. “I suppose we’d best get started. The sooner we get this done, the sooner we can be on our way.”

  That was something that Carl could get behind. He grabbed the rest of his gear and quickly fell in behind her.

  24

  Kelsey was really worried by the time she got Talbot to Lily. Marine Raiders were tough, but the arrows in his side were proving a challenge for his medical nanites to deal with, probably because they were stuck in something important.

  Not that getting him there was easy with a broken-off arrow in her thigh. Thankfully, she’d quickly run into some of the defenders that had helped get them both to where Lily had set up shop.

  Doctor Stone had been dealing with several injured people when they’d arrived, with Talbot barely conscious. The other woman immediately directed them to lay her husband down on an area of the floor where she could get at him.

  She examined the arrows and the flesh they were broken off in with her scanner. “These are going to have to come out right now. Once I get them out, I can use the portable regenerator to give him a leg up, but he’s in a bad way. Once the injury occurred, he really should’ve stopped moving. He’s cut himself up pretty good.”

  “It wasn’t as if we had the option of stopping,” Kelsey said somewhat dryly. “Is he in any real danger?”

  “If you’d waited another fifteen or twenty minutes to get here, it would’ve been chancier. His medical nanites are going to be able to boost his blood regeneration, but even with modern drugs, it’s going to take time. I’ll try to round up some donors, but I’m not certain how well that’s going to be received by people here.”

  “Do you need any help?”

  Lily shook her head. “Everyone gathered here knows a little bit about medicine and can assist me in doing the work. Jared stuck his head in a couple of minutes ago and said that he’d like to see you once you got back. Apparently, there’s some good news that he wants to discuss with you.”

  That was nice to hear. It had been a long time since they’d had any good news.

  Then Lily noticed the blood on her leg. “Is that yours?”

  Before she could respond, Lily ran the scanner over her leg. “That
needs to come out. Lay down over there and let one of my assistants get it so that you don’t hurt yourself any more.”

  The woman who was waiting for her had an ugly looking set of pliers and a long, sharp knife. Thankfully, Kelsey could flood her system with painkillers.

  That didn’t make the extraction pain free, but it made it bearable. Thankfully, the arrow came out with a minimum of cutting to free the head. Once that was done, the woman sewed the wound closed, slapped a bandage over it, and moved on to the next patient.

  That worked for her.

  Kelsey rose and walked over to where Lily was just finishing with Talbot. The pain was manageable, and she could walk. That was a win in her book.

  She knelt down beside Talbot and put her hand on his shoulder. His eyes fluttered open, and he looked up at her blearily.

  “Lily says you’re going to be fine, slacker,” she said soothingly. “I’ve got to go see Jared. I’ll be back to check on you soon as I can. Don’t die on me.”

  The corners of his lips turned up slightly. “I promise I won’t. Go find out what’s going on. I’ll be better by the time you get back. And find me something to eat. I’m starving.”

  Still worried about her husband, Kelsey headed out. She tagged up with one of the guards assigned to keep an eye on her, and he quickly escorted her to the air handler room, where it seemed that Leader Mordechai and some of his top people had gathered.

  Kelsey walked into the room and stopped dead. Julia and Carl were there. More importantly, they were wearing Marine Raider powered armor, with their helmets off.

  “What the hell?” she asked as she walked around the two of them. “Where did you find these?”

  “It’s a long story,” Jared said as he gestured toward one of the seats. “Park it, and we’ll get everybody caught up on the details.”

  He frowned at her. Rather, he frowned at Talbot’s blood on her chest from where she’d hauled him out of the fight and at her leg.

  “Is any of that your blood?”