by Marko Kloos
“A night out on the town,” Stratton says. “See, Grayson? And you were complaining they never let us out of the base.”
“Yeah, well, forget I ever opened my mouth,” I reply with a grin. Stratton’s cheery mood seems to be indestructible, but I find that his levity has a calming effect on me.
“Let’s get it done,” Sergeant Fallon says. She checks the loading status of her rifle, and steps out into the plaza.
“Stagger it loosely, people, and watch your sectors. If in doubt, you shoot first, and apologize later. And toss those rubber rounds. Anyone out on the street after this fireworks show, they’re out to get a piece of us.”
We move out into the streets of the PRC. The authorities have finally gotten around to shutting off the power grid to the rebellious welfare clusters, so the street lights are all out. There are, however, plenty of burning vehicles and trash containers all over the place. Our helmet imaging sensors automatically provide us with optimal visuals—low light magnification, thermal imaging, and about three dozen other filters. The people we’re up against don’t have the luxury of military-grade sensors, but for some reason, they have a pretty good idea of where we are. We see small groups of rioters dashing across streets and into alleyways up ahead. They keep well away from us, and nobody’s pointing weapons, but for some reason I feel like I’m back at the Urban Warfare center in Basic, and we’re walking into a staged exercise.
PRC Detroit is a complete shithole. The area around the civic center was a showcase neighborhood compared to the dilapidation of the streets beyond. Back home in Boston, our buildings were ugly, but mostly intact. Here in Detroit, the welfare tenements are twice as ugly, and half of them are in various states of ruin. One or two lots out of every block are just foundations, or demolished buildings that have a floor and a half of crumbling structure remaining, like broken teeth in an already unhealthy jawline. There’s nobody in those empty lots as we trot by, weapons at the ready, but the burning trash cans and scatterings of food boxes are evidence that the residents of those ruins aren’t far away.
“Bravo One-One, Valkyrie Six-Four. We’re circling overhead, and we have you guys on Tactical. Be advised, you have a group of IPs shadowing you on the street parallel to yours, on your four o’clock.”
Our TacNet displays update with dozens of red carets, clustered in the street to our right, and keeping pace with our squad.
“Copy,” Sergeant Fallon responds. “How’s the crash site look, Six-Four?”
“It’s clear right now, but there’s a bunch of the local rabble converging on the site, from the looks of it. I suggest you don’t take your time down there.”
“You can bet your ass on that, Six-Four.”
“What the hell are they doing?” Paterson asks. “First they run into our rifles to get a piece of us, and now they’re backing off.”
“They’re not backing off, dummy,” Corporal Jackson says. “They’re waiting until we’re all the way in the bag. They know where we’re going.”
“Stop the chit-chat, and keep formation,” Sergeant Fallon says. “We’re half a klick out. Double-time, people. Let’s hoof it before the welfare rats get a hold of the armory on that boat.”
The drop ship is right in the middle of a major intersection, which is bad news, because it’s out in the open and vulnerable from all four sides. The starboard engine is still smoking, its armored nacelle showing multiple holes from armor-piercing rounds. The port engine is running on idle, emitting a low droning sound. A half dozen locals have beaten us to the site, and they’re banging on the side hatch and jumping up and down on the cockpit roof, oblivious of our approach in the darkness.
Sergeant Fallon makes our presence known by aiming her rifle, and firing a single round without breaking stride. The rioter on top of the drop ship falls off the cockpit roof, and then hits the pavement below without any attempt to catch his fall. The others hear the rifle shot and scatter like roaches at the sound of a light switch. We let them run off, and then rush up to the wounded drop ship.
“Six-One, we’re right outside. Open the side hatch, if you can.”
“Stand by,” the pilot says. “I have a few broken bones here.”
I walk up to the right side of the cockpit and look inside. The right-seater is slumped over in his armored chair, and the untidy hole in the side of his flight helmet leaves no doubt about his condition. The right cockpit side has taken a beating from the large-caliber machine gun rounds, and one of them finally weakened the polycarbonate enough to let a round or two into the cockpit. Valkyrie Six-One’s copilot had the misfortune to sit right in the trajectory.
I watch as the pilot undoes her harness latches, and then tries to get out of her seat. The scream that follows is loud enough to reach my ears through the armored canopy.
“Sarge, her legs are broken. Hang on.” I tap on the side of the cockpit.
“Six-One, can you blow the emergency jettison on the canopy?”
The pilot gives me a weak nod and an even weaker thumbs-up, and then reaches for the red-and-yellow handle on her side of the cockpit.
“You folks may want to stand back,” she says. “Like, way back.”
We retreat to the side of the street, well away from the canopy panels.
“Go ahead, Six-One. We’re clear.”
The panels of the drop ship’s canopy detach with a muffled crack. We rush up to the cockpit, and Jackson hands her rifle to Paterson before climbing over the side and into the now-open pilot station.
“Someone come in here and give me a hand,” Jackson says. I hand my rifle off to the rear, and climb up to help.
The pilot is in bad shape. Both her legs are broken, and her right arm is bloody, the flight suit sleeve in shreds. The cockpit stinks of blood, fried electronics, and chemical propellant. She looks up at us through the clear shield of her helmet visor. I smile at her as I try to maneuver into position to heave her out of the chair with Jackson.
“Hang on there. We’ll have you out of this thing in a flash.”
“Watch out,” somebody shouts outside, and there’s a sudden fusillade of gunshots coming from the other side of the intersection.
“First squad, you have lots of IPs converging on your position,” Valkyrie Six-Four announces with sudden urgency.
“Yeah, no shit,” someone replies.
“Jackson and Grayson, get the pilot in the back and open that fucking hatch for us,” Sergeant Fallon orders. The squad is firing back now, and the loud reports of the rioters’ guns mix with the hoarse chattering of the TA rifles.
Jackson and I haul the pilot out of her seat with renewed urgency. She cries out as we drag her to the cockpit door, a small armored hatch three feet behind the pilot seats. The cockpit is too small for three people and a corpse, and anyone firing into the now unprotected space is bound to hit one of us. Jackson and I are wearing full combat armor, but the pilot only has a chest plate over her flight suit, and we shield her with our bodies as much as we can while Jackson yanks on the latch for the cockpit door. It slides open, and we stumble through the narrow hatch, the pilot between us. Outside, the rifle fire increases in volume. I can hear rounds smacking into the bulkhead to my right as I squeeze my armored bulk into the passageway beyond the cockpit door. My instincts tell me to duck and run, make for the safety of the cargo bay, but I stop and turn around to pull the latch on the inside of the door. The armored hatch slides out once more and seals the opening with an inch and a half of laminate armor plating.
We stumble through the narrow passage that leads from the drop ship’s cockpit to the cargo hold. The pilot is half pulled by Jackson, half pushed by me. Finally, we reach the cargo space, and we put the pilot down on the rubberized floor, well away from the side entry hatch. The crew chief is splayed out on the floor by the tail ramp, face down and motionless.
Jackson rushes over to the side hatch and pulls the emergency latch. Unlike the cockpit door, the side hatch is mounted on a hinge that opens to the inside o
f the craft. As soon as the door starts swinging into the ship, First Platoon’s grunts start piling into the opening. Outside, the rifle fire is a steady cacophony. The hull of the drop ship is getting peppered with small arms fire. It sounds like rocks against a polycarb window.
The squad comes stumbling into the drop ship. The last one in is Sergeant Fallon. She fires her rifle through the open hatch with one hand while she pulls on the door latch with the other, and she only lets off the trigger when the closing door is about to swing past her muzzle. Sergeant Fallon stumbles back as the hatch seals into place, and toggles into the company channel.
“Valkyrie Six-Four, Bravo One-One. Our location is crawling with hostiles. We’re all buttoned down in the ship. What say you drop some ordnance around us?”
“Bravo One-One, Valkyrie Six-Four. We can’t drop stuff in a civilian area, but we can give you a pass with the cannons.”
“Try to miss the drop ship, Six-Four. We’re all holed up in the cargo hold.”
“Copy that, One-One. Stand by.”
My TacLink display shows the drop ship surrounded by a sea of red carets. There are no windows in the side walls of the cargo hold, but the banging all over the exterior of the Hornet makes it clear that the locals have us cornered. The armor of the ship is thick enough to filter out most of the yelling, but the gunfire on the other side of the laminate plating is very audible.
“Where’s my rifle?” I ask, and Stratton shrugs.
“I ran it dry and dropped it outside. Sorry.”
“Well, fuck. What the hell am I supposed to shoot with now?”
“Get another one from the arms locker up front,” Sergeant Fallon says. “Restock your ammo while you’re at it. Baker and Jackson, go with him and grab ammo for your teams. Take everything you can carry. I think we’re in for a long evening.”
The arms locker is behind the cockpit, right next to the chemical toilet and the galley closet. It’s like a small walk-in closet, loaded to the roof with spare weapons and ammunition. The small arms are lined up in rows along the back wall of the locker, and the ammunition is stacked in sealed boxes underneath the arms racks. I grab a pair of boxes labeled “MAGAZINE, RIFLE, M-66, 45EA.”, and hand them back to Baker and Jackson, who are standing in the passageway behind me.
“Get some rifle grenades, too,” Baker says.
I reach into the storage rack again and pull out several different hard plastic boxes full of forty-millimeter grenades. Jackson and Baker take them and toss the boxes to the rear, where the rest of the squad is busy reloading rifles and restocking ammunition pouches.
The weapons on the rack are mostly M-66 rifles, standard issue for most of us. There are several Sarissas lined up to the right of the rifles, which are not terribly useful to us right now, and a half dozen MARS launchers, which are. The Multipurpose Assault Rocket System is a stubby little tube that fires a large variety of stubby little rockets. It does the same job as the grenade launchers integrated into our rifles, but the bore of the MARS is twice as big, the range is twice as long, and the bang is four times as loud. I take a M-66 out of the rack, charge it with a fresh magazine, and sling it over my shoulder. On an impulse, I also grab one of the pistols and stick it into one of the empty grenade loops on my armor. Finally, I pull one of the MARS launchers out of the storage clamps. The cartridges for the launcher are neatly lined up on the rack underneath, color-coded safety caps denoting the lethal flavors. Half the colors are unfamiliar to me, despite the fact that I paid attention in Basic when we were familiarized with the MARS. I do know the color codes for high explosive dual purpose (red), and thermobaric (yellow and black). I take one of each, load one cartridge into the rear of the launcher, and sling the other cartridge tube over my shoulder, where it clanks against the rifle.
“Got any big plans for tonight, Grayson?” Sergeant Fallon asks when I get back to the cargo hold, the MARS launcher in the crook of my arm.
“Just making sure we bring enough bang, Sarge.”
Outside, the banging stops. Then we hear a series of rapid-fire explosions outside, like someone’s lighting off the biggest string of firecrackers ever made. A moment later, Valkyrie Six-Four roars by over our heads.
“Bravo One-One, you have ‘em running for cover. We’re making another pass.”
“Copy, Six-Four, and thanks a bunch,” Sergeant Fallon replies.
“Grab your gear, and get ready to bail,” she tells us over the squad channel.
“We hit the side alley here.” She marks the spot in question on our TacLink displays. “Make sure you get way the fuck away from this boat. When the demo charge goes off, this thing will be the world’s biggest hand grenade.”
“Someone check on my crew chief,” the pilot says. Her voice is a slow drawl—Paterson, our squad medic, has injected her with the standard painkiller cocktail from the trauma kit, and that stuff is good enough to let you forget even a missing limb for a while. She won’t be able to feel anything below her waist for a few hours, but it’s not like she would have been able to do sprints on those broken legs, anyway.
“He’s out cold, but he’s alive,” Paterson replies. “Knocked himself out good.”
“Paterson and Baker, grab the Chief,” Sergeant Fallon orders. “Phillips and Priest, you take the pilot. Let’s blow this joint before the crowd gets their courage back.”
“Bravo One-One, this is Valkyrie Six-Four. We’re ordered to evac Second Platoon’s casualties. You’re on your own for a while. Six-Two and Six-Five are en route from Shughart, ETA nineteen minutes.”
“Super,” Sergeant Fallon says. “That is just superior timing, Six-Four.”
“Take it up with Company,” Six-Four’s pilot replies. “We’re just doing as we’re told.”
“Don’t sweat it, Six-Four. You are Second Platoon’s boat, after all.”
“So what’s the plan now, Sarge?” Jackson asks.
“I’ll check with Company,” Sergeant Fallon replies, and toggles over to the Company circuit. After a few moments of terse conversation, she shakes her head and comes back on the squad channel.
“Battalion is sending in Alpha Company, and one of the armor platoons. Second Platoon’s got a bunch of casualties. We’re to hoof it back to the Civic Center and hole up with the rest of First and Second Platoons until the cavalry arrives.”
“Sounds like a sensible plan,” Baker replies. “Too bad they didn’t send those tanks in right away.”
“They almost never drag out armor for domestics, Baker. It looks too warlike, or something.”
It certainly looks like a war out there to me, I think. People are shooting at us, we’re shooting back, and the ones that are hit don’t get up again. Those are citizens of the NAC out there, the people whose rights we vowed to protect when we swore our service oaths, but civil rights are not exactly the first thing on your mind when someone fires a gun in your direction. Right now, there’s our small tribe of scared and tired troops, holed up in the wrecked drop ship, and then there’s everybody else, and there’s not a soldier in our squad who wouldn’t shoot any number of Them to save one of Us.
“Let’s bail,” Sergeant Fallon says. “Rear hatch, everyone. Remember to stay clear of this ship. There’ll be shit flying everywhere. Stratton, stay with me while I make the charge hot. The rest of you, get a move on.”
We gather our junk and congregate at the rear of the drop ship. The conscious pilot and her unconscious crew chief are suspended between two pairs of TA troopers. I’m glad to only be encumbered with the MARS launcher—the four of us carrying the crew members will have a hard time shooting at anything. Jackson signals for me to cover the rear with Hansen.
“I’ll take point,” she says. “You two bring up the tail.”
She reaches over to throw the lever for the ramp mechanism, and the cargo hatch opens as the inside light in the bay goes out. My helmet-mounted display flickers briefly, adjusting to the changing light. The bottom of the ramp hasn’t yet touched the street when Ja
ckson jumps out of the hatch and starts running for the alley.
“Go, go, go!”
The tail end is a disconcertingly exposed position. I can’t overtake the two pairs of squad mates carrying the drop ship crew, since I’m supposed to be shielding them. That makes me just as slow as they are. We run over to the mouth of the alley designated by Sergeant Fallon, most of us encumbered in some way.
The alley is a hundred yards from the stranded drop ship. It takes our gaggle of armor-clad troopers and entourage thirty seconds to cover the distance. When we reach the mouth of the alley, I look back over my shoulder. Sergeant Fallon and Stratton are dashing out of the rear hatch, and I drop to one knee and exchange the MARS launcher for the rifle to cover their run. Next to me, Hansen crouches down, rifle pointed downrange. Beyond the drop ship, on the other side of the intersection, there’s some movement in the shadows of the building overhangs as the local crowd advances on the drop ship again, more cautious than before. Our air support is gone, off to play air ambulance for Second Platoon’s wounded, but we have a little bit of time before the natives figure out that we’re on our own. I see an outline as someone advances down the street in the distance, and my low-light imaging sensors clearly show the outline of a rifle. I take aim, and squeeze off three quick shots. The silhouette flinches back behind cover.
Sergeant Fallon and Stratton dash past, rifles clattering against hard battle armor.
“Get your asses behind cover, now,” the sergeant yells without bothering to toggle into the radio channel. We back-step into the alley in a hurry, rifles aimed and ready to engage threats until the last possible moment as we round the corner. Then we turn and run, away from the danger zone. Our squad mates have set up a hasty perimeter near a pair of huge trash containers. We catch up with the rest of the squad, and pause to catch our breath.
For a moment, it’s eerily quiet—no gunfire, no shouting, no engine noise overhead, just the heavy breathing of nine TA troopers who just covered a hundred-yard dash in forty pounds of weapons and armor.