The Drift Wars

by James, Brett

  “Model R-14,” the armorer continued, “has an effective range of zero to seven hundred yards. This slider is the scatter control, used to focus or widen the beam. You want the beam to be six inches wide when it strikes the target. Pull the slider back to expand it for close combat, push it out for long range.

  “A standard battery clip slides in here, providing thirty seconds of power. Click that off in standard quarter-second bursts or hold the trigger for continuous fire. You sight by eye, using these two marks on the barrel, or through the video link to your visor. Use the video when firing around corners, from behind barriers, or over your back as you flee from the enemy. You won’t have much luck with that, though,” the armorer chuckled. “The Riel can run a lot faster than you.”

  The armorer waited for a laugh, then grunted when none came. He swapped weapons, picking out the largest on the table. It looked like a boxy missile with a crystal ball jammed onto the tip.

  “This sweet monster is for you heavy-weaponry types. It’s a tachyon weapon, same as the R-14, but you might as well compare a bear to a muskrat.

  “You hold it as such,” he said. He balanced it on his shoulders, his artificial muscles whining from the effort. “This hinge locks to your shoulder here, stabilizing it. Aim and scatter is controlled via your suit’s computer. You don’t move the gun itself; its internal mirror will focus at whatever you target, up to forty degrees in any direction. Your main job is to just hold the thing steady. Believe you me, that’s hard enough.”

  The armorer eased the large gun to the floor, then turned it around.

  “On the back you have the recoil modulator, which vents as much energy behind you as the gun fires out the front. This keeps you from falling on your ass every time you fire, and that’s just in normal gravity. Fire this thing in space without the modulator, and it’ll be the last anyone sees of you.

  He let that sink in, then continued. “As for power, you need far more than a standard clip’s worth. There’s a plug here for either a battery belt or a backpack, and the total firing time is limited only by how much weight you can carry. By the look of this guy,” he said, nodding at Saul, “we’re talking months.”

  This time, the armorer got his laugh.

  “Last up is this sneaky thing,” he said, picking out a rifle that was taller than him. “The MX-311d is the very latest in sniper technology. It has an effective range of up to twenty-two miles, though I hear tell of men getting twice that. Scatter control is here, but there isn’t much. Even at its widest setting, the beam will pass harmlessly through anything closer than five hundred yards.

  “It’s aimed through this full-face optical scope. There’s a video option, but at those distances you’d need a feed off someone closer to the target. This gun takes the same battery clips as the R-14, but you’ll only get seven shots per.

  “And, as a note to the rest of you, the MX-311d is the most expensive rifle that the United Forces has ever manufactured. So do us a favor, gentlemen, and protect your snipers.”

  — — —

  The rocket pack had seemed straightforward enough when Mickelson explained it back on the orbital. The main thruster, gas-driven, moved the operator in whatever direction his head was pointed. To turn he used the stabilizers at each corner of the pack, which were small gravity generators that ran off the suit’s batteries. So Peter understood the concept, but it was only now, stranded in open space, that he had to put it into practice.

  Peter pulled up the list of coordinates Mickelson had assigned him, and the first one appeared as a green dot on his visor map. He tried to compare the map with what he saw outside, but there was nothing around him to use for reference. The marker was a random point inside a vast and empty void.

  Peter rotated himself back and forth with his stabilizers, getting his aim just right, then fired his rocket. The green dot shot past his shoulder and disappeared behind him. He spun around and fired the rocket again, but his angle was wrong and, between that and his existing momentum, he curved off in a whole new direction. Peter panicked, flipped himself over, and tapped his thruster again. But he was only making it worse. The green dot had started thirty yards away and was now over a thousand yards back.

  “In space,” Mickelson had told them, “even the slightest bit of thrust will propel you indefinitely.” The only cure was to use to point yourself in the exact opposite direction and then burn the exact right amount of fuel to counter your momentum. “You’ll never figure it out yourself,” the sergeant had said, “so don’t even try.”

  Peter queried his suit’s computer and was rewarded with two lines—a red one that indicated the direction he was moving and a white one that indicated which way he was facing. He rotated himself until the two lines were parallel and tapped his thruster. The red line shortened as he slowed. He tapped it two more times, coming to a standstill.

  It took some fiddling, but Peter got the computer to draw a line between himself and the green dot. He rotated himself until his white line overlapped the other—both up and down, and left and right—then hit the thruster.

  “Bull’s-eye,” he called as he shot through the marker, but the computer didn’t agree. Apparently he had to not only reach his target but also hold the position for a full five seconds. Deflated, Peter stopped himself and again lined up with the dot. This time he flipped around as soon as he started to move, ready to fire a counter-thrust when he reached the marker.

  He was too slow on that try and used too much thrust on the next. He pressed on, his frustration mounting, while the green dot slipped around as if greased. Finally, he lost his temper. He swung his fists in the air, cursing Mickelson, the marines, and the empty space around him. But his tantrum didn’t get him any closer to his target, so he gathered his strength and started again. All said, it took five hours before he logged the first marker.

  The next marker came no faster; his teeth ached from clenching his jaw. But Peter grew more adept, aiming with no more than a glance at his compass. By the end he whizzed from point to point, nailing each of the last three markers on his first try.

  His elation was short-lived. His low-fuel indicator blinked; his tank was nearly empty. Mickelson expected him to use only half of his gas, and Peter worried that he might be forced to do it all over again. But he had nothing to fear.

  The moment he radioed in, light blasted him in the face. A white line cut through the dark, expanded up to a full doorway, which was suspended in empty space. Mickelson stood a foot in front of him, amused.

  “Gotcha, huh?” he asked. “Good old active camo.” He grabbed Peter’s air tank and hauled him aboard, where the rest of platoon was waiting. “You’re head of the class now, Garvey,” he continued. “These bums haven’t done a thing this whole time but get drunk and watch you.”

  Saul stumbled forward with a beer can. “Stick this in your feeder tube,” he said. To Saul there wasn’t a problem in the universe that a few beers couldn’t solve.

  — — —

  “I don’t understand why it has to be now,” Amber said. She was trying to be angry, but her voice was tinged with melancholy.

  “There’s a war on,” Peter replied.

  “I know that,” she snapped.

  They hadn’t seen each other since yesterday, when Peter was enlisting. It was morning now, and they sat on her porch steps, he in the middle and she at the far end. Peter just found out he was leaving tomorrow.

  Amber wouldn’t come to the door last evening, and sleepless, Peter had looked in on her house several times through the night. Her bedroom light was always on, her curtains drawn. In the early hours, he chucked a stone at her window, like when they were kids. The curtains moved—he was certain that she peeked out—but they remained closed. Her light was still on at dawn, so Peter knocked on the front door and persuaded her father to send her down.<
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  It was another half hour before she appeared. She was clean and fresh, wearing a dress that hung no lower than a T-shirt and that was thin to the point of translucency. No doubt she wore it to frustrate him.

  I’m doing this for us, Peter thought. So why am I the bad guy?

  They sat quietly on her porch for almost an hour. He couldn’t think what to say and was terrified of saying the wrong thing. This was his last day on Genesia; he wouldn’t get another chance.

  “Come with me,” he said, standing. “I want to show you something.”

  “What?” Amber asked, but Peter only motioned her to him. She stood reluctantly and followed him down the steps.

  He turned down the sidewalk, and Amber fell in step beside him. They walked past the small, well-tended houses of the neighborhood, then turned in to the fields, which were deep with shadows from the low morning sun. Twenty minutes later they reached a thin row of trees that had been planted as a windbreak. Peter motioned to a trail that ran through them, offering up his arm. Amber frowned, but laced her arm through his.

  The dirt path meandered, pushed this way and that by tree roots and small shrubs. A mile from the road, it ended at a muddy creek bed that was too wide to hop and too filthy to cross.

  Peter walked back and forth, searching for a bridge that he remembered from some years back. He saw no sign of it.

  “Is this what you wanted to show me?” Amber asked, forcing irritation into her voice.

  Peter spun and grabbed her, kissing hard. She responded with anger, hitting his shoulders and chewing his lips, but then she wavered, grew still. He held her for as long as he dared and then released.

  She looked struck.

  “I wanted to show you that I love you,” he said.

  “What?” Amber asked, laughing with disbelief.

  “I wanted to show you that I love you,” he repeated firmly.

  “Oh, Peter,” she said. “That’s so…stupid.”

  “I know,” he said. “But I do love you, Amber. I want to marry you. And with the money from the marines, we can live…” Peter trailed off, losing momentum.

  “Happily ever after?” Amber asked, dubious.

  He nodded.

  “I love you too,” she said. “And I do want to marry you, but I… You’re leaving, Peter. Going so far away that I can’t even imagine it. Do you even know when you’ll be back?”

  “After Basic Training, we get leave every six months,” Peter said.

  “Six months?”

  “It’ll go fast. Everything is going to be fine.”

  “No, it’s not. You’re leaving tomorrow, and we’ve already wasted too much time. Come here.” Amber grabbed his hand and tugged him toward a patch of fresh young grass.

  “Why?” Peter asked.

  “Because I want to show you something.”

  — — —

  “If you attempt hand-to-hand combat with this creature,” Mickelson said, “you will not live long enough to see yourself die.”

  He stood beside a projection of a Gyrine, the smaller of the two species of Riel—smaller being a relative term, since despite its hunched look, the creature was nearly twice as tall as the sergeant and several times wider.

  It was a lumpy, lopsided beast, as if the work of some half-mad Frankenstein. Its left arm was shorter than the right, jointed in two places, and ended in something between a hand and an octopus’s tentacle. The right arm was jointed in three places, and tapered to a bony spike. The rest was all chest and torso, which grew wide at the bottom and split into stumpy, jointless legs.

  Its skin was coal black with tufts of gray hair spread about at random. Its face was pinched, its eyes squinty, and in spite of the carnivorous bulldog fangs, its mouth was webbed with a gelatinous membrane. It was commonly held that the Gyrine had evolved underwater, though, given their love of the cold, the water was more likely liquid helium.

  “You can bend a knife on this thing’s skin,” Mickelson continued. “And you might as well punch a rock. I’m told its blood is some sort of liquid iron, whatever that means. The damn thing weighs more than a marble statue, but it’s fast. Don’t be fooled by those little legs—this thing can haul. And its reaction time is off the charts. He’ll plant that spike of his in your face before you even know he’s there.”

  The projection changed to another Gyrine. This one had three-quarters of its body replaced with robotics.

  “God made the Gyrine a natural killing machine, but these bastards weren’t satisfied. Most have some form of cybernetic enhancement. The most common mod is to replace the lower body, to make up for their small legs, but a close second is a split down the middle, head to toe. And they love to replace at least one hand with some sort of weapon.”

  Various Gyrine cyborgs flashed by, each more terrible than the last. The projection ended back at the original, unenhanced one.

  “The rule seems to be that the fewer robotics, the higher the rank. That makes this one here your most valuable target.” Mickelson studied the Gyrine. “Probably a colonel, or even a general. We don’t know if they choose their officers at birth, sons of generals and whatnot, or if the restoration of limbs comes with each promotion.

  “Hell,” he said, “for all we know, they just grow new bodies by the vat. They’re certainly eager to mutilate the ones they’re born with.”

  — — —

  The ship slapped against the planet’s upper atmosphere and skipped along the surface. The cabin rattled and creaked as if being torn apart, and every bounce threw Peter’s guts twice as far as the rest of him. He pressed his back to the seat, trying to ignore the tempest in his stomach.

  “Cripes, Garvey,” Mickelson said, strolling up. “You’re white as your own ghost. You gonna make it, recruit?”

  Peter tried to reply but couldn’t unclench his jaw.

  “Anyone in there?” Mickelson asked, tapping a finger on Peter’s visor. Peter bent forward and threw up, flooding his helmet with khaki vomit.

  “Son of a…” Mickelson said, hopping away instinctively. He yanked the emergency release—disconnecting the marines from their seats—and threw Peter to the floor. He raised Peter by his legs, upside down, so that the vomit pooled at the top of his helmet. It puddled over his eyes, but his mouth was clear. Peter gasped for breath, chunks of food flying down his throat.

  “Someone get that goddamned helmet off,” Mickelson barked. Saul hopped over and fumbled with the clasps at Peter’s neck. The helmet dropped to the floor, leaving a gooey smear. Mickelson threw Peter aside and slammed his fist into the wall, muffled obscenities spewing from his helmet.

  When he had calmed, Mickelson linked to Command. “High-altitude jump aborted,” he said. “Bring us home.”

  — — —

  In the basement of the barracks, there was a computer room filled with long rows of terminals for the men to send and receive mail from home; the Training Orbital was too far away for video.

  Peter plodded in, exhausted, barely able to stand. His face was scrubbed red, but the smell of vomit lingered on his skin. His stomach was empty and sore, not only from throwing up but also because Mickelson, arguing that Peter had nothing left to lose, kept him on the shuttle for another three hours, doing one planetary entry after another. When they finally docked, Peter was so shaken that he had to crawl off the ship.

  The silver lining, if only for one night, was that he was finally out of his suit while it was getting cleaned and checked for damage. After being sealed inside for six straight weeks, his skin tingled in the open air.

  Peter searched the room for a free terminal. He was due for a letter from Amber.

  After he enlisted, she wanted to help out with the war effort but quickly found there wasn’t much for her to do. Most of the factories were automated, and she didn’t have the education to o
versee the machinery. She joined an effort to send care packages to the troops, but it turned out the distance between the Livable Territories and the Drift made shipping prohibitive. They couldn’t even send handwritten letters, but had to scan them to send by computer.

  She finally settled on organizing a local conservation awareness program. Raw materials—steel and petroliates—were limited by production, and the less they used domestically, the more was available for ships, suits, and weapons. The work kept Amber busy, and she always had plenty to report, which made Peter feel guilty about his meager replies.

  Despite his hectic schedule, his life just wasn’t that interesting. There were hours of marching and drills, followed by endless target practice—Peter had been selected for sniper training. By the end of the day, when he finally got to the computer room, he was too tired to think. But Amber didn’t seem to notice that their conversations were one-sided. And that was good, because she was Peter’s only link back to normal life.

  It took Peter a moment to recognize Saul without his suit; Mickelson must have given the whole platoon the night off. Also, Saul only ever came to the computer room for a quick biweekly letter to his parents, which he considered an obligation. But there he was, face glued to a terminal, knee bouncing with excitement. Peter worked down a crowded aisle and looked over his shoulder.

  A topographic map filled Saul’s screen, the overhead view of mountainous terrain. Red symbols of various shapes and sizes were scattered over the highlands, while down on the plains blue dots were organized in grids. Saul flicked his hand over the screen frantically, sending the blue dots toward the red symbols, where they blinked and disappeared.

  “Damn,” Saul shouted, slapping the monitor. He turned to apologize to the men on either side and spotted Peter. “Look who’s back,” he said. “I was sure Mickelson would leave you out to dry again.”

  “I think I wore him out,” Peter said.

  “You keep everything down?”

  “Wasn’t much left.”