The Drift Wars

by James, Brett

— — —

  Peter moved as quickly as he could, which, with all the weight he was carrying, wasn’t very fast. His heart skipped at every groan or shudder; he expected the roof to rip away at any moment. He tried to push himself faster, but he was exhausted. He stumbled.

  Peter let the gun drop as he fell, spinning so that Linda landed on top of him. He saw through her visor that she was speaking. He opened the comm.

  “…running around like a crazy person when I should have…”

  “Sorry,” Peter said. “I tripped.”

  “Oh, you’re listening again? Wanna take this helmet off? My hair is caught on something.”

  Peter sprung her collar and set her helmet on the floor. Linda shook her hair out, trying to squeeze her hands up through the hard collar.

  “Yours, too,” she said, nodding at his helmet.

  “I don’t think that’s a—”

  “Peter!” Linda barked. He obeyed.

  “Good,” she continued. “Now, let’s get some things straight. First off, I’m not in love with you.”

  “I never thought—”

  “The man I love is dead, and…shut up and let me speak.”

  Peter closed his mouth, nodding for her to continue.

  “I don’t blame you or anyone,” Linda said. “I’ve always known better than to get involved with a marine, that he would either get killed or discontinued or—the worst—stuck in one version for months, forgetting everything I told him. But you—he was different. He could remember. And he grew into a wonderful man. But now he’s gone, and we’re back to…you.

  “I made a deal with the General. Get you through this battle and be done with it. Put you and him behind me and start fresh. Well, the battle is over.

  “Thank you for trying to save me. It was very gallant and, in any other circumstance, I’d count myself lucky. But as it stands, I’d rather just go ahead and die.”

  “You can’t mean—” Peter started.

  “Don’t,” Linda interrupted. “I know that look, Peter. You don’t believe me, but it’s true. I want to die. I don’t even care if it hurts, because I won’t remember.”

  They fell silent. Even the distant fighting had grown still.

  “Then why did you come with me?” Peter asked.

  “I was just scared, Peter,” she said, then turned away. “Oh, you wouldn’t understand.”

  “I understand,” Peter said, though it didn’t make sense. “Things are different now. We’ve lost the war. No one is coming back.”

  “They’ll figure it out. They always do.”

  “Not this time. There’s no one left.”

  “Just let me out of here,” Linda said, shaking the suit in frustration. Peter began to reach forward but stopped. Something tickled the back of his neck, something that wasn’t there. Instinct.

  He threw himself on top of Linda as the wall exploded. A half-dozen Gyrines raced up the hallway, directed from behind by two men in elongated white space suits. Threes.

  Peter shoved Linda into an alcove. He grabbed the large gun by the strap, pointed it down the hall, and fired. The shot went wide. It ripped a twenty-foot section out of the wall, punching through several rooms and continuing out of sight. The Riel scrambled for cover.

  Peter kicked both helmets to Linda, then leaped into the alcove as bullets tore up the walls around him. He sat Linda up and locked her helmet in place; then he put on his own and dialed up the gun’s status—it needed twenty seconds to charge.

  The rest of his visor was unnervingly blank. There was no map, no battle computer, and no suggested tactics. He opened a new battle scenario, as Chiang San had shown him, and a diagram of the base appeared. There were red dots pretty much everywhere and only two blue—Linda and himself.

  He zoomed in on the eight red dots down the hall. Videos slid in from the side, fed from nearby security cameras, showing him the Riel from the front and back. They were advancing, the Gyrines in front of the Threes.

  The suit offered Peter a firing solution and he took it. He spread the gun’s focus wide and hefted it up. He eased to the corner of the hall as it finished charging.

  — — —

  The gun was too heavy to hold around the corner, so Peter braced it against his waist and stepped out. Gunfire erupted, but the bullets never reached him. He aimed down the center of the hallway and squeezed the trigger.

  The gun surged with power, raising the hair over Peter’s entire body. A wide impulsor wave rolled out of the barrel, shredding walls and shattering fixtures as it passed. The bullets melted in midair and the Gyrines dissolved into green paste. The blast wave knocked into the Threes, sending them flying from sight. Peter stepped back into the alcove, giddy.

  His suit counted off the kills. One, four, all six of the Gyrines. But there were still two red dots in the hallway—far away but coming fast. The security cameras were destroyed, but Peter knew it was the Threes. He compared the gun’s charging time against their speed. It was going to be close.

  Peter checked on Linda. She nodded. He peeked around the corner and was met by the strobe of machine guns. He pulled back and replayed the video caught by his helmet’s camera.

  The hallway was dark, but the Threes were visible under light-amplification. Their white suits had massive rocket packs with large, round stabilizers mounted on rods that angled up from each shoulder. Guns were built right into their forearms—short-barreled, wide-caliber, and piston-driven. They were fast and powerful, evidenced by the minced walls behind him.

  The Threes seemed unharmed by the impulsor blast, and a quick spectrogram showed why. Their suits were polyceramic and had plates of crystal shield fused to the surface—a nearly impregnable combination.

  “What is it?” Linda asked.

  “It’s bad.”

  Peter peeked out again. This time the Threes didn’t fire; they had slowed to a walk and seemed to be having a discussion. His suit drew a trajectory based on their new speed, and Peter tightened the beam on the large gun, deciding to hit one of them with everything he had.

  The gun finished charging. He hefted it up to his shoulder, caught his balance, and stepped out. The Threes stood about fifty feet away, exactly where they had been before, facing each other. They cast a glance at Peter and he hesitated, unsure of what they were doing. But they weren’t doing anything. They just stood there, waiting. Peter fired, the thin impulsor wave searing the air as it sliced down the hall.

  A translucent yellow bubble formed around the Three he had targeted, some sort of personal shield. The focused energy of the most powerful weapon Peter had ever held in his life slammed against the bubble and fizzled away in a few green sparks.

  Shit.

  Peter leaped back into the alcove as bullets ripped the hallway to confetti. He stumbled into Linda, knocking her into the corner. She yelped in surprise but bit it off.

  Peter counted his assets. The X-910 had one shot left. He had two pistols, but those would be as useful thrown as fired. He had eight explosive disks, but those had to be stuck directly to the target. In short, he had nothing.

  “Time to punt,” he said.

  “What does that mean?” Linda asked, alarmed.

  The large gun still needed 30 seconds to charge—the last one always took the longest. “We’re going to split up,” he said, unstrapping the powerbelt.

  “No,” Linda said. “This isn’t right.”

  “Hold that thought,” Peter said. He peeled the adhesive from two explosives and palmed one in each hand. He dove into the hallway, pressed them to the far wall and twisted to set the adhesive. Then he leaped to the ceiling, setting two more charges on an exposed beam. He landed flat on the floor and rolled back into the alcove. The Threes didn’t fire. They strolled casually up the hall, not ten yards away.

  Too close, Peter thought
. He emptied a pistol blindly around the corner. It wouldn’t do much, but maybe they didn’t know that. He tossed two more explosives at the floor and reached his arm into the hallway to twist one to the nearest wall. Eight more seconds to charge the gun. He peeked around the corner, knocking helmets with one of the Threes.

  The white helmet was long and narrow, the darkened visor split in two like the eyes of an insect. The man inside was surprisingly small, maybe half Peter’s height. The suit extended his arms and legs, bringing him up to size.

  The Three was as surprised as Peter. It stepped back involuntarily, as if to let Peter pass. His gun was pointed right at Peter’s face, but he didn’t fire. The other Three appeared behind the first, peering curiously over his shoulder.

  Peter turned away and came back with a wide roundhouse. His fist drove into the Three’s chin, bowling him over. The Three’s gun fired wildly, spraying the wall and ceiling. A bullet caught Peter’s arm, shoving it back.

  “Here we go,” Peter said, scooping up the giant X-910. He aimed it at the floor as the last second ticked off the charger. The light went green and he fired.

  — — —

  The force of the blast drove Peter into the air. The impulsor wave ripped through three floors and finally out the hull itself.

  A perfect escape route, he thought, lifting Linda over his head. For one. It would work only if he stayed behind to cover her exit.

  “Peter, don’t,” Linda said. But it was already done. He cast her into the hole and the vortex of escaping air sucked her into space.

  She’ll be safe for now, hidden in the debris, Peter assured himself.

  — — —

  Bullets tore apart the hallway. The Threes fired as if making a show of destruction.

  Pissed someone off, Peter thought.

  He set the explosives’ timer to three seconds and dove into the hallway. He landed flat on his stomach and fired his rocket pack.

  Two seconds.

  His rocket pack was designed for space; in gravity it lacked the power to get him airborne. He scraped along the floor.

  He shoved his elbows down to raise his head but careened sideways, clipping the wall. His legs flipped over his head, and he rolled into a ball. As he bounced down the hallway like a loose tire, the rocket pack was spinning him faster and faster.

  One second.

  Bile splashed up his throat and blood filled his head. He let himself roll until he was about to pass out, then killed the rocket and threw his arms out, slapping against the floor. His body stopped, but his brain kept spinning. He staggered to his feet, wavering, disoriented. Bullets plinked against his armor, knocking him around. Then came the explosion.

  The shock wave curled the walls on four sides, rolling them toward him. Peter was shoved forward by a blast of air. A wall of fire—hot gas mixed with molten metal—bore down on him. He ran.

  He sprinted with all he had, but the fireball rolled over him. The flame engulfed him, triggering every warning light in his suit. Then the floor shattered and he fell through.

  — — —

  Peter fell. Ten, twenty, forty feet.

  The flame burned out, and he plunged through the dark. He slammed against something solid. It shattered and he continued down.

  He turned on his sensors and saw he was inside a wide steel duct. Thick steam filled the air and Peter didn’t see the floor until he crashed into it.

  He bounced from the impact, then settled onto the grate flooring. Dark vapor streamed around him, swirling, dancing with shadows. Peter stood up and eased forward blindly, arms out, feeling for the wall. His foot landed on nothing—he had reached the edge. He jerked back, then leaned forward, peering out from the curtain of steam.

  The room was massive. Peter couldn’t even see the walls. Titanic equipment loomed overhead and enormous metal pipes twisted and mingled as they dropped into the depths. Everything was too far to reach. Peter was stuck.

  A familiar screech echoed through the room: Riel fighterships. Peter killed his sensors, but too late. Two fighterships whipped around a large pipe, heading straight at him. They popped off four rockets and then curved back and away. Peter bent his legs, ready to leap into the abyss, but the rockets angled up. They weren’t meant for him.

  He watched them fade overhead and saw the flash of their explosion. There was a moment of silence, then a deep groan. It grew louder, trembling the grate under his feet. Peter waved his arms, trying to keep his balance.

  Fragments of pipe and hunks of malformed plastic rained from above. A metal gear sheared a support cable, its frayed end whipping toward Peter. He ducked. It whistled by, but the grate beneath him flipped, tossing him over the edge.

  Peter fired his rocket, directing his fall toward a doughnut-shaped coupler that bulged out from a colossal pipe. White lines appeared on its casing; then a massive turbine tore through, ripping it apart. He was falling straight toward it.

  Peter fired his rocket again, but it only sputtered—out of fuel. He dropped through a crack in the casing to the coupler’s cavernous interior and splashed into some frothy white liquid at the bottom.

  The turbine crashed down, its blade a gleaming steel tidal wave two stories tall. Peter tried to scramble back, but his feet slipped on the smooth surface. He raised his arms uselessly as the blade closed in.

  A hunk of pipe tumbled from the sky, shearing the turbine at the neck and sending the ungainly blade forward. It rolled overhead, rupturing the walls around him. The coupler fell and so did Peter.

  Peter shoved away from the coupler just as it smashed against another pipe. The pipes merged and grew thinner as he fell. Floodlights shone up from below and lit the framework of a transportship.

  The ship was only half-finished. Robotic arms hung over it, lifeless. There were blocky extruders attached to their tips, with hoses connected back to a large crucible. It looked like a giant printing machine—one that could build entire ships. Peter passed through its frame and continued down.

  The corrugated steel of the base’s hull appeared in the distance. Peter could see the stars through a gaping hole. He was about to fall out the bottom of the base.

  He used his stabilizers to angle at the side of the hole. If he missed, he’d plunge through space indefinitely.

  His stabilizers didn’t offer much propulsion, and it didn’t look like he was going to make it. But Peter wasn’t falling as quickly as he had first thought. In fact, he was slowing. The gravity had shifted. He had dropped below the gravity generators, and they were now pulling him back up.

  He slowed to a halt, the hull just beyond his reach, then fell back up.

  — — —

  He rose toward the half-finished transport, catching its skeletal frame in his hands and pulling himself onto one of the wide I-beams. He tried his boot magnets, but the ship was made from high-density plastic. He peered down and saw debris from the wrecked pipeworks floating in a thick blanket. That must be the midpoint of the base’s gravity, he thought. He scanned around, but there was only debris. He’d have to find a different way—up or down—if he didn’t want to end up trapped in the middle.

  Peter searched the cavernous room. Under the floodlights he could see the dividing lines between the twelve sections of the base. But not twelve, he realized. Thirteen. He looked at the ship beneath his feet. A thirteenth section, he thought. For the navy.

  Something caught Peter’s eye: a pair of rockets punched through the layer of floating debris. But they were too big to be rockets.

  The Threes were coming for him.

  — — —

  Peter had no weapons, no rocket fuel, nothing. The only bright side, Peter thought, is that they’re chasing me instead of Linda.

  The Threes opened fire. Bullets riddled the transportship’s frame. He ran down the beam, but there was now
here to go. Then, just as a bullet clipped his heel, they swerved away—one of the Threes had knocked the other’s elbow, saving Peter’s life. But only, it seemed, because he was trying to kill him himself.

  The second opened fire, but the first one retaliated, playfully slapping his friend’s arm. They rocketed past, horsing around, ignoring Peter. They flew through the break in the hull and disappeared outside.

  Peter walked to the end of beam, leaped to one of the robotic extruders, and slid down the hose to the crucible. Molten plastic bubbled inside, fed from a pipe that ran out the bottom—back toward the center of the room. He couldn’t see where it led, but having only one option made for an easy choice. He shimmied down.

  — — —

  Peter had gone just twenty feet when he heard the screaming of the fighterships. Two of them swung around a wide pipe, and the one in front fired a single rocket. It came right for him.

  Peter clasped the pipe in both hands and drew his legs to a crouch. He timed the rocket’s approach, springing forward right before it hit. The rocket passed beneath him so close that he could feel the heat of its exhaust.

  He fell toward the layer of floating wreckage. The rocket arced around, releasing a plume of flame as it accelerated toward him. Peter looked from the rocket to the debris, trying to gauge which one would reach him first. It would be close.

  Peter plowed into the debris. A large hunk of steel pipe cracked against his helmet, sending a jolt through his spine. He fell out on the other side, the wreckage sealing behind him.

  The rocket should have exploded against the wreckage, but somehow it pushed through. It flew up alongside Peter. It was nearly as tall as he was and slender. It was seemingly unaware of him, but then something clicked and it turned sharply. Peter seized it with both hands, holding it back.

  The two spiraled through the air. The rocket kept pivoting to aim at Peter, but since he was latched on to it, the rocket just spun him faster and faster. Peter’s hands were slipping, so he kicked his legs in and locked them around the rocket, hugging it with his whole body. He raised his face over the tip of the cone. The rocket, sensing Peter in front of it, flew straight.