The Red: First Light

by Linda Nagata

  “Fixing this shit, L. T.!”

  “Get going!”

  I look for Dubey. He’s a labeled point on my visor, running south of the fort, toward what I don’t know. It’s open ground out there, no trees at all, just goat-grazed pastures.

  “Dubey, find shelter!” I scream, but he doesn’t answer. He just keeps going.

  Fuck.

  Out in the open like that, he’s going to make an irresistible target for an adrenaline-shot pilot with an autocannon.

  Goddamnit. Why the hell did we have to get stationed in such open country? Why not a jungle or mountains or something?

  Already I can see the bright points of the incoming fighters low in the eastern sky. My brain is squirming in panic. I know, I know, I know I need to keep running. God’s voice is as clear in my head as it’s ever been: Get away! Get far away—from the trucks, from the fort—but Dubey’s just a scared kid. I don’t want to give up on him. I don’t want him caught out in the open.

  So I defy God. I turn around, and race back after him.

  “Shelley!” Delphi screams at me. “What are you doing? Don’t go back to the fort. You’re going to get hit!”

  “Gotta get Dubey!”

  “No! No time! He’s panicked. He’s checked out. His handler can’t get through to him.”

  That’s why I have to go after him.

  I blurt between breaths, “Tell his... handler... trank him!”

  If Guidance can slow him down, it’ll give me a chance to catch up. If I can catch him, we can cut back north toward the trees.

  But the jets are closing in with unbelievable speed. I feel cheated. I thought I’d have more time. As I round the fort, the fighters are so close that the roar of their engines sets my teeth vibrating. I look for Dubey—and I know it’s hopeless.

  His handler has gotten him to stop running, but he’s way out in a pasture, with panicked goats fleeing past him as he turns back to look at me. There’s nowhere out there for him to hide and no time left to get to cover. “Get down!” I order over gen-com. He drops.

  I turn and run the other way. Ten long strides to the nearest sorghum field. I vault the fence. The stalks are over six feet high. Maturing sorghum makes good cover from the ground, but I’ve spent a lot of time looking through the angel’s eyes and I know it doesn’t hide much from the air. Too bad I’ve got nowhere else to go.

  A different roar cuts past the raging of the jets. A missile is screaming in and the fort is about to go a hundred feet up in the air. I drop. The red dirt between the stalks is slick and wet from the rain. The ground is shaking. I roll into a ball, knowing it’s going to be all about luck for the next few seconds.

  Luck abandons me. I’m way too close to the fort when the missile hits. The shock wave picks me up. I’m being crushed by sound alone, sent plummeting down a newly opened pit straight into Hell while billowing orange fire whirls in my vision and—

  I check out of the world for a few seconds.

  Next thing I know, mud and burning chunks of steel and plastic are raining down on me, pummeling against the back of my helmet and my armor. I’m furious. I want to kill someone in Command. They told us this was a ground war, a fucking ground war.

  I flinch at another concussion, deafened again by another massive explosion. A blast of heat washes over me. I try to get my eyes to focus. I want to check my visor, see where my people are, but everything has shut down. Guidance must have shut my system down so the pilots can’t track the EM signals.

  The ground shakes again as one of the fighters sweeps past and then I hear the concussive bursts of what has to be an autocannon. Just like I feared, the pilots are hunting targets on the ground. I close my eyes and pray for them to leave... and they do. The roar fades. West, I think... toward the next border fort.

  My helmet switches back on. The fans blow cool air across my face as the visor initiates its boot routine. I try to get up.

  I’m lying on my belly, held down by the weight of my pack, with my arms pinned under me and my head turned to the side. I try to push myself up, but the dead sister isn’t working. The sister’s titanium bones won’t bend, so my arms are locked in place, and I can’t get my legs to move. I manage to flop onto my side just as my visor wakes up. I don’t like what it shows me. Someone’s been hit. Their critical status posts in bold red, but my brain is still hammered from the explosion and I can’t get the readout to make sense to me. I give up on it as motion draws my gaze beyond the visor. Bounding across the pummeled ground I see my favorite redneck of all time, coming to my rescue.

  “Jesus, Shelley!”

  Ransom’s voice is pitched weirdly high and shaking. Or maybe it’s just that my ears are fucked up.

  “Jesus, Jesus, Jesus,” he chants as he goes to his knees beside me.

  His armor looks flash-fried and I can’t see his face past his opaque visor, but I can see he’s moving okay. “You wounded?” I ask, because I haven’t managed to call up any readouts yet.

  “Shut the fuck up!” he screams at me.

  He shrugs off his pack, slams it down against the mud, opens it, and starts tearing through the contents.

  “I’m not hurt, Ransom. It’s just the dead sister’s broken. Un-cinch me so I can get up.”

  It’s surprisingly hard to say all that. I’m just lying there on my side, but suddenly I feel like I’m on the verge of sleep.

  “Hang on, Shelley,” Ransom says.

  Like, what else am I supposed to do? “Who’s hit?” I ask.

  He doesn’t answer. I don’t know what the hell he’s doing.

  I try again to bend my arms, but the effort makes me dizzy. “Come on, Ransom. Pop my cinches. Do it now.”

  “I need to turn you on your back.”

  He does it. The sky is full of boiling smoke. I think I hear the crackle of fire, but I’m not sure. My hearing’s kind of off; not too surprising given that I just got blown up by a missile.

  “Delphi?” I ask tentatively, surprised she hasn’t been nagging me. “You there?”

  “I’m here, Shelley.”

  A whisper is about all I can muster. “What the hell just happened?”

  “A new player came into the conflict, one with deep pockets.”

  “And Command didn’t know?”

  “I don’t know what Command knew.”

  A gun goes off not too far away. I flinch hard and try again to sit up, but I can barely lift my head off the ground. “Delphi, what the fuck is wrong with me?”

  “I’ve got you maxed-out on endorphins,” she whispers, a quaver in her voice.

  “Both tourniquets on,” Ransom announces.

  None of this makes sense to me; it just makes me angry. “Ransom, what the fuck are you doing? Get this dead sister off me!”

  A second gunshot makes me freeze. “Enemy on the ground?”

  Ransom answers, “No, L. T. It’s just... the sarge. She’s shooting the dogs.”

  I close my eyes, realizing that Delphi’s got me so high I’m imagining things.

  “Sarge says it’d be wrong to leave them here to starve,” Ransom explains.

  “I can’t hear her. I didn’t hear her say that.”

  “You don’t need to.”

  “Goddamn it—” I’m on the edge of a tirade when I hear footsteps crunching through the mud. I turn my head to look.

  Jaynie’s walking past us through the charred and blasted remnants of the sorghum field, heading for the road. She has her assault rifle clutched in her hands as she moves in stiff, measured steps. Yafiah is two paces behind her, walking in exactly the same way as if it’s a game of copycat, except she’s not carrying a weapon. I see a crater blasted into her armor right in the middle of her chest. Jaynie turns her head to glance at me. Yafiah doesn’t, because she isn’t real anymore. It’s only the frame of the dead sister that’s holding her body up.

  “Oh fuck,” I whisper, watching the beloved dead walk past. Jaynie’s got Yafiah’s exoskeleton slaved to her system. That’s
the easiest way to move a body to a pickup point—and it means the exoskeleton will be in position for retrieval too. The army will want to re-use that.

  I look again at the screen of my visor. The critical status post is gone. My gaze shifts to the smoke-filled sky. “Where’s Dubey?” I ask in a whisper.

  “We got slammed, L. T.,” Ransom says as he finally starts popping cinches to free my arms from the struts. “Dubey’s dead. Yafiah’s dead. We’d all be dead, if you hadn’t made us run when you did.”

  I lose some time, because the next thing I know, Jaynie’s sitting next to me, cross-legged, her visor transparent, the face behind it sad and thoughtful. My helmet is off. The sun is low in the sky. It glares in my eyes, deep orange behind a heavy veil of smoke. The air stinks of burnt fields, and I’m so hot I want to puke.

  “What’s wrong with me?” I ask Jaynie.

  “You’ll be okay.”

  No way does she believe that. I can see it in her face.

  “Did you kill all the dogs?”

  The fine lines of her eyebrows draw together as she studies me. She’s not going to answer my question because she’s got one of her own. “What made you panic back there? How did you know we were going to get slammed? You knew before Command knew. You knew before Guidance knew.”

  I wet my lips. My whole mouth feels so dry all of a sudden I’m not sure I can speak, but I get three words out. “I just knew.”

  “He’s King David,” Ransom says. “God told him to get us the fuck out and that’s what he did.”

  “Yeah? Going back after Lin was a dumbass move, sir. God should have told you not to be a hero.”

  “God did tell me that,” I whisper. “I didn’t listen.”

  Her lips draw back—she’s furious—like she can’t believe the level of stupid she’s forced to witness. “Why the fuck not?”

  I don’t know what to say.

  But when her head turns, when I see her staring at my legs, I get scared—more scared than I have ever been before. “Tell me,” I whisper.

  “Both gone,” she says, “just above the knees.”

  LINKED COMBAT SQUAD

  EPISODE 2: BLEEDING THROUGH

  Electronic equipment hums beside me. Farther away I hear a faint whisper of air spilling from a vent. A disinfectant smell mixes with the scent of freshly washed sheets. There is no scent of dust, or of dogs.

  Then I remember: the dogs are dead.

  Not just the dogs.

  I shudder and I shove the memory away. Its absence reveals a great, black, gaping pit... in my body? my mind? my soul? I don’t even know, but I’ve been in this place before, teetering on the edge of this abyss. I come here when I’m not wearing the skullcap.

  Panic brushes past. Why am I not wearing it? Did someone take it from me? Just as I decide that must be it, and that I’ll kill the thief who did it, a stern-voiced woman speaks:

  “He’s coming out of it.”

  Then another woman, her voice softly tentative and much closer to me, asks: “Lieutenant Shelley? Can you hear me?”

  I can, but the closer I drift to full wakefulness, the more I feel like my chest is about to collapse around the black absence inside me. I want to go back to the oblivion that cradled me... or get a knife and release the lightless poison inside me that’s making it hard to breathe.

  But the soft-voiced woman won’t let me escape. She presses a cold, wet cloth against my cheeks, one and then the other. I shudder again as goose bumps rise across my skin. Then my eyes are open, and I know that Africa is a long way behind me.

  I’m in a hospital bed with my head and shoulders elevated so I can see a woman in the uniform of an army major, standing at the foot of the bed, watching me through the clear, wrap-around lens of her farsights. A green light off to the side of the farsights indicates they’re in recording mode.

  At the side of the bed is the soft-voiced woman, wearing a light blue nursing smock, her gaze attentive and concerned. She sets aside the cloth and picks up a small, clear, soft-plastic bottle with a bent straw emerging from the top. She smiles in a kindly way. “Lieutenant Shelley, this is a syrup to help your throat feel better.”

  I realize my mouth is parched, my throat raw and dry.

  Gently, she presses the straw between my parchment lips. A cold vapor fills my mouth, moistening the tissue until I’m able to swallow. The nurse puts the bulb back on the side table and gives me a little smile. “I’ll be back to check on you in a bit,” she assures me. She leaves the room. The door swings shut behind her.

  Now it’s the major’s turn.

  “How much do you remember of what happened to you, Lieutenant Shelley?”

  I consider her question and discover that I remember much more than I’d like to. “They’re dead,” I murmur hoarsely. “Yafiah and Dubey.”

  “They are dead,” the major agrees matter-of-factly. “But you, and Sergeant Jayne Vasquez, and Specialist Matthew Ransom are alive, thanks to your quick action.”

  “Not quick enough. Should’ve moved sooner.”

  She concedes the point with a nod. “And still, it was a miracle.”

  There’s a hunger in her eyes. She wants something from me. It’s unsettling, and I look to the overlay to interpret her mood. That’s when I realize the overlay isn’t active. The only sign of its existence is a pinpoint red light in the lower left corner of my vision.

  A wave of anxiety sweeps me. The terms of my army contract call for the overlay to be active at all times. I could earn punishment if it’s off, so I hurry to address the issue before anyone notices.

  My gaze fixes on the red light. Focusing my attention should cause a menu to slide open, but nothing happens.

  “Lieutenant Shelley?”

  The major’s tone is sharp. I think she’s been talking to me, though I’m not sure. I frown at her, suddenly suspicious. “I’m shut down.”

  “I know you are. It’s authorized. We need to talk.”

  Her name is Major Hanson and she’s an attorney. She tells me, “You’ve been in a medically induced coma for three days, since Fort Dassari was attacked and destroyed. As a result of the attack, you suffered a double amputation. You lost both your legs above the knee.”

  I know this already, but her words make it real. I can’t pretend anymore that what I remember is some remnant nightmare soon to be forgotten.

  She says, “The preferred procedure would have been to leave you in a coma while treatment was initiated, but your next of kin, who holds power of attorney, refused to provide approval.”

  I blink in confusion. “My dad wouldn’t let me receive treatment?”

  She nods. “That is correct. Your combined medical and service evaluation indicated Level 1 intervention—the best we have.”

  I understand where this is going. “There was a catch?”

  She looks pleased. “Your questions indicate a high level of understanding, Lieutenant. Most soldiers recovering from medical coma don’t come around so quickly, but I’m certifying you as intellectually competent to make your own decisions.”

  “Where’s my dad?”

  “He’s with another attorney.” She touches her farsights with an index finger, drawing my attention back to the fact that she’s recording me. “They’re watching this deposition.”

  “I want to see him.”

  “You’re not currently at liberty, Lieutenant. As an officer in the United States Army, you have obligations.”

  I’m a legless cripple. How much more do they want from me? Maybe they’ll put me at a desk next to Delphi and for the next seven years I can be Guidance to a dozen grunts around the globe, trying to keep them from getting blown away.

  “I need you to pay close attention, Lieutenant.”

  Was I drifting again? I fix my gaze on her, and make myself listen.

  She says, “You have to decide between two options before your treatment can begin. If you accept Level 1 intervention, you’ll remain a field officer—”

  “A fie
ld officer?” It’s always a bad idea to interrupt a superior, but I’m so stunned I forget myself. “Is that possible?”

  She tries again, with an edge to her words. “You’ll remain a field officer in the regular army. If you decline Level 1 intervention you’ll be separated from the army. As a civilian, you’ll qualify for a lesser regimen of treatment. You’ll also be mandated to serve at least one year of your civilian prison sentence, presently archived.”

  I gaze straight at the camera on her farsights, knowing my dad is on the other side, watching me and praying I’ll use this chance to get the hell out of the army. I know what he’d say: Just one year, Jimmy, and this nightmare will be over.

  The major asks, “What is your decision, Lieutenant Shelley?”

  My dad doesn’t understand that for me, a year in prison is the same as a life sentence. The court sent me on a prison tour. They made sure I had a clear idea of what it would be like, what I’d put up with, and I knew I couldn’t do it. It had looked bad enough before, but now? I’d be the pretty cripple, everybody’s doll. I know I’d kill someone, or someone would kill me.

  Still, I don’t want to look like a pushover. “If I agree to stay in, can I get my skullcap back?”

  Her disapproving scowl makes me defensive.

  “I need it!”

  “That’s a piece of equipment available only to combat personnel in the field.”

  No way am I the only post-combat LCS emo-junkie. “I hear Guidance is making exceptions.”

  “That’s an issue for you to discuss with Guidance and your physician.”

  The black abyss yawns wider. The microbeads in my brain are useless without the skullcap to tell them what to do. I close my eyes, wishing for Jaynie to appear with a blue pill of oblivion. But what appears against the darkness is a legal document, projected onto my overlay, which has suddenly returned to life—or at least a half life.

  “Read it,” the major says. “If you agree, then append your signature.”

  I open my eyes again, and make myself read. The document describes my obligations and my treatment. If I sign it, I’ll be receiving cutting-edge mechanical prosthetics that will integrate with my nervous system, so that I’ll be able to run again, jump, climb.