“Listen up,” she called over her command frequency. “Keep your eyes up and your feet moving. Let’s get across this terrain. In case of contact, skiffs and CASPers will form a coil with the infantry inside. Deathangel 25, out.”
<
“Keep an eye on them, Lucille. No surprise attacks from the sky.”
<
They moved east, coasting easily at the pace of the infantry through the open terrain. All the soldiers had their eyes up and swiveled them around. The soldiers on the skiffs’ gun platforms scanned for targets. Mike 77 was abreast of her and about three hundred meters away, near the southern edge of the nearest clearing.
“Distance remaining to cross, Lucille?”
<
If they attack, the soldiers are sitting ducks. Tara clenched her jaw and stabbed the transmit button. “Titan Six, close down the intervals for your people. Bring them in closer to the skiffs. Mike 77, pinch down your side. Everybody keep an eye on the sky. Targets massing in the trees to the north.”
Oso clicked his microphone twice and closed the distance quickly. The infantry pulled in as well, assuming triangular formations immediately behind their skiffs. The footprint of the unit was tight and provided three-hundred-and-sixty-degree security.
<
Tara mashed the transmit button again. “Prepare for airborne attack. Weapons free. I say again, weapons are free.”
<
Tara grinned, spun the CASPer to the right and brought up her cannons. The rocket pod mounted on her right shoulder cycled and came online. Targeting reticles appeared in the trees. Staring at the images, she could see the growing black cloud as it bounded forward from tree to tree. “They’re moving to attack.”
<
Tara aimed the rocket pod at the center of the swirling black cloud. When the reticle turned red, Tara squeezed her hands into fists, and five rounds roared out of it in quick succession. The first exploded near the swirling black cloud and sent the bird-things into a frenzy. The additional rounds detonated almost simultaneously, but the things were already on the attack. Tara brought up her cannons. “Incoming! Incoming three o-clock in the trees!”
<
Moving faster than Tara could swing the CASPer’s heavy armaments, Lucille spun and fired salvo after salvo of cannon fire into the diving swarm. The cloud roared down from the trees, and the thousands of bird-things tore into the patrol so far that she couldn’t see the individual combat skiffs, just large blots. Microphones on the exterior of the CASPer caught strangled human screams and cries in the cacophony of the attack.
Gods!
Tara pressed the radio button. “Disregard safeties! Clear off the skiffs, Oso!”
<
New icons appeared. In the sea of attacking bird-things, two MinSha emerged from cover, lobbing explosives and firing laser rifles. The trailing skiff detonated in a spectacular explosion that scattered the birds long enough for her to see Oso engaged with something firing from the far wood line. An icy rivulet of sweat ran down her spine.
We’re in a kill box. The bird-things weren’t interested in the MinSha, nor her or Oso, for that matter. The humans on the skiff and the patrolling infantry were much softer targets. Tara pivoted the CASPer forward and sighted the rail gun on the two MinSha. They were on foot, moving quickly through the scrub vegetation toward Oso.
“Mike 77, you’ve got inbound at your eight o’clock. I’m covering you now.”
Her railgun came up and fired two rounds at each of the mantis-like soldiers. The targeting icons disappeared.
<
As Tara tracked her vision back to Oso, still firing into the wood line, she saw one of the white beasts pop up from a concealed position in the middle of the clearing. It came up with a large rifle and fired three quick shots at Oso’s right hip joint. Sparks arced away from the impact point, and Oso swiveled toward the threat. The TriRusk moved with incredible speed toward the wood line on a path that would be close to whatever Oso was targeting.
“In pursuit. Cover me.” Oso’s CASPer attempted to jump, but the damaged hip joint wouldn’t allow the vehicle to leave the ground. Mike 77 loped forward at a dead sprint.
“Lucille, tactical jump. Now!”
<
The birds!
Tara brought up the railgun and selected the cloud’s center of mass. “Adjust the timing fuses, Lucille. Hurry.”
<
“Fire the remaining rounds on my command.” Tara licked her lips. “Jump two seconds after detonation. I’ll take it manually, if I have to.”
<
“Fire.” Tara felt the pod fire the remaining rockets. With fantastic speed, the first rounds detonated in the cloud. In the blink of an eye, the CASPer’s jump jets roared to life and vaulted her up toward the airbursts. Cameras blocked by the swarming birds, Tara brought up the CASPer’s arms inadvertently, as if to shield her face. Just as quickly as her vision was obscured, it cleared, and the CASPer fell toward the ground. The jump had been less than a third of the distance she needed to cover. The canopy prevented normal trajectory jumps. She’d have to sacrifice safety for speed. “Tactical jump profile, Lucille. Get me to Oso in one jump.”
<
Tara braced for impact, and the CASPer thumped to the jungle floor. She took two running steps, centered the heads-up display on the jump trajectory Lucille displayed, and fired her jets. The CASPer roared more horizontal than vertical. Her forward velocity was more than a hundred kilometers per hour, and she was no more than thirty meters off the ground. The forest whizzed by her cameras at terrific speeds. She calculated the trajectory and pulsed her jump jets to steer the CASPer. The trick was to bleed off as much forward velocity as possible and retain full control of the ungainly flying mecha.
<
A red box appeared on the heads-up display in the exact center of her targeted landing path. There wasn’t time to adjust the CASPer’s flight to compensate. As the ground raced up at her, Tara saw several large boulders poking up through the undergrowth.
This is going to—
WHAMM!
The CASPer’s right leg hooked a boulder and flung the mecha hard onto its face, where it bashed into another rock. The impact shattered the smooth, rounded stone and destroyed the rocket pod. The CASPer skidded to a stop. To her surprise, the caution and warning system wasn’t braying a litany of failures.
Hanging face down in her straps, Tara blinked her eyes a few times to clear them. “Lucille? Status report?”
<
Sure enough, the CASPer responded to Lucille’s efforts. Tara moved the legs under her and stood the CASPer up. She sighted Oso still moving forward, but at a walk. His guns fired salvo after salvo into the trees. The targeting icon for the unknown creature was still there, though she couldn’t see it.
Nice try.
Tara armed the cannon in her left hand, and the targeting reticle flashed instead of turning green. “Lucille? What the fuck are you doing?”
<
Tara slammed her hands palm down into the instrument panel. “I’m honoring the gods-damned threat, Lucille! That thing and its friends are killing us. If we don’t take it out, who knows—”
A dull thud shook the CASPer violently from left to right. There were two warning lights flickering on her panel.
<
“Where did the EMP come from?”
<
“Yes!” Tara raised a triumphant fist in her cockpit. She engaged her railgun on her right arm and the handheld cannons before walking forward to check the impact area for survivors. If she found anything alive, it would be a surprise. “Lucille, status of Titan Six?”
<
“Contact with Mike 77?”
<
“Keep trying to figure out what happened to him. If you get him back online, tell him to stay buttoned up until I clear the area.”
<
Tara didn’t look back as she moved forward, her weapons loaded and her sensors scanning every inch of the approaching forest. The smoldering scar in the jungle appeared quiet, but that could be a ruse. For Tara, it didn’t matter. Nothing was going to get away from her this time. Whatever had caused all of this was going to pay in blood.
* * *
The CASPer on the far right of the field got Murrh and Drech. They’d been ten meters from cover when it had hit them with a well-aimed railgun barrage. Jessica bit her lip hard enough to draw blood but kept her eyes on the wide, relatively brush-free clearing. The Urrtam succeeded in tearing the two skiffs and the supporting infantry to bits. Immediately to her front, at a range of three hundred meters, the closest CASPer fired into the wood line to the right, above Jessica’s position. A remotely-operated turret returned fire every three to five seconds and dropped back into an armored container. Murrh had found it in the Zuul’s weapons’ cache and it could be programmed to move, but they hadn’t had time to do that. Simply putting the powerful weapon in place to add confusion to the battlefield proved to be enough.
The closest CASPer was a Mk 5. Its greenish-gray paint scheme was pitted and marked in hundreds of places, as if it’d seen much more than simple combat operations. On the front of its cockpit section Jessica saw the number 77 painted on the fuselage, but the armor bore no other identifying marks. The mecha relentlessly walked toward the turret, returning fire with two blazing handheld cannons. Another fifty meters, and it would be wide open for Kurrang’s grenade attack. He’d successfully led the CASPer toward an outcropping of rocks that was just large enough to create a myriad of pathways between them. Kurrang could easily find the cover needed to lure the CASPer in closer. Unfortunately, it was only one of them and was clearly the easier target.
Movement above the ground caught her eye. The swirling cloud of Urrtam parted for a split second in the wake of multiple, high-velocity explosions. In the temporary parting, the second CASPer vaulted through on a high-trajectory jump. No sooner had it landed than the CASPer launched forward at high speed no more than a few meters off the ground. Jessica estimated the mecha would land near the rock outcropping, a good two hundred meters from Kurrang’s position, in the middle of a field of boulders. The CASPer fell from the sky, and Jessica watched, unable to turn away from the certain carnage that would follow. The mecha touched down, hit a rock and crashed to the ground, flipping hard onto its canopy, breaking rocks and throwing debris in a high, dark cloud. After a moment, the CASPer staggered to its feet and centered its weapons and gyroscopes.
She looked back toward the Mk 5 and Kurrang. The CASPer remained focused on the protected turret in the wood line and didn’t see Kurrang rise from his position. Kurrang reached back like a baseball player and threw an EMP grenade. The dark, oblong device arced through the air and landed not five meters from the CASPer, bounced once, and detonated. The Mk 5’s arms went limp, and all external lights flashed off.
We’ve got two minutes to end this, Jessica thought and came up with her rifle. If the pilot opened the outer shell, she’d take him out. The pervasive mist turned to a sudden, icy rain as she stepped out of her cover to cover Kurrang. Cannon fire tore through the moist air, and Jessica dove back into her hidden position. A massive explosion shook the ground and tossed her roughly into the rocks by her side.
The size of the explosion meant Kurrang’s weapons pouch, containing the dangerous explosives from the TriRusk city, had detonated.
Dammit. Jessica lowered her face to the loamy soil and squeezed her eyes shut. In the space of minutes, her little band of resistance had been reduced to only her. How many more times does this have to happen?
Stop it. She opened her eyes and dug her fingers into the ground. Just stop it, Jess. Those bastards are going to enslave and kill the TriRusk, and eventually the MinSha, and they’re not going to stop until they’ve taken everything from everyone. Kurrang, Murrh, Drech, Hex, Maya, most of Force 25, and every other mercenary you’ve buried knew the risks and, while some of them did die trying to pocket every last credit they could find, most of them died for each other.
Never, ever, lose sight of that.
Jessica rolled onto her side and crawled forward to peer around the edge of the rock enclave she’d chosen for her fighting position. The Mk 8 CASPer moved into the wood line, searching the rocks where its cannon had taken out Kurrang and the bulk of their ammunition. Jessica ripped off her poncho and dug in her load-bearing vest. She found another EMP grenade and two of Kurrang’s bomblets. They would have to be enough. If she could get close to the disabled CASPer, she could use the grenade when the other one came back and rendezvoused. If the EMP wasn’t totally effective on the internal circuits, they might be able to slave some power from the Mk 8 to get the other one moving. When they did, she’d get them both.
The Mk 5’s external lights remained unlit, and its cockpit hatch remained closed. Jessica vaulted over the rock ledge and slid down the side. As soon as her boots hit the rocky soil, she sprinted down the hill, dodging trees and rocks until she broke into the clearing near the crippled CASPer 77. Jessica slowed to a fast, tactical walk and withdrew her pistol from its holster on her thigh. Circling around the rear of 77, she saw the Mk 8 searching, in vain, for Kurrang or anything of importance. The turret popped up and fired six quick shots, none of which hit the distant CASPer. The mecha responded with precise cannon fire, and the turret detonated with a thunderous roar.
As the still-functional CASPer turned to face its disabled wingman, Jessica dove into a narrow alcove of rocks behind 77. Hitting the ground, Jessica felt the grasses sting and scrape her skin, but she tried to press herself as flat as possible. She heard the CASPer’s jump jets firing overhead. She rolled over and saw the Mk 8 descending toward a landing spot no more than ten meters away. She flung the EMP grenade toward where she thought the CASPer would land and came up behind the disabled 77’s legs with her pistol ready.
The Mk 8 thumped to the ground, and Jessi
ca blinked. Despite the damage to the shoulder mounted rail gun and the pitting of many rounds and shrapnel on the cockpit section, it looked vaguely familiar. She could see the number 25 on the sleek, curved, outer shell. The mech’s right arm swung around and blasted the EMP grenade to bits before it could detonate. The guns came around toward her, and she stepped forward with the pistol pointed at the CASPer’s cockpit.
Jessica swallowed and raised her voice as loudly as she could. “I’m Peacemaker Jessica Francis. You’re ordered to stand down, right now.”
The CASPer’s arms did not move. There was a crisp sound as the Mk 8’s external speakers clicked to life. Jessica’s breath caught in her chest as the mecha stepped back, and its arms spread open, moving the weapons away from her in a gesture like abject shock. A woman’s incredulous voice chimed from inside the CASPer.
“Jessica? What the fuck are you doing here?”
* * * * *
Chapter Twenty-Six
Weqq
The familiar voice echoed across the clearing for a split second, and Jessica sucked in a breath. “Tara? Tara Mason?”
“Yes!” Tara replied. “What are you doing here?”
Jessica kept her pistol trained on the CASPer. There was no way she could stop the mecha from destroying her in a heartbeat. Her heart wanted to holster the weapon and greet her friend warmly, but her brain had complete control of the situation. Friend or not, Tara Mason was acting as a contracted, paid member of Reilly’s Raiders. Tara Mason was a threat. She kept her voice measured and direct. “Tara? What are your intentions?”
For a moment, there wasn’t a response. The CASPer’s arms relaxed with their weapons pointing away from Jessica, but they didn’t move. “What do you mean?”
“You’re with Reilly’s Raiders,” Jessica stated. “You’re pursuing a subject expressly under my protection in accordance with Union practices when Peacemakers are involved. There are two options. Surrender immediately under my authority, or fail to follow my instructions under penalty.”
Honor the Threat Page 28