by M. R. Forbes
She smiled and pulled herself up. "It's the safest place to hide from Cormac."
"Is he giving you a hard time? I can-"
She put up her hand. "He is what he is." She slid down next to him. "I never cared that much for ground-pounders."
Mitchell laughed at that. It felt good to find something to laugh about.
"What's funny?"
"I hear that a lot."
"I've heard people say that it has to do with the same implant compatibility that separates the pilots from the grunts. That our minds are just different. Faster, or something. How's your side?"
"It is what it is," he said. "No sense in crying about it."
"You don't have to be a tough guy with me, Mitch. How does it really feel?"
"It stings."
"Big baby." She laughed. It was nice to hear someone else laugh, too.
"Were you planning that?"
"Maybe. I thought you could use a little levity."
"Thanks."
She was silent for a minute, just sitting next to him, staring down at the names on the foot. "I'm sorry about Shank. I know you were friends."
"We weren't, really. I didn't know him that well. He was a badass soldier, and we respected each other. I'm not happy when I lose anyone on my team."
"Who's Holly?"
"It's a long story, and it's going to kill the mood."
"Sorry."
"You're welcome to stay if you want, Jennifer. I'm going to shut it down for a while."
"Yeah, me too."
Mitchell closed his eyes again. He was aware of Zed next to him, her shoulder pressing lightly against his. It was a small thing, but it comforted him to know he wasn't alone.
"We can't do this alone," he remembered Katherine saying to him on board the Goliath.
No. He couldn't. He was a Space Marine, a former member of the most elite company the Alliance had. It didn't make him invincible, though at this point he wished he was.
"Mitch," Zed said a minute later.
"Yeah?"
"I think someone should tell you. You're doing a good job."
He was surprised by the statement and more surprised by how much it meant to him.
"You really think so?"
"I'd follow you anywhere."
He fell asleep with the words still echoing in his thoughts.
51
Something was burning.
It had woken Mitchell up, leaving him sitting dead still, eyes closed and focusing on the smell. It was harder to tell with the odor that had lingered on his flight suit, and in the air, after Angeles had been razed. There was a definite smokiness to it. A defined wooden heat.
He opened his eyes. Zed's head was resting on his chest. She was sleeping.
He checked his p-rat. He'd been asleep for almost two hours. He would have been woken soon.
"Jennifer," he said, reaching around her shoulders and giving her a light shake.
Her eyes opened, and she shoved herself upright in a sudden panic. "Sorry, sir."
"Don't worry about it. Do you smell that?"
She took a deep breath in through her nose. "It reminds me of home. Centauri. My father used to take me out into woods like these, and light campfires and tell me stories. No tech. He said everybody needed to get away from the tech once in a while. To take time to appreciate just being human, and just being alive."
Mitchell pushed himself to his feet. "Come on." He jumped off the mech.
"What's wrong?" she asked.
The camp was quiet. Most of the rebels were asleep, splayed out in a dense circle around the cars and the Knight. There was an obvious, hazy thickness to the air.
"Zed, get to your mech. Firedog, help me get everybody up," Mitchell said, sending an emergency knock to the Rigger.
"Eh? Ugh. Yes, sir," Cormac said, still groggy. Mitchell saw him moving a second later, bouncing to his feet and shaking the person next to him.
"Perseus, nothing on sensors?" he asked.
"No, sir. Why?"
He breathed in again. He licked his lips. He came away with an earthy taste in his mouth.
"Fire," he said, feeling a sudden rise of panic. He looked up at the sky through the canopy. There were no stars. "The woods are on fire."
"Are you sure?"
He was as sure as he could be. He bent down and shook Kathy's shoulder. "Kathy, get up."
"Huh? What?" Her eyes opened, and she looked up at him. "Captain?"
"Help me wake everyone."
"Yes, sir." She jumped up, grabbing her rifle and running to the next person in line.
It only took a couple of minutes to wake them all. The smell of burning wood was getting heavier. The air was getting thicker.
"Colonel?" Tio said.
Mitchell heard a whining in the air, ahead of a gentle roar. Then he heard a whistle. He saw the streak of light through the treetops, followed by a heavy woomph of air. The trees in the distance were caught in an unmistakeable, liquid red-orange line of instant flame.
He had known the Tetron was planning something when the ground forces never materialized.
Now he knew what.
"It's burning the Preserve," Tio said.
"Why scour miles of woods when you can burn it down and smoke out your quarry? We need to go. Now!"
He ran for his mech as the whining of an engine passed overhead. Another whistle and a second incendiary missile struck the woods two kilometers away.
"Firedog, get everyone to the cars. We need to cross the Nile. No delay."
"Yes, sir."
Mitchell scaled the Zombie's leg and climbed into the cockpit, jumping into the seat, pulling on his helmet, and pushing his head back into the CAP-NN link. The mech came to life with a thought, and he started walking towards the line of trees, into the fire.
"How are we going to keep them grouped?" Perseus asked.
"Stay close to them. Zed, lead them across the river."
"What are you doing?"
"If they light up the trees on the other side, we'll have nowhere to go. I'll draw them away."
"Sir, I'll do it," Perseus said. "I have more firepower."
"There's no time to reorganize the cars. You need to follow them across."
Mitchell pushed into the trees and beyond. He could hear the whine of the drones further off. He pulled the railgun from the back of the Zombie and checked his p-rat. Three thousand rounds left in the gun. He'd have to make them count.
"We're on the move, Colonel," Perseus said at his back. He had the position of the Riggers on his overlay, their p-rats pinging the location. He could see they were starting towards the river.
Mitchell kept going. The smoke was getting thicker, the air hotter and heavier. The CAP-NN picked up the change and sealed the cockpit, falling back to stored air. A pair of drones appeared on his overlay, and he fired his jump thrusters, bringing him up through burning trees, their flaming branches slapping his metal form.
The drones would have been hard to see through the smoke with his naked eye. His overlay outlined them in red, and he shifted his aim and fired. Two rounds dug into the front of one, striking the control unit and sending it tumbling from the sky. The other diverted towards him, accelerating to ram his ascending mech.
It was coming fast. He decided not to waste time and ammo trying to shoot it, instead cutting his thrusters and letting the heavy mech start falling away. The drone adjusted its angle to compensate more quickly than he expected.
"Shit," Mitchell cursed. He fired a salvo of amoebic missiles and watched the drone disintegrate under the blast. "What a frigging waste."
The mech came back down amidst the smoke and flames. He couldn't see anything in the middle of it, and his p-rat started warning him of the rising surface temperature of his mech. He put the machine in reverse, pulling back towards the rebels and the river.
His diversion was a success. Half a dozen airborne targets appeared on his overlay, converging on him.
"Zed, status," he said. He cradled the rail
gun in both hands, moving into a line of flames and crouching, hiding the mech in the heat and smoke.
"We're starting across, Colonel. Running cold."
A whistle pierced the night. A missile rocketed towards him. Mitchell forced himself to stay steady while it slammed into the ground a dozen meters ahead and exploded. Liquid fire splashed out from it, coating the already burning wood, sloshing over his mech and lining it with flame. His p-rat began to beep, warning him that it couldn't keep the cockpit cool forever and that enough heat would ignite his ammunition.
A drone became visible in the smokey sky. Mitchell came out of his crouch, aiming and firing. It vanished into the trees. He spun the mech's torso, still walking forward, tracking a second drone and firing a dozen rounds. The right repulsor died, and it spun and crashed.
His p-rat cried out a warning as a laser blast hit the heavy rear cockpit armor. Mitchell swung the torso back around, rotating the arm independently, aiming the railgun with one hand. He fired, pouring slugs into the drone as it passed him by.
"Shit. Shit. Shit. We lost one," Perseus shouted. "Zed."
"I'm trying," she said. "Colonel, one of the cars lost power. It's in the river."
"Firedog?"
"Not me, sir."
Mitchell checked the grid. Two of the drones had turned away from him, heading for the river.
"They spotted it. You've got incoming. Heading your way." Mitchell snapped the mech straight and broke into a run. The liquid flame was still burning along the length of the mech, slowly eating into the poly-alloy.
He saw the sky light up ahead of him as Perseus opened fire, and the CAP-NN gave him visual on the otherwise invisible lasers. One drone circled the fire, the other got caught in it, the engine exploding out the back and sending debris raining down. The free drone slowed and then dropped like a stone.
He hadn't seen anything hit it.
"Holy mother," Firedog said. "It fell on the car."
Mitchell felt his chest tighten. He hoped the rebels had abandoned it before that.
He continued his charge, more drones heading towards the river, dropping their sweeps of the Preserve to cover their position. "We need to take them out. If they hit the woods on the south bank we're screwed."
"Roger," Zed said. Mitchell couldn't see her yet, but he saw the streaks of her missiles as they rocketed towards the drones. Two of them vanished from the screen.
Lasers followed from Perseus' mech, cutting across the sky and burning into the drones. Two more fell.
A missile launched from yet another, heading for the south bank.
"Perseus," Mitchell said.
"Tracking." Perseus' left hand angled, the missile approaching the line of trees. He fired, catching the rear of it and blowing out the rocket motor. It spun out of control and fell into the river.
"I'm across," Firedog said.
"Get to the trees. Zed, get them covered."
"Yes, sir."
Mitchell's p-rat barked at him again, showing him a laser strike on his arm. The cockpit was getting warm, and he could feel a cold sweat running across his body, quickly absorbed by the flight suit. The drone passed over him and then fell from the sky, hit by fire from Zed's railgun.
"Car two is across," Firedog said. "Four is right behind. We're almost clear, Colonel."
"Is anyone in the water?"
"We've got a few swimmers."
Mitchell finally reached the edge of the trees. The smoke was thick, but he could see the Knight standing in the river, the water around it steaming while it siphoned off the heat of the lasers. The water would do the same for his own heat problem, and he ran towards it.
Gunfire echoed in the middle of the fire, the sky a mix of smoke and tracers. Mitchell's Zombie approached the Nile like a burning effigy, flames spiking from the surface liquid. He tracked a drone on his overlay, firing jump thrusters while maintaining forward momentum, getting up higher and taking the shot, a direct hit on the rear thruster. The drone complained and tumbled from the air.
"Four is across," Firedog said.
The Zombie came down in the water, hissing and steaming, the fire reluctant to go out. Mitchell dropped the mech to a crouch, lowering the body into the water, feeling the cockpit temperature drop while he vented heat. Perseus stood a dozen meters ahead of him, keeping up regular fire, dropping another pair of drones as they arrived.
Mitchell pulled in a deep breath of air. He hadn't realized how hard it had become to breathe. "They've got our location. We need to keep moving. No stopping, no slowing until we reach Sonosome."
"Yes, sir," Cormac said.
"Perseus, nice shooting. Let's go."
"Yes, sir. Thank you, sir."
Mitchell brought his mech upright, checking the p-rat. Temperature levels had dropped back to normal, but he could see the blistered alloy of his arms and he knew nearly the entirety of the mech probably looked the same. He switched his attention to the grid. They had cleared the drones in the immediate area, but he was sure more would be coming. They had lost the element of surprise.
Now it was a race.
52
"Colonel, we have to stop," Zed said again.
"We aren't stopping," Mitchell replied.
"We left some of the civilians back there."
He was aware of that. They all were. "We don't stop. We don't slow. They're a lot safer where they are than where we're going."
"Sir-"
"That's an order, not a request."
They were moving through the forest as quickly as they could. It wasn't fast enough. They had cleared the drones from the immediate area, but he knew there would be more coming and now they knew where the rebels had run to. Had it guessed where they were going?
He hoped not.
For now, an eastern wind was helping keep the fire contained to the north side of the river, and the Tetron had yet to get any incendiary missiles onto the south bank. The people they had been forced to abandon, the ones who had gotten out of the stricken car and managed to swim to shore, would find it easier to hide near or in the water. They could travel downstream until they reached the generators near the foothills of the mountains, and hopefully find some food and shelter in the abandoned plant.
He wasn't wrong when he said they were safer. It didn't mean leaving anyone behind sat well. Sonosome was another thirty kilometers south. It would take an hour if they waited for the cars.
They couldn't wait. Not all of them.
"Zed, stay behind with the cars, keep them covered. Perseus, we're going ahead. Stay at my flank, two hundred meters."
"We have no idea what we're running into," Perseus said.
"If we don't make it ahead of the enemy, it doesn't matter."
He kept one eye on his grid, the other on his path through the trees. The mech's legs pumped beneath him, his brain navigating the motion as though he were running it himself, bouncing over rocks and brush, pushing past or ducking around tree limbs. It was a reckless pace, one made more dangerous by the damage the mech had sustained.
It was a pace that Perseus couldn't match.
"Ares, you're too hot," he said. "I can't keep up."
Time. There was no time. Every second that passed gave the Tetron another chance to connect the dots, to figure out where they were going and why. Mitchell had run this race before, more than once. It didn't matter if it was in a mech, in a starfighter, or on foot. There was no choice, no option.
They had to win.
"You have to, Corporal." Mitchell checked Perseus' position. He was off to his left and a hundred yards back.
"Yes, sir."
The Knight shifted forward, outpacing him for a few seconds, starting to close the gap.
Then it came to an abrupt stop.
"Shit," Perseus cried.
Mitchell heard the echo of the crash. He fired his jump thrusters, angling them back and using them to slow his forward momentum. Damn it. He turned and headed in Perseus' direction.
"Sitrep," he
said.
"Tripped on a rock or something," Perseus said. "I'm okay. Getting - oh." Perseus' voice faded away. Mitchell maneuvered around the tree, finding the Knight on its knees.
Behind it was a mech, crumpled and dark. A Dart.
The legs were torn apart, the body punctured and ravaged. The carbonate cockpit was cracked, a line of blood smearing the corner. Mitchell could see the pilot through the damaged mess. Raven.
He had survived the drop. He hadn't made it back to them.
"Son of a bitch," Perseus said.
Mitchell swallowed the rising tide of anger. He had already assumed the pilot was lost. Knowing he had survived the landing and then been overwhelmed made it worse.
He let go of his breath, growling softly. He was being stupid and reckless. If they were going to get to Sonosome, they needed to get there together. He couldn't make Perseus faster by wishing it. The CAP-NN did a lot of work, but it relied on the input from the pilot to guide it. Like Zed had said, some brains were just faster than others.
Slow.
Steady.
Ella would have had his head for acting so emotionally.
"Damage?" he asked.
"No, sir."
"Come on." Mitchell leaned down, putting the mech's hand to the side of the Dart while he bowed his head. Then he straightened and continued south, vectoring back to the west to put some space between him and the Knight. "I didn't upload any schematics or data on the factory before we dropped. I remember flying over it a few times. The transports are on the east side. If there's any resistance when we get there, I'll draw it west while you get to one of them. Do whatever you have to, but get inside and get it ready."
"Yes, sir. What if I'm taking fire?"
"Assess the danger to the transport. That's the priority. I'll try to draw it away."
"By yourself?"
"I can take care of myself. Your job is to get the transport."
"Yes, sir." He paused. "What if the transports are disabled, or if they aren't there?"
"Then we do our best to take out the defenses and rendezvous with the rest of the forces. We can't go back north through the woods, so we'll have to follow the river. We may need to cross over on foot."
He said it. He knew it wasn't an option. The Goliath would return long before they could cover the distance. If the transports were gone or disabled, they were finished. Plan B had been blown away in the ashes of the burning forest.