Armored Tears

by Mark Kalina

  The six frame carriers dwarfed the outpost, but the stony outcroppings around it gave them some cover. Which was better than none, Bernie thought.

  Everyone was tired, and thirsty, and though the carriers' supply of water wasn't running short yet, the captain had everyone on rationed water intake already; there was no telling how long it would be till they made it to a place where they could get more water. This sensors outpost wasn't that place, at any rate.

  Bernie had taken the chance to get out of her frame and take off most of her armor. Captain Wilson had allowed about half the company's frame troopers to get out of their frames and armor, while the other half remained on watch, weapons ready. She was sitting on a smooth stone, doing her best to rest, watching as the captain talked to one of the carriers' system operators about the outposts' communication systems.

  The satellite uplink at the outpost seemed to be as non-functional as the uplinks on the carriers.

  "I'm not sure the satellites are still up," the captain said, after the third systems check came up blank.

  The shortwave and parabolic radios were no better. The parabolic dish was aimed at another outpost, about a hundred kilometers away, further up north in the Isthmus Highlands. It should have worked, no matter what had happened to the satellites, but it was silent. The shortwave worked, but now that they had access to the outpost's far more sophisticated comm systems, it was possible to pick out the reason why no one was answering.

  "Do you see this line, here, Captain?" asked one of the frame carrier systems operators, a corporal named Korrabi.

  "I see it," the captain replied. "What's it mean?"

  "I think it's jamming. Really sophisticated jamming. I... I mean, we never saw stuff like this in training, but it looks like some sort of capture-effect jamming. Or maybe some sort of really subtle wave modulation technique delivering an info-war attack of some sort, that mimics a capture-effect."

  "Corporal, you're the comm expert, not me. I don't have a clue what that means," the captain said.

  "It means we're being jammed, I think. But it's really advanced. I don't know if I can even get a read on where it's coming from."

  "Shit," the captain said. "Can we use the directional antenna to send a signal past the jamming?"

  "We can try, sir. But it's aimed at a specific outpost. If the chain of outposts is interrupted..."

  "Can we aim it somewhere else?"

  "I think so. We'd need to sweep it as we transmitted. And even then, we wouldn't know of anyone heard us. But someone might."

  "Do it," the captain ordered. "We need a rest, and that gives you time to try it. Get all the systems operators working on it."

  "Yes, sir," the corporal said, and trudged off to find the others.

  The captain looked over and met Bernie's gaze.

  "Hell of a thing, Sergeant. Hell of a thing."

  "Yes, sir," she replied.

  "I think... I think we'd better all suit up again. Half of us can be on watch, and the other half can dig some entrenchments. If the enemy is hitting comm outposts, they might try for this one, and we're way too exposed."

  "Shit," Bernie said. "Right, sir."

  She started putting on her armor, frowning bitterly; she couldn't even blame the captain for this; the bastard was right.

  ***

  Lord Wang Li Hu sat in the back of the UEN utility truck and ran his hands along the stock of his new rifle. He was wearing a new outfit, a suit of camouflaged battle fatigues, with a fist-sized gold star pinned over the left breast pocket. He had a armor-plastic combat helmet on his head, with another star on it.

  His boys... no, his soldiers... were crammed in with him, and filled another half dozen trucks as well. And every one of them had a new rifle, and a portable rocket launcher, as well as helmets and camouflage fatigues, though theirs didn't have the gold stars. Ren had told him that only lords got to wear the gold stars.

  So far, Wang thought, having an army had been great. The UEN forces had been mostly respectful. The officers had been OK, though some of the UEN Peace Force troops had sneered. Ren was right, though, Wang thought. Sloppy garrison troops could sneer all they liked; they were in no way as tough as his men were, growing up in the refugee camps. And besides, he'd shown them, now, what he and his men could do.

  They had hit three Arcky settlements, places they had been too weak to hit before. But with the firepower that the UEN gun trucks had, plus his boys'... no, his men's... new weapons, all three settlements had fallen easily. The loot... the loot was good. Not many captives, though; the Arckies were tough fighters; not many had been taken alive. Some of the captured girls looked like they'd be worth fucking, though the UEN pukes were probably right; if he let his men start in on the girls, they'd take all day to get rounded up and ready again.

  And anyway, Wang realized that they had moved past that sort of thing, now. An army like his could always get more loot and captives. Any time. The real prize wasn't loot or pussy; the real prize was something much better.

  What they needed to do now was to smash the DF motherfuckers who stood between his army and the only real prize that mattered; power.

  ***

  Sergeant Li Ziming had been surprised when the Peace Force captain had left him in charge of the irregulars. The Peace Force tended to use officers for any sort of command positions, with NCOs like Li limited to supporting roles, leading enlisted men in executing an officer's orders. But it seemed that when it came to trying to control a band of savage thugs, none of the officers wanted the job.

  That was fine with Sergeant Li. It wasn't much of a command, but he'd spent weeks training and readying Wang's forces, and he content to remain in charge now. Of course "lord" Wang thought that he was in charge, but that was alright, too. Savages like Wang and his thugs had a role to play, but it wasn't the one that they were expecting. And it was almost time for them to play it.

  "Are your... irregulars ready, Sergeant?" asked the fresh-faced lieutenant.

  "Yes, sir," Li replied, holding himself almost at attention.

  The lieutenant was some sort of Indian by his looks, and Li didn't trust any of them, Northern, Southern, Hindu, Muslim or any of the other strains. India was a ramshackle place, full of ramshackle people. On the other hand, the UEN took men from all the UEN member states, and India had enough influence to have a lot of its people placed in officer positions. It could have been worse; the man could have been Korean.

  "You understand the plan, Sergeant?" the lieutenant said, speaking in a patient voice.

  "Yes, sir. The Arcadian framer company has been located at one of their communication relays. Our forces will undertake an artillery bombardment, counting on the enemy not to have laser defenses. After the initial bombardment, they will deploy smoke. At that point, the irregular forces are to close in and attempt to overrun the Arcadian frame infantry in the smoke. The intended effect is attrition of the Arcadian forces and the expenditure of the irregular forces, whereupon Peace Force frame infantry will move in to mop up. Do I have it correct... sir?"

  The Indian lieutenant blinked. "Yes, Sergeant," he said, with a bit of surprise, and rather less condescension, in his tone.

  Well, Li thought, maybe the man wasn't used to dealing with Special Operations. A sergeant in a Peace Force framer company might be just as stupid as this lieutenant had expected.

  ***

  Bernie heard the inbound shells before the alarm went off, a distant whistling sound that she couldn't make out.

  "Inbound artillery!" shouted Captain Wilson. "Take cover!"

  Artillery!? Bernie thought incredulously as she dove down into the fighting trench she had finished excavating not ten minutes before. Who used artillery? Laser emplacements could shoot down almost any number of artillery shells, and ground-skimming guided bombardment missile were more effective anyway; modern armies didn't use artillery.

  The ground began to buck and heave as shells landed and exploded. The sound was felt more than heard, a series
of massive concussions that felt like they were slapping her from the inside.

  Clods of dirt were coming down like drops of water from a big splash. In the rare moments between explosions the only sound was the screaming howl of more shells coming in. Bernie had read about artillery barrages, and had seen old 2D vids, but they gave no hint of the utter, shocking terror of it.

  Something heavy fell into her fighting position, hitting her across her helmet and her armored shoulder, hard enough jar her in spite of the frame's servos. For a moment she thought it was a big clod of dirt, thrown up by the bombardment. It wasn't until a rivulet of blood began to run across her visor that she realized that the object that had struck her was a severed, armored, human arm.

  Bernie shuddered, eyes wide, and huddled as low as she could, pressing herself against the walls of her trench.

  And then, abruptly, the shells stopped. The silence was sudden and deafening. Bernie looked up and saw that a thick white wall of smoke now obscured everything.

  "Platoon," she called into her comm, in a voice she barely recognized "anyone, come in..."

  "Hold it together, Sergeant," came Lieutenant Maynard's voice. "Get your squad up and ready; switch to thermals. If they've got infantry, they'll charge us in this smoke."

  Bernie nodded, then acknowledged over the comm, forcing herself to follow the procedures she'd trained in.

  "B-Squad!" she called, switching to her squad-level comm push and trying to keep her voice for squeaking, "Heads up and scan for targets. Thermals. Use thermals. And check your weapons."

  ***

  Lord Wang tried not to look too wide-eyed, but the view through the binoculars, of the ground exploding under the fire of the UEN artillery, was... was like nothing he'd ever seen before. It was awesome... terrible... glorious. It was beyond any words that he knew. It was power. And he wanted it, more than he had ever wanted a hit of smoke, or a woman, or anything else in his whole life.

  "Get your men ready, Lord Wang," Ren said to him. "As soon as the smoke is out, we'll drive at them. When we get close, your men will get off the trucks and charge in. Shoot everyone, right? Is the plan clear?"

  "It's clear, man. It's clear. But... why not just blast them all? With those huge guns?"

  "The guns..." Ran said. "A pair of 155mm auto-howitzers. They're old technology. We barely use them anymore. We don't have much ammunition for them."

  "Barely use them?" Wang asked, incredulous. "Fuck me, man! How could you not use them? Fuck! Wait! I want 'em. If you guys don't use them, I fucking want them!"

  Ren looked coldly at him, as the huge guns kept up their thunder and their distant targets roiled under erupting in columns of dirt and fire. The UEN man's eyes were suddenly hard enough that Wang felt the hair on the back of his neck rise, like when some rival had a knife out behind him. But then the look was gone, and Ren was back to the same bland, blank-faced look he always wore.

  "Alright Lord Wang. You want our old artillery pieces. I'll see what I can do. But after you attack those Defense Force troops. After."

  "Yeah, man, sure. After. We'll talk after."

  "Right," Ren said. "Now get your men onto the trucks. There's not much time before the smoke goes out. And then you can show us what you can do, Lord Wang."

  ***

  The smoke was "hot smoke" which made thermals barely better than plain visual. Worse, it made the laser targeting system of the M39 useless. Bernie had no idea what to do, but she knew that the rest of the squad would be looking to her, and she knew that letting her people panic wasn't the right answer.

  "OK, boys and girls," she sent, "keep switching between optical and thermal. And get ready to use your zippers. By the time we see a bad guy, or they see us, they're going to be close."

  She suited actions to words, locking the long M39 rifle in its back-mounted brackets and taking her zipper from its attachment point instead; the AC44 was an 11mm automatic weapon, heavy, hard-kicking, bulky but short, with a spastically high rate of fire and a big magazine. Neither the weight nor the kick was an issue in a frame, though, and at close range the zipper had a lot more firepower than an M39.

  The smoke kept billowing, oddly persistent. The smoke rounds must have been some sort of reservoir shells that kept pumping out smoke, Bernie thought. And then she saw a signature in the smoke, at the same moment as a burst of automatic fire cracked past her. A muzzle-flash, she realized.

  Suddenly the smoke was full of muzzle-flashes, and streams of automatic fire were pouring in at the dug in framers' position. Whoever was shooting, though, their targeting didn't seem to work worth a damn. Bullets flew everywhere, with no sign of being well targeted. The sound of the gunfire sounded odd in the smoke, higher pitched than heavy zipper fire, and far too fast to be from whatever smart-rifle the pissers used in place of the M39.

  Bernie put the reticle of her zipper on one of the signatures and held the trigger down for a half-second burst. Her zipper blasted out a dozen rounds and the signature, whatever it had been, went down.

  More bullets were pouring in at her out of the smoke, but they seemed unaimed, wild, and Bernie switched from vague target to vague target, hammering out short quarter and half-second bursts. The zipper magazine held only 60 rounds, and she was empty in moments.

  Around her, her squad was firing in much the same way. Bullets came back at them, pinging off stones and slapping past overhead, but none of her people reported being hit.

  Bernie slammed a fresh magazine into her zipper and popped up to find another target. A bullet slammed into her helmet, dead center in forehead. The shock was like a punch in face, but her frame servos kept her head from snapping back. Bernie blinked, trying to figure out what had happened. Had she been hit?

  A figure loomed in the smoke, man shaped, with a weapon in his arms. The man saw Bernie, screamed, fired from the hip, walking a burst across her chest. Bullets slammed into her torso armor and howled off as the carbon-ceramic plates shed them.

  The force of the hits was enough to snap Bernie out of her daze, though, and she triggered a quick burst with her zipper, walking her fire across the man shooting at her. The stream of heavy, 11mm bullets cut him almost in half.

  The smoke was finally clearing, and now her sensors were picking up dozens of targets, close, man shaped, running at her platoon's position with their weapons blazing.

  "Unarmored infantry!" she called, realizing what she was seeing. "Take 'em down!"

  The sound of massed zipper fire drowned out the screams.

  ***

  Sergeant Li watched though his binoculars as Wang's thugs died. Their attack had been as useless as he's expected, but if the officers sent in the frame infantry quickly, it would have done its job; the Arcadian framers were busy and therefore made for relatively easy targets.

  But the UEN frame infantry didn't advance.

  "Lieutenant," Li said, addressing the Indian officer. "May I suggest that the tanks and the frame infantry advance before the irregulars are all destroyed?"

  "Really, Sergeant?" the officer said. "Surely you don't care for the welfare of that scum?"

  "They are expendable," Li said, "but the chaos they cause will be short lived. We must attack before the Arcadians are ready."

  "Must? Who are you to say 'must' to an officer? You forget yourself, Sergeant! I don't care if you are Special Operations! Keep out of officer business!"

  ***

  With the smoke gone, Bernie could see the dead before her. The heavy zipper bullets had left some of the dead looking like nothing human, just bundles of red-soaked rags around torn flesh. The ones with intact faces —or parts of faces— where the worst. Bernie could feel her gorge rising at the sight, but she forced herself to look at the gore as if it meant nothing; not the remains of human beings, not people she's just helped kill; just a meaningless mess.

  At first she thought she was looking at UEN infantry. They had the same UEN Peace Force fatigues she'd seen in the Infantry Corps museum, and there were Peace
Force-issue AR-250 rifles on the ground near the corpses. Then she noticed the odd details. Some of the dead men had wild tattoos on their faces, wild hair-styles, masses of crude-looking jewelry. One of the dead men even had a garish gold star, as good as a shiny bullseye, on his camouflage fatigues.

  "Those are refugee gun-boys!" she exclaimed, realization dawning.

  "Roger that," came a reply for Captain Wilson. "They came in dumb, didn't they? Any casualties?"

  "B-squad, sound off," Bernie ordered, and listened as her people replied. Five of her six troopers checked in, though two men had taken hits that hadn't penetrated their armor, as had Bernie. There was no sign of Private Gambier, the sixth man. Her squad began a quick search, until Bernie remembered the severed arm, and realized that there wasn't going to be much of Private Gambier to find.

  The realization that one of her men was dead was like a splash of ice-water. Men got killed in training accidents once in a while... and they'd lost several carrier crewmen... but she'd never lost someone under her command before. She found herself trying to figure out how to somehow undo what had happened and shook herself. This was no time to get irrational.

  But Private Gambier wasn't the only casualty.

  "This is Corporal Millner, 3rd Platoon, A-squad," came a voice over the comm. "I think the Lieutenant is hit."

  "Hit?" Captain Wilson asked.

  "He took some hits, but it looked like they didn't get through his armor. He kept shooting, but then he fell down. We got him under cover and tried to see where he was hit. We couldn't find a wound, but there was a lot of blood around his armor. He passed out, but he was still breathing. Then the gun-boys rushed us and everyone had to shoot. And now it looked like he's not breathing. I think he's dead."

  "Who's your squad's ranking NCO?" the captain wanted to know.

  "Ah, I am, sir."