by Scott Moon
There was no smile from her, but neither did she look away. “Then you must marry me. There is a bond in marriage that cannot be penetrated by goblins and fairies.”
Seccon paused to check his translation software, remembering too late that he’d already disabled his Cybernetic Internals. “Is this what you want?”
She nodded. “I am tired of being an enke kvinde, a widow woman.”
“Then marry me, my love,” Seccon said, forgetting what the conversation had been about.
With a passionate embrace, Borghild made her intentions clear. Guilt circled him as love and lust and happiness created something new inside of him.
Time lost meaning.
“Perhaps I should have proposed weeks ago,” Seccon said.
“What is ‘proposed’?” she asked.
“Never mind. Help me unravel the plot against the Emperor.”
“Emperor?” she asked.
Seccon took both of her hands in his. “Sveinn is the sole heir to be the Emperor of the Commonwealth.”
Borghild began to cry. “Commonwealths have emperors?”
“Yes and no. Sometimes,” Seccon said, leaning closer. “Why are you crying?”
“I am not. And if I were, maybe it would be because I should have married Sveinn when he is old enough,” she said.
Seccon thought she was joking but didn’t like the feeling her words left in him. Borghild was the biggest surprise in his long life. He hoped she was real. Should his enemies have planted her as a spy or assassin, he would know soon.
Borghild sniffled as she put away her tears and sat up very straight on the edge of the couch. “What is the big mystery?”
He considered his words carefully, then simply began the story in the middle. “Aefel is a great warrior who was sent to kill me.”
“Why?”
“Because I killed the last Emperor of the Earth Systems Commonwealth.”
“No!” she said. “Why?”
“His name was Dan Uburt-Wesson and he ordered the murder of his sister and her children, who had a better claim to the throne than he did,” Seccon said.
“Then it is good you stopped him,” she said. “This means Aefel is on the wrong side. Fey will be very upset.”
“I don’t know which side Aefel is on, because he was also ordered to kill everyone in Sky Clan. Especially Sveinn and Sveinn’s sisters.”
Borghild considered the contradictory information, asking a few questions. He told her of the Strongarms and how they were sworn to protect the Emperor. He described the difference between the New Galactic Order and Zero Brigade. By the end of his lecture, she was less certain of the difference between the First Armored Light-infantry Division and the Sixth Armored Light-infantry Division, insisting they would fight as allies no matter how many times Seccon insisted they were rivals.
He could not bring himself to describe the Carosn Device and what it meant for Grendel.
“This is very simple, my singer husband. The New Galactic Order and Zero Brigade are enemies but desire the same prize. They are sweeping aside old rivals, death to the last child, as they say in politics, and building their strength to seize their enemy's fortresses.”
Seccon imagined a galaxy-wide war where fortresses were planets and siege engines were starships. “But what of the FALD Reavers and SALD Knights? Or the Strongarms who used to serve me?”
“They are pawns. Or they have secretly sworn allegiance to someone. Or they do not matter,” Borghild said.
Seccon smiled, exhausted and glad at the same time. “You are very clever, my lovely Borghild.”
“Any woman of Sky Clan could have put together this puzzle. It is a primal thing. Jarls fight for dominance. That is the way it will always be.”
9
AWOL FOR AEFEL
GRENDEL 0473829: LANDING ZONE
MISSION CLOCK: N/A
WE are coming to you, Aefel. Hold fast. Cindy concentrated on the drop suit flight path, remembering how Aefel often called it a fall path. Calling it a high-altitude insertion flight was offensive to any creature or machine with wings. She checked the heads-up display once, counting the remaining members of Aefel’s platoon and forcing herself not to feel guilt for the mess these soldiers had followed her into.
Every member of the Lightning Division learned to manual pilot a drop of this nature. There were calculations to be made on the fly and prayers to be said by the smarter fools attempting a drop without authorization or computer assistance. Any one of the orbiting Commonwealth ships could have plotted their course and linked with drop suit computers to time each deployment of the breakaway heat shielding.
“Mark the time,” Cindy said as she integrated her Internal Cybernetic Enhancements with the suit.
“Mark,” Paul said as each of the skydiving soldiers gave a simultaneous thumbs-up.
“Mark altitude and angle of descent,” she said.
“Mark.”
Paul’s voice reassured her. She checked her calculations in her head and hoped for the best. Her hands were needed to steer the descent. Palms flat, she twisted the surface of the gloves to make minor corrections. The rest of the platoon followed her in a diamond-shaped formation three levels deep.
“Keep it tight. We are still high.”
“Roger that,” Paul said.
“Check right and left and count off,” she said, then waited for every member of the platoon to check in.
A chill shuddered from her bladder to her mind as the heads-up display of her drop suit flickered twice and went blank.
“I have a visor malfunction. Show of hands, who is having the same difficulty?” She looked right and left, flipped onto her back, and checked the rest of the platoon above her. “Well, at least it is unanimous.” She faced the planet and made a flight plan adjustment from her memory of the last HUD readout.
Time passed. The icy blue fields and mountains below grew rapidly nearer. “We will hit our final parachute as close to the ground as safely possible. The ground is coming up faster than you think, so be sure to deploy your chutes early rather than late. Spread out into Formation Omega.”
The platoon formed a single layer in the shape of a circle. “This isn’t the first time we’ve made a cold drop without instruments,” she said.
“First time during a live op,” Danny said.
“Can it, Danny,” Paul said.
Cindy grimaced. No one had made a true drop into hostile territory without computer assistance for a long time. It simply wasn’t done. From time to time, a squad or a platoon would face-plant and suffer one hundred percent casualties. Afterward, everyone assumed they had gone off their computer timing recommendations.
“Deploy chutes one hundred twenty meters higher than planned. We can glide in.”
No one spoke. Her armor felt heavy — a head trick, she knew, but also a reminder the entire platoon was AWOL and on the run. Not long after her encounter with the Strongarms, it became evident that all of those people were being shipped away or locked up.
She'd had no choice. The only place she could help Aefel was on the surface of Grendel.
“Oh shit!” she shouted as the ground reached up to grab her. With all of the heat shield ejected, the parachute functioned simply. She yanked on the guidelines and braced for impact. The soles of her boots touched the ground and she started running as the chute collapsed above her.
Moments later, she folded her chute hand over hand until the untidy bundle was as small as she could make it. Paul, she noted, was already done. He moved fast for a big man.
“Comms check, sound off by the numbers,” she ordered.
Sergeant Day 71218, aka Tony, checked each member of his squad, then reported to Cindy. Sergeant Zach 71775 and Sergeant Kodias 70347 did likewise.
“Form up and move out, five hundred meters, heading 300 degrees. Radio silence, hand signals only,” Cindy said. Her heart ached for her lieutenant, who would normally be giving orders at this point in the operation.
&n
bsp; Their first priority was to land and move off to regroup and reassess. She checked her squad and the other squad leaders frequently, always waiting for them to give her a nod or a thumbs-up. Her optics functioned well, although she hadn’t expected they would. Her core internals functioned, but anyplace they intersected with the Commonwealth computer systems, there were glitches and crashes.
Progress to the first way point came slowly. Heavy snowfall rendered the landscape a reflective monochrome. She tapped her helmet three times to adjust the tint on her visor. “Doing everything manually is going to get old quick.”
“I don't like this landing zone,” Paul said.
Cindy agreed. She had never enjoyed deploying straight into a mountain pass. Martin 90201, the Captain of the Strongarms, had given her the point and promised it would lead her to Aefel. All she saw now was a treacherous mountain landscape and cold winter skies.
“All squads, let's move into the pass,” she said. “Sound off by the numbers. I want to check the range of our communications.”
Moments later, she had confirmed line of sight radio signals were working. “I hope everyone is up to date on their hand signals because we will be using it a lot of stealth tactics.”
“And our equipment won’t help this time,” Paul muttered.
“Kodiak, take your squad ahead,” Cindy said into her helmet mic.
“Roger that,” Kodiak said. “Delta Squad is on point.”
“Let's move,” Cindy said. She kept looking to her right for Kate.
“I'm just checking,” Sergeant Day said, “but this place is supposed to be low technology, correct?”
“That's what the original briefing for Aefel’s mission said, and what my contact confirmed.” Cindy scanned the horizon for movement. So far, she hadn't even seen an animal. Or tracks. Or smoke.
She moved the platoon in silence for an hour before Kodiak reported bad news.
“Give me details,” Cindy said.
“It looks like there's been a migration here. I’d say it was animals because I haven't seen any smoke from campfires, but these don't look like hoof prints. There are signs of horses and livestock, but most of the impressions look like boots or human feet,” Kodiak said.
“Bare feet in the snow?” Cindy asked.
“I'm just telling you what I see.”
Cindy moved up with the rest of the platoon. When she crested the rise in the terrain, she saw a frozen river valley cutting a pass deep into the mountain.
“This looks like the only way through those monsters,” Kodiak said, nodding at the mountains.
Cindy called in her other sergeants for a meeting. “How many people would it take to tear up the landscape like this?”
Kodiak answered. “I'd say somewhere between one hundred thousand and a quarter million.”
“That's impossible,” Sergeant Day said. “There’s no way that many people can move without lighting a campfire. And who would they be hiding from? Do you think these barbarians saw us coming?”
Cindy looked back to stall for time, then faced her sergeants. The moment stretched out for several seconds. “They're not hiding from us. I don't think they're running from us or anyone else. This is a massive stealth operation, a sneak attack.”
Sergeant Day knelt and traced one of the boot prints with an armor gauntlet. “What kind of people can move an army in these conditions?”
Paul, who wasn't a sergeant, but who was standing nearby, stood to his full height. “I've got a pretty bad feeling.”
“I'm not sure we were given all the pertinent information before we made this drop,” Cindy said.
10
CAROSN ARMY
GRENDEL 0473829: SURFACE
MISSION CLOCK: N/A
CINDY ordered the platoon to sleep in surveillance mode. With responsive armor, she felt the environment as though she were wearing very warm, wind-resistant clothing. Sleeping in the snow for shelter was as miserable as she had been since boot camp.
“First Sergeant,” Sergeant Day asked, “permission to rotate my squad through a heating station. We can keep the battery packs on low.”
Cindy shook her head. “Wait until you have some solar blankets heated it up and then do what you can. Once we use the batteries, we're done. Do not expect replacements, relief, or reinforcements on this mission.”
Sergeant Day and the other squad leaders looked at her grimly but said nothing.
Cindy shivered as her squad leaders and medics checked the platoon.
“Are you ready, Kodiak?” she asked just before the entire platoon was as recovered as they were going to get.
“Ready as we’ll ever be,” he answered.
“Take the lead,” she said.
“Roger that,” he said but moved near her before taking his squad out. “I don’t trust our private links the way our gear is working.”
“Talk to me, Kodiak.” There was no need for her to give him permission to speak freely.
“Remember that feeling Paul had earlier?”
Cindy went cold.
“I’ve never had it,” Kodiak said.
“Thunder and bloody fucking lightning,” Cindy said.
“But I have it now.”
Cindy slammed her visor and pointed. Kodiak took charge of his squad and led the way as she directed the other squads into a traveling wedge wide enough to cover several hundred meters.
Snow threatened to fall. Grey skies and wind punished them as they climbed higher into the pass. Hiking up steep inclines challenged Cindy and her veterans. Weather made it worse. By the time she felt they had traveled far enough to risk a break, fatigue nipped at her body and mind.
“Nice planet,” Paul said. “The sun comes out and warms the surface nearly one degree.”
“Alpha Squad, hold this position,” Cindy said. She pointed at Paul. “That includes you.” She ran toward Kodiak’s squad in the next bend of the wide pass.
Earthlike evergreens towered on the lower slopes of the valley pass, shedding snow with every gust of wind and reflecting the noonday glare. She saw what had been an ice-covered river, barely larger than a stream this time of year, churned to mud by the passing of the enormous native migration. Army, she reminded herself. There was no reason for so many people to move this late in the season. Only a military commander would order such a foolish mobilization.
She saw in an instant that Kodiak and his squad had located the scene of a bloody fight. From a distance, she saw bloodstained snow and evidence of wounded men or women trudging away into the trees.
“Talk to me, Kodiak,” she said.
He didn’t answer.
“Kodiak!” She sprinted forward, ducking branches obscuring the trail leading the final distance.
“Sorry, Cind. We have a prisoner of sorts,” he said on his comlink.
Still running, she burst into the clearing she’d seen on her way here. The distance had muted the details of the horror.
“We’re in trouble,” Kodiak said to her face.
She moved past him. “Ya think?”
Blood leaked from the prisoner’s eyes, ears, and nostrils. His fingernails were gone. The muscles around his left arm bubbled grotesquely. Bare to the waist, the long-haired native screamed at the soldiers surrounding him with drawn weapons.
Cindy moved closer, taking a spot near the containment line.
The man crouched, ready to lunge forward. Lips twisted, eyes twitching, the gaze was both dead and animated.
“Is he alive?” asked one of the soldiers.
“He’s walking around and getting ready to fight,” Cindy said. “He’s alive. Don’t fixate on his vacant expression.” She moved back to Kodiak.
“I didn’t want to scare the shit out of everyone,” he said.
“Good call. I’ve never seen a person affected by a Carosn Device. I thought it only worked against people with cybernetic enhancements,” she said.
“If we watch this one long enough, we’ll see it. The bodies on the other
side of the grove look like wires were pulled from their nervous system,” Kodiak said.
“They all died but this one,” she said. “He must be a hell of a fighter.”
“The other victims traveled a mile before succumbing to injuries,” Kodiak said. “But probably farther. We only backtracked them that far. If you want to see where this started, we better take the entire platoon. Maybe apologize to Jones and see if he will send all three divisions to stop this before it spreads.”
Cindy edged closer and studied the feral creature. He’d been a crude savage before suffering a CD. “Kodiak, how many die versus how many are turned into weapons?”
“My father estimated ten percent survived the hijacking of their internal cybernetics and became weapons. Another ten percent wandered around, killing at random. The rest exploded, according to him,” Kodiak said.
“That’s rumor and bullshit,” Cindy said. “But I see what you’re saying. Most of them die,” she said. By the look in the eyes of Kodiak and his squad, she wasn’t the only one calculating how many Corson Device Soldiers could be made from the mass migration they were following.
“Doldelig Fremmed!” screamed the barbarian. Three grunts later, each louder and angrier than the preceding noise, the Carosn victim rushed forward. Silver wires pushed through his skin like veins in a textbook example of what a Carosn-controlled body looked like.
“Got him,” one of Kodiak’s Reavers said. He aimed, fired, and continued to fire until the man fell and stopped moving.
Cindy and Kodiak checked the body.
“He’s dead,” Kodiak said. “Why doesn’t that make me feel better?”
“Because if we follow this group long enough, we’re going to find fields of dead people and thousands more under the control of some bastard stupid enough to use a Carosn Device,” Cindy said. “Document this scene as evidence, but leave the bodies. We move as soon as you’re ready.”
“Roger that,” Kodiak said.
11
AWAY FROM ZERO BRIGADE