by Geoff Brown
“But the drones use frequency hopping, jump from one comm frequency to another. How the hell do they figure out what frequency we'll be on when they fire?”
“Not sure yet. Either they cycle through the spread spectrum range we use until they happen upon the right frequency at the right time, or they just sit on a frequency until we jump to it. Once the weapon gets a connection, it blasts a short megajoule burst. It's enough to burn right through the EMP buffers.”
“And into the poor driver's brain.” Liz whistled. “Bastards.”
“And here's the kicker. It's not Iranian.”
“Some local insurgent's doing it?”
“One guy, according to intel. Wrote the code, built the microwave beamer, the whole works.”
“He lives in that village east of the FOB, doesn't he?” Liz said.
“Bingo. And we need to take him out before the Iranians get wind of what he's doing.”
“So, what,” Liz said, “we just go in and kill the guy?”
“That's the plan.”
“No questions asked? No chance to surrender? That ain't us.”
“It's gotta be,” Gardner said. “We can't risk him getting away and spreading his technique.”
“We can't just march him back to the FOB at gunpoint?”
“Say we get ambushed. He slips down a narrow alley, or up a stairway, someplace our drones can't follow. Then what?”
She was silent for a long moment. “Then let's do it. Hooah.”
* * *
Liz had the squad assembled in the Active Combat Room by the time Gardner arrived. He found himself surrounded before he could close the door behind him.
“What gives, LT?” Maria said. “I hear we're getting rigged to some shiny new drones.”
“Yeah, the techs are talking,” Kyle said. “I wanna keep my sniper.”
“We're going in urban assault drones. They want us light and fast. Except you, Kyle. You'll still be using a sniper drone.”
“Damn straight.”
“I don't get to fly?”
“We're down two guys, Josè. We need you on the ground. An air force wing from Texas will provide air support.”
Josè opened his mouth, but Liz cut him off. “What's the plan, LT?”
“We're going after the bastard that built the pulse weapon they've been using on us.”
“About time,” Maria said.
“Brass is pretty sure there's only one prototype, so we stop it cold right now.”
“What's it look like?” Kyle asked.
“Not sure. But it takes a lot of power, so it's probably not very portable. Probably mounted on a vehicle or hidden in a building.”
“Right,” Liz said. “Techs set up a code word. You see you're about to get hit with that thing, just say 'Dixie' and they’ll pull your plug.”
“If you see it,” Maria said. “Whatever ‘it’ looks like.”
“Exactly,” Gardner said. “So keep your eyes open. They're playing for keeps.”
“Wait,” Kyle said. “We could actually get killed out there. I didn't sign up for that.”
“The hell you didn't,” Gardner said. “Soldiers fight wars. People die.”
“But—”
“They took out two of our own. Not just anyone, our people. Joel is dead. You wanna tell his mom you were afraid to go after the son of a bitch that killed him? You gonna tell Hailie?”
“He's just a little spooked,” Liz said. “Nobody's gonna pussy out on you. Right, squad?”
A few mumbles greeted her.
“I can't hear you, soldiers.”
“Right!”
“Okay, get your rigs on,” Gardner said. “Let's do this.”
* * *
Trainees had driven the drones out to the village. Gardner's vidstream kicked in and he found himself engulfed in black smoke.
“The hell is this?” Maria said.
“The Air Force took out any insurgent fortifications they could find. Trainees must have approached under cover of the smoke.”
“Why couldn't the flyboys just torch the whole village and save us the danger?”
“You want a few thousand civvie casualties on your conscience?”
There was no answer, so Gardner formed up the team and rolled into the village. Heavily damaged sandbag fortifications flanked the main road leading into the hotspot, and a pair of burning Hummers blocked the way.
“Liz, take Josè and clear a path.”
“Righto, LT.”
“Kyle, deploy your stabilizers. Put a bullet in anything that threatens them.”
“Roger.”
“Insurgents only, no civvies.”
“How the hell you expect me to tell the difference?”
“Just be careful.”
Gardner watched Liz's vidstream as she approached. The first bunker had a crater and smoldering debris right in the middle. Josè's stream showed the same on his side.
“And barely a scratch on the surrounding buildings,” Liz said. “Kudos to the flyboys.”
Gardner switched back to his own vidstream and watched Liz and Josè push one of the Hummers off the road. “Get ready to move out.” He waited for Kyle to retract his stabilizers and rolled into the village behind his point team.
Wind whistled down the deserted street, carrying sand that pinged against Gardner's armor. Nothing moved. He rolled into the town square and scanned all four ways.
“The town's not much more than a crossroad,” he said. “Kyle, set up here and cover us. Liz, take Josè east. Maria, let's have a look down south.”
“Roger.”
He rolled past clay huts, houses or storefronts, most boarded shut. Liz's vidstream showed pretty much the same thing.
“Did you hear that?” Maria said.
“I didn’t hear anything.”
“I think something moved in that hut.”
He zoomed on the hut. Door shut tight. Window dark. “I got nothing. Kyle, you see any—”
Ping!
His drone recoiled with an impact from behind. He turned to return fire. Just as the window slid from his view, he caught a glimpse of metal.
“RPG!”
He turned his treads at full power. Impact threw him forward, setting red telltales blinking. The EMEG rig damped the rumble of the explosion.
“You okay, Maria?”
Her guns chattered.
He turned and fired at a window on the opposite side of the street. “Maria?
“Can't get traction with my left tread.”
“Damn. Liz, get your ass over here.”
“Taking fire of our own, LT.”
“I'm on it, Boss,” Kyle said.
Gardner moved to cover Maria. Rounds pinged against his armor. Enough. He readied his RPG and fired through the window. Debris rained down around him.
Josè's voice registered in the back of his mind. “Whoo, these things really are fast!”
“Dixie!”
“Maria?” Gardner said. “That you?”
Nothing. Her drone stood motionless.
“Base, you evac Maria?”
Bullets pinged against his armor. He moved to take cover behind Maria's inert drone.
“She's out,” base replied.
“Watch your six!” Josè's voice was followed by a muffled rumble.
“Hooah!” Liz shouted.
An RPG impacted Maria's drone, sending shrapnel flying. Gardner sent a few rounds into the window the shot came from. A bullet caught him from another direction and ricocheted off his armor.
Where the hell is that superweapon? One hit from that—
He turned to the direction of the incoming bullets and lobbed another RPG. Four more.
A noise to his right. He swiveled to put the remnants of Maria's drone in front of him. A head and shoulder, clad in desert cammo, poked through an open doorway. His hand aimed an antenna dish directly at Gardner.
Damn. Break cover to take a shot, and lights out.
Motion behind h
im. Double damn. “I could use an eye on my six, guys.”
Kyle said, “On my way, Boss.”
“You're too slow,” Liz said. “I got this.”
“Roger, Sarge.”
An explosion slammed Gardner against the wrecked drone. But if he turned to face the insurgents back there—
Screw it.
He turned, fast, and fired an RPG into the hut behind him. He hesitated, expecting darkness to close on him at any moment. Footsteps to the rear.
Now!
He spun, spraying bullets as he turned. He caught the guy with the dish in the open. Another second or two and he would have had a clear shot. Not today, bastard.
The guy dropped in place, and the weapon fell to the dusty road next to him. A thick cable snaked from the dish into the doorway of the building behind him.
Shots pinged against Gardner's armor from behind, followed by a burst from the north.
“Got your back, LT.”
“Good to see you, Liz.”
“Looks like you got this under control. You call me over just to see my pretty face?”
“I got the bastard who's been using that death weapon.” Gardner swiveled over to where the insurgent lay just in time to see a figure disappear behind the door of the hut.
The weapon was gone.
“Goddamn it.”
“What is it, LT?”
“We need to get that weapon. Now.”
He rolled up to the door. When Liz was in position, he used his ram to break it open. She rushed through and he followed, covering her six.
“He's just a kid.”
“What?” Gardner turned his vid and saw what Liz was looking at. The boy was maybe fourteen, wearing a t-shirt and jeans, and cowering in the corner next to a table covered in capacitors and battery packs. His right hand held the dish limply at his side.
“American pigs. You killed him.”
Gardner turned on his drone's external speaker. “It's war. He was trying to kill me.”
“We defend ourselves. You send machines. I make it fair.”
“Just drop the weapon, son. No one wants to hurt you.”
“Did he just say that he's the one who made the weapon?” Liz said in his audio stream.
“My invention will kill a thousand Americans for every Arab who died in this war.”
“Christ,” Gardner said into the stream. “The kid's a computer genius.”
“What do we do, LT? If he tells the Iranians—”
“We have to kill him.”
“In cold blood?” Liz said.
“It's the only way.” He raised his gun. “I'm sorry,” he said through his speaker. The boy cowered.
Gardner hesitated. The kid's lower lip trembled. He looked like a lost little boy, a good five years younger than Joel. Mothers cry here, too.
He lowered his gun. “Just give me the weapon.”
A shot rang out and the boy crumpled in the corner. Smoke rose from Liz's gun.
“What the hell?”
“Had to be done, LT.”
Gardner picked up the weapon with his manipulator arm and unplugged the cable from its base. His treads kicked up dirt from the floor and he was out the door.
“You said so, right?”
The uncertainty in her voice would haunt him forever. He rolled toward the rendezvous point in the village square. A quick scan of the squad's feeds showed that Josè and Kyle were already there.
“Base, mission accomplished,” he said. “Now get some trainees to drive these goddamned drones home.”
“Roger, recon. Prepare for extraction.”
The world went dark. Gardner sat limp in his chair, in no hurry to get the helmet off. The tech lifted the helmet and he faced the glare of the Active Combat Room with open eyes.
A hand closed on his shoulder. “I'm so glad you made it out of there okay,” Maria said. “I'm sorry I bailed on you like that. He had it aimed—”
“You did what you had to do.”
The tech said, “Colonel wants to debrief you immediately, sir.”
Gardner blew out a breath and nodded. He lifted himself from the EMEG chair. Liz sat next to him, her dreads emerging from her helmet. She blinked away the brightness and looked directly at him with haunted eyes.
“I did the right thing, LT. Didn't I?”
He stared at her, seeing his guilt reflected in her eyes. “How the hell should I know?”
Emeralds
Asher Wismer
“...ten years since the first Stalker ships appeared in our skies. Again, our top story tonight, more invading aliens in the sky, distracting United Earth forces from an all-out assault against the Flying City, which touched down in Columbia two months ago. Scientists believe the Flying City to be a base of operations. As the Stalker language cannot be interpreted, and the Stalkers themselves refuse any form of communication, the motive behind humanity's ongoing war of survival remains unclear. From NORAD, this is CNN.”
Ten years. I checked my gun again, remembering the day First Contact had become The Last War. The battlesuit chafed; it wasn't mine, but a spare from storage, unused for years.
“Today's my birthday,” I said to Rico.
“Old lady,” he said. His battlesuit was painted with jagged yellow stripes; he claimed it disoriented the Stalkers, and nobody wanted to argue.
“Hope it won't be your last,” Boss said. As the leader, he wore a battlesuit twice the size of ours. He also carried the Pulse, the only weapon that could take down a Berserker – I'd seen only one in seven years of battle.
Rico handed me a piece of gum. “Happy day,” he said.
Most of the squad sat in silence. There were no fixed units anymore; fewer soldiers every day, going wherever the United Earth sent us. We formed, fought, died, and reformed so many times that it was unusual for even two soldiers to know each other. The only thing we all had in common was our training.
We did the best we could. Every day more of them appeared in the sky. They never tried to talk, just landed and killed.
The chopper rattled. Boss stood and spoke with the pilot, then came back and addressed us.
“This is not a normal mission,” he said. “We are not going out against the Coast ships per our initial orders.”
“We going on vacation?” Rico said.
“The Coast ships are sapping our ability to fight effectively. Too many units are being destroyed while the aliens gain ground. This unit was handpicked. Every soldier in this chopper has more than fifty drops. Between us, we have over seventy million confirmed kills. You individuals don't think of yourselves as special, but believe me, you are all the best in our force.”
I jabbed Rico with my elbow. “Could fool me,” I said. Boss was right, though – this was my fifty-first drop.
“We are taking the Flying City,” Boss said. “Not simply attacking. Today is the day we take control back. All previous missions failed. We no longer have that luxury. If the City is truly their base of operations, we must control or destroy it. UE forces are massed by the Coast, but we have secret forces arrayed around the City. While they keep it occupied, we will go in and take whatever steps are necessary to stay in.”
“Is this a suicide mission?” someone asked.
Boss stared at all of us. “Not if we can help it. Each of your suits has been modified with a data connector, built from wrecked Stalker ships...”
* * *
I fired into the mass. Rico had my back, and two others were killing waves of the tiny Stalkers from the left. Boss was at the right, Pulse ready.
“Think that was the last Berserker?” Rico shouted.
“Fuckin' better be,” I said, and fired a grenade to the front. The advancing pile of aliens exploded in a yellow shockwave.
To the left, the Stalkers piled again and had taken one of the guards down. That was how they killed us, as small as they were. Using their own bodies as shields and support, they swarmed and overwhelmed, and they were surprisingly strong.
/> Boss flicked his lights, and we pushed ahead. The halls of the Flying City vibrated, sometimes from explosions, mostly from whatever ungodly energy kept it alive. A hatch fell and they swarmed Rico; I thrust in, switching gun to knives, and we slashed them apart. Behind us, Boss fired the Pulse.
“Another?” I said.
“Too many little ones,” Boss yelled. “We lost Jensen and Ackles. I collapsed the corridor.”
Rico breathed obscenities as he smeared the Stalkers across the walls, slamming his body against them. Boss joined us and the corridor grew grey with their blood.
The last one had my leg in its teeth. As Rico checked his suit, I pulled it off and held it up. It screamed at me, flailing and ripping at my hand. Singles can't hurt a battlesuit, but they could bring back their friends.
“Lost contact with the unit,” Boss said. “We have to assume we're the last ones.”
“Do we even know where we're going?” Rico said.
“Radar scans show a central area, and electromagnetic scans show a massive power source. Whatever they're doing, it comes from that center.”
“So we find it and blow it up?”
“Command wants us to gather data,” Boss said. “If we can't use it against them....”
The alien latched its teeth into my wrist. I couldn't feel it through the armor.
“Somebody found a little pet,” Rico said.
I squeezed it until its head popped off.
There were more corridors ahead. With Boss on point, I held the rear. Outside, battles were horrifying, the aliens unconstrained and destroying everything in sight. Still, every time they swarmed from the ceiling or floor I had a shock of terror, quickly clamped down by my instincts.
Their skin was blue, rocky, not entirely biological. Scientists suspected they were grown rather than born. Each one transmitted a rough feeling through the sensors in my palms. I'd never seen one without my suit on. I never wanted to.
Another wave, and this time from a side corridor; they filled it with their screaming bodies, swarming over each other as if a single being. Boss raised the Pulse, lowered it; the backwave would kill us.
“Pincer!” I shouted to Boss, and he nodded.
Rico filled the hallway with fire. Our guns are designed for the tiny Stalkers; I pushed forward, vaguely feeling the sting of flechettes on my armor, and then I was in the swarm.