“Val?” he said again.
When I saw the kid’s body slumping forward, time slowed, as if everything was happening under water.
I dove for the handle of the rear door and shoved against it with all my weight. I imagined those turret guns firing inside the compartment and those 50-50 EM rounds turning my body into something like condensed soup.
Impossible, of course. The gun’s elevators couldn’t be lowered that far. But fear does things to you. Shrinks your mind to a single, brutal focus.
Open the door!
The steel lever was jammed, wedged against something immoveable. I hammered at it with an open palm, bruising the heel of my hand, but it didn’t budge.
Faces of war heroes flashed past. Half a dozen interviews with the frontliners who had told me their stories. Men and women who gave me what I asked for instead of what really happened. Now I understood why combat vets didn’t want to tell the war story everybody back home wanted to hear: survival wasn’t a matter of courage or conviction. It was an accident.
[Wrong direction. Try pulling the handle up.] My AI must have seen the adrenaline flooding my system.
Light strobed through the compartment again just as I was heaving on the lever. Then something slammed the whole vehicle sideways and up. The world tipped. I flew backwards and landed on the bulkhead above the bench, Kurcek’s body draped across my knees, a horrible scraping sound in my ears like metal dragging across stone.
Then the noise stopped, leaving in its wake a mindless, mechanical wheezing from the turret. The gunner’s body hung just above the platform, one boot depressing a rotation pedal, blood streaming from his chest.
Odors assaulted me: human waste and blood and more of that awful repeller fluid. I wondered briefly if it was flammable. On the networks such collisions always ended in an explosion.
The hatch door was hinged on the right side. Now the door lay open against the ground like a short ramp. The SAV had apparently been tossed onto its side like some discarded toy. The opening revealed a narrow street flanked by three- and four-story block buildings. We’d come at least four kilometers: off the base, then through the jungle corridor, and into the outskirts of Seranik.
“Dahl,” Sterling said. He pulled himself up to one knee and wrapped the strap of the flash rifle around his forearm. A gash just below the hairline trickled blood between his nose and right eye, but he looked completely composed. Even his shirt still hung in perfectly tucked panels. “Dahl!”
“Sir?”
“You hurt?”
Gunfire popped in the distance, then closer. Some of it seemed to be coming from the other side of the SAV’s upturned hull, maybe two hundred meters off.
Sterling was staring at me. Over his shoulder, the turret gunner was slumped in his harness, legs dangling from the platform cage, arms spread forward as if he were trying to fly. I had the strange feeling I’d stepped into one of those dreams where reality is suddenly a different shape and color.
“Dahl!”
“Sir?”
“Take the corporal’s weapon and spare ammo. We need to get out of here.”
I shoved the kid’s body off my legs, the expression on his clay mannequin face bringing a wave a guilt. I unclipped his rifle and fished two magazines from his webbing.
“When was the last time you fired a rifle?” Sterling asked.
Behind him, blood from the gunner’s chest began to spatter against the side paneling in a steady drip drip drip.
Sterling killed them, I thought. The kid, the sergeant, the turret gunner. Killed all three in a couple of seconds. Maybe the driver and Lieutenant Dogen as well.
Someone was still shooting at us. I could hear the ping of rounds hammering the SAV near the cab.
“Dahl?”
“Sir?”
Sterling shook his head. “Never mind. Turn around.”
I turned. With the SAV on its side there wasn’t room to stand, so we knelt by the hatch looking out into the shimmering heat.
“We’re going out the back door and into that alley on the right. See it?”
My AI sent a map to my grid, forwarded from Sterling, zoomed in on the precise location and expanded into a 3D representation in the lower right corner of my vision.
Grid comms were good. I could do grid-work.
I nodded.
“There’s a door on the left. We’re going through it and then up the steps to the top floor. High ground. You understand me?”
“Door on the left. Got it.”
“I’ll be right behind you, Corporal. Go!”
Sterling slapped me on the shoulder, and I lunged out into the morning sunlight.
I cracked my head on the doorframe and stumbled as bits of the road exploded around me. For a moment I thought someone must have gotten that turret cannon working again and was shooting at us, then realized that was stupid.
They were shooting at us, but not with a 50-50. If they were using heavy twins, there wouldn’t be anything left of either of us.
I looked back as I ran and saw Sterling shooting around the corner of the SAV, suppressive fire, and for a moment the return fire ceased.
Then I was at the mouth of the alley and rounding the corner, looking for the doorway.
—STERLING, A: I’M COMING NOW. PRETEND YOU’RE IN THE ARMY AND GIVE ME SOME COVER FIRE.—
I went back to the mouth of the alley and peered around, using the corner of the cement-block building for cover. Scanned. Raised my rifle and pulled the trigger.
Nothing happened.
My AI sent a soft reminder: [Release the safety.]
I cursed, scanned the edges of the rifle until I found the black button, but by then Sterling was almost in front of me, and the shooting from across the street had started again, so I ducked back behind the safety of the wall without firing a shot.
Sterling stumbled as he lurched into the shadows of the two buildings, but we were out of the line of fire. For the moment, anyway.
I would have liked more darkness, but at least there were no windows in the walls to either side, which meant no place to shoot out of. And there was a nice, friendly door a couple meters off to the left. I checked it, but the door was locked, and made of steel. Maybe Captain Sterling’s magic PSYOPS wrist-comms could sync with the building’s security and force our entry.
I went back and offered him a hand up. “Almost there, sir.”
He wore an expression I’d only ever seen on drunks and drill sergeants, like he was so mad at the world he couldn’t think of a revenge big enough to fit it.
The front of his shirt was saturated in blood.
4
Captain Sterling
I knelt for a closer look at the wound. He’d been shot in the back, the round penetrating between shoulder blade and spine, and exiting through a far more sinister hole in the right pectoral.
I glanced up at the mouth of the alley. Whoever had been shooting at us was bound to be close behind, but if I didn’t slow his blood loss, he would never make it to the top floor.
I peeled off my shirt, wadded the body into a ball, and tied it by the arms across the bullet holes. I took his right hand and placed it over the makeshift bandage in front. He groaned a little but didn’t resist.
“Get me inside,” he said.
“Yes, sir. Sit tight.”
I ran over to the door and lifted the rifle. Lowered it again to flip the action lever to full automatic. Sent about thirty rounds into the handle.
Well, I tried to. I didn’t hit the actual mechanism, but standard flash rounds are jacketed penetrators, and the burst shredded the door in a crescent of torn metal and insulated foam. One kick wrenched it open, the handle still hanging onto the jamb by its lock.
I slung the rifle by its strap over one shoulder and ran back to Sterling. Somehow I hefted him to his feet and through the door, which opened directly into a stairwell. “We still going up?”
Face pale, he nodded.
So we climbed, Sterling l
eaning against me, each shuddering breath coming with a sound like boiling water, one step at a time: my right, my left, his left, his right. Over and over with his blood squeezing out in spurts, soaking the bandage, warm against my forearm.
The climb seemed to take forever, and when we hit the third floor his knees gave out, and we spilled to the carpet together.
“We aren’t going to make it to the top,” I said. “I’ll have to find you a nice room on the third floor. Something with beer in the fridge.”
He gave me a look halfway between humor and disbelief but nodded his assent anyway.
I cracked open the access door and stared down a hallway of stained government carpeting, flanked by office doors with empty nameplates. Like much of Seranik City, this probably belonged to a military contractor. But the air was cooler here, which meant air conditioning. Someone was still using the building somewhere, even if the place looked deserted.
I stepped into the hall and opened the first door on the left. Inside, everything had been removed except for three boxy gray desks and a row of visitor seating. A kitchenette ran the length of one wall, and on the far side were windows with a view of the street.
I went back to the stairs, grabbed Sterling by his left arm, and dragged him cursing through the hallway and into the office. Peering under the bandage, I sent a query to my AI. The hole in his chest looked worse now, and I was running out of ideas.
The kitchenette was still stocked, so I ripped a fistful of recycled towels from the dispenser and was about to stuff them under the bandage when my AI stopped me.
[No,] it said. [Use plastic.]
I went back, flipped open several drawers until I found a roll of cooking wrap. It took me several seconds to cut away his uniform with my pocket knife, and meanwhile blood still pushed from the wound.
Sterling cursed as I wound the roll diagonally across his chest, from the top of the right shoulder under the left arm and back around. Tight. Each layer adding to the pressure as the blood seeped under the clear plastic and spread to the edges.
After six or seven passes Sterling said, “Check the window.”
I rose and went over for a look, peering around the edge of the corner in the direction we’d come. Half a block away the SAV lay beached on its left side. From this position it was obvious what had happened. A wheeled APV—gunless and less than half the size of the Snapper but much faster—had rammed the top-heavy armored sled as it passed an alley across the street. Around both vehicles bodies were sprawled. Two wore black fatigues, the other three blood-spattered marine utilities. I wondered if any of them knew who Sterling was.
“Looks like the base garrison sent a Sherpa after us. Rammed the SAV and got caught in the firefight. I count five dead and don’t see any movement in the—”
Flashes lit up a window below us and off to the right. I heard a soft tink tink and the sound of cracking glass.
“Get down, you idiot!” Sterling called.
I dropped below the level of the window and glanced over at him. “Sir, what’s going on?”
He was lying on his back now, one leg hooked to the side, the other knee angled up. “Someone wants to stop this deal. Try to keep the edge.”
“Someone at Fleet? In the Senate?” Even to me this sounded unlikely—and over the years I’d invented a lot of weird theories to cover up for missing information.
Sterling flapped his left hand dismissively. “Not a conspiracy. Alliance probably just leaked the meeting.”
“They told the truth?”
“Truth can be a great PSYOP, Corporal. People here don’t want to be sacrificed. But since they can’t take out a grendel warship . . . probably want to use us for propaganda.” He shook his head weakly and gave a grim smile. “You know . . . your job.”
No wonder he hadn’t wanted them to know who I was. Still, the facts felt like a betrayal. Which was ironic, because betrayal was what we were here to do.
My position as a reporter had always shielded me against the harsher realities of military life. It was one of the unwritten rules. One of the few benefits of the job.
Worse, I wasn’t just any reporter. I wasn’t some schlub from Holikot tagging along to take notes on a backroom deal. I was Raymin Dahl, feature writer for Orbits News. The edge militia were supposed to love me—especially on New Witlund. I was on their side.
We sat in silence just long enough for the quiet to become noticeable. Sterling’s eyes took on a distant, tired quality that terrified me. He certainly hadn’t told me everything he knew, but I had no delusions about his last point. If he died, there would be no reason for the militia to let me live.
“Sir,” I said. “We need to get out of here.”
He seemed to recover a little. Drew a breath. Shook his head. “Stay here. MADAR team is inbound.” His voice trailed into a hacking cough, bloody spittle forming at his lips.
“How do you know?”
He held up his wrist-comms. “Perks of the job. Barricade that door.”
“Against our own guys?”
He looked weary, as if he were surrendering to the idea of explaining the alphabet to a small child. “Against the militia. Cavalry is still nine minutes out.”
Nine minutes. It felt like nine years. A death sentence.
I crawled over to the closest desk and shoved it across the carpet to the door, then did the same with the middle desk. Such resistance would only slow them down, so the last desk I tipped over as a protective shield between us and the door. When I was finished I said, “Remember the Alamo. Oorah.”
He made a noise that was either a laugh or a snort of derision, but was cut short by another cough. “Everyone died at the Alamo. Can you actually use that thing?”
“Hadn’t fired a weapon since boot.” I glanced down at the rifle I’d taken from PFC Kurcek. “Till I took out that door downstairs.”
“You cheat your quals too?”
My weapon qualifications. Every soldier has to pass an exam on the firing range in order to graduate, regardless of destination assignment. Even journalists. “No comment, sir.”
“All right. Can you make them uncomfortable without blowing my head off?”
“Probably one or the other,” I said, and raised the barrel over the edge of the desk just as the latch turned and the door shuddered against my makeshift barricade.
“Fire your weapon, Corporal.”
I swallowed something hard and dry in my throat, finger hovering in front of the trigger. There were people on the other side of that door. Kids, probably. Young men or women who had never been off New Witlund and were just trying to save their loved ones from occupation. Or maybe it wasn’t enemy soldiers at all. What if there were civilians in the space below who had heard the noise in an otherwise empty building and come up to—
—STERLING, A: FIRE YOUR WEAPON!—
I squeezed the trigger.
The rifle mashed into my shoulder, spitting rounds over the desks and into the upper half of the door, the wall above it, the ceiling above that. The weapon was still set to automatic, and that burst probably unleashed half the magazine. Ninety, maybe a hundred rounds.
Dust drifted down from the mangled ceiling. The corridor fell eerily silent.
Sterling stared at me, a look that meant he knew something I hadn’t yet realized. Something I’d figure out in an hour or two. “Welcome to the war, son.”
“Now what?” I asked.
He nodded as if I had passed some sort of test. “Now—you finish the mission.”
His words might as well have been in another language. I had no idea what he was saying. “Sir?”
But the effort to talk was too much now. A message flashed on my comms:
—STERLING, A: CAPTAIN STERLING HAS TO BE AT THOSE TALKS. YOU UNDERSTAND? YOU’LL GO IN MY PLACE.—
I studied his face for what seemed a long time, hoping to read something there besides the reality. I didn’t find it. “Captain, that’s insane. I can’t go as you. I have no training, no cr
edentials, no—”
—STERLING, A: I’M OUT OF TIME, CORPORAL. TAKE MY COMMS. PUT IT ON. TELL THEM YOUR NAME IS CAPTAIN ANSELL STERLING.—
With great effort he moved his right hand to the inside of his left wrist, to the base of his comms. His face was a mask of pain, then relaxed as the bracelet split and fell into his lap, now a hinged cuff.
“Sir, they’ll never believe—”
“They’re marines.” His voice was strangled in fluid. “They’ll follow orders.”
I shook my head, still in disbelief. He was asking me to impersonate an officer. As if I could somehow channel my father’s voice and mannerisms and certainty. As if I could act like I really believed in the rightness of every Fleet decision. As if I could pretend I even wanted to. “It won’t work.”
“No one here knows,” he gasped, “what I look like. Even . . . grendels.”
“They’ll court-martial me.”
He nodded slowly. “Great . . . story.”
A great story. A real story, free of editorial intervention and feel-good propaganda.
And wasn’t this what I’d always wanted? What I’d been complaining about for years to Major Weston and any other reporter who’d listen? A chance to tell a real war story as an eyewitness, with no censors looking over my shoulder?
Or had that just been the lie I told myself to justify writing dissident features at OrbSyn? The compromise that made space for my dignity?
Now that I’d seen what war was like—Kurcek, Porth, Sterling—was the truth really what I wanted to write about?
I tried to swallow again, but my throat had filled with sand. I nudged my comms to begin recording and said, “Is that an order, sir? You’re ordering me to impersonate you and make this deal with the Alliance emissary?”
“It’s an order,” Sterling said, each word a struggle. As if he understood my need. “Go . . . save . . . six . . . hundred . . . million. . . lives.”
Even if it hadn’t been a direct order, what should I have done? Wait till the special forces team arrived and tell them the truth? Sorry about all the trouble, but the guy you were supposed to rescue is dead. I got him killed in a firefight. And the Grand Alliance is about to bring down hell on a base you never should have been sent to because the secret meeting we were supposed to attend got canceled by a bunch of local yahoos. Sorry, boys. Can you escort me to the nearest evac ship?
Operation Grendel Page 4