by John Mierau
Her internal clock told her it was about time to provide Commander Winter an update. She double-checked with her wrist, but that screen was networked too, and displayed only pixelated FUBAR.
She walked back to the window. The plaza was quiet again. She paced in front of the useless monitors. She had nothing to tell Winter until the ground forces sent up a situation report.
CHAPTER TWELVE
Lee watched the soldier through the sniper scope and thought about the road that had led him here.
Two years ago, Reach had been a happier place, ignorant of much of what was happening behind closed doors. Back then, Lee had been Chief Engineer for a Caran Corporation mining facility and, in a dose of irony, it had been his knowledge of exactly what was happening under the surface that started him down the road to rebel and soldier. His discovery? Caran Corporation had been quite happy to see miners die, so long as enough of them survived to fulfill their contracts with Earth on the next convoy.
Lee stood up for the miners. The corporation sent him to prison. Things got worse from there.
Colonists had been pissed at Earth for years, and not just on Reach: folks sometimes got private letters from friends on other colonies who complained Earth was demanding more and more in exchange for less and less.
Conspiracy theories abounded as to why one colony, then two, then three stopped sending convoys back to Earth. Fold travel was dangerous, but the rewards were unmatched in the history of the human race: just squeeze a bubble of spacetime through a hole in the fabric of the universe, and ships popped out on the far side of the galaxy in years instead of lifetimes. No more fear of your species being wiped out by one rock, one virus, or one war.
Still, it took years to generate enough power to prime a small area of spacetime for a Fold, and trillions to stock outbound ships. Some of those ships would be lost in ‘The Churn’: violent shifts in gravity, magnetic fields, even electrical storms as the Fold exited or re-entered spacetime—but with new worlds came new business opportunities, and risks be damned!
The complexity involved in priming a fold and launching a convoy through it meant there had been only fifty missions in the last hundred and thirty years, but there were always corporations ready to foot the bill for more attempts, and colonists ready to take the risk for a better life.
Lee had been born on Reach, same as his father. Sometimes it was easy to forget Earth was a real place, and to ignore the dire reality that in the last thirty years Glory, Prise Du Pied, and Yanshou had all gone dark. That left Ostrov, Drayton, and Reach to pick up the slack and keep the champagne flowing under the Yellow Sun of Home.
Some theorized colonies went dark because of some world-killing plague. Some thought the missing colonies weren’t really missing, but at war with greedy Earth and cut off from the other colonies by force, lest their revolutionary message spread. That theory was gaining traction for Lee, since it had taken less than two years for Reach to descend from obedient, law-abiding colony into full-fledged civil war.
The turning point for many had been the Farm Expropriation Act. Gov demanded Reach send more food back to Earth, since it couldn’t keep up with the demand of its teeming billions. That meant repatriating private property and modernizing food production. That didn’t sit well with families and communities who had shed blood to make what they had, and things really started cooking after Gov started grabbing land back at the point of a gun.
His farm had been one of those taken. His wife and brother died defending it.
The ‘Reach First’ movement gained mainstream popularity when the news exposed tense standoffs in which some farmers died. Soon, more peaceful demonstrations turned violent. When the public got serious about demanding answers, Gov got serious about mass arrests. Mass arrests beget mass work stoppages, which beget escalating violence, public executions, and finally martial law.
Then, the rebellion. Now, full-on civil war.
Yeah, Lee hoped the next convoy would bring answers, but in the meantime, he had a job to do, and the green splotch of soldier in the sniper scope had just exited a stairwell halfway up the tower.
“Think it’s time for you to go, Detective,” Lee called out behind him.
Once upon a time, Sameen had been a cop—until she turned her back on Earth Gov. Sameen folded her arms over her black tee. The Earther uniform was peeled down and wrapped around her waist. “Nah.”
Lee’s head fell. He’d worried about something like this since General Kapoor had assigned Sameen as his scout. Not because her short but muscular body could fit inside the tiny scout mech that could join his battle suit without drawing the undue attention that two battle suits would. Not just because she was a talented interface, capable of moving the mechanized armor nimbly and lethally. She’d come up through the resistance with Lee and Willard and Jake, and he had no doubt she was the best pilot for the job. No, Lee was pretty sure the general had tasked Sameen with covering his ass because she would gladly get herself killed to keep Lee safe.
Lee felt that same loyalty back, and he’d be damned if he let the woman get killed along with him.
“Move your ass, Ghost!” Lee snarled. “The second after I take this shot, they’re gonna turn me into steam, you get that, right?”
“I’m a way better shot than you, and you got things to do after all this is over. What platoon is gonna follow a former Gov cop into battle? What am I gonna do when this is all over—?”
Lee whirled around. Two powerful strides carried him inches from her face. His eyes tore into hers. “You’ll be alive!” he ground out. “You’ll catch up with…there’s people who care about you outside the unit.”
“Debatable,” Sameen growled back, her lip curling up sassy. The woman never got mad, she just got ready. It was one of the things that made her so good at her job.
“Stubborn bitch.” He tried to fight down a grin. “I’m surprised you and Grunt haven’t shacked up yet.”
“Wrong plumbing.” Sameen looked over Lee’s shoulder, simultaneously bored and eagle-eyed as she scanned the towers. “Besides, we’d both wanna be on top. Probably kill each other before either of us got off.” She weaved past Lee toward the sniper rifle. “Go. I got this, boss.”
Lee put a palm on her chest and bounced her back. “Not this time, Sameen. It’s my responsibility,” he said softly, “but thank you.”
She glared up. Some emotion flashed over Sameen’s face. It didn’t last long, but Lee thought he knew what it was. “I’m not leaving you alone, asshole.”
“I didn’t think you would,” Lee agreed softly. He turned back to the rifle. “How about you go find us a way out?”
“Yes sir, Captain Assho—” Lee looked back. Sameen was already inside her mech, her final words cut off by the hiss of her cockpit sealing shut.
He felt a little of the tension in his chest let up. Sameen Tenjin was quick and lethal in that suit. So long as she was off this roof and out of the spotlight, she’d have a fighting chance to get out of the Row alive.
“Bye Sameen,” he whispered, without looking back.
The scout mech barely made a sound as it leaped off the roof.
By then, the scope had guided Lee’s eyes back to the green outline of his target. Just in time, too: the soldier’s outline was exiting the stairwell on a floor with a dozen warm bodies.
“Let’s get this party started.”
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
Noelle’s situation report from the ground finally arrived, in the form of an enlisted man covered in sweat and gasping for air. The CO on the ground added nothing Noelle hadn’t already known. The attack was deemed a probe of the Row’s defenses. The Reachers had committed just a few mechanized soldiers. Ten, fifteen at most. Spotters from all towers confirmed no mass troop movements behind them.
She tossed the man a canteen, dismissed him and started down the hall to Commander Winter’s office…with absolutely no news to report.
#
Through the scope, Lee watched the
green outline trek back downstairs at a much slower pace. It had met with only one other figure; the scope auto-tagged this one in blue. After Green’s departure, Blue had walked along the inward face of the tower, towards a room with only one occupant.
Was this the Supreme Big Cheese of the Row? Or another rung in the ladder?
He waited.
#
Noelle rapped on the door, then did a double take. The door looked like wood. She dragged a nail across: it was wood. A priceless commodity on a desert planet that had no trees. Except in the agriculture domes, humidity almost never rose above ten per. Yet this wood showed no splits or cracks, no gap from shrinkage between the door and the jamb.
Just another reminder how rich Earth Gov was.
“Come.”
Noelle opened the door—by an old-fashioned doorknob, she noticed, and metal to boot— and stepped inside, putting the opulence of Gov building materials out of her mind. The commander smiled warmly and beckoned to her. “It won’t be long now, Carson!”
She closed the door, stepped primly to the desk, and saluted.
He smiled and waved his hand. “At ease.”
She relaxed, and smiled. “I hope it won’t be long, Commander, but you’ll be greeting our reinforcements from another office.”
Commander Winter crossed his arms and leaned a hip on the table. “What? Another move? I may have moved up through the ranks quicker than most, but even I can recognize a toothless drive-by when I see one.”
Noelle manufactured a disapproving scowl. Commander Daniel Winter was a good man, and a good leader. He listened to his subordinates and he considered the welfare of his men. Cute, too, with the curly grey hair. None of that was going to keep him from hauling ass, unless he sent her to the brig first. She jabbed her thumb to the two mechanized battle suits standing on the inside wall of the room. “Let’s go, sir. The fleas cut us off from our satellites and secure comms. Regulations state we assume we are being closely surveilled and escort the ranking officer to a safe—”
The commander pushed off the desk, hands raised in the air. “I surrender,” he chuckled. “But please, get me an office with a view? I want to see the show when the convoy arrives.”
“Yes, sir,” Noelle said, turning her frown upside down now that she knew Winter wasn’t going to fuss.
She was looking forward to ‘the show’ too, as unlikely as that would have seemed even a few months ago.
‘The show’ was a grim title first responders to Folds events used to describe the chaos unleashed when a convoy popped back into regular spacetime. A Fold collapse unleashed massive electromagnetic and gravitic disturbances. One of the first convoys to return to Earth had tossed out an electromagnetic pulse so strong it fried networks on two continents. Add to that shockwaves that spawned unpredictable and violent storms, crushed planes, and generated ‘end-of-days’ level orbital light shows as the energy wash tickled the Aurora Borealis.
Here and now, with Gov on the brink of being wiped out by a superior force of ruthless colonists, ‘the show’ conjured none of the mixed feelings of convoys past.
They were praying for it.
Commander Winter grabbed two folders from the desk and winked at Noelle. “Let’s go.”
Damn, Noelle thought, walking around the table and following the commander to the waiting mechs. That wink could have gotten her in trouble, if Daniel Winter wasn’t her commanding officer. “Yes si—”
A sudden drop in pressure stabbed her ears. She looked back at the window, watched a spiderweb of cracks spread out from a small impact hole. The entire window shattered, every shard tumbling out into the hungry Reach sky.
Her service pistol in one hand, her other on the commander’s back, she pushed him toward their mechs, only steps away. She worked her jaw and took big bites of air to equalize the pressure tormenting her eardrums.
Out of nowhere, the suit and the wall behind it were covered in reds and grays.
Commander Winter fell. Noelle fell on top of him, shielding him with her body.
The Commander didn’t move.
Her fingers were on his neck, feeling for a pulse, when she saw the hole in the back of his head. And realized what that was, sprayed all over the walls.
Her eyes changed shape, trembling for just a moment. The wail of pain never made it to her throat. She stuffed it back down, stumbled over to the mech with a pale green leaf stencilled on its chest, and climbed inside.
She’d say goodbye later.
Now, she hunted.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
Mission accomplished, Lee dropped the sniper rifle, turned and ran flat out for his mech.
Bullets strafed the roof from two different angles. Miraculously, Lee was only bleeding from cuts on his palms after his baseball slide between the mech’s armored legs. Impacts pinged off those legs and he screamed his terror as he swiped at the display on his wrist.
He looked across the roof in time to see the casings explode off the heavy crates lined up beforehand. Each box rose on four metallic limbs. Each oriented itself towards the incoming fire. Checkerboard shapes popped out of the top of each automated missile box, and a dozen tiny flames raced after their targets.
A series of thumps touched off bright explosions atop neighbouring buildings. The bullets stopped flying.
Lee got to his feet and scrambled up into the cockpit of his mech.
No time for easing into the mind/machine connection, Lee puffed three quick breaths and jammed his head into the interface crown. Two giant sledgehammers tag-teamed his temples. His stomach lodged an acid complaint with his throat. He ignored his body and focused on the HUD flickering into existence on his retina.
When ‘All Systems Green’ popped up, he barked a short laugh—which died when a high-pitched alarm tore at his ears and a yellow target box zeroed in on the tower window he had just destroyed. Lee watched a bloodstained mech jump out the window and engage its thrusters.
With a blink of his eye and a finger twitch, he painted the mech and tasked both missile boxes with vaporizing it. Vibrations ran down both arms as his tri-cannons spun up.
Countermeasures from the Earther mech intercepted the fire from the missile boxes. The pilot was skilled enough to attack at the same time as defend, incinerating the missile box on Lee’s left with its arm cannons. Something he couldn’t see sliced through a chunk of his building, which slid soundlessly towards the ground, like a chunk of butter after the proverbial hot knife, carrying the other pod down with it.
Cool, Lee thought. A plasma cannon.
He tried not to shit his pants.
It was Lee’s turn: all three barrels on both arms unleashed a barrage of railgun rounds and chemically propelled slugs, both small-calibre and big-bore. His skilled opponent had anticipated the flak, and dove below roof level for cover.
His scans couldn’t penetrate the building, but Lee knew what he’d do in the enemy mech pilot’s position. He pounded his mech’s legs forward. He was almost at the ledge when the roof behind him exploded. Loud pings from lucky hits rang through the mech’s hull. In half a second, the pilot would have a lock on him, and every round fired would explode dead center in his back.
Luckily, Lee had wired motion-sensors on the three narrow cases he’d dropped on the roof behind his suit. He leaped off the roof, letting himself plummet to the ground.
Big explosion. Big shockwave. Lee gunned his thrusters but they stalled on backwash from the explosion. His mind flashed the thoughts, his fingers fumbled for emergency measure, but the thrusters weren't coming back.
The ground, however, wasn’t going anywhere.
The mech slammed face-first into a statue of some founding Father of Reach, and Lee was unconscious before he fell the rest of the way to the ground.
#
How did they get in here? Noelle raged as she pumped max-thrust into the jets on the back of her suit. She told herself this wasn’t just revenge: this might be the only way to stall a mass attack. If Noell
e stopped the intruder before they reported in, there was a chance she could save more lives.
Either way—duty or revenge—she wanted the shooter dead.
She fired off a curtain of hot, active chaff to distract any missiles defending the sniper. Sure enough, the small cylinders started exploding, absorbing killing blows meant for her.
Before the target-acquisition warning rattled her already-hurting eardrums, the bottom half of her HUD flashed red boxes and data for three targets on the roof: an enemy mech and two missile boxes. The mech’s pilot was still wriggling his way inside, so with two blinks and a slide of her hand, she dealt with the missile boxes. A full stream from her right tri-cannon blew one missile pod into trash. A bolt of plasma screamed out of the vent on her left shoulder. The mech’s lights dimmed when she fired, and her energy reserves dropped almost a quarter, but it got the job done. And then some.
Plasma bolts had a kill range of five kilometres. Under a hundred metres, they baked exposed flesh and started fires. Noelle was only thirty metres out when she launched the bolt. It sent the missile box, along with a sizeable portion of roof, down to the ground.
Her approach was taking too long. Another shoe was going to drop, Noelle knew it—so she dropped first. Cutting her thrusters shed altitude and put the roof of the building between her and any incoming fire. Laying on the thrust again, she circled the building and climbed, already firing when she cleared the roof directly behind the mech’s last position.
An explosion savaged her, its shockwave slapping her through the air like a backhanded mosquito. She hurtled end over end, the lights in her cockpit flickering, until she cratered through the wall of a neighbouring building.
The explosion roared over and over. The building shook. She tore through an interior wall like paper, before tumbling to a stop in a heap of stone, metal girders, and wall dust.