by J. L. Curtis
Boykin interrupted his thoughts, “Um, do we need to leave? I’m gonna go preflight the Wizard. I’ll be ready to lift in thirty. Come on, Senior.” Grayson got up and followed her out without a word.
Fargo shook his head in frustration as Nicole turned away and picked up the mic, “All sites, this is Chief Sergeant Levesque, I have the radios here. The captain will be launching in thirty segs to provide top cover and a reaction force. Please forward all intel feeds to me here, starting now. I will select what will be forwarded to GalPat.” She looked up at Fargo, made a shooing motion, and said, “You might want to hit the fresher before you mount up.”
Fargo threw up his hands, and stalked out, muttering to himself.
***
Two divs later, Boykin once more circled over Feeder Two scanning with the multispectral systems and looked over a Fargo, “Nothing changed. Still about sixty protesters, but they’re staying back. Can you grab me a box lunch when you go down to the hold?”
Fargo nodded. “Yes, ma’am. I can take the hint.” He got up, stretched, and clambered out of the cockpit. Glancing over, he saw that Grayson was sprawled bonelessly across three seats, apparently sound asleep. Don’t know how the hell he does it. I tried that, I’d be hurting for a week. He hit the rudimentary fresher on the shuttle, replugged his catheter and readjusted his undersuit, PITA, I hate those damn things, but if the crap starts, the last thing I need is to forget that. I don’t feel like…
The ship suddenly swung hard, bouncing him off the bulkhead and spilling Grayson onto the deck, “Captain, you might want to get back up here,” Boykin called over the IC.
He grabbed the box lunch, scrambled up into the cockpit, handed it to her, and asked, “What happened?”
“Apparently, they’re crowding the sonics at Feeder Three, pushed a bunch of what look like children to the front. We’re thirty segs out unless I go ballistic, that will cut ten segs off that time.” She reconfigured the copilot’s screen, “This is what the chief is pushing right now. She’s advised GalPat, but they can’t get there in under two divs.”
“Shit… It’s going down.” Fargo looked at the screen and winced. “I hope they’re not pushing those kids into the sonics. If that happens, it could really go rodeo.” He looked over at Boykin, “Push it up, WO, push it up. I’m going to go gear up.”
Boykin nodded as she started talking to ORBCON and pointing the nose of the shuttle at the sky. Fargo slid down the ladder to the bay, and glanced around. He didn’t see Grayson, then saw the fresher light was on. Smart, always take a piss when you can, especially before gearing up. He climbed up on his armor and reached in, hitting the power button. He felt the frisson of the AI connecting and said, “Cindy, BIT check. Twenty segs to launch.”
He ‘heard’ her snippy response in his mind, “At least this time I actually have the segs needed to do a real BIT check. Commencing.”
“I’ll be back.” He hopped down as Grayson stepped out of the fresher, now wearing his grays. “What are you doing?”
Grayson cocked his head. “Well, Captain, if you’re gonna need a medic, it’ll be kinda hard for me to do medic things in a suit.”
“But this could be a hot landing.”
“That’s why I get the big bucks. I’ll take my chances. Saving lives is what I do, Captain. Can’t do that… Besides, you’ve got other suits out there, right?”
Fargo thought for a second or two, “I guess that makes sense. At least put on soft armor. And a helmet.”
“I’m getting there. Had to piss first. I’ll be ready. And I’m not going charging out when we hit the dirt. I’ll evaluate before I stick my pretty little pink butt out the hatch, trust me.” Grayson turned away and started pulling his soft armor out, along with his pistol.
Technically, he’s not supposed to carry a pistol, but I’m not going to argue with him. And he does have a point, Fargo thought. Mounting up, he wiggled into his armor, hooked up his tubes, and closed it up, “Connect to ship please, Cindy.”
“Connecting.”
He brought up the feed from Nicole and watched it as he thought through options. The vid feed seemed to be static, and he noted the troops appeared to be under cover, with one suit standing between the maintenance van and the Hab, in full stealth. Blinking on the suit ID, it came up as Paras, and he nodded to himself as he tongued the comms over and said, “Feeder Three, Fargo. How copy?”
He heard Daman, “Got you five by. Sit is static. Headcount is now two thirty-six on two fronts. Widest front oriented on the west side, one sixty there, the remainder to the north, they’re using projectors shouting slogans, but nothing overt at this time. Don’t see any more protesters trickling out.”
Fargo switched to the shuttle’s map screen and replied, “Looks like we’re, give or take, twelve segs out, coming in ballistic.”
“Rog. Your spot is clear.”
“Where is the other suit?”
“Umesh is geared up, in the cargo door, waiting to see where he’s needed.”
“Rog, I’m suited up, Senior Grayson is not. He says he can’t do medic from a suit.”
“Concur… Oh shit!”
Fargo watched as people started dropping, like wheat being mowed down in a field, “What? Who fired on them,” he yelled.
Daman said, “It wasn’t us. It wasn’t us! And there are people down north of the site too!”
Fargo watch as people stampeded away from the site, barely hearing Boykin saying, “Grounding in one seg. Prep.” When he didn’t respond, she yelled, “Prep, dammit! Thirty seconds! Get your ass to the ramp! You are released. Move your ass, Captain!”
Fargo looked down with the camera and saw Grayson give him a thumbs up, then he stepped slowly forward to the ramp, and positioned himself in the center of it. Grayson, his medic gear bag over his shoulder, moved up to the ramp controls. He focused back on the feed, noting that the Ghorkas were boiling out of the Hab and surveillance vans, grabbing whatever medical gear was handy. He keyed up, “Nobody out of the site. Everybody stand by. Umesh, on me as soon as I unass from the shuttle.”
He heard Umesh roger up, and saw the blip move on his HUD even as Boykin landed the shuttle pointing nose toward the western side of the site. Grayson hit the ramp switch and charged off the shuttle as the ramp dropped. He heard somebody say something about incoming fire from the overwatch position, and saw the vid zoom in on the window in the building to the west, with what appeared to be a rifle protruding from the window and recoiling. “Gahdammit Grayson, get your ass under cover.”
He stepped off the ramp, cleared the side of the shuttle and told Cindy, “Gustav, thermobaric up.” He felt the momentary vibration as the Gustav rifle deployed, ammo was loaded and the rifle’s carat appeared on his HUD.
“Gustav up, Captain,” echoed through his mind, even as he took in the situation.
The world seemed to slow down as his neural lace kicked fully into combat/command mode, and he said calmly, “Back blast clear. Target. I will take the window. Standby to jump, Umesh. I’ll jump and fire down into the building, I want you to jump just short of the building, to the left of the window. You’ll be on my left.”
He heard the double click, jumped and centered the carat on the window, “Firing. One round, one round only.” He made the firing motion with his finger and the round rocketed out of the gun, impacted the back wall of the room, and blew out the window. He saw at least two bodies come flying out, and called, “Impact.” He used the flight time to catalog any other possible weapons. Seeing none, he said, “Drop sonics and repulsors, medical support up. WO, stand by to receive injured. Activate GalPat protocol for wounded, notify ORBCON we’ll need maximum medical support. Chief, get Colonel Zhu to dispatch…”
He heard Horse break in, “Feeder Two taking fire. And protesters are down. Before you ask, we did not fire either.”
Barun chimed in, “Feeder One, no action. Wait, protesters are dispersing. Now running in a panic. We have not fired either.”
&nb
sp; Grayson was already running out of the site, heading toward the pile of bodies on the west side, as Fargo and Umesh landed in front of the building.
Fargo focused his camera on what was left of the window and saw a rifle barrel pointing at him, but realized there was no one behind it. Panning down, he saw one male body, obviously dead, lying between him and Umesh. A second body lay near his feet, and he heard a moan. Carefully flipping the body over, he recognized Eric Smallwell, badly burned, and missing a hand. Scooping him up, he said, “Umesh, remain here on guard until the security forces get here. I’m taking this one to Grayson, maybe he can save him.”
He jumped back over the spread out bodies, landed and walked forward to where Grayson was, “Senior, need you to treat this one.”
Grayson looked up, annoyed, “Why? I’ve got my hands full here.”
“This one needs to answer some questions and go to trial for murder. He killed Shanni and Lev.”
Grayson popped up, “I can do that. Put him over here.” Fargo lowered Smallwell and stepped back, surveying the scene as Grayson bent over him, “Yeah, I’ll gladly save your ass so I can watch you hang, you sumbitch.”
Daman waved, “Got a shooter over here. Looks like a needle gun. It’s been modified to fire full auto. And this seems to be the center of the damage to the protesters.”
“Mark it, but don’t move it. I’m jumping to the northern side.” Fargo jumped and landed near the bodies on the north side, just as Cheetri broadcast, “Found another pistol over here. Right in the middle of carnage. Looks like ten dead over here.”
Daman counted, “Forty-eight dead over here, path of needles appears to be twenty yards wide, most damage plus or minus five yards from the shooter, then extending to the left.”
Grayson said, “At least twenty wounded here. Probably half won’t make it.”
Fargo said, “Daman, get somebody questioning the survivors and recording answers.”
“Already on it.”
“Feeder Two, status?”
“Ten down, fifteen in custody. Needler over here too. Marked, vid captured, questioning survivors. Looks like eight dead, two may not survive.”
“WO, you ready to lift?”
Boykin came back, “As soon as I need to. Where to?”
“Let’s load the wounded here, then jump to Feeder Two, pick their wounded up and buster to the Palace. Have the medics meet you there. Grayson, you’ll go with them.”
“Rog. Need some help moving the wounded.”
“All hands turn to. Move the wounded to the shuttle.”
Umesh called, “Security is on scene. They are wanting to know what happened.”
“On my way. You go on the shuttle in armor.”
“Roger. Jumping.”
Fargo jumped to where the security forces were standing around, landed and keyed his external speakers, “Who is in charge here?”
A slovenly security force sergeant turned around, “I am. Get outta that rig. You’re under arrest for…”
Fargo took a step closer to the man, Just what I need, a fucking bully. Gotta end this now.
“I don’t think so. Are you going to be an idiot, or are you going to listen?”
The sergeant blustered, “Arrest every one of these idiots for murder. Stupid off-worlders, come in here and fuck everything up.”
Fargo saw the four other security personnel look at each other, but none of them moved. “Smart move, gentlemen. It’s not in your best interest to be as stupid as your sergeant right now. My men are a bit touchy at the moment. GalPat has been notified and is on the way. And, if you’d bothered to check, all of my men are armed with bead rifles, not needlers.”
The sergeant pointed up at the window, “That wasn’t done with a needler!”
“No it wasn’t. I did that with the Gustav on my shoulder, since the dead man right there was trying to kill my troops with a bead rifle that you can see hanging out of the window. I took action to save my troops.”
“But you’re not allowed to use armor!”
“On the contrary, our ROE specifically allows us to defend ourselves. Also, you will find illegal needle guns, modified to fire fully automatic in the middle of both groups of dead. We never fired at the protesters.”
“They didn’t kill themselves,” the sergeant yelled.
“Effectively they did. Our defensive measures caused their rounds to bounce back into the crowd,” And I hope to Deity I can prove that from the surveillance vid. Otherwise, we’re screwed.
Two sonic booms interrupted their confrontation, as two GalPat shuttles did crash arrivals, one inside the site, and one south of the site in one of the safe zones.
Fargo, looming over the sergeant, reached for his mind, and pushed, “I’d suggest you secure this site and that building until you are relieved by GalPat.” With that, he turned and jumped toward the shuttle inside the site.
Chaos
The GalPat captain in charge of the platoons had thrown out a perimeter of troopers in full armor extending into the edge of the village, even as Fargo and his troops retreated to the site. A lieutenant was with each platoon, and they’d gone to TACCOM settings on their armor, preventing Fargo and the others from hearing what orders were being given.
Fargo and Umesh climbed out of their armor, closing it up, but leaving the suits crouched in plain sight, as they waited to see what would happen next. They were assailed by the stench of ruptured bodies, blood, and death. Fargo pinched his nose, swallowed and turned as Daman came out of the surveillance van, closely followed by McDougal, “What do you think, Captain?”
“I think we’ve got chaos personified here and at Feeder Two. Have you locked the recordings from the systems?”
“Yes, all locked down and transmitted to the Chief as soon as she called for them. She’s collating all the data at the Palace. I didn’t see your data, though.”
“I was linked to the shuttle, not to you. I’m pretty sure the warrant has forwarded it. At least I hope to hell she has. “Any of our people hurt?”
“Negative. And all weapons are safed and back in the weapons locker, just in case.” Daman nodded toward the GalPat armor on the perimeter, and the shuttles with weapons ports open.
“Good! Now all we can do is wait.” He glanced at McDougal, “Well, looks like your little system worked. Probably a little too well.”
McDougal gulped and turned an interesting shade of pale, “Yes, sir. I never tested…never thought…rocks…”
Fargo projected calm to him, “Not blaming you, Mac. You probably, no, you did save our folks’ lives. We’ll deal with the impact on the protesters at my level or higher, okay?”
“Thank you, Captain. I—”
Grayson limped over, covered in blood, “Well, that is a clusterfuck I don’t want to repeat.”
“What are you doing here? I thought you were on the shuttle?”
Grayson shrugged. “I did what I could, but we had more injured than would fit on the shuttle. I triaged them, loaded the worst ones, and sent… somebody with them.”
Daman replied, “That was Jeewan. His secondary is medic.”
“Twelve turned over to the local medics. Most of them will make it, some will need some reconstructive work. Your shitbird was alive when he went on the shuttle.”
Fargo stepped into the surveillance van, followed by the others, “What have you got for a count?”
Daman slumped into a chair, “Looks like fifty-eight dead, fifteen, no, twenty-seven injured. Hari marked all the positions as we swept the site. Fifteen transported. Two weapons IDed in the crowd, both full auto needle pistols. The one to the west was empty, the one to the north had a half mag left. That one was in a female’s hand.”
Fargo winced, turning to Hari he said, “Contact Feeder Two, and see what their status is, please.”
Hari keyed up, “Feeder Three, Feeder Two. Ekavir wants a count. Dead and injured.”
Moments later, Horse responded, “Ten dead, five children. Nine injured, thr
ee children. Archer City medical has the injured. We waved the shuttle off since medical already had the wounded. We had a perimeter set, no one is anywhere near us right now. Security forces took over the perimeter, but I think most of them are in shock. One of them IDed the guy with the needle gun as Hayden Archer.”
Hayden Archer, why does that name ring a bell…wait, isn’t that one of the names Nicole and Jace kicked out as being… “Interesting. Tell him thanks, and to forward that to Nic…Chief Sergeant, if he hasn’t already.”
Grayson sagged in a chair, and Fargo noticed his hands trembling, “You okay, Senior?”
“Adrenalin dump. I’ll get over it.”
Daman said, “I’ll get an emergency bar.” He opened the door and Fargo followed him out, “How are you doing, Daman?”
“Okay. This isn’t nearly as bad as the Sonneburg riots.”
Fargo flinched, “You were in that mess? Didn’t they have something over a thousand dead?”
Daman shrugged. “We had to go clean it up. We didn’t get there until three days after it happened. This is clean compared to that.”
“Damn. Not to change the subject, but food is probably a good idea. All I’ve had is… breakfast. Hope the warrant got rid of that box lunch I left on the shuttle.”
“Or Umesh grabbed it. He eats more than anybody I’ve ever seen. I don’t know how Aliza keeps him fed.”
Fargo shook his head. “Not going there. One thing I learned is never get between folks and their food. Hopefully there is coffee in this one,” he said as he punched the autochef on.
“There is, but you may not like the food selections. We…uh…modified them.”
“Oh deity…Not peppers. Or Curry.”
Daman sighed, “Sorry. Want me to order for you?”
“Please.”
***
A div later, they heard another shuttle coming in for a landing, and Fargo got up with a groan. He shook Daman, “Looks like more arrivals. Make sure we’ve got everybody’s statements on those data cubes. I know whoever investigates is going to want them. And hopefully, these are the investigators.” I cannot believe we’ve been sitting here for almost three divs without a single person talking to us. Not even anyone from security force has shown up, nor has anyone been allowed inside the GalPat perimeter to start recovery of the bodies.