by P. R. Adams
They pushed into the forest, Corporal Dunne at the point. Like Morant, Dunne was small and wiry, and he could maintain a pace even Rimes had trouble matching. More importantly, Dunne was a natural in Plymouth’s forest. His ability to navigate in the dark without BAS assistance was almost prescient. And now, with the jungle little more than a shifting emerald and jet-black dreamscape, he was at his best.
The squad managed a kilometer in ten minutes. It was mostly downslope as the forest descended toward the Tucker River, and mostly over a path they knew well, even if it wouldn’t look like a path to any but the most well-trained eye.
They came to a halt, winded. Rimes signaled for the squad to maintain radio silence, then he popped his visor; the squad did the same. Immediately, the vibrant, chaotic aromas—simultaneously sweet, musky, and acrid—brought home memories of the forest. Dunne sent one of his men up a towering, bushy tree to watch the path back to post, then brought everyone else in close for Rimes to chat with them.
“We have more than one hundred mercenaries on our tail,” Rimes said, dispensing with any notion of breaking the reality to them slowly. They were at war and didn’t need any sugar with their medicine. “I haven’t seen much sign they’ve been this deep—”
“It’s there, Colonel.” Dunne nodded toward the path. “Not many. A patrol, maybe.”
Dunne was an excellent tracker, and there was certainty in his eyes.
“All right. We press on and try again. There’s a ridge not too far from here, about five hundred meters away. I want a heavy weapons team up on that ridge. It’s fairly clear for several meters, and this path runs right below. Get some more folks in the trees a little ways in. We’ll want to split them down the middle, try to force them to commit to fighting in two groups. I’ll take two men with me and set up a—”
A high-pitched bird call cut into the forest’s relative silence. Rimes looked up at the man in the tree, who gave three quick hand waves, then signaled that the mercenary forces were approaching quickly before scrambling down the tree.
Rimes cursed beneath his breath. He’d hoped the mercenaries would be confused and slow to react without their metacorporate leaders.
They must have more former non-commissioned or officers in their ranks. So many millions dumped from militaries back home, plenty of them capable. Can't keep assuming this will be anything like Sahara. They could get away with young soldiers going up against a little research station. This is different, personal.
“Corporal, get your men to that ridge.” Rimes slid his visor down and fell into line behind the others.
Once again the squad established a quick pace, now shifting off of what passed as the main trail and onto a lesser used path. Rimes was familiar with the path, although not so much that he could let his mind drift. Tangled roots and hidden slicks made the steeper descent treacherous even with his mind sharply focused. It was an excellent trail to familiarize new recruits with Plymouth’s grueling forest ways.
Rimes felt a hand on his shoulder and slowed, turning to see the young man who’d climbed up the tree signaling that he wanted to talk. Sweat glistened on his mahogany skin, and his dark eyes never left the path behind them. Rimes opened his visor. “What is it?”
“They’re closing fast. Faster than they should. I think they’re stimmed, Colonel. Maybe they’re Kimmies?”
Chemical enhancements. Wonderful.
Rimes pulled out the last of his shredder mines. “Go on ahead. I’ll leave a little surprise for them.”
The kid disappeared in the darkness, leaving only the slightest movement of a couple overhanging branches to mark his passage. Rimes took the time to set the three shredders for maximum effectiveness, each buried inside an open space, and pointed to project the bulk of its flechette payload into the same open area. Trees wouldn’t take the flechettes; the mercenaries would.
Rimes longed for standard fragmentation mines. Shredders weren’t ideal for hopped-up people in heavy combat armor, but they were all he had left. He hoped the kid was wrong and that they weren’t up against chemically enhanced opponents. It sure sounded like they were. He needed the trap to buy them the time they needed to set their ambush.
Can we even get the plan laid out before they’re on us? I can’t risk using the communicators right now, not until we’re sure they haven’t hacked our encryption and signals.
He slid his visor down and confirmed the shredders wouldn’t show even if the mercenaries had enhanced optics, then turned and dashed into the forest. He moved too quickly for his own comfort. He called up a map of the region—spotty despite their years of trailblazing and training—and whenever a landmark rose from the gloom in front of him tried to gauge how far out they were from the ridge.
Rimes scolded himself for pushing too hard, taking too many risks, but he continued to do so. A clearing appeared in front of him, and he glanced ahead on the map, spotting the ridge he’d had in mind.
Seventy-six meters and some change. Go!
The shredders exploded behind him, loud in the forest’s surprising quiet. Screams—the wounded—reached Rimes, even as the roar of the explosion faded. The mercenaries were close. Rimes glanced back, and his boot struck a protrusion.
He fell face first. His armor absorbed the worst of the fall, but he came up wincing and momentarily disoriented. Despite the adrenaline rushing through his veins his left ankle ached, and his right shoulder burned. He got to his feet and ran, doing his best to ignore the pain. Each pump of his arms sent fire through his chest, and the ankle simply couldn’t hold up to his needs. He slowed and, thanks to the BAS’ sound amplification, knew just how close the mercenaries were now.
The sounds of twigs snapping and boots tearing away clumps of soft dirt came to him with frightening clarity. The mercenaries were closing. Heavy panting, gasping, cursing, the irregular clatter of weapons and armor; the BAS’s amplified audio reception picked it all up. He could feel the mercenaries spreading out around him like dogs closing on a winded fox.
Nearly on me.
The visor displayed the distance to his destination, an amber counter indicating fifty meters to target. The mercenaries were half that distance behind him.
Rimes pushed himself, refusing to fall to the butchers so easily.
Thirty meters, and the first shots rang out, crashing into trees around him. A branch fell to the ground four meters in front of him. Even in this dense forest they were finding their range.
Rimes ducked and twisted, cutting behind a tree to his right, sprinting as best he could before ducking behind another tree and then turning to his left. There was a lull in the gunfire, and Rimes thought for a moment he might have lost them. A second later he heard the crash of booted feet closing and realized the true reason the firing had stopped. They had someone nearly on him.
Too close! C’mon!
Fourteen meters flashed on his readout. Rimes sought out new reservoirs of strength, roaring defiantly at the pain in his ankle and shoulder. The other runner was close.
Ten meters, and Rimes could see the main path ahead and below, the ridge of a low hill just beyond it. Nine meters, and he toyed with the idea of compromising security. The ambush wouldn’t work. The numbers were too great, the stim-enhanced mercenaries too powerful.
At eight meters the runner hit Rimes.
They tumbled to the ground, rolling downhill while clinched tight, and then they came to a stop against a thick tree trunk next to the main path. When they impacted, Rimes found himself beneath the other man, who was nearly the same size.
Rimes smashed his helmet into the mercenary’s visor with desperate force. The move bought a split second, just long enough for Rimes to drive a knee up into the mercenary’s hip. It was a solid blow, but it wasn’t enough. The stims were blocking out any pain.
The mercenary roared and drove a fist into Rimes’s faceplate. The impact left a dull imprint where the faceplate buckled.
What the hell? It can withstand a bullet strike!
Suddenly, more mercenaries burst from the trail above, closing on Rimes. He saw a dozen, then two, then three. His attention was mostly focused on warding off his opponent’s blows, countering them with forearm strikes that left his arms aching at first, then numb.
Another mercenary closed in and shoved his assault rifle against Rimes’s faceplate. With detached curiosity Rimes noticed the assault rifle was completely different from those used on Sahara.
Before Rimes had the chance to discover whether he would be executed or tortured to death, gunfire erupted. Rimes cursed himself for not having told the squad to move on without him. His near-irrational obsession with operational security was going to cost Plymouth its best hope of rescue.
The mercenary with the assault rifle pressed to Rimes’s face spun, as if trying to track the source of the gunfire. A crack, and he fell backwards, blood bubbling from a hole in his face. He crashed into the mercenary on top of Rimes. With the other mercenary distracted, Rimes drove the heel of his palm into the mercenary’s throat, catching him where his helmet and a weaker section of armor met. The mercenary jerked backward, and Rimes used the momentum to push the mercenary off and roll free. With a little space now separating them, Rimes pulled out his sidearm, pivoted on his butt, and sent three shots into the dazed mercenary.
No sooner had the mercenary collapsed than rounds started to thud into the ground at Rimes’s feet. He rolled behind the tree he’d earlier crashed into, pressing his back against the mighty trunk and looking to his right and left. The mercenaries who’d cleared the forest were either down or retreating, unable to locate the shooters. An explosion erupted from the path above Rimes, and he realized someone had launched a grenade into the forest above, where the rest of the mercenaries were hiding. Dirt and debris pattered off the tree trunk and Rimes’s armor. Another explosion, and the mercenaries fully broke, abandoning their wounded and running.
Seconds passed, and Rimes listened, waiting. Finally, the gunfire stopped. Rimes scanned the ridge and saw Dunne descend with the kid who’d spotted the mercenaries from the tree. A moment later, a squad appeared to Rimes’s right, exiting the forest opposite the hill he’d rolled down. They looked haggard, as if they’d been in the forest for some time. Rimes stood, ready to welcome the other squad. He stopped, shocked, as the other squad sighted on the nearest wounded mercenaries.
“Wait—” Rimes held up a hand, confused.
The other squad methodically executed the mercenaries.
14
13 December, 2173. Plymouth Colony.
* * *
Rimes ran toward the haggard men, faceplate raised, arms waving over his head. “Hold your fire!”
The haggard men’s signals lit up his BAS—names, ranks, vitals. He came to a stop in front of Sergeant Steven Gwambe, the ranking soldier. “Sergeant, what’s going on here? We don’t execute prisoners of war.”
Gwambe lifted his own faceplate and looked at Rimes with bloodshot, dark eyes that seemed full of confusion. His long face was gaunt, and his full lips twitched as if he were on the verge of crying. He reeked of fear and desperation. Leaves and vines covered sections of his soiled armor. “Colonel Rimes? Sir, you have no idea what has gone on while you were away.”
Rimes took in all the men gathered around and did his best to find a place of calm. “I realize that, and I look forward to what insights you and your squad can provide, but—” He pointed at the executed mercenaries. “We can’t do this. There are rules of war, and we’re obligated to follow them.”
Another voice called out from behind them. “But Colonel, they have been killing civilians. They do not take prisoners, not even the wounded.”
Rimes winced. Molly. He turned to see who’d spoken. He recognized Corporal Banh, from the Vietnamese platoon, a good soldier. “I’ve seen what they do. They attacked the research station on Sahara. But we can’t let that dictate our behavior.”
“Where would we hold them as captives, sir?” Gwambe asked. “Who would treat them? We have little enough medicine for ourselves.”
Rimes frowned. Gwambe’s tone bordered on insubordinate. “We’ll need to figure that out. For now, though, no more executions.” Rimes clamped his mouth shut when he realized his voice was rising. He looked around at the soldiers—Morant’s squad and the tired group under Gwambe’s command. “Look, I know you must have been through hell just trying to survive out here, but that’s an order.”
Gwambe looked back at his squad, which still had its weapons pointed at the fallen mercenaries. “You heard the colonel.”
The men finally raised their weapons.
There’s a real discipline problem here.
“Sergeant Gwambe, a minute?” Rimes waved for Gwambe to follow. Rimes walked several meters away from the rest and stopped, his back turned to the others. When Gwambe was parallel to him Rimes spoke in a hushed voice. “Sergeant Gwambe—Steven, I need your help here. I see a squad on the edge of disobeying orders. I see a damned good NCO on the edge of insubordination. I need you to boil it down for me. What happened?”
Gwambe sighed shakily, and his wiry frame sagged. Dim lights from inside his helmet reflected off the perspiration coating his coffee-colored skin. His watery, bloodshot eyes glistened. When he spoke his voice was uneven at first but slowly gained strength. “The first we knew about it was the alarm sounding. Lieutenant Genêt from ops said the sensor buoys picked them up—”
“The metacorporate fleet?”
“Yes, Colonel. She scrambled Lieutenant Irvin’s scout ship to investigate. The ships—there were nearly fifty—refused to respond to communications attempts. That’s when she sounded the alarm.”
Rimes nodded reassuringly. “Did they ever communicate?”
“No, Colonel.” Gwambe shook his head vigorously. “Not once. They just attacked. Lieutenant Irvin tried to hail them when she was in visual range, but they just fired missiles. No warnings.”
“Lieuntenant Irvin’s dead?” Rimes asked, even though he already knew the answer. Kara. Lonny, I’m so sorry.
“Yes, Colonel. And after that it was the buoy system and the satellites. We tried to get a warning off to Earth, but we couldn't tell if it made it through.”
“We’ve sent messages to Earth about the attacks, or what we know of them.”
Gwambe closed his eyes, relieved. “We tried to evacuate the civilians but were afraid they would not be safe in Halifax. With the attackers having so many ships, we assumed they would have superior airpower, so we had no confidence we could get everyone to Delta City safely. The major thought of splitting them up with squads and getting them to our rally points.”
“Good call.” Rimes felt momentarily heartened. Plymouth’s forests were teeming with dangerous predators, but very few would risk attacking a squad, and most of those could be driven away with a few well-placed shots. “So you saved the civilians?”
“Some.” Gwambe looked away. “Two hundred. Maybe. The attacks came so quickly, before we could get everyone out.”
“I understand. It was that way on Sahara, too.”
“They came in waves, Colonel. I was not far from here. I saw them. Some of them. Ships dropping straight down into the heart of the post. They destroyed the defense systems with missiles launched from orbit. There were so many.”
“How many?” Rimes asked. He needed the data, but he wanted to give Gwambe a chance to provide it on his own timetable. Rushing would only increase the risk of something vital being missed.
Gwambe thought for a moment, then said. “Five thousand. Maybe more. They would land forces, then launch and bring more. We were outnumbered. Even if we were at full strength…there were so many.”
Five thousand. Fifty ships. It’s insane. “We sent a warning to Captain Shelby. His task force wasn’t scheduled back for another month, so he should be fine.”
“But we need everyone, Colonel. They have so many.”
“I understand. When Shelby returns, his task force will hook up with whatever�
�s left of Brigston’s. Maybe we’ll have reinforcements from Earth by then. We’ll need a good bit more than we have right now to take the skies.”
Gwambe nodded, but he didn’t seem convinced.
“So you abandoned the post and retreated to rally points?”
Gwambe straightened, and a hint of confidence returned to his face. “We did. We heard reports from the survivors. We have heard from other rally points since then also.”
“They haven’t hacked our comms?”
“No, Colonel. We have tried to trick them with false messages to test that. Nothing. They have not hacked comms yet.”
“How many are ‘we’?” Rimes was afraid to hear the answer, but he had to know.
“Not many, Colonel. Not even company strength. Lieutenant Genêt, she is the only officer.”
“Major Pearson didn’t make it?”
Gwambe shook his head slowly. “Banh said the major was trying to arrange a peaceful transfer of civilians. They offered to accept surrender, so the major offered it. When he tried to approach them to conduct the surrender they shot him."
Rimes grunted. Pearson crossed a line, but shooting him in cold blood? “And the civilians?”
“Executed. Most of them.” Gwambe squeezed his eyes shut as if to hold back tears. “Corporal Ngoc saw it as well. Executions. And the bodies. They dragged them into the dormitories and burned them.”
Rimes reeled at the thought of someone conducting mass executions of civilians. Comprehending the metacorporate’s tactics, even their general behavior, was beyond his grasp. They were using terror tactics, acting like animals. Rimes fought back a horrible sense of shame and looked Gwambe in the eye. “Did you hear anything about my family? Did they—”