Brothers in Arms

by Ben Weaver

  No response.

  “Squad? Are you ready?” cried Beauregard.

  “Sir, we’re ready, sir!” they shouted.

  “Very well. Go! Go! Go!”

  As Halitov faded into the swirling wind, followed closely by Dina, I looked to Beauregard, who had sounded so much like Pope that I wondered if he realized it.

  “Déjà vu?” he asked.

  “Yeah.”

  “Wish he was with us. And Scott, keep an eye on my Dina for me, will you?”

  Guilt stricken, I nodded, bounded down the ramp, and sprinted right. A string of hillocks carried me up a half dozen meters, and I caught a glimpse of the security team through draperies of dust. The three had already readjusted their G settings and stomped on as though in Earth-normal gravity. I kept my setting to Mars-normal, taking three-and four-meter strides.

  Once Beauregard and I found a position up top, we would send out the security people to establish a perimeter. Halitov, Dina, and Lee would journey on to the HQ to gather as much intell as they could. Cannon emplacements and garrison numbers had probably changed since the recordings we had downloaded at the briefing.

  Beauregard, his G setting also Mars-normal, sailed by me, then floated down into a gully and wasted no time ascending the next hill. The hillocks heaved into a significant ridgeline bearing an uncanny resemblance to the one back on Gatewood-Callista. I wanted to tell Beauregard that we should not follow that line, but I doubted he would listen to my superstition.

  “Recon team? Report?” cried Beauregard.

  “We’re moving in,” answered Halitov. “One hundred meters from their wire. Looks like standard concertina shield. Only way that’s coming down is if we kill the people generating it.”

  Standard concertina shield provided a ten-meter-high energy barrier around the headquarters, and it, like the rest of the place, was powered by the life forces of individuals inside. The fence did not present a significant problem for conditioned combatants, but bringing down that shield would afford us a faster extraction in case our conditioning failed. I voiced that concern once I met up with Beauregard, who agreed that once we got inside, we would target the personnel generators as the DX people planted their charges.

  “Looks like we got the same three big dishes,” Halitov went on. “Standard hemispherical bunker top. Count four cannon emplacements at cardinal points relative to the bunker. I’m picking up some sniper nests in the foothills. Holy shit. How the fuck?”

  “Halitov?” shouted Beauregard.

  “Fall back!” he screamed. “Lee? Forrest? Fall back!”

  “Halitov? Report!” demanded Beauregard. “Halitov?”

  No reply. And none from Dina or Lee, either, though the blue dots representing them continued beaming on my viewer, their vitals elevated but strong.

  Beauregard’s voice broke as he belched out orders. “Security team? Move in on recon’s position. DX? Bring me up on your HUVs. Maintain a hundred-meter gap east. Move out!” He threw an urgent look my way. “Get over there. Find out what’s wrong.”

  16

  Halitov, Dina, and Lee had ascended dangerously close to the HQ, so close that I assumed their skin emissions had been detected. Fortunately, I was wrong. But what Halitov had seen made me wish they had been spotted.

  Darting across the ridge, my pace hinging on the bond, I overshot their location, descended the mountainside facing away from the HQ’s colossal dishes, and picked up all three of them in my HUV as they hustled back toward Beauregard’s position, with our security team still headed toward them.

  “Halitov? I’m behind you. Report.”

  “Just fall back,” he told me.

  I ducked behind a wide boulder and paused to survey the area. No movement, heat sources, skin emissions. Empty zone. What the hell was he talking about? I climbed about twenty meters to the summit, dropped to my stomach, and peered over the edge. About thirteen Marines moved slowly along the opaque shield barrier’s exterior side. They divided and began checking for integrity with scanning wands, their skins blending in so thoroughly with the shield’s crimson camouflage that I could only pick them out via minute traces of skin emissions. They shifted causally, their rifles held loosely in their free hands.

  “Commander,” I said on Beauregard’s private channel. “I’m monitoring the target at a range of three-two-two-point-four meters. Got a squad outside the fence. Standard perimeter sweep. I have no idea why Halitov called for retreat.”

  “Better get back,” he answered. “I do.”

  I shifted around the boulder—

  And faced a Western Alliance Marine, his gray-and-azure utilities suddenly hidden by his skin’s camouflage of burnt sienna washing into a deep clay red that then mirrored the landscape, rendering him invisible to the naked eye. Via my HUV I saw that he stood a half-head taller than me, his tan, angular face growing visible a second—Jarrett, is that you?—before he slapped my rifle away with a blow so strong that I gasped. He reached for my neck, oblivious to the rebound of our skins. But his skinned hands passed through my shield and locked onto my throat. I saw his face again. He was not my brother.

  My K-bar slid easily from its hip sheath. I plunged the blade into what should have been the Marine’s chest. I had stabbed air. In the millisecond it had taken for me to pull out the blade, he had released my neck to somersault two meters back. He withdrew his own K-bar, bent his knees, and muttered a report to his CO. We had just lost the element of surprise.

  Three dust clouds rose behind the Marine, neared him, then gathered into the forms of Beauregard, Lee, and Halitov, their rifles trained on the guard.

  “He’s conditioned,” I said. “Don’t fire.”

  But they ignored me. Three lightning-licked beads converged on the Marine, then curled back and targeted my comrades. But those diverted beads struck three more walls that bent them back toward the Marine. Within a few seconds, an extraordinary gauntlet of rebounding rounds clogged the air between them.

  At once I realized what Beauregard and the others were doing. With the Marine’s attention focused on them, I lunged at his back with my blade, drove it down across his neck, ripped it across his spine, then withdrew and severed his jugular.

  “Hold your fire,” Beauregard cried.

  The Marine dropped. Once-ricocheting beads unfurled and dug long tracks across the ridge. Then the cacophony fell off into the droning wind.

  “I think the whole garrison’s conditioned,” said Halitov. “We watched those perimeter guards jump the fence. Low G or not, you don’t do that without a little alien help.”

  “But how?” I asked. “Exeter’s the only conditioning site, and the alliances didn’t learn of its existence until the attack. They’re already producing conditioned Marines? What about the accident? The machines are back on-line? Maybe these are just former guardsmen who chose the alliances.”

  “Or maybe the alliances have discovered another conditioning site,” said Beauregard. “In which case, we’ve already lost this war.”

  I heaved a sigh. “We can speculate later. They already know we’re here. I say we withdraw. Maybe Doyle can reinforce us.”

  Beauregard shook his head. “Squad? Are you ready?”

  “We’re ready, sir!” came a shout from all but me.

  “It’s suicide,” I shouted.

  “What I’ve been saying,” added Halitov.

  “Our mission is to take that HQ,” Beauregard fired back. “And we’re taking it. Everybody check your HUVs. I’ve noted your positions. Get in place. On my mark you will launch from the foothills and descend onto the HQ grounds. Security team takes the entrance. Recon and DX will supply diversion. DX? You’ll drop the bombs as we go in. Expect heavy fire. Find the bonds. Use the arts. You know what to do. Move out!”

  “Find the bonds. Use the arts. What a crock of shit,” Halitov said over my private channel as he charged off. “He’s fuckin’ us because he doesn’t wanna disappoint his fuckin’ daddy.”

  “Scott?�
� Dina called. “If they’re all conditioned, then we’ll really need you.”

  I didn’t know what to say. “Yeah. Okay.”

  With my designated position flashing in my HUV, I stared a moment more at Beauregard, then swung around and shot off, paralleling a jagged fissure that twisted down into the foothills. Beauregard gave the signal two seconds before I reached the crest of my hill. As I ran straight off the edge, the others plunged toward the HQ: Paris, Stark, and Ochoa from the north; Ramsey, Zhai, and Hooker from the south; Halitov, Dina, and Lee from the east; and Beauregard, whose foothill formed a sharp, ruddy peak about thirty meters from mine in the west.

  Before any of us hit the ground, the Marines outside the fence were already airborne, intent on hurtling the shield barrier to take us on. All four cannons began booming so loudly that my skin’s external audio barely compensated in time.

  I can only guess how Paris and Stark died. Maybe cannon fire had caught them before they could utilize the bond. Maybe their conditioning had failed them. Maybe they had just grown too afraid to think clearly. I hit the ground, rolled out of my cannon’s stream of particle fire, came up on my hands and knees, and stole a look to my left. Paris lay on her back, skin growing faint. Stark’s legs lay a few meters from Paris, her torso a few meters from them. Sergeant Mana Ochoa, the only survivor of our security team, hollered, “Lost Paris! Lost Stark!” as she threw herself forward in a biza, the head drive. Cannon fire pinged off an invisible, cone-shaped barrier she had formed over her head. She glided over the cannon emplacement and toward the bunker entrance’s grimy gray dome.

  “St. Andrew?” called Beauregard. “Get with Ochoa on that hatch! DX? Where the hell’s our pulse wave?”

  I crawled up to the dome, rose, then circled toward the lone sergeant. Particle fire chewed up my path, dented the bunker beside me, and sparkled through my HUV. Unlike the soldiers I’ve seen in old films who continually faced enemies with extremely poor aim, rounds steadily hammered and weakened my skin, so many coming in so fast that I stopped worrying about them and focused all of my attention on Ochoa and that hatch. I rounded the corner and ducked into a triangular doorway. The sergeant had blasted in the four-centimeter-thick hatch with the sheer force of her momentum. She lay on top of the alloy plate, blood pooling around the remains of her head.

  My gaze lifted to meet the muzzle of a QQ90. I contemplated the weapon and the dark-uniformed Marine who held it long enough to mutter a curse. She jammed back her trigger.

  Warnings flashed in my HUV. Skin strength down to twenty-one percent. I had never allowed it to become so weak, and it could take ten or more hours to rebuild. I reached for the rifle, but a quartet of explosions resounded behind me. The ground quaked as the EMPs’concussion and electromagnetic pulse wave passed through us, shorting out the processors in the cannons and rifles.

  The Marine’s bayonet telescoped out from her rifle. She never got the blade near me. As I ran her through with the K-bar I had pulled while the EMPs had gone off, I realized she was not conditioned. And as she fell, sloughing off her skin, I fell against the side wall in utter astonishment. She wore the black utilities of the Seventeen System Guard Corps. Since we were running a black op, we wore tan, nondescript jumpsuits that in no way identified us as guardsmen. Even our tacs would not give up our identities, having been encrypted. The Marines outside wore standard Western Alliance uniforms. Was she on our side?

  “St. Andrew? Report.”

  “We’re in,” I answered Beauregard, then dragged the woman’s body into the empty dome and toward a pair of lift doors beside which stood a stairwell entrance.

  Ramsey and Zhai staggered breathlessly into the room, brandishing bloody K-bars. Halitov arrived a second after Dina, they, too, with blades jutting from their fists.

  “Who’s that?” asked Halitov, gaping at the guardsmen at my feet. “And what’s she doing in our utilities?”

  Beauregard arrived, panting and bug-eyed. “Lower this fucking bunker! Now!”

  Zhai was already jacking into the panel, her dark eyes going distant for a moment. The dome vibrated, threw us up a few centimeters, then lowered itself.

  “How many left outside?” I asked Beauregard.

  “Three Marines. Two cannon operators. I’m guessing that at least the Marines are conditioned. And we just lost Hooker and Lee. Hey, what the…” He trailed off as he scrutinized the woman’s black uniform. “Who is she?”

  “Don’t know,” I answered. “She fired at me as I entered.”

  “Ramsey? Scan her tac.”

  The dark-skinned lieutenant with raccoon’s eyes drew a pen scanner from his demo pack, aimed it at the woman’s tac, waited a few seconds for his reading, then directed the pen at an open space in front of us.

  A holo of the woman bloomed to life. She stood in full dress uniform in front of the admin building at the Guard Corps enlistment facility on Drummer-Fire, a colony world in the UV Ceti star system. “Private Taberi, Nosa. Seventeen System Guard Corps. Identification: q-one-five-b-three-four-x-nine-one.” She nodded at the camera, then the image trickled toward the floor.

  “Maybe she was a POW trying to escape,” said Ramsey. “She didn’t recognize the XO’s uniform and fired at him.”

  “Could be,” said Beauregard. “Let’s get down and lay our charges. Need a code for the lift? We’ll take the stairs.”

  Zhai planted two small charges on the stairwell doors and summarily blew them off their tracks. We descended smartly, with Halitov on point, a blade in each hand. I placed myself in front of Dina.

  We reached the first of four levels: comm and intell systems, administrative, billet, and maintenance and power. Zhai blew the door’s lock with a microcharge, then she and Ramsey slinked off to set up charges within the five separate stations where sensor reports were received, analyzed, and conveyed back to the alliances’ regimental commanders. I asked Beauregard if he wanted me to go with them. No doubt that even the system operators were armed and prepared for attack.

  “Negative. You’re with us down to maintenance and power. Even if they fail, we can still cut the power.”

  Once we reached that level, Halitov leaned against the hatch and closed his eyes. “Where the hell’s the rest of the garrison? Supposed to be like sixty. We get all the way down here without a single Marine to challenge us? And did anyone else but me realize that we didn’t take any sniper fire from all of those nests?”

  “Maybe they moved a lot of people out of here. Maybe they heard about our offensive,” suggested Dina.

  “Commander?” Ramsey called on the general frequency.

  “Go,” responded Beauregard.

  “Sir, we’ve encountered no resistance. Picking up FY-Ninety charge emissions, and they ain’t coming from our packs. Power’s going down all over the place, sir.”

  “Shit. Meet us up top. Get the dome ready to move!” Beauregard’s cheeks were ashen. “Must’ve seen us coming, got out another way, and rigged the place to blow.”

  “That’s nice,” said Halitov. “They did the job for us. Of course, we die.”

  “Maybe tomorrow,” said Beauregard, his gaze burning on Halitov. “I’ll be up top in two seconds.” He grabbed Dina’s wrist, and together they blurred up the stairs as overhead lights winked out.

  Funny how it all came to me at that moment, with only about thirty seconds until the entire intelligence headquarters would explode and bury itself under tons of icy rock and permafrost.

  I sifted through my memories as though they were pages on a tablet. I reviewed everything Captain Doyle had said about the operation. Why was the mission a black op? Why conceal our identities? And what was a woman wearing a Guard Corps uniform doing inside—

  Unless the facility actually belonged to the Seventeen, and surface patrols had concealed their identities by dressing in Western Alliance uniforms. What if Doyle were actually working for the alliances? What if he had brought us in to take out one of our own installations? What if we had just lost five
good people while helping the wrong side?

  My theory would have to wait. Halitov and I opted for fastest route up the stairwell: the walls. We made it into the dome in a respectable four seconds.

  Ramsey and Zhai arrived just behind us, their skins splattered by a sizzling black goo I recognized as acipalm-three, a recently developed incendiary substance controlled by nanotech drones and programmed with the nasty talent of robbing gluons which mediate the strong interaction between subatomic particles like quarks. With the bonds between those quarks beginning to shatter, Ramsey’s and Zhai’s skins would soon succumb. The acipalm would then orchestrate the same theft of gluons from their bodies.

  “Booby trap,” explained Ramsey, his face pale with terror as he stared at his chest.

  Zhai began screaming and running around the dome, up the walls, and across the ceiling.

  We could only watch and keep out of range.

  Ramsey flailed his arms as the acipalm finally broke through. His shoulder melted, as though a ghostly carnivore had placed white-hot lips on his flesh.

  With a shrill cry, Zhai dropped to the floor and writhed violently as the dome gave a slight groan and began to rise. She lay still by the time we reached the surface.

  Beauregard had already called Andropolus, so as we climbed over the fallen hatch and emerged outside, the ATC’s downdraft blasted dust and pebbles out of our path. The ship descended about thirty meters ahead. The shield barrier had dropped. No sign of the remaining Marines and cannon operators in my viewer.

  In order to escape the residual effects of the EMP bombs, co-pilot Goosavatic had tied her tac directly into the ATC’s fusion generator, so when the ship suddenly dropped forty meters like a rock, I figured she had grown too weak to continue or that something had gone wrong with her link. We dove onto our bellies as the ATC struck a horrific blow, sending shock waves through the regolith.

  As those waves died, the dull, volcanic rumble of the erupting HQ took over. My legs felt wobbly as I joined Halitov, Beauregard, and Dina in a retreat for the ATC, whose landing skids had been crushed but whose fuselage and cockpit had remained intact.