Carthage Prime

by Toby Neighbors

  Six thousand meters. I don’t think it’s going to try and land again, Alex.

  He didn’t respond. He didn’t care that the ship was running away, or that technically he had fulfilled his orders.

  Romeo and Echo Company need our help.

  Alex still didn’t respond.

  I know you hear me, Alex. Destroying that ship won’t help Newt.

  “I have to,” Alex snarled.

  Every second you waste here is putting the other operators at risk.

  The drop ship was faster than Alex’s FA Titan. Even with the damage his bullets inflicted, the ship rocketed upward faster than Alex could follow. He wanted to destroy them. He wanted to make sure they could never hurt his friends again. He had his finger on the missile trigger. He could fire everything at them—but Nyx was right. There was a possibility that he might need the missiles to help the ground-based operators at the spaceport.

  He growled in anger and grief as he turned away from the drop ship.

  “Keep an eye on them,” Alex said, his voice half a sob. “If they come back, I want to know.”

  I will, Nyx replied softly.

  Alex turned back toward the colony. He had flown nearly two hundred kilometers away during the brief fight. Getting back took several minutes, and he used the time to check in on his team.

  “Titan Three, what’s your sit rep?” Alex asked over the team channel of his com-link.

  “We got it!” Sly said. “Nailed the bastard.”

  “Titan four?” Alex asked.

  “I read you,” Ash said. “We’re two hundred klicks north of Tunis. Returning that way. All systems green, but my power cells are down to one quarter and I’m out of missiles.”

  “Roger that,” Alex said. “Be advised. Titan two is down.”

  The words were painful, like acid in his mouth. There was no immediate response from Sly or Ash—not that Alex expected any. He wanted desperately for someone to make him feel better, but he knew nothing would.

  “I’m returning to lend aid to Echo Company,” Alex said. “You should do the same.”

  “Roger that, Titan leader,” Sly said stiffly.

  “Copy,” was all Ash said.

  “Nyx,” Alex said over their private link. “What’s the situation at the spaceport?”

  From what I can tell, our operators are trapped inside the warehouses. They have decent cover but can’t maneuver. The Vipers have taken cover behind the wreckage of their drop ships. There’s too much interference to get accurate readings on radar. Both sides are doing a lot of shooting, but not much actual damage.

  “Makes sense,” Alex said. He switched over to the command channel.

  “Echo Company, this is Titan One, on approach.”

  “Roger that, Titan One,” Master Sergeant Gellar said. She was as calm as if she were running a controlled exercise where no one was in actual danger. “See if you can hit the Zen Tech operators from the far side, but be aware of their ground-to-air missiles.”

  “Copy, Master Sergeant,” Alex said. “Stand by.”

  Alex, if you can get above the area and mark coordinates, Sly and Ash can fire missiles from a distance. That would make you all harder to target with counterfire.

  “Good idea, except Ash doesn’t have missiles. I’ll have her do it,” Alex said, before opening his team channel. “Ash, get above the spaceport and mark the Zen Tech MBS’s for us. Sly and I will fire at them from just inside our effective range.”

  “Got it,” Ash said.

  Alex brought his Titan to a hover twenty-five kilometers from the colony. He could see flashes of light in the distance from the battle, but only because he was over a thousand meters in the air. From the ground, he knew the colony wouldn’t be visible. Fortunately, his missiles had an effective range of thirty kilometers. Once Ash sent coordinates, Nyx could program his missiles, and all Alex had to do was fire them. If there were survivors, it would take them too long to locate Alex and Sly to fire back. And hopefully in all the chaos, they wouldn’t notice Ash up above them.

  “Sending targeting data,” Ash said.

  Got it, Alex. Are you ready?

  “When you are.”

  Fire four missiles.

  “Roger that, firing four.”

  He pulled the trigger slowly, counting off the shots in his mind. It took the missiles several seconds to cover the distance, and then explosions were visible. Alex flew his Titan toward the colony, maintaining his altitude and using the battle suit’s enhanced optics to zoom in on the fight.

  “Solid hits,” Ash said. “But I’ve lost all visibility.”

  Alex heard Master Sergeant Brooks give an order over the command channel. “Destroyer team, move in and search for survivors.”

  The chatter turned from battle orders to calls for help. Several operators had sustained damage. Some were wounded, others silent. Alex turned from the battle and found the wreckage where Newt had gone down. He landed nearby, hoping against all odds that his friend had somehow survived.

  “Titan team, locate my position and join me,” Alex said. “Nyx, I’m going offline.”

  That’s not a good idea, Alex. There could be more Vipers out there, and the temperature is falling.

  Alex knew she was right, but he had to know. Newt was his friend, and he had trusted Alex to lead him in battle. If he was dead, Alex was responsible.

  “I have to, Nyx. Stand by,” Alex said.

  He pressed the button to power down the Titan battle suit and open the armored shell so that he could climb out. He was struck by the cold air when the suit opened, and climbing down was difficult without assistance. He had to dangle from the opening, with a full meter drop, but he did it. Getting back in would be even more of a challenge, but Alex decided he would worry about that once he had seen to Newt.

  He jogged over to the wreckage. It was more extensive up close than it had seemed from the air. Alex pulled off the cover of the emergency manual controls. The battle suit had no power, and Alex had to use a small ratchet fastened to the armored cover of the control hatch to slowly crank the suit open. He was working the ratchet back and forth as quickly as he could when Ash and Sly landed nearby.

  “Is he alive?” Ash asked, her voice booming from the suit’s speakers.

  “I don’t know,” Alex shouted back.

  The cold air burned his lungs, and his eyes stung with tears as he cranked away on the ratchet.

  “Newt?” Alex shouted. “Can you hear me?”

  There was no response. It took Alex several minutes to get the armor open enough that he could see inside. Ash and Sly turned on their suits’ exterior lights. Alex could see Newt’s pale form inside the battle suit. His eyes were open, but there was no movement. He wasn’t breathing.

  Alex turned up his head and screamed in rage. His friend was dead, and nothing he could do would bring him back.

  Chapter 30

  Sly helped Alex back into his Titan suit. It wasn’t graceful, but it was effective. Alex took the time to wipe his face off on the sleeve of his dark gray compression shirt. Despite the cold, he was sweating, his nose ran, and tears burned down his cold cheeks. Newt was dead. He couldn’t believe it, but neither could he deny it. His friend had been less than a meter away and yet completely out of reach. Alex had taken the time to close the damaged Titan battle suit back up in an effort to protect his friend from the elements, even though he knew that Newt couldn’t feel anything anymore.

  “What happened?” Ash asked once Alex had pressed the button to reactivate his suit and the big MBS had come online.

  “Missile attack,” Alex said. “Almost got us both. The drop ship was trying to land, and we came in hot.”

  “Damn,” Sly said. “I can’t believe he’s gone.”

  There was a catch in his voice, and Alex knew Sly was weeping.

  I’m sorry, Alex.

  “Me too,” Alex said, using their private link. “He was a good friend.”

  It’s not your fault.
>
  “Of course it is. I should have sent him into a backup position. There was no need for both of us to attack the drop ship.”

  You didn’t fire that missile.

  “No, but I should have known it was coming,” Alex said.

  He switched to the team channel and ordered them to return to the colony. Nyx marked the spot where Newt had fallen. A Valkyrie would have to be deployed to retrieve it, or perhaps some of the heavy equipment from Tunis could bring it back. The Titan battle suits had gun-arms and no hands; they weren’t built for picking things up, just for killing the enemy—and Alex knew that he hadn’t even done that.

  Nyx was silent on the flight back, as were Ash and Sly. The battle had gone pretty much as they had expected. Seven Zen Tech drop ships were destroyed, along with an equal number of operator groups—but all Alex could see was his failure.

  When they reached Tunis, one of the warehouses was on fire. The rest had taken heavy fire. Some of the laser blasts had even burned their way all the way to the second row of buildings. The landing pads were all completely destroyed. Of Romeo and Echo company, half of the mechanized battle suits were out of commission. Flood lights were being set up, and medical personnel from the colony were working on the wounded. Alex saw a row of bodies in CDF fatigues. They had won the battle but taken their share of casualties.

  “Master Sergeant Gellar,” Alex used his com-link to contact his superior, “where do you want us to land?”

  “She’s out of commission,” Master Sergeant Brooks replied. “A laser blast sparked a nearby power unit, and the EM wave short-circuited her Interceptor. Land your team near the burning warehouse and then walk toward the lights. We’re occupying one of the other buildings for the night. You’re to stay in your battle suit, both for warmth and in case there’s another attack from the Zen Tech ships.”

  “Yes, Master Sergeant,” Alex said. “But we’re low on power.”

  “The techs will get you charged up,” Brooks said. “Your air strike turned the tide. We’ll salvage what we can and make sure you’re ready if Zen Tech sends another strike force.”

  “Thank you, Master Sergeant,” Alex said.

  They came down in a small clearing. The ground between the buildings was hard-packed soil with no grass, but no rocks, either. Alex had lived most of his life on a planet that was essentially one big rock. He couldn’t help but hope that Carthage Prime became something significant. Newt gave his life for his friends and for Ahzco. Maybe he wouldn’t be remembered by the people who lived on Carthage in the centuries to come, but his sacrifice couldn’t be in vain.

  “You ready to talk about it?” Ash asked as they walked toward the building the CDF had taken over.

  They were walking past smoking mounds of twisted metal, melted wiring, and wasted munitions. There were bodies inside, too, but they weren’t visible. Alex had been horrified at the carnage of their first battle, but all he could think at that moment was that every fighter for Zen Tech deserved to die.

  “There isn’t much to talk about,” Alex said. “We went after one ship, you went after the other. My focus was on the target when Newt went down. I should have done a better job leading him.”

  “It’s not your fault, Ace,” Sly said. “Newt was a good guy. You have to remember we were under attack. Bad things can happen even under good circumstances.”

  “Maybe you should have held him back,” Ash said.

  Alex wanted to scream at her—to say of course he should have held Newt back—but getting angry at her wouldn’t help.

  “Hindsight is always perfect,” Sly said. “We just have to learn from it.”

  They lined up inside the warehouse. They were out of the way, letting the technicians work. It didn’t take long for power lines to be laid out and plugged into the Titan battle suits.

  “Are you going to contact his family?” Ash said.

  Alex hadn’t thought that far ahead, but he knew as soon as she said it that he would. He could find Newt’s family information from the company network once he was off Carthage Prime. Contacting them would be one of the very first things he did.

  “Yeah,” Alex said. “I will.”

  “And then you have to let it go,” Sly said. “Newt was proud to be a Titan operator, and nothing we did would have changed his mind about it.”

  Alex didn’t know if he agreed, but it made him feel a little better. After a few minutes of silence, he could feel sleep pulling at his eyes. There wasn’t really anything to look at in the warehouse. The wounded had been moved into the colony’s medical facility. The dead were outside and out of sight. All operators were still in their MBS’s, and most of the activity in the warehouse was from technicians. Alex was thinking he should try to sleep when a row of FA Minotaurs came rolling by in front of him. The last one stopped, and Alex heard Oggy’s voice over the command channel.

  “One, two, three,” he said slowly. “Lose somebody, Ace?” He said Alex’s nickname with such derision that it sounded like an insult.

  “Beat it, Oggy, before I smash your face in,” Alex said.

  “Stay off this channel!” Master Sergeant Brooks snapped. “You Minotaurs get parked and start recharging. Move!”

  The four Minotaurs scooted away, their tires squealing on the slick floor of the warehouse. Alex watched them go, knowing it was only a matter of time before Alex got his hands on Oggy. He couldn’t wait to show that arrogant jerk a thing or two.

  Alex? Nyx shook Alex from his daydream.

  “Yeah, I’m here,” Alex said.

  Captain Chastain wants a report. Would you like me to tell her about Newt?

  Alex thought before he answered. It didn’t seem right to let anyone else share the news—not when he was responsible for it.

  “Can you patch me through to her, on a private link?”

  Yes, stand by.

  A moment later the captain’s voice crackled through Alex’s com-link.

  “What do you have to report, Sergeant?”

  “We lost a team member, Captain. Corporal Kyle Newton. He was flying with me. The drop ship fired missiles at us and he was...”

  “I’m aware of the loss, Sergeant,” Captain Chastain said.

  “Well, Captain, it was my fault. We were too close. I should have ordered Newt to back me up.”

  “And then he’d be having this conversation about you,” Captain Chastain said. “You can’t say what might have happened if you’d done things differently, Evans. That’s the burden of leadership. We are warriors, this was a battle, and people died. You did your part. Corporal Newton did his. Today we won. Tomorrow, who can say? This is part of being in the Corporate Defense Force, so get used to it, Sergeant. We need you.”

  “I was just going to say that maybe I shouldn’t be a sergeant,” Alex replied.

  “Every leader faces that dilemma at some point,” Chastain said. “Of course it would be easier for us if we let someone else take the lead. But things wouldn’t be better—not by a long shot. If you want to mope around and feel sorry for yourself, I can’t stop you, but you better understand that your team is counting on you to get them through this difficult time, and the next one after this. Part of being a leader is standing between the horror of what has happened and shielding those who follow us from the bitter taste of it. Learn from this, Evans. Otherwise your friend died for nothing. I didn’t promote you to be perfect. I promoted you to lead, and odds are high that this conflict isn’t over. So find a way to deal with it, and be strong.”

  “Yes, Captain,” Alex said.

  “I’m sorry for your loss, and believe me, I’ve been there,” she said. “How do things look on the ground?”

  “The landing port is in shambles,” Alex said. “But Master Sergeant Brooks has things well in hand.”

  “Very good. Your plan worked. We took out the majority of their invasion force with minimum losses. Your team gave us the time and the ability to hold this planet. You should be proud of that.”

  “Yes, Ca
ptain,” Alex said, even though all he could think about at that moment was revenge.

  A voice carried through the transmission. Alex couldn’t make out the words, but suddenly Captain Chastain was gone.

  Alex, stand by. Something’s going on.

  “Okay,” Alex said.

  A minute passed, then another. Alex was beginning to feel worried. He imagined more drop ships descending to the planet. For all he knew, the eight ships that initially came down from the Zen Tech carrier in orbit were merely the first wave. Then again, the CDF had more forces than the remnants of Echo and Romeo Companies; there were at least twice as many MBS’s at the base camp. If the Zen Tech ship sent more fighters, Captain Chastain would be ready.

  Alex, there’s a problem. A company transport has entered the system.

  “Why is that a problem?”

  Because the Republic is no longer here to protect them. And it looks like the Zen Tech battleships are moving to intercept the transport. Your team’s MBS’s are the only assets capable of stopping them.

  “Are you saying you want us to fight battleships?” Alex asked.

  Captain Chastain has the drop ship powering up right now. We’re going to carry you into orbit.

  “What? That’s insane.”

  You need to meet us halfway.

  “We can’t—we’re almost out of power.”

  You’re just below half a charge. The drop ship will do the heavy lifting. Once you’re in zero-gravity, you’ll expend much less power.

  “Ace, is this for real?” Ash asked.

  “We’re going to orbit?” Sly added.

  “We do what they tell us,” Alex said. “Let’s get someone to disconnect these power cables. There isn’t a moment to waste.”

  Chapter 31

  Nyx walked out of the multipurpose building with the group. The cold outside had turned from bitter to painful as day turned to night. She wondered how anything could survive in the harsh environment. She had grown up on a space station with climate control where it stayed a perfect seventy-two degrees year-round.