Til Valhalla

by Richard Fox

  “My brother,” Roy said as he pulled his knees up to his chest and wrapped his arms around them. “Well, my grandfather and father too. Uncles. Cousins. So many cousins. They all fought. From Iraq, the Crusade, and all the way through the big one with China. Memorial Day’s rough for my family.”

  “But you started off with your brother.”

  “Josiah was—is—Armor. First of the Roys to earn his spurs. Just a couple years older than me too. He was in 1st Division before they broke everything up into lances.” Roy shrugged and his shoulders sank a bit lower. “He redlined while fighting in Alaska. He’s in a ward back at Knox. I’d get to see him every so often.”

  “What’s a redline?” Bailey asked.

  Roy tapped his plugs. “The neural interface between the soldier and the Armor can overload. Happens when the suit’s damaged or we try and push it to do too much. You redline, it burns you out. Nobody recovers. Nobody.”

  “Sorry about your brother. But you knew what happened to him and you still went for the plugs?”

  “It happened soon after I reported to Knox for selection…The cadre offered to let me drop out of training. No ‘loss of motivation’ on my record. But Roys aren’t quitters. None of us tried to worm out after we lost family in Japan, Hawaii, or Taiwan. After I refused the offer, the cadre had no mercy on me. They make all us bean heads work the redline ward so we know the consequences of fighting beyond our suit’s capabilities. I got that duty too. Josiah was there. It was nice to see him. Not everyone gets the chance to ever see their family at training.”

  “He might get better?” Bailey asked.

  “No one comes back from a redline. No one. Most fall out after a few years.” Roy laced his fingers behind his head, tapping on his plug rings. “You? Everyone keeps asking me if my mother knows I’m in uniform or if I need shaving lessons. How’d you end up out here?”

  “Got some bush tucker for you both.” Monaro handed a plastic plate with a small hot sandwich, the edges pressed together, boiled greens, and a few small light-green fruits. “Jaffles. Pigweed and some glauca.”

  The Aborigine leaned close to Roy’s ear and whispered, “Lay a finger on her and we’ll gut you, mate.”

  “Looks delicious, thank you.” Roy gave him a toothy smile and nodded emphatically as he took the plate. He looked at the food and poked at the greens. “Is ‘bush tucker’ the…vegetable or the other things here?”

  “It’s whatever you find out there to eat,” Bailey said, peeling the skin off the fruit and biting into the flesh. “We did a security stop in a patch of pigweed just to get some vittles for later. You didn’t notice?”

  “I was watching for snakes.”

  “So why do you tin cans use the plugs?” Bailey touched the back of her head. “Why don’t you just…be normal and drive your suits like a tank. Joy sticks and such. And why not plug you all into airplanes like a fighters or use you to control a space ship?”

  Roy took a sip from a canteen.

  “Do this,” he said. “Touch your forehead. Now clap your hands. OK, easy enough for you to do. Now take off and do a combat climb into an Immelmann and launch chaff.”

  “Sorry, what?” Bailey frowned at him.

  “Driving or steering a suit of Armor isn’t as effective as being plugged in,” he said. “Raise the arm of a suit and point as a hill to signal an attack? Being plugged in makes it just as easy as doing it when I’m like this.” He gave his chest a pat. “The time to learn how to fight as Armor is low with the plugs, very low. Hardest part is getting over perceived limitations of my body. Reacting with the plugs is quick and easy. Reacting at controls takes time and training. A tank crew can drill together for years, and still be slower to the draw than Armor in a fight. Plug us into a fighter jet doesn’t work the same way. There’s no muscle memory for ‘taking off’ or shooting missiles. We plug into a fighter and we’d still have to learn how to fly. Waste of time and resources. Pilots stay pilots.

  “As for plugging us into something bigger…there’s a limit on what the human mind can handle. Our brains serve as back up processors for weapon systems and we can overload pretty easy if we’re not careful. Try and make us the computer core of a star ship or a bigger mech and we’ll redline. And being in a bigger suit isn’t necessarily better. Bigger suit. Bigger target. We’re at just the right size to bring decent firepower to a fight, remain mobile, and avoid detection.”

  “Sounds like the inventors knew what they were doing,” Bailey said.

  “It’s all Ibarra Corporation tech,” Borden said. “Marc Ibarra became the world’s first trillionaire before he was thirty. Graphene batteries. New rocket tech. Asteroid mining. That he’d figure out a better way to bring firepower to the battlefield—and charge a fortune for it—isn’t too hard to believe.”

  “Don’t you worry about the Chi-com’s EMP bombs? Didn’t those things wipe out the American navy at the beginning of the war?” she asked.

  “Systems are shielded in the suit,” Roy said. “The umbilical to my plugs are next gen fiber optics. Internals are too. Hit Armor with an EMP and it’ll just piss us off. Most military equipment is hardened…now. Learned that lesson the hard way when World War III kicked off. West Coast and Hawaii got it the worst when the lights went out.”

  A soldier came over and handed her two trays with watery greens, slices of white bread, and a sandwich with pinched edges.

  “Eat something. Doesn’t look like you get much exercise in that tin can of yours.” She breathed in the aroma of the sandwich and sighed. “I’m from Cairns. Parents worked the tourist trade around the Great Barrier Reef. Chi-com came and me pa got us on a truck south before the Line was set up. He stayed back to fight. No word since. We almost made it to Brisbane when the Chi-com hit the highway and there was a crash… Home Guard don’t care how old you are. Only if you can fight without being a risk to yourself or others.”

  “Sorry.”

  “This war’s been going lot longer than we’ve been alive. You know anyone that’s got to live happy?”

  “Can’t say I do.” Roy took a bite of the sandwich and paused. He drew it away from his mouth and strands of pasta flopped out. He chewed slowly. “Is this…spaghetti?”

  “Best kind of jaffles there are,” she said, devouring hers. “Just like Mom used to make.”

  “My mom makes the best green Jell-O salad.” Roy kept eating the jaffle.

  “A salad?” Bailey raised an eyebrow at him.

  “It’s delicious,” he said and kept eating the jaffle.

  Bailey looked at him from the corner of her eyes, then took a small jar out of her pack.

  “Here, got something special for you,” she handed the jar and a small butter knife to him.

  “What is it?” Roy wiped his mouth and held the jar up to the firelight. “Oh, this that hazelnut spread? My lance commander and some of the other Euros love this stuff. Thanks.”

  He twisted the top off and glanced at the black jam inside.

  “Stuff’s great on toast,” he used the knife to take out a sizeable hunk and spread it very thick over the bread.

  “Mate,” Monaro waved at Roy. “Mate, you got to—”

  Bailey stamped a foot against the floor and Monaro went silent.

  “How’d you get this from Europe?” Roy put a little extra on his bread and flipped it over to take a huge bite, the topping directly against his tongue.

  He froze, and his face went to Bailey. His jaw worked very slowly and his eyes watered.

  “Didn’t know you like vegemite that much,” Bailey said, fighting a grin. “Like it?”

  “Salty,” Roy choked. “So very salty. What…good God what is this?” He held the blackened toast out at arm’s length.

  “Told you, it’s vegemite,” Bailey said. “Yeast extract. Like what grows between your toes when you haven’t changed your socks in a while. ‘Cept ours comes from bakers or something. Have some more.”

  “It tastes like pesticide.” Roy coughed a
nd looked hard at the vegemite before sniffing it.

  “Nothing more Straya than a bit of that with some margarine. You, though, you went hard on it. We don’t slop it on there like you did.”

  “This is the devil’s butter.” Roy took a small bite and winced. Bailey took it away from him and scraped the Vegemite back into her jar.

  “Let me know if you want more later,” she said.

  “Won’t be an issue.” He smacked dry lips and drank from his canteen again.

  “Seppo,” Paulus said as he tossed a paper bag at Roy. “Our hosts have some spare clothes. Better to have you dressed like a local than a diver that just washed up on the beach at Bondai. We called you up and the brass want you back right quick. I told them to send transpo or we’re staying until morning. Moving at night’s no good with Chi-com around.”

  “I appreciate it.” Roy looked through the bag, turning over a pair of decrepit tennis shoes to examine them in the low light. The man’s facial scars and tattoo made his visage seem to stand out against the cooking fire.

  “Also,” said Paulus, waving to one side as two children rushed out of the shadows and hid behind his legs, “the Donners’ farm is a rest stop for free Aussies who can get south of the Line. These kiddos heard there’s a tin can here and want to meet you.”

  Roy nodded, then put on a flannel shirt that smelled of sheep and sweat.

  “Kids, say hello to Mr. Sepp—I mean, Roy.” Paulus turned back and a pair of little girls that couldn’t have been older than eight stared hard at Roy. One clutched a doll to her chest, both wore patchwork clothes, and their hair was a mess of tangles and dirt.

  Both had a solid black line tattooed below their left eye.

  “Why is he so little?” one asked Paulus. “And…like us?”

  “I had some trouble with my Armor,” Roy said, looking away.

  “He’s not a real knight.” The other with the doll stomped her foot. “You’re a boofhead, Sally.”

  “Come the raw prawn.” Sally pointed at Roy as tears welled up in her eyes. “You a knight or not? Jessie always wanted to meet one of you.”

  Roy leaned forward to keep his head level with her, then turned so she could see his spikes. The girls broke into squeals.

  “Can I touch ’em?” Jessie asked.

  “Go ahead.” Roy winked at Bailey, who was eating the cooked pigweed without utensils.

  He felt prods to the back of his head then turned back around. “Satisfied?” he asked.

  “He’s not one of us.” Sally looked up at Paulus. “He doesn’t talk right.”

  “Union. American,” Paulus said.

  “Is the Union going to help Australia?” Sally asked. “My mum said after the ‘sades’ or something, the Yanks would come to Australia. Get rid of the drones. The bad men that hurt Daddy.”

  “We don’t need them,” someone said from a dark corner. “Trusted them one too many times and now—”

  “You shut your fuckin’ pie hole before I—” Paulus stopped then frowned at the girls. “Sorry. Language.”

  “I’m here to fight,” Roy said. “There’s more Armor here with me…and more on the way.”

  “I want to be a knight.” Jessie thrust her doll at Roy, which turned out to be a crude mockup of an Armor suit made from wire and small plastic boxes. “I’m super tough. Just ask Sally. Or my mum.”

  “I bet you are,” Roy said.

  “Are you going to Darwin?” Sally asked. “There’s so many people there. In the camps. The di xia never come back from there. My friend’s parents got the bad mark,” she said, touching her face and looking up at Paulus, “and he had to move away with them. Then Mum said we have to go too. Past the Line.”

  “OK, girls, that’s about enough.” Paulus reached into his pocket and took out two wrapped bars. “Take some cherry ripes and go back to your mum.”

  Sally thrust the doll at Roy. “You’re a ’sader. Please make Mr. Bradbury a real knight.”

  Roy straightened his hand, then tapped one of the doll’s shoulders. He lifted the edge of his hand over its head and touched the other shoulder, then gave its face a gentle flick with his finger.

  Sally jumped up and down and clutched it to her chest.

  “Go on now,” Paulus said as he pressed the candy into their hands and shooed them out.

  “Don’t go thinking you’re a tall poppy just because the kids think you’re spiffy,” Bailey said.

  “What happened to their faces?” Roy tapped at his cheek and looked to Paulus.

  “Chi-com give a loyalty rating to everyone in the occupied territory,” he said. “They put the line on the kids when they’re four. If you’re a good little proletariat, they’ll mark you top-notch. Food. Medical care. You start causing trouble, they’ll brand you di xia. Then you’ll disappear in the night. I was a cunt and tried to work with them when they first took most of the northern coast. Spoke out one too many times and got demoted.” He touched the tattoo over his scars. “They took off my rating with a belt sander, then gave me this new one.”

  “I didn’t…know,” Roy said.

  “Guess we’re being hurt by the wrong kind of people,” Paulus said. “If it was Indonesians for a certain sect, the Union would’ve been here in force years ago.”

  “Ease off,” Bailey said. “Tin can or not, he’s just a grunt like the rest of us.”

  “We move out at first light. Bailey, you’ve last watch.” Paulus went to the fire and spoke with Monaro.

  “Right then,” she said, pulling a poncho liner out of her pack and wrapping it around her shoulders. “Night. Shitter’s out back. Don’t go too far…drop bears might get you.”

  “Thanks.” Roy leaned gently against the other side of her pack. He stared at the fire, but sleep wouldn’t come.

  ****

  Outside the barn, a refugee with a tattoo on his face slunk away from the farm. Removing a small black disk from his pants, he flipped it open, tapped in a message, then mashed his thumb against a button. After a click, he folded it back up and flung the device into the night.

  He brushed himself off, then went back to the farm.

  Chapter 8

  Roy scratched his chest, wondering if the new clothes over his skin suit had been washed in the recent past, or if they came with some manner of Australian mites that would burrow into his skin and creep up to his brainstem. He dismissed the idea as ridiculous, but everything on this continent seemed determined to kill human beings.

  The fire crackled low as soldiers snoozed against the walls. He was wide awake, even though it must have been past midnight.

  I’m still on Knox time, he thought. This’ll be great come local afternoon when my internal clock says it’s time to hit the rack.

  He scraped the heels of his new boots against the dirt, then felt a growing pressure in his bladder. Shifting against the pack containing the captured camo cloak against his shoulder, he looked around. Everyone was asleep. Waking someone up to keep an eye on this sensitive item while he went to relieve himself would have been normal in the Atlantic Union military, particularly for something so valuable, but waking up one of the local militia for that did not strike him as a way to engender friendship.

  He touched the Bowie knife attached to his belt, then crept out of the half-open door and found Bailey leaning against the outer wall of the barn, her sniper rifle held low across her waist, a lit cigarette in her mouth.

  “Where’s the latrine?” he asked.

  She jerked a thumb to her right. “Ain’t no shit paper,” she said.

  “Not that.”

  Her brows furrowed. “Then drain it wherever. Don’t recommend going in the dunny if you can help it.”

  “Thanks.” He looked out across the night to the patchy field of wheat and a water pump just visible past an irrigation ditch. “How much do you smoke?”

  “None of your goddamn business is how much I smoke. You think it’s easy hauling all that gear, dodging drones, pulling your seppo butt out of a
tin can, then staying up through a shift? Piss off.”

  “I’m just saying our Strike Marines aren’t allowed to smoke in the field.” He stepped across a ditch then looked back at her over his shoulder. “If you’re thinking about a career change. Is all.”

  She flicked the lit butt of her cigarette at him.

  The buzz of insects filled the air as he made his way across the field. The barn was a dark shadow against the skyline, easy enough to make his way back to.

  He hooked a thumb beneath his belt and was just about to relieve himself when he heard a low squeal in the air. He paused, then cocked one ear to the sky. It was barely there…but it was a sound he knew.

  Armor treads…and it was growing closer.

  Confused, he did a double take back to the farmhouse. Did Bailey and her team know Armor was on the way? Paulus did say he’d called up to higher headquarters, but Roy’s training demanded any imminent arrival of friendly forces be known—a precaution against fratricide. Were the Australians lack on this or…

  Roy turned to run back to the barn when something grabbed his ankle and tripped him. He fell face-first into the dirt and a weight pinned him to the ground, a heavy hand on the back of his neck.

  He opened his mouth to yell, but another hand clamped down over his face. From the corner of his eye, he could see the edge of a matte-black glove, slick with mud. The pressure on the back of his neck moved up to cover his plugs. Roy fought to get up, but was held fast.

  “Ta shi yige Yazi,” a man whispered harshly.

  “Rang ta houzhe,” came from nearby.

  The Chi-com were here, and they had Roy. He tried to wrestle out of the hold, but the man on him was larger and had all his weight against his back. Roy saw boots run past him, and fear erupted in his heart.

  He had no way to warn anyone.

  Crack.

  There was a grunt and the weight on his back went away as the soldier flopped to one side and into the dirt next to Roy, coming down face-to-face with him. One eye stared lifelessly; the other was skewed and nearly popped from the socket. Blood oozed out of a bullet wound in the forehead.