Vor: The Playback War

by Lisa Smedman

  A chattering explosion of sound came from just behind Alexi. Machine-gun fire chipped a wall to his right.

  Suddenly it didn’t matter if his lungs were ready to burst. It was run—or die.

  Alexi was in the middle of the intersection of two broad avenues, completely exposed. The only shelter nearby was a sprawling building on one corner whose front doors had been torn off by an explosion. Racing for its cavelike entrance, Alexi sprinted inside, his lungs on fire and his legs as weak and loose as spaghetti. Only as he staggered deeper into the building and saw shattered display cases on either side did he realize what it was. A museum.

  He glanced back over his shoulder, out through the ruined entrance. The assault suit was still following him. It was running across the intersection even then, and within seconds would be inside the building.

  Suddenly Alexi heard shouts and rifle fire coming from just up the street. The speaker in his helmet crackled to life. For some reason, it had become functional again, but instead of picking up Alexi’s own squad, it had tuned in to the frequency used by the squad in the street outside. Alexi heard snatches of an officer yelling at his men and soldiers calling out to each other in panic as they realized they had blundered headlong into the heavy-assault suit.

  . . . to your left, Mikhail. Watch . . .

  . . . grenade at . . . before . . .

  Alexi heard a whoosh and then the crumping explosion of a rocket. An explosion lit up the night.

  . . . my leg, oh God it . . .

  . . . fall back, you stupid . . .

  That would be the officer. He sounded as bad as Soldatenkof. No surprise. They all did.

  Granted a temporary reprieve, Alexi stood and sucked in lungfuls of air as he watched the battle unfold in the street outside the museum. The assault suit’s machine gun droned in a steady chatter as the Neo-Soviet soldiers dived for cover; Alexi could see red fire strobing out of its barrel. Just behind the assault suit, one soldier was trying to creep across the street. Her Uzi was slung across her back and both of her hands were full. She carried a gas can in one hand and had a sack slung over her opposite shoulder. For the moment, the heavy-assault suit was busy mowing down the others in her squad. But in another second or two, it would turn and have her in its sights.

  Alexi had a sudden premonition: She wasn’t meant to die out there. But she would, unless Alexi did something. And quickly.

  He suddenly saw a solution. Lying in the street a meter or two in front of the heavy-assault suit was an abandoned street vendor’s cart. The bottom of the pirozhke cart still held a bulbous white propane tank. If there was any fuel left in it . . .

  The soldier holding the gas can began to sprint across the street.

  The assault suit polished off the last of the rad squad and began to turn in her direction.

  And Alexi, contrary to all common sense, stepped back out through the museum entrance and fired a burst from his AK-51 at the propane tank.

  The tank exploded with a sudden, hot flash of blue flame. Distracted by the blast, the assault suit whirled in that direction instead. The soldier ran into the museum, unseen. Now that she was closer, Alexi could see that she was very pretty, with shoulder-length brown hair and wide brown eyes.

  “Spahseebe,” she panted.

  The speaker in Alexi’s helmet had fallen silent again.

  “The others in your squad,” he said. “I don’t think they made it.”

  “Not my problem,” she grunted. Then her glance flickered to the corporal’s stripes on the shoulder of Alexi’s armored vest.

  Outside in the street, the heavy-assault suit was turning in a slow circle, surveying the carnage it had created. One of its heavy metal feet stepped on the belly of a dead soldier, pulping it to mush. The mirrored plate that hid the Union soldier’s face turned toward the museum entrance—paused—then slowly scanned away again.

  Time to move.

  As they fell back into the shadows of the museum, Alexi put out a hand to help the other soldier with the sack she carried, but she shook her head fiercely and pulled it away. All at once, Alexi realized what was going on. The woman didn’t care about the dead soldiers outside because she wasn’t part of that squad. She was on her own. And she didn’t want Alexi to take the sack because it held something she didn’t want him to see. She was a looter—and probably a deserter.

  A sudden thought entered Alexi’s mind: Why not join her? They could ride out of Vladivostok together and . . .

  Ride? What a strange thought. On what?

  The woman jogged down a side corridor. She seemed to know where she was going, so Alexi followed her. They turned a corner, and in the dim light that filtered in through holes in the wall and ceiling, he could see crouched shapes on either side. One of them—a huge figure twice the size of a man with arms extended over its head—shifted slightly as a distant explosion trembled the ground underfoot.

  Alexi blasted it with his AK-51.

  “Nyet!” the other soldier shouted. “It’s only a stuffed bear! Hold your fire!”

  Silently, Alexi berated himself. She was right. The figures on either side were nothing more than stuffed animals. Had he given away his position to the assault suit? He listened, but couldn’t hear anything over the static in his helmet. He gave it a thump, and the static settled down some.

  Cursing under her breath, the looter moved deeper into the museum, past a display of paintings. Alexi started to follow, then balked when he saw another shifting shadow. This one was as tall as the stuffed bear, but had spindly legs and stick arms that seemed to have been broken at odd angles. One of its hands seemed to have a chunk of glittering metal embedded in it—probably shrapnel from a frag grenade or bomb. Alexi squinted to get a better look—and in an eyeblink, the entire figure was gone. Where the thin animal had stood a moment ago, now there was only bare wall.

  Alexi relaxed his grip on the AK-51 and backed away slowly from the spot where the shadow had been. Something about the taxidermy display had unnerved him, causing him to hallucinate. He had to get out of there.

  The woman had disappeared around a bend. Instead of following her, Alexi wound his way back toward the main corridor and peered carefully down it toward the main entrance. The assault suit was still standing in the street, its neck craned as it looked up at the roof of the museum. Then it lowered its head and began moving toward the museum’s shattered main entrance.

  Alexi froze, praying that the assault suit didn’t have infrared sensors. His camouflaged combats would help him blend with the shadows if he only held still enough. The urban camo pattern might even be enough to fool a soldier using low-light enhancement. He held his AK-51 at the ready in sweaty hands, prepared to make a final defense, even though he knew his bullets would never penetrate that thick metal skin. . . .

  Suddenly gunfire erupted from somewhere behind Alexi. He identified the weapon at once by its distinctive sound: an Uzi. The looter was shooting at something. Damn her! Alexi had been a fool to provide that distraction for her by shooting the propane tank, and now she was giving away his position. But something else told Alexi that she’d done exactly what she had been meant to do, that she had some sort of destiny to fulfill tonight. And he knew with grim certainty what this destiny would include: death.

  But hers—or his?

  The assault suit’s engines whirred as it sprang into a run—straight into the museum.

  Alexi made himself as small a target as possible, and to his amazement, it worked. The assault suit ran right by him, its heavy feet shaking the floor as it passed.

  Alexi jumped to his feet and started to run for the front door, then heard the assault suit returning behind him. He skidded to a stop. No. Out through the front doors wasn’t the way to go. Out in the street, the assault suit would find him again. And that thing in the sky would be able to see him.

  Instead he turned and ran in the other direction, up a staircase. He couldn’t say why, but it felt like the right way to go. There was something on
the second floor—someone who could help him . . .

  Someone? The lack of sleep and food over the past few days was catching up with him, playing tricks on his mind. Once again, he was starting to hallucinate.

  As the heavy-assault suit thudded into the corridor below, Alexi reached the top of the stairs. Something slid away under his foot, a loose chunk of tile. Alexi sprawled, painfully twisting an ankle. He gripped the banister, hauled himself to his feet. Then he limped away as quickly as he could while the assault suit thudded up the stairs. He entered another corridor . . .

  And found himself face-to-face with a ghost. At least, that was what it had to be. Standing nearly three meters tall, the human-shaped figure was impossibly thin, and impossible to see clearly. The only details Alexi could make out were its overlong arms—which somehow seemed to be articulated in the wrong direction—and the thick mane of hair that framed its head. Blurred and shifting, it was lit from above by moonlight that shone down through a hole in the ceiling. It stood utterly still, yet only one thing stood out clearly: the weapon it held in one hand. It was a glittering crescent of highly polished metal with a razor-sharp edge. Alexi blinked. Since when did ghosts arm themselves with what looked like a steel boomerang?

  Alexi’s training screamed at him to shoot the figure with his AK-51. But a sixth sense told him that if he did, he would die. Just as the looter had. His imagination filled in the rest of the picture: The pain of his aching lungs became a slash in his chest. Instead of gasping for breath, he was losing it through his torn lung in a rush. . . .

  Alexi staggered past the figure on his twisted ankle, making no hostile moves. Pretending that he hadn’t seen it, he slumped in the shadow of a display case. Here was as good a place to die as any. He couldn’t go a single step more. He wouldn’t. Staring through its glass sides, he peered around the delicate vase inside the case and watched for the heavy-assault suit.

  It was already at the top of the stairs. It hesitated on the landing, the faceplate swiveling left and right. Then it saw Alexi.

  No—it saw the blurry figure. Moving with machine-augmented speed, the soldier inside the assault suit brought the machine gun on its arm to bear. In that same instant, the blurry figure hurled the weapon in its hand. Alexi gulped in amazement as the boomerang sliced through the assault suit’s chest in a spray of sparks, leaving a deep gouge in the heavy-gauge steel. But the soldier inside the suit didn’t seem to be hurt, and her return attack was even more effective. Bullets punched into the blurry figure, sending a spray of purplish droplets into the air. In the midst of the hail of bullets, the blurry figure crouched and sprang into a leap—straight up through a hole in the roof.

  The soldier inside the assault suit must have seen Alexi; he wasn’t even trying to hide anymore. All he could do was brace himself for the machine-gun burst that would end it for him. He reached inside his combats for the cross around his neck and began to pray for a swift, clean death.

  But the assault suit ignored him.

  Instead it followed the figure that had leapt up through the hole in the ceiling, reaching up with heavy metallic arms and hauling itself bodily onto the rooftop. Plaster and concrete tumbled down into the room as the edges of the hole crumbled, but the ceiling held. Now the assault suit was on the museum’s roof. Alexi heard more gunfire and the meaty sound of bullets striking flesh. And then, in the silence that followed, the sound of the assault suit walking across the rooftop. The lighting fixtures over Alexi’s head trembled under its heavy tread. He wondered if the Union soldier was walking back toward the hole in the ceiling—if she would jump back down to finish him off. But the footsteps seemed to be receding from Alexi’s position. Then they stopped.

  Alexi listened to his heart pounding, wondering what would happen next. This might be his only chance to escape. He rose to his feet and tested his weight on his twisted ankle. It wasn’t too bad, just a slight sprain. It hurt, but he could still walk on it.

  Up on the rooftop, everything was still quiet. The assault suit had stopped moving around. A thought struck Alexi: There was something above him, on the roof of the museum. Something that had completely captured the attention of the soldier inside the assault suit. Alexi had a brief premonition of a gigantic, crippled spider—and then the flash was gone.

  One thing remained: the realization that, like any soldier who had found something of interest, the Union soldier above him would be radioing her commanding officer to come and have a look. Alexi had to get away from there. As quickly as possible.

  He limped back down the stairs, using the banister to support himself. He had to get away. In his mind’s eye, he pictured dozens of heavy-assault suits sprinting toward the museum. Like the tragic king in Shakespeare’s play, Alexi would trade all of the Neo-Soviet Union for a horse.

  Or a motorcycle . . .

  Wait a moment. The looter had been carrying a petrol can. Which meant . . .

  Alexi turned and limped in the direction she had taken. This time there were no menacing shadows. He passed the taxidermy exhibit, patting a saber-toothed tiger on the head as he went by, and entered a room that held a display of weapons from the second of the World Wars.

  There. It was almost exactly as he’d pictured it—except that the angle he was viewing it from was slightly different and the pool of blood around the corpse was fresher and smaller. The body of the looter lay on the ground with her stomach and chest slashed open, the petrol can on the floor near her hand. And beside her, miracle of miracles, was a motorcycle.

  Alexi grinned and snapped a salute at the dead woman on the floor. Somehow he knew that the ancient motorcycle would still start, once he filled it with petrol from that can. And that all he had to do was ride it out of here, then hook up with his squad again, once they reached the harbor.

  Which they would in about an hour . . .

  Alexi didn’t even bother stopping to wonder how he knew that. He picked up the petrol can, filled the gas tank, and started up the motorcycle. He revved it, cringing at the roaring noise and wondering if the Union soldier in the assault suit could hear it, up on the roof of the museum. Then he roared out through the ruined front doors of the building.

  On a whim, he turned the bike toward the battalion headquarters. He might as well pick up a few grenades on his way back to the squad. He had a feeling they were going to need them. . . .

  23

  D o you mean to tell me that you were the soldier I chased into the museum?” The Union officer’s chuckle echoed against the metal walls of the cargo bay. “So you’re the one I have to thank for my promotion.”

  She lay beside Alexi in the darkness, shivering under the layer of heavy blankets that covered them. Her back was to him, and when he reached out to touch her to make sure he wasn’t dreaming, he heard the click of a pistol safety.

  “Not so close, Sov,” she gritted. “We’re sharing the blankets for body warmth, and nothing more.”

  Alexi carefully drew his hand away.

  He, too, was shivering. He’d stripped down to his boxer shorts and thick wool socks. The armored jacket he’d taken from Soldatenkof was too stiff to sleep in, and his trousers had been cold and damp with melted snow. His last clear memory was of using the magnet to scramble the programming of the computer chips in the Union officer’s therm suit. He must have fallen asleep shortly after that. But he had the distinct impression that they’d been awake for the last few minutes, and talking about something.

  “What promotion?” Alexi asked.

  “None of your business, Sov,” she said. “I shouldn’t have said anything. It was just such a remarkable coincidence.”

  Alexi shifted position slightly. The grated floor of the cargo bay was digging into his hip. It was almost completely dark, save for the thin sliver of moonlight that angled in through the windows, up in the helicraft’s cockpit. The faint light illuminated the Union soldier’s discarded therm suit, which lay crumpled in a corner. Two wide, dark shadows marked the sleeve: captain’s bars
.

  Something clicked into place in Alexi’s memory.

  “You were only a leitenant in Vladivostok,” he said. “And now you’re a captain.”

  He thought back to their meeting in Vladivostok, when she had chased him into the museum. The creature she had tangled with there had been too blurry to see clearly, but Alexi now knew it must have been a Zykhee. And she’d chased it up onto the roof . . .

  “You found something up on the roof of the museum: an alien, like Raheek. How were you able to kill it? Or did you capture it? Didn’t the tattoos affect you?”

  She lay still, not answering him. But she was listening.

  After a moment’s thought, he guessed the rest. “They rewarded your find by promoting you to captain, and put you in command of a special ops squad. But why did that squad parachute into Tomsk 13? Did Union intelligence learn that there were aliens there, too, and not realize that they were just growlers? Did you think another Zykhee ship had landed there?”

  Alexi recoiled as the cold barrel of the Pug pistol touched his bare chest. His lips were suddenly very dry. He must have guessed correctly.

  “Don’t shoot,” he said carefully. “Think about it first. We’re in the middle of the Siberian wilderness, and the radio in the helicraft is dead. You haven’t answered a single one of my questions. And even if you had, who could I possibly tell?”