by Jay Allan
He lay there another minute, maybe two, unable to speak…unsure, even, where he was. Armstrong, he thought, yes…the battle. He felt himself slipping away into darkness…his last thought…take out those supplies…
Alex scanned the terrain ahead. It was open ground, mostly, and she was trying to stay out of sight. She’d started out stalking Erik Cain, but now she had a different agenda. There was another Alliance Intelligence assassin on Armstrong…she was sure of it.
Stark must have written her off, she thought bitterly, and if he had someone else here already, he’d sent him weeks before, if not months. Alex Linden was nothing if not a realist. Whatever chance she’d imagined she had of getting near Stark was gone. Killing Cain wouldn’t do her any good. Most likely, Cain’s would-be assassin had her as a secondary target.
She’d had a moment of panic, of uncertainty. Alex Linden always had a plan, but when she first realized what was going on, she didn’t know what to do. There was a flash of rage, then frustration…but she quickly cleared her head and began analyzing the situation. Bit by bit, she formulated a new plan. She wasn’t going to kill Cain; she was going to save him. She was going to kill the assassin.
Her quarry had to be one of Stark’s best, as she had been. The brilliant psychopath wouldn’t send anyone but an elite killer to go after Erik Cain. That meant she was pursuing a very dangerous foe, one she couldn’t underestimate. He wouldn’t be an easy target, but then, of course, he wasn’t expecting to be stalked by another of Alliance Intelligence’s crack killers. Indeed, he had been careless, not expecting to be a target himself. He left behind a trail she could follow. It wasn’t much, but Alex was one of the best trackers to emerge from Alliance Intelligence’s killing school, and she didn’t need much.
Her adversary was better equipped than she was. His rifle was designed specifically for assassinations. He could take out a target, even an armored one, from at least 3 klicks. She hadn’t been able to smuggle any weapons into the refugee camp, so she’d been unarmed when she headed south to find Cain. She couldn’t scavenge anything from the dead Marines she’d come upon. They were armored infantry, and their high-powered weapons required the output of the nuclear power plants they carried on their backs. But finally she found a cluster of dead planetary regulars…unarmored troops with standard weaponry. She grabbed an assault rifle and a pair of pistols, along with a particularly nasty-looking survival knife. Her arsenal was a weak one to face powered infantry, but more than sufficient to kill a single unarmored target.
She moved cautiously, stopping every couple hundred meters and listening carefully. There were more Marines passing by and larger groups than before. The army was clearly retreating. That was bad news for the battle…and for her prospects of escaping from Armstrong when her job was done. It was also slowing her down, forcing her to spend precious minutes staying hidden. She needed to make better time. If she didn’t, her enemy would get to Cain first.
She was struggling to stay focused, to keep her emotions in check. She had killed hundreds of times, coolly and without remorse. But now she was anxious, upset. She thought she’d been ready to kill Cain, but now she wondered if she would have gone through with it. Alex wasn’t sure who she was anymore, but it was clear the cold-blooded Alliance Intelligence operative was gone. She had doubts someone like her had any kind of chance at redemption…she wasn’t even sure she wanted it. But she knew one thing. She was going to save Erik Cain.
“We’ve got him stabilized, Doctor Linden.” Elaine Samitch was one of the Corps’ best doctors, and she’d effectively commanded the field hospital while Sarah was busy trying to unravel the mystery of Anderson-45 and his cohorts.
Sarah walked down the neatly graded path, heading toward the critical care ward. The field hospital had been hastily erected at the new location. It was a cluster of prefabricated shelters linked by a series of pathways. The setup was only half done, and many of the non-critical patients were still outside, lined up on portable cots.
“And he asked for me?” Sarah had been busy at the old hospital site when the patient was brought in. He’d come down in an escape pod and crashed just north of Astria. He didn’t have any identification, and all he said was he was looking for Erik Cain. When they told him Cain was unavailable, he asked for Sarah.
“Yes.” Samitch hurried her pace to keep up with Sarah’s purposeful gait. “I came to get you immediately. I thought you’d want know.”
“Of course, Elaine. You did the right thing.” Sarah slapped her hand on the palm reader. She was impatient and didn’t make enough contact. The reader flashed red and rejected her ID. “Fuck,” she muttered under her breath as she pressed her palm against the glass and held it firmly in place.
The door slid open, and she ducked through. She strode swiftly down the corridor and into the last room on the right. The patient was lying on the bed, his eyes closed. He was connected to half a dozen machines and his face was deathly pale. He’d been critically injured in the crash, but he was out of danger now. It would take some time to recover fully, but Samitch had treated all his major injuries.
“Hello, I’m Sarah Linden.” She was stressed and impatient, but she’d been treating wounded men and women for years. The harshness in her tone fell away, and she spoke softly, kindly. “You wanted to see me?”
The patient opened his eyes and slowly turned his head, staring up as if trying to reconcile her appearance with a description. “Colonel Linden?” His voice was weak, his breathing labored. “I am Captain Duncan Campbell, Martian Confederation Navy. I have a message for you from Roderick Vance.” He was trying to speak louder, but all he could manage was a tortured whisper.
Sarah felt her stomach clench. Roderick Vance was a trusted ally, but not one to waste time or resources. If he had sent one of his people into a war zone to find Erik, something was wrong…probably disastrous. “Yes Captain?” She was trying to stay calm, but the tension was obvious in her voice. “What is it?”
“It’s about your sister, Colonel.” He took a deep breath, trying to focus his strength. “Alex Linden is an Alliance Intelligence agent. She is Number 3 on their Directorate…or at least she was.”
Sarah stared in disbelief, almost unable to process the words she was hearing. She had known there was something in Alex’s past, something dark. But she’d never have imagined her sister had been Alliance Intelligence. Is that why she’d turned up looking for her long-lost sister? To spy for Gavin Stark and his band of murderers? What had she reported on? Had Marines died because of things Sarah had let her learn? She felt sick…she wanted to drop to her knees and vomit.
Her first thought was to doubt what Campbell was telling her, to argue that it was some kind of mistake. But somehow she knew it was true. It all made sense. She took a deep breath, struggling to regain her composure. “So she is here to spy on us and report back to Gavin Stark?”
Campbell looked up at Sarah, his watery eyes meeting hers. “No, Colonel.” He took a deep raspy breath and continued. “She is here to assassinate General Cain.”
The slim figure hovered over the dead Marine. He was at the very edge of the Sentinel forest, watching, waiting. Once, his name had been Vincent…Thomas Vincent. But for two decades he’d been known only as Cobra. He was an assassin, one who could boast he’d never failed to kill a target. For 20 years he had murdered at the orders of Gavin Stark. He’d taken out politicians, scientists, soldiers…but this would be his greatest kill. General Erik Cain was famous throughout the Alliance, the Marines’ invincible veteran commander, a warrior of unquestioned ability.
Cobra felt a kinship with his target. By all accounts, Cain was as cold-blooded as any assassin, a man who killed en masse…who unflinchingly sent his troops to march off to certain death. Anything to secure victory. Cobra felt he could understand a man like that. But whatever kinship he felt toward his victim it wouldn’t affect the job. Cobra never let anything get in his way…no more than Cain himself ever did.
He rea
ched into his pocket, pulling out a small egg-shaped device. It was a miniature hyper-EMP generator. Its battery could only power it for a few minutes, but that would be enough. It would interfere with all communications and create chaos over a 500 meter zone. He’d find a suitable vantage point, a firing position with good coverage of Cain’s HQ. Then he’d activate the jammer…and wait for Cain to show himself.
Marine armor looked alike…officers didn’t strut around the battlefield advertising their presence to snipers. But Cobra had Cain’s transponder code. Alliance Intelligence and the Marines were on the same side, at least they were supposed to be. There were advantages to going after your own. Even through the jamming, Cobra’s scanner would confirm Cain’s presence…and an instant later, the veteran assassin would put his target down.
He scrambled slowly down a small hillside, crouching low, his camouflage blending with the scrubby grass and fallen leaves of the forest floor. He paused, looking around the last few trees and out into the open plain. There it was…Marine HQ. It was small, almost deserted. The Marines were pulling back, and it looked like most of the command personnel had already gone.
Cobra wondered if he was too late, if Cain had already left, but he quickly dismissed the concern. Everything he knew about Erik Cain suggested he would be among the last to leave. Being on the retreat, staring defeat in the face…it had to be the Marine general’s worst nightmare. Yes, he thought, Cain will still be there.
He jogged up a small rise and crouched behind a large spur along the trunk of one of the trees. It was a good spot, giving him a view of the small central quad between the HQ structures. He checked and double-checked his rifle. Everything was ready. It was time to kill Erik Cain.
He scanned the area, cold eyes acclimating himself with the layout of the HQ, covering every centimeter, every possible contingency. Then he took a deep breath and pressed the button on the jammer.
Chapter 8
Brooklyn Docks
Midtown Protected Zone Cargo Terminus
American Sector – Western Alliance
Earth – Sol III
“There’s a huge crowd just outside the fence.” Bill Quinn walked back onto the dock where his crew was unloading a massive cargo barge. They’d been listening to the screams and chants while they worked, and his people were nervous. He’d tried to ignore it, but finally he went to make sure the security forces had things in hand. “But the guards have it under control. The gates are closed and locked.”
Things had been deteriorating rapidly. The crash spread quickly beyond the financial markets, and economic activity of all sorts was coming to a halt. Throughout the Alliance, money flows had ceased entirely. The Cogs who did the menial work weren’t getting paid, and when their income stopped, their families began to starve. Few of the Alliance’s lower classes had any type of savings, so when their pay stopped, they ran out of food almost immediately. The ghettoes where they lived became even more dangerous than they had been. Walking down the street with a bag of groceries was enough to virtually guarantee an assault. Then the food stopped coming entirely. The workers began to stay home to try to protect their families instead of reporting to jobs that had ceased to produce income.
Things were bad in Brooklyn, and riots had swept from one neighborhood to another. Even for those few who had money, there was no food to be found. The stores had been looted, cleaned out by the gangs. The rioting mobs got what little the gangers had left behind. And no shipments were making it to the ghettoes…none at all.
Quinn and his people were lucky. Their jobs were necessary to maintain the flow of food and other materials to the privileged classes in the Midtown Protected Zone. Their pay wasn’t coming through either…all monetary transactions in the Alliance had come to a halt. But they were being paid in food, enough for them and their families to survive. And they were picked up at their homes and dropped off by armored security vehicles.
There had been talk of relief…of government convoys bringing food and medicine to the Cog neighborhoods, but Quinn hadn’t seen any sign of that yet. In truth, Alliance Gov was having enough trouble getting vital shipments to the upper classes. Any relief for the poor was going to be long in coming…if it ever materialized at all.
Quinn watched his people carrying boxes from the barge and loading them onto the cargo monorail that would whisk them north, across the radioactive wasteland of lower Manhattan to the walled bastion of the Midtown Protected Zone. They worked alongside half a dozen robots, all that were left of the forty or more they’d had when the crisis first hit. The Cogs were cheap labor, and the only way automation could compete was by skipping maintenance and working equipment well past its normal useful life. The robots at the Brooklyn docks were ancient; they required constant repair…and the parts needed to keep them functioning were no longer available. One by one they malfunctioned, leaving only 6 still working alongside the sweating Cogs.
His people labored ceaselessly, carrying boxes or dragging them on carts. The trucks and loaders were out of fuel, and there was no more coming any time soon. The Alliance was on the verge of war with the CAC, and the military had first claim on vital supplies…after the Political classes, that is. But the politicians and corporate masters, ensconced in their plush and heavily guarded neighborhoods, didn’t give a shit if Quinn’s Cog crew had to carry the cargo by hand. Not as long as they did it and the supply of food and other essentials continued to reach their wealthy enclaves.
Quinn’s people didn’t complain. They knew very well they were among the few residents of Brooklyn who had something to eat, and they weren’t about to risk their positions. They would work without argument, carry boxes until they dropped from exhaustion. Anything to keep their families fed.
A loud crack echoed through the cool morning air, then another. Quinn’s head snapped around, looking back toward the gate. He couldn’t see what was going on; his view was blocked by a cluster of warehouses. The communal screams became louder and the shots steadier. His crew had mostly stopped in their tracks, looking anxiously at the buildings between them and the gate.
“Get back to work, all of you,” Quinn growled. “I’ll go back and see what’s going on.” He jumped down off of the platform and started toward the main gate. He’d gone about ten steps when he heard a loud crash. He stopped in place, listening to the sounds of the angry mob getting closer. My God, he thought…they must have smashed right through the gate.
He started to turn back toward the loading dock when he saw them come around the end of a warehouse. There were hundreds of them, thousands. And they were screaming murderously. The ones at the front were carrying some kind of large objects, passing them back and forth. It took a second or two, but Quinn suddenly realized they were bodies. Bloody and mangled, but still recognizable. The guards, he thought, his blood running cold as he did.
He turned and ran back toward the dock. “Run…the mob’s inside the gates.” He shouted as loud as he could, but the crowd was on his heels, and their deafening shouts drowned him out. He got back to the dock and started to climb up when he felt the first hands reach out and grab him.
He screamed, begged for mercy, shouted as loud as he could that he, too, was a Cog. But the crowd was past listening to reason. It was a mindless creature now, an incarnation of pure rage…and Quinn was the enemy. Cog or no, he and his people had gotten preferential treatment. Their families had eaten while the others starved. It was pure elemental rage, and right now it was targeted at John Quinn and his loading dock crew.
Quinn felt hands grabbing him, the strength of 4 or 5 men pulling him down off the concrete pier. He was lifted above their heads, pushed back, deeper into the screaming, surging mass. Then he fell, pushed to the ground, while they beat and kicked him. Fear and pain drove everything from his mind. He knew he was going to die. The crowd was worked into an orgy of hate and anger. No reason, no pleas for mercy would reach them. He felt a hard kick to the stomach, then another. He coughed, and blood welled up out of
his mouth, pouring down his face. Tears streamed down his cheeks as the enraged Cogs – his neighbors since the day he’d been born – beat him to death.
Hans Werner looked out over the cloudy waters of the Rhine. The river was one of the most polluted on an Earth that had been treated contemptuously for centuries. The once prolific life that had teemed in its waters was long gone, and the great river was a dead zone from 100 kilometers below its sources in the Southern Alps to its terminus at the North Sea.
Many things had changed in the past few centuries, the nations along its lengthy path to the sea combining and splitting and finally merging to form two great Superpowers. But one thing remained the same. For most of its history and much of its length the Rhine was a border between bitter enemies.
Werner looked back over his shoulder. The main battle tanks of his battalion were dug in along the rolling grasslands, with squads of infantry entrenched between the massive Leopard Z-9s. They were on a Red-1 Alert. Werner had been an officer for twenty-five years, and this was the first time he’d ever seen the CEL’s top alert level invoked. War is imminent. That’s what a Red-1 declaration meant. Not war is possible, or even likely. Imminent. The word itself suggested an inevitability…as if battle had already commenced.
The German-dominated Central European League and Europa Federalis had been enemies as long as the powers had existed. But for more than 100 years, both had adhered to the terms of the Treaty of Paris. They had fought half a dozen wars in space, mostly inconclusive feuds over the same few border colonies. But they’d maintained the peace on Earth. Until now.