Cyborg (The Deep Wide Black Book 1)

by JCH Rigby

  Most of my companions stood clustered around the windows to watch the landing. Mahmoud and Keegan started comparing notes on the briefing, while I idly selected the air-ground frequency the pilots were using to talk to the local excuse for air traffic control.

  They were meters above the strip now. One I thought I recognized, as the voice of a female pilot who’d been eating breakfast at the mess tent earlier in the day. Quite cute, if she were the same one.

  Just as the pair were about to touch down, lights stabbed up from the hills to the north, around fifteen kilometers away. The control net came alive.

  “SAM launch. SAM launch. Break, break, break!”

  Rolling left and right away from each other the fighters poured on power, struggling to gain forward speed and achieve true flight. Wings smoothed out, gear went up, pods starting to close, no, the right-hand aircraft was jettisoning its external weaponry desperately trying to lighten its load of missile cassettes, so it could accelerate faster.

  I was a bystander in an ancient race between aircraft and missile. The aircraft trying to accelerate out of trouble and decoy its enemy into attacking the sun, or a flare; the missile homing in on the electronic image of its prey, going far faster.

  I scrambled to my feet. In seconds, we were all pulling on body armor and belt order, grabbing weapons and spilling out the door. Keegan blasting out a call on the comms for a cargo utility to lift us over to the hills where the SAM’s had launched from.

  The jettisoned missile cassettes crashed into the ground barely 100 meters from us. Pieces of shattered casing went everywhere; a chunk whizzed past Mahmoud’s head. He glanced at it impassively, before turning to look back at the nearer aircraft. The plane wasn’t going to pull up in time; the pilot stalled it. Looking for lift that just wasn’t there.

  Her wingman wasn’t doing much better—running fast and low for the hills, scattering flares and jinking, but the closing missile looked like it was going to be smart enough to acquire him almost head-on.

  The first two explosions came close enough to seem like echoes. In the middle distance, the flat boom of a missile strike. Then, 150 meters in front of me, fifty meters up, a sharp crack as the female pilot ejected, the bang seat flinging her up into a parabola to give her para-wing time to stream. The aircraft belly-flopped onto the strip, scattering fragments. The blast was rolling thunder. Smoke boiling from the wreck before it stopped moving.

  I looked beyond, eyes in zoom mode, searching for the other fighter. A few kilometers away toward the hills I found it. The fighter had managed to make some height, but the second missile caught it in a mid-air fireball. A brief impression of something—his missile cassettes? —tumbling end over end toward the ground, while the fuselage flipped and spiraled down, trailing smoke and debris. The pilot might still have been alive. He seemed to have some fractional control left, or his aircraft systems were still trying to pull order out of chaos by themselves. I had no idea how smart the planes were.

  The aircraft dropped out of sight, hopelessly unstable, somewhere in the foothills. I looked back to the airfield, toward where the female pilot’s para-wing should have been floating safely down. A body, tangled in a drab shroud, tumbled along the strip before coming to rest in a clump of scrubby bushes.

  “Looks like someone was in too much of a hurry to get air cover up,” Angie Barclay said bleakly. “That ’wing can’t have been right for this atmosphere.”

  “Right, you lot,” called Mahmoud. “We’re moving out. Irwin and King to point, Arden and Kirov right, me and Barclay left; Yu Ling and Keegan—fire support. Stay back until there’s an obvious need for you. I don't want you pinned down if we’re bumped. Full packs now, we’ll drop them off later if we have to. Redistribute ammunition and sort out your kit on the move. Keegan, keep shouting for transport, but we’ll move at 50 percent effort because the Slows probably won’t get it to us. Questions?”

  The militia captain started to bleat. “Where do you think you’re going, Sergeant? I haven’t finished briefing you all yet.”

  “That’ll have to wait, sir,” Mahmoud said, barely polite. “It looks like we’ve been given a real opportunity to have a look at these terrorists of yours. Besides, someone’s just reduced our air power by a third with two shots, or hadn’t you noticed? I don’t think we can let them away with that. You never know, we might even have a live pilot to find.”

  Ignoring the protesting officer, we clicked into Neural Overdrive and set off across the strip, eyes on the distant hills. Around us, horse-drawn ambulances and fire carts were starting to deploy, floating at dream speed toward the slowly-building column of smoke.

  SURPRISINGLY KEEGAN'S CALL FOR transport was answered even before we made it to the airstrips perimeter. Perhaps the transports pilots sensed that we were the only hope to save their downed comrade. Well, whatever the reason they lifted us forward some ten kilometers. This was seriously good news. Slows seem to think an Enhanced can Overdrive forever, but the deathly tiredness following overuse can kill you in minutes. I’ve seen it happen. Slows can’t sprint forever. Neither can we—our brains, or our legs.

  The transport pilot had the time of his life contouring us round gullies and foothills, leaving most of us nauseated, till Mahmoud had him drop us off. The pilot put us down one by one across a wide, sloping valley that gave onto a ridge. It was a possible for the SAM launch site. I was more than ready to get off the transport, but I guess it was the most fun the utility-jock had had in years. Probably a vast improvement on hauling livestock between the settlements.

  I tumbled off the rear cargo ramp and dropped a couple of meters into something that yielded like heather; I never could manage the neat landings the heroes do in the vids. Looking around me to get my bearings, I could see scrub-covered hills to my left and right. The valley floor was some 7 or 800 meters wide, the edges sloping gently at first before climbing more steeply to bare, rocky summits. Dirty-looking clouds were starting to gather over tops, tinted a weird orange-grey by that fat sun. Ahead, the valley rose steadily to a crest line, beyond which Mahmoud thought we’d find the firing point, hopefully the plane wreck, and probably the enemy.

  I watched the flat bottom of the transport drift away a few hundred meters before it deposited Kirov straight into a rock pool.

  “I’ve never liked aircrew, you know.” Kirov moaned over the Command net. The transport turned slowly above us, holding position about twenty feet overhead, the loadmaster squatting on the ramp, looking steely, one of their scarce assault rifles in his hand. I guess a sword would have looked pretty stupid.

  The downdraft rattled my bones and loosened my ears. I turned my hearing down and waved my arms at the loadmaster, trying to attract his attention. Thanks for the lift, fellers, but piss off. There might as well have been a huge sign in the air above us, glowing with the words “infantry unit dropped here.”

  Kirov, glaring up at the thundering machine, cutting in on the ground-to-air frequency. “Oi, dipshit! Do the words “anti-aircraft missile” suggest anything to you?”

  Mahmoud cut in sharply, telling us all to minimize radio use. But Kirov’s words had done the trick. The transport twitched as if stung, the pilot dropping the nose and scooting away down the valley, so low to the ground he briefly smacked the hull against a protruding rock formation.

  Kirov nearly wet himself laughing. “Makes you proud to be a Dennisonian, or whoever we are this week, doesn’t it?”

  “Shut it, Kirov. Prepare to move.” Mahmoud wasn’t in the mood.

  After a few seconds of orientation, we were on our way. Spreading out in a long, crescent-shaped skirmish line with Keegan and Yu Ling to our backs, we began the push up the valley. As the drive noise from the transports engines faded among the hills, the remoteness of the place pressed down on me.

  Mahmoud had tinkered with our deployment, so while Kirov and I were still right flank Irwin and King were now on the left. Leaving the center for himself and Barclay
, giving Mahmoud a certain amount of flexibility. The rising ground to the flanks meant Kirov and Irwin were higher up on each side, as well as forward, 200 meters or so between each of us, the way we liked it in open country.

  As we closed on the crest line Kirov and Irwin both went to ground, scanning our front for hostiles. Mahmoud pushed us forward a little further, ready for a contact. We found nothing.

  "THERE THEY ARE." SAID Mahmoud, satisfaction evident in his voice.

  It had taken us an hour, during which the clouds thickened and the sky took on a threatening look. Local sunset was due in another hour or so, but we’d been briefed that at this time of year storms often blew up around dusk. There was no way we could have hurried the sweep; not if we were to do the job thoroughly.

  By now we’d cleared the ridge-line for several kilometers, Keegan sending regular situation reports back to the tatty little bunker acting as the strip’s defense headquarters. No sign of the aircraft's wreck yet.

  The missile merchants surely couldn’t have believed it when one of their targets came straight back over them. It had come this way, we knew that for sure. After the way the para-wing performed back at the strip we weren’t expecting a live pilot, even if he had got out.

  Fred Irwin piped up on our Command net, laconic as always. “To my front and half left, three of them, going down a gully. Rifles, launcher. Look in on datalink.” I could picture Irwin chewing gum, nodding to himself as he figured things out. Typical Steady Freddy.

  “Not you, Kirov and Yu Ling,” cut in Mahmoud quickly. “You two watch our asses.” With enemy to the front and left, Mahmoud wanted to make sure there was no one else to our right or rear. We didn’t need to be suckered.

  I lifted my head from the weird, alien heather; my cam-suit had been having trouble matching the foliage patterns and colors, even without the flickering, stormy light. The datalink was visual, showing us Irwin’s view of the ground, with a map grid overlay to make sure we were all oriented. We were invisible on his unaided optic image; showing up only as blue points of light on the tactical map grid. Good to have it confirmed our cam was doing its job.

  The gully led off to the left, narrow and boulder-strewn; nobody was going to use Overdrive down there. About 600 meters down, three figures were making their way along a dried-up streambed. Result.

  Irwin’s datalink designated them simply as Hostile One, Two, and Three, outlined as red-for-enemy. As long as we were all in ’link, anyone who could see them could update all of us on what they were up to.

  The bad guys were slowed by the gloom and by the bulk of a missile launcher and guidance system. Their hand weapons looked like ancient rifles, probably firing cased ammunition, unlike us. Unlikely they’d have grenades or any close quarter kit, given what they’d come here to do.

  It was back-to-basics time. As well as finding the pilot, Mahmoud wanted a prisoner if possible, so simply mortaring the gully wasn’t on; we’d have to close in. Epsilon Indi Four didn’t have anything much in the way of surveillance sats, and the air detachment certainly hadn’t brought any mini-drones, so for another few hours we weren’t going to know anything more than what we could see in front of us. The enemy could be totally on their own, or there might be heavy backup waiting for them around the next bend in the gully. But at least they hadn’t seen us. Yet.

  Mahmoud’s never been one to screw around. In a couple of moments Keegan and her partner were climbing the slope to our left, looking for a crest line to keep between them and the enemy. Once out of sight, they were to go flat-out and move ahead of the shooter group to act as a cut-off further down the streambed.

  Mahmoud took the other three forward toward the gully, while Kirov and I followed on a few hundred meters back as a reserve. I must admit I didn’t like it; my choice would have been for a larger group to move ahead of the enemy, while a pair stayed back as stops in case they turned and headed back up.

  But at least we weren’t dithering about, and Feroz Mahmoud got paid to make the decisions. I hefted my rifle, grinned at Kirov, and set off under that boiling, troubled sky.

  IT STARTED WELL ENOUGH. The cut-off pair got into position without being seen, and on a word from the boss Yu Ling put a line of fire across the enemy’s front as they came down the gully. He could have dropped the three of them easily enough, but we wanted prisoners.

  They took cover well, I’ll say that for them. In a moment, the three figures dropped out of sight amongst the rocks, masked from our view as much by the fading light as by the maze of boulders.

  Trying to keep tabs on things, I kept updated from Keegan’s datalink. As we lay low, she covered Mahmoud’s back, and she had the best view. Keegan switched back and forth between false-color infrared and image-intensification views, obviously unhappy in the flickering gloom. Red-for-enemy symbols should have been marking their positions, unfortunately the datalink kept flashing on and off. Every time she lost sight of them, the system was forced to make guesses. Nobody liked that.

  I had a good fire position, and I could make out the rocks reasonably well from my little fold in the ground. Kirov, casual as ever, sprawled almost out in the open. The enemy wasn’t moving; maybe they were frozen with shock, or perhaps they were just lying there listening to Mahmoud’s amplified voice echoing off the walls around them calling on them to surrender. But, somehow, I got the impression they were waiting for something, and it made me nervous enough to keep me on my toes, even though Kirov and I weren’t really caught up in the contact.

  Kirov rolled over onto his back and smirked across at me. “Should be fairly straightforward, Arden. I’d give ’em another few minutes to work out their options before they throw in the towel. They’re not going anywhere.”

  As if in reply, a short burst from a rifle flung up the dirt in front of him. It was most likely aimed at the sound of Mahmoud’s voice, the firer getting confused by the echoes however, it got Kirov thinking. He slithered sideways behind a boulder, going at a fair speed, then grinned sheepishly at me.

  “Score one for the local boys. I’d hate to be offed by someone who’s actually aiming at Mahmoud.”

  A massive crack made me jump, and I scanned the whole area for enemy mortars or some other kind of fire support. Another crack, and another; followed by blinding flash of white light that threw the little gully into plain view for a few seconds. Dazzled, I switched to IR vision.

  At first singly, then thicker and thicker, bloated raindrops hit the ground with an almost explosive force, throwing little splashes of mud up into our faces. Within moments visibility was reduced to near zero in any mode, and my ears were being battered by the now-unbroken series of thunderclaps.

  The rain fell so heavily we could have been underwater, it was starting to look like this was what the enemy had been waiting for. They probably didn’t know we were Enhanced, but little could have been a more effective equalizer.

  Deafened, blinded, and losing datalink and Command net to static, unable to use our greater speed effectively in the slimy, rocky maze the gully had become, we couldn’t even guarantee staying in contact any more, never mind taking a prisoner. They were locals—they would have known they could break clear in this.

  I hoped Mahmoud was doing some serious thinking.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE

  Brown Horse Bloke

  Dennison State, Epsilon Indi

  “If the cavalry were not very valuable in trench warfare, they did bring a little social tone to the battlefield.” –Major Sir Desmond Morton

  2335

  When it all turns to rat shit, it tends to happen quickly. By now I couldn’t hear a thing above the blasts, and I’d lost comms and data on every net. All I could see was rain and mud for about fifteen meters, lit by the occasional lightning flash that resembled a localized nuke. Beyond that, forget it. My old regimental band could have been marching past in full taran-tara and I wouldn’t have known a bloody thing about it.

  I stood up and headed
for where I’d last seen Kirov.

  “Kirov!” Little harm in shouting in this din, no one was going to put a sight on me. “Close in. Head for my voice!”

  A couple of seconds later he emerged from the downpour, grinning like an idiot as usual. I swear if the devil himself emerged from the pit and carried him off, Kirov would have been taking the piss out of him with his last breath. The guy just couldn’t take things seriously. “Now then, Arden, shall we piss off for a pint? I don’t think I fancy being a soldier today. It’s turned a bit damp.”

  “Pack it in, Kirov. Have you got any comms?”

  “Not a crackle. What do you reckon—head for where we last saw Mahmoud?”

  “Yeah, best we do. I’ll lead. My arc is front and right. You’re left, but keep an eye rearward. We go steady, in case it lifts as fast as it dropped.”

  We took off at a good pace, all the same. It didn’t make things much worse. We were out of contact now, and I could live with the risk of noise; it still sounded like someone taking a smoke break in the firework factory.

  The going wasn’t what you’d call easy. I slithered about in the mud glop like a snake on ice, but I wanted to re-org with the others before the next bloody thing happened. I kept bouncing in and out of datalink and Command net, flicking my eyes between vision modes as the lightning cracked off, trying everything I could think of to gain some hearing sensitivity that wasn’t swamped by the noise.

  Then the next bloody thing happened.

  A kind of rhythm beyond the fizzing, crackling, and banging in my ears. Something—or some things—were moving around us in the middle distance, between us and the gully mouth.

  I reckoned we were still a way short of the gully mouth, I wracked my brain trying to remember the pattern of rocks and scrub I’d been looking at before everything went underwater. Nope, no good. It was all a blur. I tried Kirov’s trick and flipped into Overdrive for a moment, scanning my last few seconds of backup for anything useful.