She struggled to focus on the man sitting on her chest. He clutched the collar of her shirt, gathering it in his fists, pulling her face close to his. His mouth hung open as he scanned her from behind the bulky night-vision goggles. His breath smelled foul and felt hot on her cheek.
He tapped the communicator clipped on his ear. “I got one!” he shouted, clearly happy with himself. He waited a moment and tapped the transmitter again. “Stevens…Martinez…?” He waited again, scanning the woods around him. “Son of a…” Tearing the goggles from his face, he drew a long, black ceramic-bladed knife and held it to her neck. “…bitch.”
He cuffed her across her chin with the side of his fist. It hurt like hell. Then Sigrid realized, yes—it hurt. The shocker had a paralytic effect, but it was wearing off remarkably fast. She wiggled a finger—she could move. Slowly, she reached down to her hip and unclipped her pistol, but her fingers were still clumsy and the man heard the movement.
“Bitch!” he said again and grabbed the gun away from her, tossing it aside.
He was still watching the gun fall when Sigrid pulled the knife from her belt. She slashed at him, cutting him in a wide gash across his arm. He grabbed her wrist and kneeled on both her arms.
“Fuck!” He looked at the blood flowing from the cut. “What the fuck are you girls on?” He held the tip of his own knife under her chin. “I’m not supposed to hurt you, unless you resist.” He drew the tip of the knife down along her neck to the collar of her T-shirt. He lifted up the shirt collar with the tip of the blade, slitting the fabric. “I think we’re past that…”
Sigrid felt her pulse quicken as he drew the knife down her chest. He made a quick upward slash and more of the light fabric parted. He smiled. Sigrid tried to lift her legs; she wanted to grab his neck in a scissor hold, but was still weak from the effects of the stun.
He struck her hard with the back of his hand—the knife grazed her cheek and cut her. “I told you to keep still!” Sigrid tried to kick him again, only to be punched hard and repeatedly. She felt blood dripping from her nose as her vision became fuzzy. When he punched her again she almost blacked out.
“Get your hands off her, fucker!” Suko’s scream rang through the trees like a war cry.
Sigrid saw only a blur as Suko dived over her and onto the man. She tackled him high, slamming hard into his neck. They both rolled over in the mud in a wild and grappling heap. The man still had his knife, but Suko had hers as well. She parried his swipe easily and brought her own blade down hard, twisting it as she plunged it deep into his chest. His body twitched in a last, violent spasm, spitting up blood as his life leaked away.
With the fight over, Suko ran, stumbling, back to Sigrid. “Seeg!” she called out, pulling her close and hugging her hard. Sigrid lay limp in her arms as Suko wiped the mud and blood from her face. “Sigrid!” Deeply concerned, she checked her friend’s condition. Sigrid’s eye was swollen and her nose was a bloody mess. “Tell me you’re okay!” she cried, trying to shake the life back into her.
“Ow…not so hard!” Sigrid said in mock protest. “I’m okay—just feel a bit…woozy, is all.”
Leta arrived at the scene, panting for breath. She knelt beside Suko, wrapped her muddy arms around Sigrid’s neck and hugged her almost as vigorously as Suko had. “Thank God you’re okay.” She looked over at the limp form of the young man and saw Suko’s blade sticking out of his chest. “You…killed him.”
Suko wiped her sudden tears away with a dirt-streaked fist. “I thought—I thought he was going to kill Sigrid.”
Sigrid thought she may be right.
“Why would Rosa do this?” Leta demanded, tears flooding her own eyes. “Who are these guys?”
None of the girls could answer that one.
“Let’s get to the beacon,” Sigrid said. “Let’s get the hell out of here.”
The others nodded and they made their way back down the slope to the cargo container; Sigrid leaned heavily on the two girls. The body of the other man Suko had killed lay on the ground where he’d bled out from the gash in his neck, but the others were gone. The stun charges were only effective for a short time and the other men had escaped.
Leta looked around frantically. “Where’s Khepri?”
They all scanned the woods, holding their weapons ready, but there was no sign of the men or their friend.
“They must have taken her,” Suko said.
“Fuck it,” Sigrid said. She slapped the homing beacon on top of the container that would send a signal to their transport to come pick them up. Nothing happened. Sigrid activated her implant and scanned the transponder. It was armed, but not transmitting. “Dammit!”
“Jamming…?” Leta asked.
Suko huffed. “Well, this is going right down the gurgler.”
“For once, I think I actually know what you mean.” Sigrid tried accessing her com-link again. Nothing. A horrible thought occurred to her. “Do you think there are more of them? Do…do you think they’re going after all the girls?”
Leta stomped her feet in the mud. “What the fuck is going on?”
Suko hushed her with a hand. “Quiet!”
Sigrid also heard it—the sound of a transport coming toward them.
The three girls moved quickly into the cover of the surrounding trees. The transport was on them fast. Sigrid could see it was a large craft—not the T-48s they’d flown in on. Neither was this one painted in the red and black colors of Kimura, but rather a dark-olive-drab, and with no markings on it.
It hovered above them; its four heavy thrusters blasted up fragments of dust and dirt and rock, forcing the three girls to shield their eyes. It hung there for what felt like an eternity before spinning horizontally on its axis, scanning the area with two floodlights suspended from its belly. Sigrid almost cried out as her optics were overloaded by the blinding, bright lights. She quickly dialed down the implant before opening her eyes again. She got a good look at the pilot in the cockpit. He wore the same dark-green uniform, but he wasn’t anyone she recognized. Two more crew members manned the hulking chain-guns mounted on each side.
They had to have spotted them. Sigrid quickly calculated how she’d react, where she’d move, if the thing opened fire. But then a blast from its thrusters pushed it up and over the crest of the hill and out of sight.
“What the hell was that?” Leta said.
“Wait, look!” Suko pointed off in the direction the transport had gone. They could all hear its thrusters powering down as it came to rest beyond the copse of trees that concealed them, landing less than a kilometer away.
“Come on!” Sigrid said. They took off as fast as they could through the trees, and within a minute they saw the transport sitting in a small clearing near a rocky creek. Suko raised her fist, signaling the others to stop. She dropped to her knee. Leta and Sigrid instantly followed suit, taking cover in the brush.
Down below, just ahead of them, were another group of men gathered around the transport. Her heart sank when she saw four of the other girls lying face down in the dirt. Khepri was definitely one of them, and so was Mei, and possibly Lei-Fei. There was no way to tell whether the girls were alive or dead, but Sigrid and Suko and Leta all shared an unspoken resolve—they would not let the men escape with their friends.
Suko signaled Leta to flank around to the right. Leta nodded, disappearing quickly into the woods.
“Sigrid, I want you stay here, just like last time. We’ll wait for you to take the first one out.”
“No!” Sigrid said, grabbing Suko’s arm. She didn’t want Suko to leave her again. But when she looked again at the fallen girls she knew it was the only way. “Okay—I’ll be okay.”
Suko squeezed her shoulder and headed off.
Sigrid un-holstered the sniper rifle. The men were hurrying to load the girls into the transport. At least they were alive—she hoped. She couldn’t let the transport take off, but her weapon was useless against the craft.
She heard the boom of
the thrusters powering up; she couldn’t wait any longer. Sigrid fired her first shot, hitting one of the men in the face—not the most effective spot for the stun-round, but it gave her a certain satisfaction. She aimed at the next man and fired. He fell hard, lying twitching in the dirt. She heard the shouts and ducked back down as the men opened fire—real bullets this time. She cursed. If only she had some actual lethal ammunition. One explosive round could take out the lot of them.
Sigrid heard more firing, this time from Suko and Leta shooting from their flanking positions. They each fired quick, efficient bursts and all their shots hit home. The pitch of the transport engines increased to a whistling howl. She couldn’t let it take off, not with the girls still inside. Before she knew what she was doing, she was off and running down the hill towards it, covering the seventy meters in less than eight-seconds.
The large craft was already lifting away from the ground. She dived, grabbing onto one of the landing struts. Suko darted after her, barely managing to get a hand onto the tail gear at the back. Sigrid quickly hauled herself up into the belly of the craft. The two crew in the gunnery pods looked up, startled. Strapped into the pods, they were completely helpless. Sigrid showed them no mercy. She threw her bowie knife, burying it in the chest of one, before smashing the butt of her rifle in the face of the other.
She almost failed to react in time as the pilot fired back at her with his sidearm, but it was a wild, desperate shot, which she dodged easily. She was already off balance when he threw the controls hard over, banking the craft so steeply Sigrid almost tumbled out of the open port.
Sigrid clawed her way the three steps to the open cockpit. When the pilot reached back to fire at her again she was ready. She grabbed his wrist, and without even bothering to disarm him, she twisted his arm around and fired three times into his chest. The pilot slumped forward on the stick and the transport nosed sharply down, hurtling toward the ground not far below.
She made a mad grab for the control stick and heaved it back. The thrusters screamed in protest, and the transport bucked, leveling out moments before impact.
Sigrid slid into the co-pilot seat and throttled down. Her actions were greeted by an abrupt and eerie silence—she’d somehow managed to kill the engines—the huge transporter dropped the last fifteen feet and crashed to the ground. The four captured girls looked up at her blearily from the back of the compartment where they’d been piled, still bound, still suffering under the effects of the stunners. But they were alive.
And then Sigrid remembered—where was Suko? She hadn’t made it into the transport.
“Suko!”
Sigrid leapt from the craft and landed running, frantically searching for her friend. She found her lying in the little creek bed, sprawled on her back, motionless. Sigrid ran to her, splashing through the shallow water, calling out to her.
Suko sat up wearily, probing her back with her fingers. “Ow…I think my bum’s puckeroo.”
Sigrid was so relieved to find her in one piece. She threw her arms around her, hugging her tightly. “Thank God you’re okay.”
“How are the others?”
“They’re alive. Okay, I think.”
Sigrid helped her to her feet, and the two hobbled back to the transport. Leta was already there, cutting the binders off the girls. They all looked okay, although a little groggy.
“What the hell’s going on?” Mei asked. “Sigrid, you—killed those guys…”
“They killed Jia,” Suko said—she still couldn’t believe it herself.
“What?” Mei looked completely shocked.
“They were going to take you—or kill you! I don’t know!”
Leta hauled the body of the pilot out of the cockpit, depositing it unceremoniously on the ground outside. One of the crewmen from the weapons pods was alive, but unconscious. The girls worked quickly to bind him, securing him in the back of the hold. Leta took the empty pilot’s seat. She studied the controls; her fingers flitted over the various switches and gauges until the thrusters reignited. She turned to the girls behind her. “You guys might want to strap yourselves in.”
“You’re not going to fly this thing…” Suko said.
Leta shrugged. “I mean, how hard can it be?”
The other girls scrambled for the empty seats. Mei and Lei-Fei were already clambering into the empty weapons pods.
“This is insane!” Sigrid said—but she too was giddy at the idea of flying the commandeered craft.
Leta looked back over her shoulder; satisfied that the girls were all seated and strapped in, she hauled back on the stick—and the engines promptly died. “What the…?”
Sigrid climbed into the co-pilot’s seat next to her; she’d had a few moments of experience flying the beast. “I think you have to press the thingy,” she said, pointing at the main-thruster control switch. Leta hit it and the engines growled in response.
“Are we sure this is a good idea?” Mei asked again.
“We have to try,” Suko said. “We have to save the others.”
Leta got off to an adventurous start, but the robust craft shrugged off her brush with the surrounding treetops. The flight was erratic, if not a little hair-raising, eliciting the occasional scream from the passengers. The more the transport pitched and bucked, the more the girls shouted suggestions on how Leta might steady the craft.
“Shut up! I’m flying!” Leta barked back at them. “And you can quit that bloody squealing, too.”
Sigrid took command of their navigation, guiding Leta to the other drop zones. At each point, they found a group of girls waiting patiently—most without a care in the world—simply wondering why their communications were down. But several of the teams had encountered similar groups of soldiers. Mercifully, Jia had been the only casualty. By the time they had picked up the final group of girls, Leta was doing a superb job at the controls.
“This thing flies itself,” she said. “No—literally. Once I figured out I could just punch in the coordinates…”
Just before dawn, the Academy came into view. Sigrid noticed the smoke rising from the compound from more than a kilometer away. As they got closer, she could see that one of the supply sheds had been reduced to a smoking ruin. Some of the staff were still working to put out a fire that raged through the roof of the main building. The attackers hadn’t only targeted them, but the entire Academy as well. What the hell was going on?
The staff hurried to the transport ship as Leta brought it in for a shaky landing. Dr. Garrett was the first to reach the steps, followed closely by Rosa and Chesna. Both instructors were now armed, and pointing their weapons at the transport—as were most of the staff. Some of the instructors were marching off a group of the green-clad soldiers; prisoners, no doubt.
The portal of the craft opened and they lowered their weapons as they saw a rather mud-caked Leta smiling down at them.
“Report!” Rosa demanded.
Leta couldn’t hide the pride that shone through her eyes. “Just doing some flying, sir.”
Sigrid rolled something green and heavy through the open door. It landed on the hard earth with a thud and an audible grunt—it was the crewman they’d captured. “Thought you might like another prisoner to question, sir.”
Rosa erupted in laughter.
Sigrid, Suko and Leta jumped down from the belly of the craft, all of them shouting at Rosa simultaneously, eagerly telling him about the men they’d encountered in the woods, how they’d been attacked…and how Jia was found murdered.
Rosa waved them all quiet. “I’ll debrief you all later. I want you all to report to the infirmary. We’ll talk, but only after they’ve looked you over.”
With groans of disappointment, the girls headed toward the main complex, while two of Rosa’s staff hauled their prisoner away.
Once everything was quiet, Rosa turned to Chesna. “You recognize this?” he asked, looking at the stolen transport ship. It was an ancient Rollins Corp Lancer-Class low-orbital drop ship, specificall
y adapted to ferry troops to and from orbit.
She scoffed at the sorry-looking craft. “There’s only one Mercenary Group I know that flies one of these rust-buckets.”
“Tarsus.” Rosa shook his head. “Karl, what have you gotten yourself into now.”
CHAPTER 7
Battle Ready
January 5, 2348
Sigrid showered quickly that morning. She barely stopped long enough by the basin to brush her teeth and give her hair a quick comb. All the girls were in a hurry—the shuttles would be landing soon and no one wanted to miss such a spectacle.
Suko was dressed in a slim-fitting long-sleeved shirt and capris. She waited by Sigrid’s bunk, with both hands on her hips, glaring at Sigrid and tapping her foot impatiently. “Hurry up!”
“I am!” Sigrid protested. She took off the damp towel she wore, taking time to fold it neatly over the rod at the end of her bunk—untidiness was always dealt with harshly at the Academy; if things weren’t stowed or folded properly there’d be hell to pay. Suko looked on as Sigrid stood before her cubby, tapping a finger on her chin as she considered what to wear.
Suko sighed. “I already put them out for you.” She pointed to the chosen clothes on the bed.
“You’re dressing me now?”
“I just know how long you take to dress.”
Sigrid held up the one-piece brown leotard Suko had chosen. “But I like the blue one.”
“Then wear that one—or go naked. I don’t care. Let’s go!”
Sigrid pulled on the outfit. It was made of a thin fabric that stretched and fitted snugly. Despite the winter weather, a light windbreaker was all she needed to keep herself warm. The girls were becoming increasingly adaptable to all but extreme swings in temperature. Around her waist, she fastened the weapons belt with its two low-slung holsters strapped to her thighs. The two modified Markov PM6 sidearms she always carried clipped into the holstered brackets exactly at the point where her hands hung. The girls were always armed now, ever since the attack over a year ago. Rosa had insisted on it as policy.
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