Chapter 11
Too Clever by Half
Jake carefully raised his head above the crest of the hill to take in the city that waited on the other side.
Twilight had nearly descended, and soon, the shadows would lengthen into night. Lisa’s and Jake’s hope was to take the city well before morning—before the space elevator was due to return to Valhalla Station.
It’s going to be dicey.
Beside him, Marco also stole a glance at their target. Lower on the hill, two squads of Quatro waited, all of them armed, in case this reconnaissance mission was met with unexpected aggression.
But Ingress appeared to be closed-off, its defenders hunkered down inside to await the coming battle. Jake couldn’t see anyone or anything outside of the city, which made sense. System net gossip said that Arkady Black had been given the command, and Jake expected only competence from a man like that.
If the resistance’s goal had been to besiege Ingress, starving the city until it was forced to open its gates, Jake would have advocated for surrounding it and setting up camp while scouring the countryside for opportunities to keep their besieging army well-provisioned.
Unfortunately, they lacked the time for a siege, and even if there had been time, Ingress would have been basically impossible to starve out. With access to the space elevator, along with the rest of the solar system, it would have taken years to accomplish it, if not longer.
Plus, with growing armies of Amblers, Ravagers, and Gatherers marauding the countryside and engaging everything that moved, a siege was out of the question.
Instead, their objective would be to concentrate their firepower on one section of the city walls, with the aim of making it crumble and fall as quickly as possible. That done, they would take the city, secure the elevator, and ascend to Valhalla.
At least, that’s the plan.
Andy Miller had insisted on tagging along for this scouting mission, and Jake hadn’t been able to figure out why, considering the man had wanted nothing to do with Jake until now. Andy had talked one of the Quatro into letting him ride on his back—otherwise, he would never have been able to keep up on just his crutches.
As Jake descended the hillside to rejoin his Quatro escort, he soon discovered the reason for Andy’s desire to accompany them. The man himself approached Jake directly, hobbling toward him as fast as he could, crutches swinging back and forth with abandon. He looked like he was spoiling for a confrontation of some kind.
Surely he’s not stupid enough to try actually taking a swing at me. That would be embarrassing for both of them.
“Find something to do elsewhere, Spirit,” Jake said to Marco. “This kid hates me, for whatever reason, but there’s no need for you to get mixed up in it.”
“Gotcha.” Marco headed toward his MIMAS, which he’d left standing near the bottom of the hill.
“Andy,” Jake said. “We’ll be deploying soon. Shouldn’t you get to the rear?”
Jake hadn’t meant it as a slight, but Andy clearly took it as one. “I have just one thing to say to you,” he said. “If you let anything happen to Lisa during the attack—anything—I’ll do everything I can to kill you. I don’t care how long I’ll have to wait to do it, or what lengths I’ll need to go to.”
Jake cleared his throat, to mask the other reaction that threatened to exhibit itself. “I’m pretty sure Lisa can take care of herself,” he said. “Isn’t she the only reason you’re still alive?”
“Just remember what I said,” Andy spat, then turned to make his way carefully back down the hill.
I will remember it, Andy. But only as a pathetic attempt to intimidate me. One that does nothing to help our chances of winning the coming engagement.
Jake wasn’t sure what Andy’s problem was, but he did know that he pitied the man.
An unexpected transmission request came, then: from Captain Bob Bronson.
Jake only hesitated a moment before accepting.
Outside of the mech dream, Bronson appeared to him only as a head and shoulders superimposed over the real world by Jake’s implant.
“Price. What are you doing?” The captain’s voice dripped with scorn.
“It wouldn’t make for very good OPSEC if I told you that, Bronson.
The man’s mouth twisted, probably at Jake’s failure to address him by rank. “I don’t want to do this, but you’ve spooked the board. They want me to give you one last chance. Drop this hopeless crusade, boy, and take your job back. If you do that, everything will be forgotten. All you have to do is turn back your forces.”
“You mistake why I joined the Darkstream military, Bronson. I know you think you recruited me with your promises of glory and riches, but that’s not really why I joined. The real reasons were to help my sister get better and to pilot a mech. Sue Anne is dead now, and I’m still piloting a mech. I plan to use it to make you stop exploiting innocent people for profit. You don’t have anything to offer me.”
Bronson’s eyes narrowed. “You’re not just driving any mech. One of those things drove Roach mad, boy. You think you’re helping people, but you don’t know what you’re doing. Your judgment’s as compromised as Roach’s was. Wake up, and get the hell out of that thing, before it’s too late. Before you do something that strips away your humanity.”
For a moment, Bronson’s words actually gave Jake pause. What if my judgment really has been compromised? If it was, he probably wouldn’t be aware of it, would he?
According to Marco, Roach had hallucinated that he was doing the right thing. It had led him to kill Richaud.
Am I just hallucinating that I’m fighting for a just cause?
But no. He could almost believe it, except that was exactly the sort of trick a man like Bronson would use to try to turn Jake against himself.
“You’re too clever by half, Bronson. When I see you next, we won’t be having a conversation.” Jake cut off the transmission and started marching toward Lisa, who was approaching at the head of a battalion of Quatro.
He tried to calm himself down as much as he could—the conversation with Bronson had left him angry and bitter. Having to bring up his sister did that, and so did remembering how Bronson had ordered him to abandon his family to die in the attack on Hub. That was the reason Jake had gone against Darkstream in the first place.
“Jake,” Lisa said. “Are you okay?”
“I’m fine. Let’s get this moving, all right?”
“All right. What did you see up there?” She nodded toward the hilltop.
He was about to tell her about Bronson’s offer, but he hesitated. He’d said no, and that would remain his answer, so to bring it up now could only plant a seed of doubt in Lisa’s and the troops’ minds. No matter how small a seed, it wasn’t worth it.
“It’s just like we expected. Ingress is locked up tight, and they haven’t deployed any troops in the field. I think we should hit them from the southeast. The terrain is a bit hilly there, which will give us some cover from the snipers they’ve no doubt positioned along the walls. Plus, it happens to be our current approach vector. Redeploying to hit them from another direction will only give them more time to prepare.”
“I agree,” Lisa said, her expression grave. “I see no reason for any more delay. Let’s begin.”
Chapter 12
Signs of Insubordination
Ash woke to find Bronson looming over her bed, with two armed Darkstream marines standing at attention less than a meter behind him.
Why the escort? Does he think I’m a threat to him? “Captain,” she said. Her voice was still quite hoarse, but it was getting stronger every day.
“Seaman,” he said with a curt nod.
Her gaze drifted from Bronson’s lined face to the pair of marines, and back again. “What’s going on?”
“Ingress is under heavy assault. We’re hoping the city garrison can repel them, especially given we’ve assigned the four remaining Darkstream reserve battalions to help out. But we’re preparing fo
r every possibility.”
Ash blinked. “And that preparation involves me, somehow?”
“I’m afraid so. I know you’re not fully recovered yet, but you don’t need to be recovered to pilot a MIMAS. I’ll have the best medical personnel on Valhalla administer measured doses of stims, to keep you alert. But I need you back in action.”
Ash struggled to a sitting position, blinking away the grogginess that lingered. Most medical professionals still warned against using stims except in times of great need. “You’re sending me down to Eresos, sir?”
“No, no. I wouldn’t send you into battle in your condition, Sweeney. But I do want you to prepare some others for battle, in case the need arises.”
“What others, sir?”
“The next group of MIMAS pilots have been selected. I want you to train them in on the mechs.”
That made Ash fall silent for nearly a minute, as she considered Bronson’s words. At last, she said, “You expect the attackers to take the elevator and make it up here, don’t you, sir?”
“I expect nothing. But I intend to prepare for everything. That’s my job—to get ready for any possibility. And to use everything I have at my disposal. I’m sorry to have to ask this of you, Sweeney. But I have to. I’m afraid it is an order.”
“I understand, sir.”
“There’s something else. Before the Battle of Vanguard, you brought up a trove of documents that someone claimed was proof that Darkstream committed malfeasance. I told you the documents were fabricated. You’ve never shown any sign of insubordination before. You’ve always been a faithful soldier. But I worry that you let that crap impair your ability to think clearly. So I have to ask: do you accept that the documents were fabricated?”
“Yes, sir,” Ash said quietly.
Bronson nodded, though he continued speaking: “We need a strong, unified Darkstream, Sweeney. Now more than ever. This insurrection is the last thing the people of the Steele System need.”
The people of the Steele System are the last thing you’d give a damn about. This is about the company’s bottom line, and nothing else.
But she didn’t say any of that. “Yes, sir,” she said instead.
Chapter 13
On Her Own Terms
The steel walls muted the harsh staccato of gunfire, but colossal explosions boomed like thunder with unsettling regularity, shaking the guard tower more often than not.
Captain Arkady Black refused to stray far from the part of Ingress’ walls where the enemy force was expected to strike.
Nothing compares with surveying the terrain with your own eyes. Satellite photos, maps, simulations—none of those came close.
His refusal to retreat to safer ground was unorthodox. Doctrine would have had him deep inside the city, preferably underground. Instead, he’d chosen the base of a guard tower that overlooked the field of battle.
He’d have chosen the top of the tower as his command post, but that would have caused his subordinates too much distress. This was his compromise.
Right now, he was using his implant to review a computer projection of how the coming engagement might unfold. The simulation was projected across an otherwise blank tabletop, and access to it was restricted only to him. Even another soldier with a Darkstream implant would see only a bare table.
The projection held no surprises—indeed, it conformed to his expectations. Its primary conclusion was identical to his: if he couldn’t keep the enemy mechs away, the city walls would be breached before long. He had no way to reliably repel the mechs, so that was inevitable.
He also knew that far overhead, on Valhalla, Bronson was preparing for Black’s defense to fail and for the barbarians at the gate to seize the space elevator. The final battle would be fought on the space station—both human judgment and computer projections agreed on the high probability of that.
I hope Bronson has something good ready for them.
An alert popped into existence over the simulated battlefield, telling him that Henrietta Jin was outside the tower, requesting permission to enter.
“Come in,” he subvocalized.
The door slid upward into its casing, and Jin entered, looking small outside of her mech. She was above-average height, in reality, but he was used to interacting with the MIMAS pilots while they were inside their mechs. They seemed to live inside those things, or at least they did when they had free rein to do so. Black had found plenty of tasks for both Jin and Arkanian that required they leave their mechs, simply because he considered it good for them.
Jin came to attention and snapped off a salute that just missed the mark. If Black knew anything about officer-subordinate relations, the salute was calculated to be irksome but also just right enough that it didn’t justify a reprimand.
Maybe that worked on other officers.
“Tighten up that salute, Jin. Did they let you MIMAS pilots skip Basic?”
“Sorry, sir.”
“I want to see that salute again.”
Jin snapped her hand to her temple, exhibiting much better form than before. Black gave a satisfied nod.
“Report,” he said. “Is the operation I ordered complete?”
“Yes, Captain.”
He paused, his gaze locked onto hers. “Are you ready to kill your friends?”
“Yes, sir.”
“And the other one? Arkanian? Is she ready?”
“I believe so, Captain.”
Black nodded again, then ran a hand across his cheek, which had sprouted some stubble. He didn’t like that he’d grown lax with his personal grooming. It was sloppy, and it indicated to his soldiers that the coming engagement was affecting him.
“I’ve had my doubts about our mutual employer, too, you know,” Black said after yet another pause. “Deep-seated doubts. I don’t think Darkstream is a noble company. I don’t even think they act responsibly, most of the time. But the difference between your friends and I is that I know what it is to follow orders. What is to be a loyal soldier. Even though I work for a corporation, that doesn’t change what it means to be a soldier. Following orders is central to the spirit of that.”
Black paused a moment to let his words sink in. It occurred to him that everything he’d said so far formed a well-worn argument for obeying one’s superiors. And it wasn’t even the extent of what he believed. So he dug deeper.
“The military is the last line of defense against chaos, Jin. That was true in the Milky Way, and it’s especially true in the Steele System. Though the Darkstream military is not a tool that is used universally for good, if it falls apart, we’re all doomed. Your friends haven’t caught on to it yet, but they’re the ones assaulting the security of all who live here—not us. Are you following me?”
Jin cleared her throat. “What if a soldier is given orders that should not be followed, sir?”
Black narrowed his eyes, studying Jin’s neutral expression. “I need perfect compliance from you tonight, Jin. You’ve already chosen your path. Do you really plan to stray from it now?”
“No, sir.”
The thunder of explosive ordnance rocked the tower once again.
“It’s time for you to suit up,” he said, taking a moment to relish how level his voice was.
“It’s about damned time.” Jin spun on her heel without waiting to be dismissed, slamming the access panel near the door with her palm, and marching out when it rose to let her pass.
She’ll go to her death as ordered, but she’ll do it on her own terms. Despite the speech he’d given, Black had to admit he admired that.
Chapter 14
It's Time
As Jake and pretty much everyone else had pointed out repeatedly, Lisa had marshaled this army, and she’d led it to victory once already. So it was only right that she retain command.
Maybe it feels right to them. All I want to do is vomit.
Mortar fire fell all around her, lighting up the dark and sending tremors through the ground. She tried to ignore the chaos and fo
cus on the task at hand: commanding one of the largest armies Eresos had ever known.
An honor guard of Quatro surrounded her command post, behind the second-largest hill on the field of battle. She figured opting for the increased protection of the largest hill would have been too obvious, though she had ordered Quatro to come and go from behind it, as though receiving and carrying out orders. It even seemed to be working—enemy mortar fire was focused disproportionately on the larger rise.
Unfortunately, that didn’t mean much in the grand scheme of things, since there was quite a lot of enemy mortar fire, in addition to a torrent of sniper fire and the occasional rocket. Black had clearly drilled into his men and women the importance of taking out Lisa’s heavy artillery as quickly as possible, and Darkstream had obviously learned some valuable lessons from the previous Quatro attacks on Ingress and Plenitude.
Lisa had decided to forego tunneling into Ingress. Black would have already filled in the tunnel the quads had made, through which Rug’s mate had gained entry to sew chaos in the city’s streets. Lisa’s own Quatro would have had to start digging anew, and she doubted there was enough time for that.
Luckily, her forces had access to quite a bit of artillery, most of it either taken from Darkstream patrols or raided from company outposts. As fierce a resistance as the city’s defenders were putting up, they couldn’t compensate for the numbers and might of the Quatro, or the fact that the walls were ultimately built to withstand only unarmed Quatro.
“Lisa,” Tessa subvocalized over an encrypted channel. “We have visitors.”
Lisa had put Tessa in charge of keeping an eye on their force’s rear and flanks, as a precaution in case Darkstream had risked positioning a force out in the countryside to take them from behind.
“Are they hostile?” Lisa subvocalized.
“Negative. It’s another Quatro drift—thirty or so, half of them armed, including three more rocket launchers.”
“Excellent.” During the march on Ingress, she’d sent Quatro runners in every direction, in a last-minute attempt to recruit even more soldiers for the coming battle. It seemed her efforts were paying off. Even thirty unarmed Quatro would have been the equivalent of dozens of human soldiers. Armed, they would prove invaluable.
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