by Ron Bender
I choke the gun’s angle of fire. A more experienced pilot would have goosed it over my position and swung around hard left, shedding speed to hover. This pilot tries to tighten his turn and push the craft’s nose farther down.
I plant both feet, squat, and unfold in one motion. The hydraulic rams in my thighs slam open. Instantly I’m in a full extension jump.
Only at the last moment does the gunner figure out what I can do.
What I’m already doing.
The multi-barrel surges to life as the pilot yanks the nose up hard.
They’re not fast enough.
My hands wrap around the metal gun shroud. The MaxisPressure hydraulics in my hands crumple plating inward under my grip. The gun whines and stops spinning.
The sudden forward movement by the panicked pilot makes it easy to swing my knees up to the hull. I clamp on with my kneecap magnets.
The air rushes past as the pilot tries various maneuvers to dislodge me. All of my old training kicks in. When I was in the Air Force Space Corp, I’d been modded with state of the art gear to extend my combat capabilities. I’d been state-of-the-art twenty-five years ago. As old as my gear is, it keeps me securely attached to the VTOL APC.
Primary objective achieved: Maggie is safe. Someone bigger and more legitimate than these guys will be here soon. I just need to survive.
Heckler VTOLs like this are tough and reliable, but all VTOLs suffer a similar flaw. I rip the gun cowl off and magnetize it to my outer forearm. I crawl around the outside of the fuselage, one maglocking limb at a time.
No one inside is stupid enough to open the portside weapons bay.
They bank sharply. As the ground spins under me, I spot a second APC lifting off. The ramp is open. I can see Maggie struggling in the arms of an armored merc. I freeze. Then rage as hot as the desert sun flushes through me, and I’m moving again.
The second VTOL banks, coming around, heading toward me.
On top of the fuselage, I make my way to the single, wide-mouthed jet intake. It takes four double-fisted blows across the lip of the spinning engine before it folds over.
The pilot slews the craft wildly around trying to buck me off. He doesn’t know it but jerking the yoke around is going to make trying to land even harder.
With a breached edge, it’s easy to punch out the grillwork filter. It gets eaten with the screeching of spinning metal. I follow the grill with the heavier gun cowl I’ve carried up with me. The turbine inside balks, howls, and dies. Its death rattle is a spray of fiery fan blades, components, and acrid smoke churning out of its ducts.
As the VTOL pitches wildly under me, an automatic emergency recovery parachute deploys. I rip the chute off at its connection point and cram it into the smoking intake. They aren’t going to have a soft landing. I won’t let them.
Software manipulates the maglocks on my feet as I stand. I’m not riding this thing down.
Between grit, thick-soled boots, and bad timing, my feet slip as I start a sprint to the tail.
The second VTOL curves up and around from behind. The rams in my legs vault me from the top of one plummeting craft toward the other.
Bad footing sends me off target. I miss the top and end up draped over the canopy. I get a good look at the pilot and gunner through the armored glass. I can see the pilot’s face, mouth open in horror and surprise.
I pull back my fist.
The sound of the first VTOL hitting the ground fades in my mind as I see a merc behind the pilot. He yanks Maggie up with one hand and presses a pistol to her neck with the other.
The image sears into me.
There is no place in the solar system safe enough for that man to hide.
I stop my blow because I see the terror in my little girl’s eyes. Reason replaces rage. Even If I could get inside, stop the merc from pulling the trigger … unless I could do that while maintaining control of the craft, a crash at this speed would kill her.
I climb over the glass and lock onto the top of the fuselage. I clamp down on my anger and worry. I’m along for the ride, but they’ll have to land sometime.
The craft banks westward and opens to full throttle.
This pilot is much better than the one I downed. We dart between hilltops and flit over low ridges, hugging tight to the terrain.
Air roars past me, the pressure making it impossible to take a breath. I switch to emergency internal air and press my face into the crook of my forearm to protect the lubrication on my optics as best I can. Arriving half blind at a landing site wasn’t an option.
The VTOL continues to fly nap-of-the-earth; my sensor array shows me every shift in direction, speed, and altitude. We pass over the border and head toward the southwest. The pilot isn’t risking a straight-line path over the gulf. His route costs fuel but makes it easier to hide.
I dredge up the specifications I’ve hard-memorized on this Heckler model, calculating fuel and burn rates. We’re iInside the Republic of Texas with at most an hour and a half's worth of fuel left. I start the process of remembering decades-old maps of where we might be going. If I can develop a relevant map plotting an arc of locations on the flight path, I can determine how far I might be from resources.
While the program runs, I unlock one hand and switch it to induction mic. The vibration from the engine is too much for me to hear any conversation clearly and my programming isn’t new enough to filter it out. I do confirm that there are only six men along with the pilot and gunner. I can’t hear Maggie, but she’s been taught to not say anything.
They didn’t work too hard trying to kill me while I was dismantling the other Heckler and they took Maggie. I can only guess that they want me alive and will use her to leverage me.
Depending on our approach to a landing zone and how many men are there, my plan has to be flexible enough to deal….
I give my air a quick flush and refill, set a telltale alarm, and then fall asleep, trying to settle into the old pattern of boredom, fear, and excitement that feels foreign.
I’ve been out of the game for a long time. I can’t afford to let that get in my way.
3.02
Situation Report
>Wind. Sunrise. Open road.
No complaints. My ride’s operating well inside specs.
Short job, good pay, and Wolf always pays on time. The fact it’s a road-trip to the Feral Lands is a plus. No repercussions. Go out, hunt down bad guys, kill’em, and then make the bodies vanish. My kind of work, minimal timetabling, open to modification as needed, no micromanagement by some overdressed Russian. Carta blanca to hunt and kill in any way I want.
It feels good to exercise my expertise.
On a road like this, on a day like today, running on ePower would be a waste. My ride thunders along on hard-burning fuel.
The space around me looks clear. I scan the horizon as I tear along.
I know better. Just ’cause it looks clear….
The country north of the city is home to a different species of ganger. Ferals. A whole different fucking culture. May as well be frigging aliens. Different priorities different rules, and crazy traditions. The cannibal cook-offs the Nulls love so much originated out here. In the Feral Lands, if these guys don’t know you, or no one vouches for you, you were dinner or property. To compensate, even the tribal types this far out are vicious.
I open a channel on my internal com-link and subvocalize, “White Tower, White Tower, Picasso here.”
Head office connects. “White Tower, this is Switchboard. Go ahead, Picasso.”
Grin happens. Jen’s a honey-sweet voice. I’d tap that till it died under me, never met her though. Wolf holds her tight to the home office. “Requesting sat-check, my location, current time images.”
“Approved by Actual.” She’s so smooth. My crotch twitches. “One moment, Operative. Images are being developed and routed to you. Please hold for incoming patch.”
I lick my lips. My imagination takes a turn with her. Only the bike rumbling, the wind
whistling, and her squirming underneath me. I think I like her as a curvy pale-skinned twenty-something blonde.
“Patching in Alpha-Wolf Actual,” she says. She sounds smug.
My hands tighten on grips instead of flesh. Paid vacation is over.
“Picasso,” the boss says.
“Yeah?” I stop subvocalizing.
“Switchboard pulled up your location.” His tone is clipped. “I have a situation I need you to check for me.”
“Go.” Keep it short and sweet. Maybe he’ll think I’m too busy. Maybe he’ll leave me alone.
No such luck. Coordinates drop on me.
“We have an emergency signal coming from that location,” he says. “It was broadcasting an old AFSC code indicating a hull security breach by heavily armed insurgents.”
“What?” I frown.
Why would an ancient Air Force Space Corp broadcast be coming from out here? The corp was disbanded just like the rest of us. It’s got to be someone screwing around with an old beacon.
“We have low Earth imagery,” Wolf says. “Switchboard is forwarding you the files.”
I have to actually take the time to talk. Too much talk slows me down and kills the action. “Screw that. I don’t look at that shit.” I’m slowing the bike as my mapping program overlays the coordinates. “Just tell me.”
“We have a downed LEO in the Feral Lands near your position. We also had a visual on two six-ton VTOL APCs in the area.” He pauses. “One of them was brought down just after the AFSC signal was picked up. Orbital is tracking the second VTOL vectoring out of that area at a high rate of speed.”
“What do you need from me?” Point man, urban and jungle tracking, wet work, those are my fields of expertise.
“On the surface, this looks like industrial sabotage. A LEO falling from the sky, the signal, the two VTOL showing up only on visual.” He sounds distracted like the ops room might be getting busy. “But there may be civilians in the area who need assistance.”
“Tribals? You suck. Sir.” I hate search and rescue. “I’m search and destroy.”
“I know your two-oh-one better than you do, Soldier.” His tone makes it final. “I want eyes on the ground. Gather intel, secure the area, and render assistance to survivors. I’m boarding a recovery craft and will be there in fifteen minutes. I’m leaving now. Go and do your job.”
“Sir, yes, sir. One situation report coming right up.” I don’t care if he bitches at me later. Technically I don’t even work for him. No one else in the White Mice does either. What’s he gonna do, fire me? Kill me? Maybe he will one day, but not today.
There wasn’t even a point to asking him who died and put him in charge. I was there. I’m the one who pulled the trigger.
I turn the bike into the ditch. I’ll need to detail clean the entire bike when I get back to the city. I crank the shocks to their off-road setting and shift the power plant to electric.
Dry morning wind, heat building up relentlessly, endless dusty grassland. So much for my day.
Twenty miles to go. Reluctantly, I pull up one eye and review the footage. The images show a big smoking hole, an old-school nomad field truck, a wrecked VTOL, and a second suspicious VTOL APC booking it out of the incident zone.
If there are civilians on the ground, they’re probably dead. The whole thing looks like a screwed up black op.
But the boss is paying. It’s the only reason I keep going.
I roll up on the site. Park. Unsling my rifle from its boot. “White Tower, White Tower, Picasso here. On site, dismounting, beginning preliminary sweep.”
“Roger Picasso.” A Russian accent responds. Fucking Morochevsky, the overdressed I-want-reports-on-everything bastard. Since Wolf said he’s coming out here personally, I’ll wait to report directly to him. I resolve not to say any more to Control than I have to.
The truck is the most visible feature on my approach so I make that my twelve o’clock. No surprises after I fire up my internal sensor package. No breathing, no large heartbeats for a full three hundred feet around.
Thermal imaging shows me the dulling glow of cooling bodies. The one closest to me is where I go first. This guy looks like he was supposed to be the cover fire for the two guys nearest the truck.
He stationed himself too close to the vehicle to be effective. Given the angle he was attacked from, he was probably taken out second. There’s an antique military ax buried deep in his forehead.
“Score one for the tribals.”
I pat down the corpse and find nothing worthwhile. I flip my ponytail out of the way and make my way around the truck. The guy I check out on the passenger side has been melon-headed.
“Going on a limb here and saying this attack was done from behind,” because who’d not act if they saw it coming. It’s ugly, the way his skull plate armor is flattened. It takes a lot of power to crush a metal ball. I figure he’s also the last guy killed. He was facing the rear of the truck, probably moving to check on ax-to-the-face guy.
I squat and carefully look at the ground. Bootprints. Homemade boots too; old truck tires for soles….
Glancing under the truck, I spot scuffs from the boots, a single knee bushing, and one divot from a huge palm. I work out the scale of what I’m seeing…. Whoever did this was big. Holy-crap-size big. Heavy, and nimble, he stood up from under the truck without using his hands. So, either armored up in a power suit, maxed out with implants, or maybe illegally cloned grafts.
Backing away, I skirt around to the driver’s side of the truck next.
First guy killed. He’s been lowered to the ground. Mastoid com-link cut clean away, probably the same ax. Fucking heavy blow too. The guy’s skull armor is deformed through his spine, head barely attached.
Big Guy comes out of the truck to poke around. He’s probably here for salvage. Other guys show up in the VTOL and move in on the truck to silence witnesses. They approach the truck to secure it.
Big Guy comes back to the truck and takes them out. But why doesn’t Big Guy try to hide? Why come back to the truck at all? He’s gotta know he can’t outrun a VTOL in this piece of shit. Maybe he thinks they aren’t that big a problem?
I pull myself up on the door rung and look into the cab. Child seat.
Defending his young.
Maybe noble, maybe stupid. I don’t breed, so the whole defend-your-offspring thing is a bunch of footnotes in a university survey class.
So, Big Guy comes from the hole back to the truck to get to his kid. I find marks of travel out to the hole. I widen into a search pattern. I find his line of travel back.
The Big Guy has power armor. It’s the only conclusion I can come to. He covered thirty feet in two footfalls. A tribal with a power suit? Not fucking likely. But there it is.
Wolf will want solid answers.
On my way around the hole, I toss in a sensor drone as I go by. It’ll take a while for the thing to collect data. With the time I have, I range out more than two hundred yards to find a blown apart emergency beacon.
It looks like one of the APCs raked it with a belly gun. It may have been an easier solution than jamming it. I kick the dirt around until it coughs up a bunch of light .50 cal slugs. It’s the standard issue belly gun for an older model Heckler VTOL.
If the VTOLs were here on a covert operation, leaving corpses behind and blasting emergency beacons with big firepower ruins the covert part of the operation. If we were close to anything like population, this whole place would be a crime scene. Out here this place will probably turn into a tourist stop for Ferals.
I return to the crater. The sensor drone has done its thing and reports back on a ton of bad. I stop at the top of the hole. The warped and drooping airframe of a light cargo orbital craft is intact … for now.
The last of the hull plates are slowly being converted into more nanites by the ones that started the reaction. Ribs and bracers exposed to the air glitter with flickering movement.
The power unit and the com system controlling
the bots are the only chunks that are still in one piece. Since I’m not personally interested in looking for leftover genetic materials, I remotely steer the sensor drone inside. No one left on board is identifiable. Machine dissolution is a shitty way to die. Nanites swallow up the drone and its signal stops with the popping sound of its power core rupturing.
Backing away carefully, I continue my sweep. I find footprints from the three black ops guys and landing marks from the VTOL.
I make my way back to the Big Guy’s footprints which lead away from the truck on the passenger side.
“Look at the kick trail from the toes of his boots,” I mutter. “It’s gotta be power armor.”
I follow the marks. A second team chased him briefly on foot and then got picked up by a VTOL.
I continue to follow Big Guy’s footprints into the underbrush at the bottom of a gully. He stopped for some reason and then booked it again. I find a shallow depression, other footprints, and an old-school military grade filter mask. Inside the mask is a bright pink hair elastic. Thin strands of pale hair are wound around it.
The offspring has a blonde ponytail. I lean in and sniff above the dirt. My analyzer tells me it’s a girl maybe five or six years old, and, based on the size of the depression, she’s kind of short for her age.
In a wider valley, I walk up to an impact point for a mostly-intact VTOL. The craft is hammered into the ground nose down at a sharp angle. The back ramp is open, and the tail section is riddled with holes. Dead mercs are scattered in a ring just behind the back door. The crew got banged up and, instead of getting recovered, someone ran containment. No witnesses. No one to talk, and in the rising heat, their brains won’t be recoverable.
“Control, Picasso here.” I take one last look around and make my way back up the hill. There’s a thickening line of dust rising along the horizon.
“Control here.” Moro sounds tense.
“This is not your typical shit-storm.” I know swearing over the com-link pisses Moro off. I grin. I start the walk back to the truck.