Storm Assault (Star Force Series)

by B. V. Larson

  But with two modern combatants such as Crow and I, things didn’t always go that way. We were too powerful, too deadly. We could kill with our bodies.

  I knew I had been heavily modified, far beyond the level of normal troops. But what about the Emperor of Earth? What had he done to his body to improve it over the years?

  He surprised me mildly with a sweeping low kick. He moved fast, but not that fast. A normal human would not have been able to blink, but I skipped back and the kick missed. I lunged the moment his foot whistled by and came in before he could regain his balance.

  It was his turn to look surprised by my speed. I threw three punches into his ribcage before he pushed me away and got his guard up again.

  I hit him hard, but it was like pounding on a steel barrel. He didn’t even register pain as we disengaged and circled one another.

  “You’ve been paying the surgeon, Kyle!” he said. “I didn’t think you were the type.”

  I wasn’t in the mood for banter, so I came at him again. Punches, kicks, holds and counters. We sparred for perhaps ten seconds. Neither of us landed a blow that could take the other out.

  When we separated again, there was blood all over Crow’s white suit. Both our fists were bloody as well. Our clothes were ripped in places, as were our skins. Metal showed under there, crawling nanites that were working desperately to repair us. We were breathing harder, but we weren’t tired, not yet.

  I heard Jasmine calling to me from the sidelines. She had cupped her hands around her mouth.

  “This isn’t getting us anywhere, Kyle!” she shouted.

  She was right, of course, but I didn’t really care. I took a step back to talk to her.

  Crow apparently didn’t want us to talk. He grabbed up a pen from the table—an old-fashioned fountain pen of the type they reserved for these special occasions. He threw it at her with a flick of his wrist.

  She appeared not to see it coming in time. The pen caught her in the chest and sunk in, like a thrown dagger.

  I looked at her in surprise and anger.

  “What the hell—?” came out of my mouth, but that was all I had time to say.

  Crow charged at me. I realized even as he barreled in that I’d been tricked. He hadn’t injured Jasmine out of spite, he’d wanted to distract me, to make me look at her.

  When I looked back in his direction, his foot was coming at my face. The black heel of his dress shoe was scuffed down to the brown leather in places.

  I lifted my arms and twisted my head, but that heel connected with my left cheek and slid on into my ear. It hit with such force that it shaved my left ear off. The ear hung down upon my collar, dangling by shreds of skin. Blood welled up a moment later from a dozen severed vessels.

  Crow had cheated, I thought for a stunned moment.

  What a fool I was. Of course he’d cheated. The only reason he’d made up the rule about not hitting one another in the head was so that he could cheat. No one watching on the net would know or care. This fight, I realized now, was to the death.

  The mistake he’d made, I decided in the next split second, was in not killing me with that single opportunity. If he’d landed his kick square-on, he might have ended this as the victor.

  I knew what I had to do. I had to win.

  Instead of dancing away howling in agony and trying to put my ear back on, I moved in close. I didn’t bother with grabbing his leg or punching his belly—I summoned up all my strength and threw a hammer-blow into his head.

  The results were not unpredictable, but they were spectacular. My fist caught him under the chin and applied a couple thousand pounds of force there. Jack Crow’s head snapped back—and came off.

  I’d decapitated the first and only Emperor of Earth.

  One might think, as I did in that moment, the battle would be over. Under any kind of normal circumstances, we’d both be correct.

  But technology on Earth had not sat still. Just as we’d made medical advances out in the Eden system due in large part to the twisted genius of Marvin, the Imperials had learned their own share of somewhat gruesome tricks.

  His head hung by a flap down his back, thumping there like a backpack, or a slung-back hoodie. But despite gouts of blood, his body did not fall.

  What happened instead twisted my guts. Out of his sides, stalks sprouted. They were like the eye-stalks of crabs.

  I looked at them, staggering back. My mouth hung open.

  “You’re a cyborg,” I said. “Are you even the real Jack Crow?”

  Crow’s mouth worked, hanging there by the spinal cord and flaps of bloody skin. No intelligible words came out, but that was hardly surprising.

  He staggered toward me and I backed away, disgusted. As far as I was concerned, this fight was over. He’d lost.

  But Jack, apparently, didn’t see it that way. He came on, walking oddly, but still functionally. He threw punches at me, and his neck gargled. No doubt he was swearing at me still.

  Where is his brain? I asked myself. He should be dying.

  Jack kept coming and I kept backing away. This seemed impossible, but it was happening.

  All around me the crowd of onlookers, who’d at first been circling closer for a better look, now retreated. They were horrified and repelled, and I didn’t blame them.

  I was glad for the extra room. I wasn’t quite sure what I should do. Now that I had time to think about it, I realized why all those blows to Crow’s chest had done next to nothing. He really did have a steel barrel underneath his skin. Like the cyborgs I’d fought on Phobos, he had a layer of metal, a shell, protecting his innards instead of ribs made of bone.

  I thought about ripping his head off all the way, as disgusting as that would have been, but I didn’t think it would work. His brain must be inside that central torso. Inside the metal encasement that had replaced his ribcage.

  Going for a different tactic, I kicked at his legs. He grabbed my foot, twisted it, and forced me to disengage.

  He seemed to move more slowly now that his head was gone. He still had eyes, but maybe he wasn’t accustomed to using them.

  I jumped up onto a table, still retreating.

  “Kill it, Kyle!” Jasmine shouted.

  I glanced over to her. She had a vicious look on her face. Not even Sandra could have looked angrier. She’d pulled the pen out of her chest, and a circle of blood ringed the spot and ran down from it. The injury reminded me of a bullet wound.

  I decided to man-up and hold my ground. Crow and I traded blows. I grunted as fists slammed into me. I was hitting him harder, and I had better aim, but I wasn’t doing any real damage. I might have dented his metal shell, but I wasn’t even sure that was happening, as the steel was encased in flesh.

  Gritting my teeth, I braced myself to do what had to be done. I’ve killed aliens in hand-to-hand many times. Ramming one’s gauntlets into the guts of a Worm wouldn’t be much different, I told myself.

  But I didn’t want to do it. I didn’t want to reach down his severed neck and dig for his brain. I didn’t want to rip off the eyestalks. It was just too gross.

  In the end, as I was steeling myself for the finish, I was saved by unexpected interference.

  Something small and silvery flashed. I shied away reflexively, thinking someone in the crowd, maybe one of the Imperials, had taken a shot at me.

  But it wasn’t that. Suddenly, Crow’s body stiffened. There was a hot, burning smell. Then he shivered and fell, stone dead.

  I stood there over him, panting. Around me, there were ragged cheers—but not many. They quickly fell into a stunned quiet.

  I turned in a slow circle, eyeing the other Imperials. Over their heads, the cameras hovered and buzzed.

  “Does anyone else here object to signing the peace accords?” I demanded.

  No one else did.

  -38-

  Jasmine had done it. She’d thrown that silvery little disk Crow had secreted in his palm to shock me. She’d thrown it well, as only a Star Force tra
ined fighter could. It had landed inside Crow’s torso, which had been wide open at the top.

  The jolt hadn’t been enough to stop my hardened hand, but delivered internally to a cyborg—right on top of an exposed brain—the shock had turned out to be deadly.

  After we’d adjourned and cleaned up, the peace accords committee met again. The Imperials were full of apologies and platitudes. I’m sure that if Crow had kicked my ass, things would have been different—but he’d lost in his final bid for supremacy.

  The peace treaty was signed. Really, the treaty amounted to an unconditional surrender.

  I took my people out of there as soon as I could and headed back up into space where I felt more at home. I thought I’d relish my return to Earth, and in a few ways I’d enjoyed the taste of the air, the sounds of a real city…

  But it was harder to get used to Old Earth than I’d thought it would be. I decided to take it slow. If nothing else, there were probably a few million disgruntled loyalists sulking somewhere, wanting to take a shot at me. I figured they’d cool off if I spent most of my time in orbit.

  A very busy time passed, and things settled down on Earth. Aboard the reincarnated version of Gatre, I met with Jasmine. She was happy to have her old ship back, and I was happy to return her to a real command.

  “You’re in charge now, Colonel,” she said, giving me a beaming smile. “You’re in charge of the whole world.”

  “Thanks in no small part to you,” I said, shaking my head. “I can’t believe that whole mess really happened.”

  “Crow went into the signing ceremony with a plan. I think he knew what he was going to do from the very beginning.”

  I nodded in agreement. “He thought he could take me.”

  “He thought wrong.”

  I looked at her, troubled. “What do you think would have happened if Crow had managed to kill me? What if he’d been standing there alive and I’d been dead on the floor? Would the people have embraced him again?”

  Jasmine shrugged. “I don’t think he had a chance. He hasn’t been fighting for years on the front lines. He was soft.”

  Privately, I had to disagree. My knuckles were skinless after punching that metal-armored gut of his.

  “But what if he had won? People like a winner. They like a king who throws his enemy down.”

  “Star Force would still be here. We’d still have Phobos.”

  I nodded, frowning. Privately, I thought it would have been a disaster. Miklos and Jasmine would have been left in charge, with Miklos being the higher ranked. Frankly, I didn’t think either of them could cut it. Don’t get me wrong, they were both fine officers. But some people don’t strike me as ready to lead an interstellar civilization. Hell, I wasn’t ready myself.

  If not Jasmine or Nikolai, then who? And how would Crow have reacted? I figured he would have refused to sign, saying the Imperials needed time to sort things out. I felt sure my people would have let him get away with it, too.

  But more important than the level of competition he faced would have been the symbolism of it all. Star Force would have lost in the eyes of the world. With weak successors to my position trying to figure out what to do, Crow might well have secured himself some kind of legitimacy. Perhaps they’d try to place him in exile, like Napoleon on Elba. Historically, that hadn’t worked out so well for the French.

  I had to struggle to bring my mind back to the here and now. I turned to Jasmine, and looking at her made me smile.

  She was glowing. I could tell, looking in her eyes, she didn’t share my self-doubts. She wasn’t replaying the events with disastrous variations. She had utter confidence in me now. I could do no wrong.

  “What now?” she asked me.

  “Do you want to go on a date?” I asked. I couldn’t help it. Like most guys, I’m a natural opportunist, and the look in her eyes presented serious possibilities.

  We ended up back on Earth. I took her to San Francisco, a city every woman seemed to love. We went to a restaurant that had until recently been only available to Imperial party members. The courtiers weren’t showing up there anymore, and the place was practically empty.

  We didn’t go alone, of course. We had about a hundred marines with us. The suited fellows at the door looked alarmed. Burly marines in full kit marched in by the squad. Many of them were Centaurs, and that really freaked out the maître d’. They questioned me about bringing animals into their establishment. I shamed them for their racial intolerance.

  Once we were seated—a full company of us—I assured the waiters that they would be paid in full tonight. They seemed relieved. Apparently, the Imperials didn’t always settle their debts.

  Jasmine was out of uniform, and so was I. It felt strange to be under normal gravity, listening to cars honk on the streets outside. I couldn’t get over it.

  “This table is real wood,” I said, tapping on it.

  “It’s lovely. Don’t break it, Kyle.”

  “Don’t worry, I won’t.”

  But even as I leaned my weight forward on my elbows, I felt it give slightly. I weighed too much for a wooden table. I had to pretend, holding myself rigidly upright while appearing relaxed.

  The date went well, but we eventually got around to the topic of politics.

  “Are you going to dissolve the Imperial Senate?” she asked after a course of abalone appetizers.

  “I don’t know,” I said, scraping my fork on the plate. “You know, these meals are always so light and insubstantial. It’s like eating five hundred dollar cotton candy.”

  “What are you going to do? How will Earth be governed?”

  I shrugged. “I thought I might hold a vote. Let them put someone in as president. Everyone seems to be of the opinion we need a single world government. It’s their planet. I guess they should be able to run it as they wish.”

  Jasmine frowned at me. I think it was the first frown I’d seen on her face in a while. She’d been staring at me like I was some kind of holy relic all night.

  She slipped a hand over the table and touched mine. “Let’s talk about the present.”

  “Yeah, good idea,” I said, thinking about her and our date. She was looking good. I rarely saw her out of uniform, and she looked like the kind of girl I’d never have had a chance with back before the aliens arrived.

  “What about an interim government?” she asked. “Before some kind of structure can be worked out, there must be someone in charge.”

  I sighed. “I guess you’re right. We have martial law now, and that will stay in place until we sort things out.”

  Her smile was back.

  “Right,” she said. “For now, you’re the ruler of all Earth.”

  I didn’t feel comfortable with that. I remembered Sandra telling me it would end up this way. I hoped it wouldn’t last long. I was a soldier, not a politician. I was better at winning battles than building roads and schools. And I totally sucked at schmoozing.

  “So far it’s been endless meetings,” I complained. “I can’t wait until we find someone better suited for the job.”

  Jasmine frowned at me again. The bread and soup arrived, and I dug in. The bread was the best part of the meal so far. She watched me eat quietly, nibbling.

  Finally, she sighed.

  “What?” I asked.

  “I can’t believe you intend throwing this opportunity away.”

  “Huh?”

  I was confused. The only opportunity I was interested in involved getting her out of her dress.

  She leaned forward and whispered conspiratorially. “You can’t just let them vote in some baby-kissing fool, Kyle. Our species is in danger. We aren’t playing around. The Macros or someone else could come after us again any day.”

  “Yeah,” I said slowly, not really following her.

  “When that day comes, do you really intend to listen to Earth’s government?”

  I shrugged, but I had to admit it was a troubling thought. When Crow had tried to order me around, things hadn
’t gone so well between the two of us. The end result had been a bloody mess on live TV.

  “You know what they’ll do, don’t you?” Jasmine pressed. “They’ll bring in their own generals and admirals. All of whom will be loyal to them. Pretty soon, they’ll give you an order you don’t like—something small maybe, just to try it out. Eventually, you’ll be kicked out of Star Force altogether and ‘retired’. You’ll end up doing appearances on net talk-shows and documentaries.”

  “No I won’t. I hate those things.”

  She rolled her eyes at me. I get that a lot from women.

  “They’ll try to push you out. They’ll have to. You’re too frightening for them.”

  My food was gone by this time, so I pushed my plate away. I didn’t like what she was saying, but she had good points. I’d been down that road before with Crow. I remembered the day I’d found out about the three generals he’d appointed to lord it over me. I smiled, thinking of one of them, a man named General Sokolov. I’d disliked him strongly enough to arrange a one-way trip out of the star system for him.

  “Let’s just eat our meal and enjoy the night, Jasmine,” I said. “Our troubles will still be there in the morning.”

  “Okay,” she said. “I’m sorry. I’m such a worrier. I just want you to understand, I’m not fascinated by power. I’m not trying to romance a dictator. I’m just worried about Earth’s future.”

  I gave her a blank look. It was the best I could do, because I figured she was doing all those things and more.

  “What I’m talking about is responsibility, Kyle,” she said in a near-whisper. “You’ve toppled a government—the only government. You can’t leave everyone in chaos. And you can’t let them choose a random fool to run this planet. They will, you know. And when the time comes, the fool will screw up. After that, we’ll all be dead. All of us—forever.”