The Sword

by J. M. Kaukola

  He felt that familiar tension rise inside, the slight clench in his stomach, the tingle in his arms. No amount of memdoping could dull this, no training quiet the sudden buzz. He was going to war, again.

  A green soldier might shake with nervous energy, or lock up and stare blankly ahead. Clausen was better than that. ASOC was better than that. To him, the rush made him more awake, more aware. It made him notice the dings and dents on signs as they passed, to feel the changing rhythm of the road. The heat in his arms and legs, the cold in his stomach, they didn’t stagger him. They powered him. He was a coiled spring, loose and ready. Smooth. That was the best word for it. He felt smooth, like the surface of a lake, no matter how it churned below.

  Another row of lights flashed past, and Clausen said, with an easy smile, “We'll be fine.”

  #

  His mind was ringing. Not his ears, his mind.

  Somewhere, distant and cool, there was a light, but right now, right here, there was just the darkened tunnel and the whining ring. A shadow passed before the light, and then another, like he was watching a viewer screen through binoculars, tilted to the side, with the light fading in and out. He wanted to sleep. It was so easy to just sink, and let the darkness carry him away. What was he doing here, anyhow?

  The question had seemed so important, not so long ago. Why was he here? It didn't matter. There was a show on the viewer, and his dad was on the ratty couch, swilling from the bottle. It was a happy-drinking day, when the old man laughed and talked about how much he loved everyone. Not like the sad day. Or the angry days.

  Clausen watched the movie, the faded scenes, but kept one eye on his father. He watched his father's face when the scene changed, when a line struck true, tried to learn what worked and what didn't. He taught himself to like the same shows, the same sports. Maybe, if he learned the secrets, if he mirrored the smiles, the bad days would stay away. Maybe this would fix things. He had to focus.

  His eyes turned back to the dulled blue screen.

  It was a war movie. His father always liked those.

  The characters were in a swank hotel, shaded in custard and cream, splashed with brilliant electric color, a blend of class and function. He could see a corner, slick-soft polymer walls once covered in rolling advertisements, now blackened, chipped, and scored. The screens were shattered from gunfire, and the air was heavy with the smoke and dust of the rifles. He could almost smell the stench of cordite, the stink of hot metal and plastic. The sound was so loud, but so distant, each chack of the subgun shaking him from far away.

  Looking up, at the corner, a soldier raised his weapon, pushed the subgun against a tactical sling, used the fabric wrap to brace the weapon against his fire. The soldier peeked, guncam first, around the edge. Clausen knew this man. He'd seen him before. This was Sergeant Charlie Rutman, the fisherman's son, from the Riverine Warfare Squadron, expert in demolitions. Most of the squad called him Scooch, for reasons best left unsaid. He was a joker, always laughed at the wrong times. A guy who thought everything was somehow funnier than it was. He wasn't laughing, now.

  Rutman fired, not quite blind, with his gun aimed around the corner. He fired in loose, staccato cascades, more designed to drive the enemy off than make a kill. The caseless gun snarled. Dust billowed from the vents. It rode back, pushed the sling slack. Rutman stepped into the shot, exposed himself, and fired again. This time, he aimed. One burst. Two. The stock pressed into his shoulder, burrowed into the drab gray of his shirt.

  When had they put on uniforms? He didn't recall the soldiers wearing uniforms in this one. He tried to remember, but everything was foggy, patchy. They must have changed when the advert played. That had been the signal to start - the ad for scouring soap. The hacker had put that into the system, days ago. It was the trigger. When the soldiers heard it, they rushed to their launch points, in back rooms and empty sections. They'd put on colors then. Made themselves known. They took the armor, the smuggled weapons. They attacked, from nowhere. But they wore uniforms. It was important. They had to. The good guys wore uniforms.

  Above, Rutman fired, again and again. He paused, glanced down at the camera, reached out, as if to grab something from the floor. Rutman’s face was concealed, hidden behind flash-goggles and HUD, but his mouth was exposed, behind a wire mic. He scowled, not from anger, but worry. He yelled something, straight into the screen, something Clausen couldn’t make out. There was a sudden flash, out of sight, and Rutman staggered back, raised his arm to shield his eyes-

  Crack! The corner was gone. The air was filled with smoke, and bits of whirling debris.

  Something red sprayed from Rutman’s shoulder, and he jerked, twisted, and fell from view.

  Another soldier replaced him at the smoking, smoldering remains of the corner.

  Parvotti. That was his name. Staff Sergeant Frank Parvotti. Short, with thin black hair and almond skin, Parvotti was a veteran of 43rd Air Assault. He wore his orbital tab proudly, with the daggers on the edges - combat drop from space. Not too many had those, anymore. Frank was a close combat trainer, mainly for morale sparring, but he was just as good with weapons, and rated to fly anything with wings. He sometimes worried about his knees, though. The jumps hadn't been kind to him, you couldn’t do cybernetics in the combat arms. At Kessinwey, he’d confided his worries - his promotion window was closing, and there wasn’t much use for a door kicker who couldn’t kick. He didn’t want to go reserve. He didn’t want to be a recruiter. He didn’t want to gain twenty pounds and a bad habit, or fish around dronetown with nothing but old war stories for bar bait. All that was gone, though. There wasn’t time for that.

  Parvotti fired. His shots were measured, and his nose wrinkled every time he saw something he liked. Thirty-two rounds fired, and he wrinkled eight times. Everyone knew Frank was efficient.

  The gun stopped, and he fell back. A moment later, he returned. His gun was ready, his cheek welded to the stock-

  Parvotti must have seen something terrible around that corner. His lips drew thin. His eyes narrowed. He wasn’t a man to be scared, but that was fear on his face, now, even as he pulled the trigger, once more.

  Clausen tried to shift, to change the angle on the screen. He had to see what was beyond the door. He tried to turn. Nothing. He tried to roll. The camera stayed locked, straight ahead. His vision swam. Something poured over his eyes, warm and salty.

  Salt, like the ocean.

  The sea was shining bright, sapphire flowed towards emerald shores. The sky above was clear, with perfect clouds, white and puffed, hung over the open, flattop deck of the carrier. Birds flocked overhead, drifted on the tropic breeze. Storm petrels. “Bad weather,” the air handler said. The old sailor pulled his headset tight, and passed on the wisdom, “Petrels on the ship mean a storm’s coming.”

  The birds circled, ever lower. The wind rushed again, hot and edged. There was a roar, and the sea fell away. The petrel, too, far below. Lights rushed past overhead, and shadowed figures loomed. The doctor blinked from behind a white mask, glasses flashed under theater lights. The needle glinted, and the clouds were so very white.

  It wasn't real. The pain was somewhere else, the death was just a movie.

  There were birds on the deck of the ship.

  He was not there.

  He was not watching the viewer.

  He was a soldier.

  There was a war.

  Clausen saw his body, laid out on the deck. He was crumpled against the wall, a medical injector stuck in his chest like a perverse dart. No wonder he was drifting. With that much dope, he should be flying. Slim hadn't finished the job. He was floating on juice, left in the middle of the firing lane. From somewhere far beyond, the word “fucked” floated down to him.

  How bad? He fought through the haze. How bad am I?

  At the edge of his vision, he could see the glimmer of his visor HUD. TACNET was down. It went down right before the ambush. Local net was up though, and medical. There were highlights on his left torso
. On his head. Concussion. Yeah. That made sense. Sensors were still up, too. That was good. Alerts flashed by: puncture wound, puncture wound, blood loss, trauma, trauma, trauma. Cyanide poisoning? Why is that there?

  At the corner, Parvotti glanced down, screamed silent words, and retreated, beyond Clausen's view. They’re falling back. They were retreating. The mission relied on their advance. He tried to move. He was frozen, numb, floating. He could see everything, remember everything, but could not move. Memdope. Fucking memdope. I need to act. I have to move. I can't be numb. I'm have to-

  The enemy came through the door.

  A booted foot passed over him, heel inches from his nose. I'm dead. They think I'm dead. Somewhere, deep within the ringing fuzz of the dope, a plan began to form. Focus. Find the target, evaluate, and act.

  The boot before him was heavy rubber, dull black, zipped, not laced. It was sealed at the top, just above the shin, where heavy, glossed fabric bloomed over the lip. HAZMAT? There was a shift, a clicking whir, as the other foot came down. A heavy greatcoat, one part HAZMAT and one part bomb suit, blocked his view of the hall. The coat was anchored by armored plates and gel packs, and as the enemy soldier pressed forward, the mass shifted from side to side with every step. Whir. Whir. Click. Whir.

  Powered assist. That coat’s got to weigh a ton. The soldier advanced, left Clausen to die. Another passed over him, then a third. Each was armored like the others, covered in heavy wraps of fabrics and plating, tucked underneath the immense greatcoat, sealed at the seams, bulging from the lines of cybernetics underneath. Air hoses draped from a rebreather, pumped into a sealed helmet, cradled by an armored collar. The apparatus thumped and hissed, while sensor “eyes” shone dully from the full-face-mask.

  Two of the juggernauts carried autocannons, trailed belts from feeder backpacks. They walked anti-vehicular fire across the corridor with casual indifference, ripped great holes in the walls, shredded the potted trees, tore the ceiling and floor away to deny cover to the retreating commandos. Return fire skipped from their armor, failed to penetrate the reactive surfaces. The third behemoth clutched a beam tube, a wicked serpentine emitter chained to a reactor pack, dominated by a parabolic mirror near the mouth of the weapon. Plasma caster. God in heaven, they brought a caster.

  The caster flashed, blinded the hall with liquid light, ripped the shadows away. The HAZMAT soldiers, in their thermally regulated suits, never flinched. Clausen felt, even from here, the wall of heat wash over him, singe his skin, burn the fine hairs clean. In the corner of his vision, in the flickering edges of the TACNET feed, the medical alert for hydrogen cyanide lit, advising him to put on a mask he didn't possess. Somewhere in the haze, he remembered his training, a half-vanished note about plasma weapons, open-air working gas, and cyanide production, which culminated in the lesson: “don't use this indoors”. The opfor apparently skipped that lesson in favor of “fuck the civilians, wear powered armor”.

  I have to stop this.

  His vision twisted, as he let his head fall to the side. Rifle? Where is my rifle?

  At the edge of his reach, a scattergun lay abandoned on the deck. He focused on the gun, gleaming in the streams of deadly light, cast in the shadows of the armored killers. He reached, as every fiber of his body screamed in protest. Medicated fog battled paralyzed muscle. Through his blood and torn sleeve, he saw the hair on his arm catch light. A wave of dull heat washed over him, and the hairs turned orange, red, then black, and fell away, ashen gray. That should hurt. One millimeter by another, his fingertips closed on the stock of the scattergun, as the lights on his HUD flashed ever more amber.

  Plastic, cool to the touch.

  His fingers clawed, pulled the weapon closer-

  The juggernauts did not notice. They stood, with their backs to him, hurling ruin and cruel light down the corridor-

  His palm closed around a solid grip. The ribs dug into his hand. Lazy, clumsy, he raised the barrel, as he grasped for the foregrip-

  The behemoths stood, their great coats silhouetted against the light, and the slaughter-

  His holosight bobbed-

  Clausen let the calm wash over him. Through him. Pain, fear, fog, all were melted away, and replaced with meditative reflex - the result of thousands of rounds of practice, where thought became instinct. He knew this weapon.

  Automatic Scattergun, mark 4. Ten round cassette, tungsten flechettes. Counter-stroke recoil compensation system, holosight, foregrip. This is my gun. The ASG settled into his shoulder.

  Clausen pulled the trigger.

  The tungsten darts burst from the barrel, sprang from their sabot like a swarm of hornets. The first salvo pierced the power-pack of the plasma caster. The reaction was immediate - an arc of electricity and a blast of compressed gases that sent its wearer toppling forward. The second shot pulped the rear of the mercenary's helmet, shattering the front plate as bone and brain exited.

  Clausen swung the scattergun to the side, volleyed fire onto the second target. At close range, the tungsten flechettes could penetrate light vehicles. The reinforced reactive gelatin in the HAZMAT armor was more than enough to stop subgun fire, but at an arms reach, the tungsten darts barely slowed their lethal flight.

  Two, three, four volleys tore into the second man, ripped open the side and chest of the armor, rent the rebreather, as the target spun to engage. Clausen saw the glint of metal in the flesh, the exposed structure of the armor as the mercenary took one step, then another, and toppled. The third enemy turned, drew up his autocannon to fire-

  The ASG barked again, sent three more blasts into the skull of the last soldier, burst it open like an overripe melon.

  Clausen's vision drifted. The scattergun tilted in his hands, suddenly heavy. The smoking barrel fell from view, and then the weapon struck the deck with a distant clatter. Clausen fell back. The ceiling rolled overhead, the world spun. Gunfire flashed overhead, once more. Someone held his feet. The ceiling shifted.

  He was being dragged.

  His vision rolled, once more. Behind the corner, behind safety, Slim crouched over him, stim kit in hand. This is going to hurt. Slim stabbed the canister into his upper arm, and the dull punch of the auto-injector caused his fingers to curl. A moment later, his blood burned. He was on fire. His veins boiled, and his vision was too damn bright-

  Time passed. He didn't know how long, but he was coming down from a tunnel, and he could feel the compress around his side. Someone shook him.

  Eyes! Open! Breath in! Breath out! Get up, get up, get up! With a roar, Clausen snapped back into the world.

  “Sarn't!” Rutman had a sling on his arm, but extended his left hand to pull Clausen up. “You with us?”

  “Damn skippy.” Clausen acknowledged as he staggered to his feet. Rutman moved to grab him, but Clausen waved him away. He pushed off the wall, tilted from side to side, as he tried to adjust to the medical cocktail swimming in his veins. Rutman held out the dropped scattergun, and he snatched it up. He swapped the cassette, forced his numb fingers to index on the controls. The corridor was silent. He had a moment to orient. “Sitrep?” He demanded. He almost didn't want to hear the answer.

  “Fucked, Sarn't! We're swimming in those damn heavies, multiple casualties, and TACNET’s down. We've got no coms to anyone, and Bravo Six hasn't checked back!” Rutman glanced down the hall, to the broken bodies, the smoldering wreckage, and the trail of abandoned firing positions. “Fuck it, Sarn't. Any more of this and we're done.”

  Clausen’s head was still thick, hazy. He could feel how slow his thoughts were. Focus! “The el tee check in?”

  “Negative, Sarn't. Not since we lost the net.”

  Clausen glanced to the ragged hatchway. The door to the engineering section was torn from its hinges, blown out from the heavy troopers had made their entrance. Bodies littered the deck, sprayed out in a macabre rainbow from the breach. Hernandez, Fuller, Stevens. First men to the door.

  The timer in his HUD rolled onward, red and positive. Two m
inutes behind schedule. The others are counting on us. God help them. He stared the bodies, cold training overriding the grief below. This is going to hurt. Later. Not now. Keep moving to stay alive. “No time to delay. Take their tags. We push.”

  “Sergeant!” Slim called, as he snagged a handful of the tags from the bodies with a silvery-flash. “I can't get a medlink from your suit, so you let me know if you start having trouble breathing, get headaches or vertigo-”

  “Cyanide! I know!” Clausen snapped. “Alert popped when they shot that damned caster off back there.” It didn't even smell like almonds. It smelled like ozone and shit.

  “Ship's full of civies.” Slim murmured. “Thank God for scrubbers, but this is going to be ugly.”

  “No time.” Clausen ordered. No time to worry. No time to doubt. We have a job to do. “If you get an air alert, get out of position, and if you get a good dose, get with Slim. Slim, what've you got?”

  “No nitrates, Sergeant, just oxygen and hope.” Slim admitted, remorsefully.

  “Fuck it, if you get a dose, get over it and keep shooting.” Clausen amended. “We've got a ship to save.”

  No one protested his objectively absurd order.

  Bravo Team's mission had been to seize the control centers for the lift drives, to prevent catastrophic blowout. There were three primary drive mechanisms, and one control center. Bravo One, Two, and Three were to take the actual drives. Bravo Four and Five would take the engine room. Six would hold the flank. Simple. Clausen was in charge of Bravo Four, sixteen soldiers strong. Four remained.

  Clausen's helmet hissed and popped, the cracked visor showed nothing but static and garbage. The TACNET HUD artifacted, flashed, and rebooted, again and again. They'd lost datastream when the door came in. Ambush. Firenze couldn't do it. We lost net control. “TACNET? Anyone up?” He called.

  “Negative!” The replies came in chorus. Rutman, Slim, and Parvotti waited by the door, ashen faces behind their helmets. They were veterans. They knew the score.