The Sword

by J. M. Kaukola

  “Let me just say, I am so glad you're on our side.” Firenze assured him.

  “Do not be grateful.” Berenson admonished. “I will break the same, in time. It is only a question of 'when'. Do not be there when it happens, Mister Firenze. I respect you.” Berenson suddenly jerked, tore a piece of paper from the wall. He crumpled it, stared at it with furious intent, and then hurled it into the trashcan. “Do you see?”

  Before he could think, he admitted, “I'm sorry.”

  “For what?” Berenson demanded.

  “For what they did to you.”

  “I am what I am, Mister Firenze. Nothing else can be said.”

  “Still, I mean it. If you need anything-”

  “If I do, I will deal with it, alone.” Berenson closed his eyes once more, his grin returned, “I laugh, because the universe is cruel. The alternative is to cry, and I refuse to be a victim.”

  “What's that from?” Firenze asked, missing what was surely a reference.

  “Nothing.” Berenson replied, perhaps with a touch of sadness. “Something Tiberius told me, once.” He paused, once more, and Firenze let the silence remain. After a few moments, Berenson finally said, “Thank you.”

  Firenze tilted his head in question.

  Without opening his eyes, Berenson responded, “For listening, and not merely hearing.”

  They stood in silence, and listened to Rutman and Hill argue about pool, beer, exes, and the best way to deliver accurate shooting from the CAR47 platform while hanging out the back hatch of a vertol. It would be time for chaos soon enough.

  For now, there was the stillness, and time to wait, together.

  #

  Clausen slammed into the ground.

  He tumbled to knees. He caught himself. Crystal sand crunched under his gloves. The gale wind battered him. A gust snagged his parachute, yanked him down the dunes. He rolled, twisted, slid. He bounced from jagged rocks and prefab buildings. Every impact slammed the air from his armored chest. He clawed for his release, as the world spun. One pull, triumphant, and the chute tore free.

  It whipped away, into the eternal twilight. He tumbled to his feet. He had his rifle off his sling in an instant.

  He stripped the plastic wrap from the weapon, tossed the trash into the wind. The others had already landed. He could see the scattered figures in the tumult, the trails in the sand where they'd been dragged. TACNET was running, sketchy in the storm, and he could make out the blue emblems and wire-frames of allies.

  He pulled up his map with a flick of his eyes. He was a hundred meters from his mark, and the others were just as bad, scattered like seeds.

  They'd trained for this.

  He checked his enviromask, and sprinted. They had moments before the base responded with heavy firepower, and even less time until the second device went off. One thing he did not need today was more rads. That meant hustle time.

  He shoved through the crushing winds and collapsing sands, dodged falling chunks of crystal. He found shelter between two of the spokes, the towers formed fingers that stabbed into the green sky. In the gap between them, he could make better time. He ran in a crouch, kept his head below the half-buried structures. His boots slid on the sand, and he stumbled, again and again. All around him, the gunfire roared. Anti-air quench guns blazed, spat white-hot metal up into the vortex. Tracers and flak and missiles and lasers, all combed the skies for hidden ships, their thunderous cadence drowned out the storm.

  Ahead, he spotted the silo, a hexagon that rose five stories over the dunes. He leaned into the wind, ignored the slashing gales that tore into his armor, forced past baseball-sized chunks that threatened to batter him down. Closer. Ever closer. He focused on the lights, and charged. There was no time for anything else. He had to get closer.

  He reached the silo’s external stairs, pulled himself onto the rickety platform. Climbing was harder than running. The wind threatened to hurl him from the side. The metal swayed under every step. He made due. He was two stories up when his radio crackled, and a voice said, “Alpha Five to Alpha Six, objective is sealed!”

  Clausen ducked, used the wings of the structure for cover from the maelstrom. He had to scream to be heard, and he called into his mic, “Six here, say again?!”

  “Primary entrance is sealed! The silo is reinforced with heavy steel, probably take half an hour to cut through!”

  Damn it.

  Clausen replied, “Roger! Alpha, shift to Tango!”

  A chorus of acknowledgments rang out. Clausen paused before descending, checked his angles. Good firing lines. Wish I had spare men for a marksman. From here, he could see Bravo Team stacked up on their access, all set to blast through the roof of the water purification chambers. He could also see the Faction fast-reaction team sweeping up their blind flank. “Bravo, this is Alpha Six, incoming friendly fire on your eight o'clock!” Even as he spoke, the targets blazed red on TACNET, lit both for him, and for the threatened team.

  Clausen tucked the coilgun into his shoulder, pressed his goggles to the digital scope. The sight gave him a clear picture of the target, and with a few clicks for windage and elevation... he toggled the prefire switch, and the battery pack hummed to life. He touched the firing stud, and the gun bucked in his arms, boiled the air around the barrel, slapped him with the overpressure.

  A bolt of light lanced out. Plasma crashed through the air. The first bolt cut down one of the Faction soldiers. Even from this range, the man's armor did nothing. The enemy reduced to mist, arms and legs pinwheeled away on a curtain of fire. Clausen did not react. He reloaded the weapon. His movements were mechanical, smooth. He broke the action apart, stripped out the buffer cartridge. Waves of heat poured from the open breach. He slammed a new cartridge home, and snapped the weapon closed.

  Slow is smooth. Smooth is fast. He'd learned that early on. A professional never rushed. Rushing was sloppy. Sloppy work was slow. An expert moved at the most rapid speed he could maintain with precision, a zen-like balance between too-fast and not-fast-enough. In that tempo, a professional could make the single-shot k-gun sing, and discharge nearly eight rounds a minute.

  That rate of fire was more than sufficient.

  Another crash of thunder, another Faction soldier gone. Clausen worked the coilgun rhythmically. CRACK! Load. CRACK! Load. The air stank of hot metal and lightning.

  Clausen finished his grim work.

  He toggled the zoom on his visor, confirmed the kills, and he was done. The wall the Faction had taken for cover was covered in char and red mist. He loaded a final cartridge, satisfied, and said, “Bravo Team, you are clear to advance.”

  “Thank you, Sarge. Good shooting.”

  Clausen bolted down the stairs. They’d be on his position, soon enough. His team should be nearly at the breach point.

  By the time he arrived, Jennings had set the charges. There were no wasted words, no questions of, ‘how was your drop’ or ‘good to see you made it’. There would be time for that later, if they lived. Now, it was time to work. Jennings ducked back, and called, “Breach out!” With a great ‘pop’, the door was ripped from its hinges, hurled into the room beyond, a weapon unto itself. The team followed it through.

  Inside, the Faction was already reacting. The hangar Alpha Team entered had been the primary depot for the research base, and Striker had not wasted his time or energy. Light vehicles had been converted into technicals. Heavy vehicles had been turned to tank destroyers. Two fully operable lift tanks sat, parked, in the center of the hangar, crews already racing for their stations.

  Alpha never gave them that chance.

  Before the door had struck to the ground, the two four-man stacks had flooded the gap and into the hangar, firing rapidly. On the airship, the ASOC teams had been equipped with rational, reasonable weapons, prepared for a hostage situation, and had been overwhelmed with powered armor and emplaced defenses. The Faction had made a grievous error when they let any of Halstead's unit live. ASOC soldiers didn't make the same mi
stake twice, and they held grudges.

  Light trucks shredded under coilgun fire.

  Massed light infantry died under repeating cannon and grenade volleys.

  Hovertanks were reduced to twisted hulks from hypervelocity rockets and heavy coilguns.

  Against medium or heavy armor, Alpha team's weapons would have been appropriate firepower. Against light armor and mechanized units, it was a slaughter. Clausen could taste the stink of burned flesh through his shemagh and mask. His nose was plugged with ozone and fuel. His finger was welded to the trigger, and he delivered coilgun surgery with extreme prejudice. This wasn't even killing, not after the hell they'd put him through. It was a harvest. Professional. Smooth. Merciless.

  Slow is smooth. Smooth is fast.

  Within seconds, the unit had cleared the bay, and pressed into the silo access. Here, they confronted the massed fast reaction forces, the Faction's first responders. Light infantry.

  There was no battle, there was no maneuver. There was a good killing.

  “Clear!” Came the calls. Mechanical. Smooth. “Clear!” Again and again, that simple word punctuated the slaughter, as the Authority's best performed their grisly job.

  “All clear.” He heard himself say, as the last of the bodies slid towards the ruined floor. He worked the coolant pump, heard the flush-hiss of the k-gun's release.

  The killing done, Alpha advanced.

  #

  Clausen stood in front of the crowd, a map of the Airbase projected behind him. Lines and access routes were highlighted, and he lectured, “We will have approximately seven minutes from the first bomb until the base is in full response. At that point, Striker's heavy-hitters will come into play.” He motioned, and the display changed to show two armored figures, pictures captured on the Airship. Some in the crowd flinched, reflexively.

  “Now, the one on the left - the smaller one in the armored great coat and rebreather - that's VIPER Hazardous Environment gear. Originally designed as an armored HAZMAT suit, it was purposed for assaults in NBC environments, or in close proximity to a Bore or powerful lift drive. As you can see-” The screen zoomed into the diagram of the soldier, pulled away pieces of armor and equipment. Clausen continued, “the Faction has modified the design, added cybernetic integration and rebuilding the exoframe to give it a more terrifying look. Please note the hoses, glowing eyes, and the wonderful white-noise spam. Appropriately, they appear to prefer directed energy weapons with high pucker-factors, like the plasma caster and the century lasers we saw on the Airship.”

  Clausen pointed again, and the view rotated, “The larger of the two powered armors - the plate-mail and reactor construct now pictured - appears to be derived from a canceled project at the end of the Second War. Thanks to our resident computer guru, we've been able to pull specs on the AISAS armor, and it is not pretty.” Again, the view exploded away, and Clausen explained, “Active point defense, reactive armor, full spectrum countermeasures, a gel suspension inside the armored exoskeleton, thermal pumps, environmental seals, counter-emissions systems, and approximately sixty millimeters of high-strength composite armor. This isn't infantry, folks, this is light armor that walks.

  “We got taken on the Airship because we came in there for hostage rescue, with force balanced for speed, stealth, and safety. Now that we know what kind of bullshit we're dealing with, we can change our kit to match. There are no civilians in the AO. When we go in here, fuck collateral, kill everything. This is going to be coilguns and rockets, ladies, straight balls-out killing fields. They bushwhacked us once. I think we can all admit that. We'll return the favor, and bring so much firepower, nothing short of a navy could stand up to it. We’re gonna teach Striker a lesson on how this business gets done.”

  #

  Bravo Team cut through the defenses, like a blowtorch through butter.

  They dropped into the purification plant from vents above. They'd killed everything inside, before the glass could land. They strung monowire from the barracks doors and run the other way, and listened for the grisly slurp-snaps which followed. Each hall they passed, they filled with fire. Every access, they sealed, a tidal wave of destruction, which rolled inexorably towards the communications center.

  Firenze ran his displays inside his visor, tracked the other teams' progress. Alpha was closing on the silo, Delta was plunging into the labs. Three spears, diverging, raced the clock. Three minutes and counting down. Three minutes until the last stand.

  On the Airship, Firenze had to fight, tooth and nail, to keep TACNET control. Here, it was an afterthought, an offhand motion, like swatting a gnat. He held the network in an iron vice, and he was still in the physical world. God help them, once I get jacked in. He thought he heard Lauren laugh. She shouldn't be audible, not out here. Must be a leak in his passive connection. Nothing to fear. She could help.

  One final junction waited, one that lead down into the rec area. Hill, at the lead, flashed hand signs, and the squad stacked for breach. The charges were placed, the team set, and Hill counted down.

  “Wait!” Firenze cried. He could see the security feed of the room, the way the guards had set their barricades. “On my mark!”

  Hill nodded, and held his count.

  Firenze reached into the network, changed the lights, changed the cameras. In the room, the soldiers “discovered” another assault team on their screens. They swapped their deployment, shifted their angles to cover the opposing door. In their rush to redistribute their firepower, they had to move. When they moved, three of them passed an invisible line, which ran from the main hatch.

  Firenze seized the opportunity. He didn't realize he'd seen the pressure, the structural integrity, the density, the velocities and angles of the charges. All of those were computed for him. He just saw the result. He cried, “Now!”

  The door ripped free, smashed the soldiers behind it, plastered them against the far wall. Through the breach, Hill lead the assault. Bravo followed. Firenze waited, for just a moment, as a sudden gap in the defenders' TACNET appeared. He reached down, flicked it, and turned off their visors. He plucked it, and their guns went quiet. The passive defenses of their system kicked in within milliseconds, booted him from the network, but that didn't save the men who died when their high-tech gear failed to fire, or who wandered blindly into converging angles. It didn't save any of them.

  “Clear!” Hill called. “Princess, get in!” The commando pointed, to the window that overlooked the lower levels of the base. He cocked his thumb as to gain windage. Satisfied, he jerked his head back, and yelled, “Drop blast shields, jam the doors. Princess, get wired! This is where we fight!”

  One of the soldiers, Garrett, pulled open the rooftop hatch. The air was filled with the howling bluster, and a wave of crystal sand poured through the gap. Garrett clambered out, , face turned away from the ripping winds. Peters followed. A moment later, they dropped back through, and pulled the hatch shut behind. Garrett pressed a switch, and a dull roar followed. Then came the screech of falling metal, high above.

  “They're blind!” Garrett called. He choked on the dust, tried to shake it from his scarf, but his words were triumphant.

  Hill was on the radio. “Bravo Six to all units, Target is secured and blinded! Damocles is go!”

  This was their final position. They knew it, from the moment they’d taken it. They fortified it in a rush. Doors were flash-welded. Cabinets were shoved into firing positions. Tables were wedged into cover. Every access was sealed into a converging kill-funnel. They left themselves no retreat. This was Sun Tzu’s death ground. Here, they would fight, and die.

  Death ground. Firenze almost had to chuckle, at how easily the thought had flowed into his mind. How long had it been, since he'd tried to read The Art of War, fumbled in the dark for textbook answers for 'how to survive this'? How long since he'd tried quoting it at Sarge, only to get set down and given the quick-notes version, complete with bloody anecdotes?

  In difficult ground, press on. In encircle
d ground, devise stratagems. In death ground, fight.

  Death ground. The last place you want to be. The place where no maneuver could save you, no strategy spare you, and no clever ploy aid you. Death ground, the place where the only chance at living came from pouring focused hell onto whatever poor bastard dared to share the field with you. Death ground, where there was no option but to fight like a wounded animal, smashing and biting and clawing with every tooth and talon, just to live for one more moment, with the only hope being that you were last left breathing when the chaos ended.

  If ever there was such a ground, he now stood upon it.

  In the corner of Firenze's visor, the final numbers ran down. Now they should start seeing the heavies.

  But that wasn't the only trigger at the zero count. Striker might be sending some hitters towards them, but they had a present of their own.

  In the sands outside MacPhereson, the smoldering wreck of the V-30 was wedged, like a lawn-dart, from the sands. One engine was black, its wing torn apart. Behind its wreckage, the base guns still scoured the skies, hunted a prey they couldn’t see. The V-30 was down, but it was not yet finished. In the hold, strapped in a nest of retention straps, the second dial-a-yield device rolled down its counter, until all the red numbers were gone.

  From inside the buttoned-down communications center, no one could see the blast. The first sign came, when the lights went out. A titanic drumroll followed, and then the sound of an awful stampede.

  The lights came back.

  The fusion bomb had done its job. In that brief moment, when all the computers restarted, when the security transferred from one mainframe to another, as the power rerouted, control had to be juggled. Sitting on top the primary relays, Bravo team was in the perfect position, and in the split moments before the base's security network was restored, Firenze was inside their loop.

  The Airship had been a challenge, and this system was much more complex, having been built to military standards and then upgraded throughout the years by Striker's men. It would have been quite a feat to almost any EWO, but Firenze had broken the EBS. He had run through NODA and lived. All MacPhereson’s defenses were marshmallows, all its attacks puffs of air. The guardian AI withered under the pure power of the gestalt.