The Sword

by J. M. Kaukola

  Do it, jackass. I dare you to drop the elevator. Let's see if you can wrap it around the globe.

  When the Onager stood down, he allowed himself a slight smile. He never allowed a drop in assault tempo.

  When the students, teachers, and staff in the library clumped around the media wall, and stared into the inferno at MacPhereson, he kept a professional calm. They never noticed him, as he calmly worked his job in the very room with them. When they cried out, he ignored them. If he looked, he would have broken, so he turned away, and focused on the code. He should have been there. He knew it, but he also knew he was needed here, and regret was a luxury of the future.

  Another counter-intrusion protocol popped up, and he swatted it away, deployed scramblers to slow down the home network, severed the routers of the botnet trying to track him. Right here, in the NODA backbone, it was like he was rooted into everyone's computers. No. That wasn’t accurate. He wasn’t like anything. He was rooted.

  “His work is quite impressive.” The mask observed.

  “Quite.” Donegan agreed, as he watched a piece of Firenze's code slam into action. He was into the batchwork of a sub-surface processor battery in the South China Sea. He added, “It's got all the subtlety of a car bomb, but yeah, it’s impressive.”

  “One can't fight the tide alone, sir.” it noted.

  “No, you can’t.” Donegan agreed. Traitorously, he glanced to the feeds. He shouldn’t have.

  Bruce Devallo was dead.

  They’d worked together for years. Fought together. Sat down at base and shot the shit over cars and computers and families. Bruce was one of the - had been one of the - smartest people Donegan ever met. He was the kind of guy who could come a problem sideways, fix it in a way you never saw coming. A guy who never gave up. They'd cracked the Path network in Belgrade from inside a shanty on the optical lines. They'd lived on yogurt and hard rations, crapped in a can, and slept in shifts. They'd played euchre and drank boiled water, while Devallo kept the link running and Donegan cut into the local grid.

  Now Bruce was dead, and Donegan was sitting in a goddamn library-

  “There are many kinds of sacrifice.” The mask observed.

  Clausen had told him that, when he'd laid out the assault plan. It true then, and it was true now. He hated when the truth was against him. He closed his mind, shut out his wandering thoughts, and turned his rage into focus. There was no quitting, no mourning. There was only the attack.

  The Authority’s countermeasures wilted, and the crowds grew in murmuring clumps. All the while, he sat behind their backs, as they occasionally glanced back and muttered about ‘the guy who didn’t care’, and then turned back to the crisis. He sat, and he conducted, and he never raised a complaint.

  He would end this day in prison, or he'd end it in anonymity. There were many kinds of sacrifice. First to fight, last to quit. He was ASOC, through and through. He would not shirk his duty. He held the line, and kept the feeds running, so the world could watch his friends die.

  #

  Sergeant Mathias Cole died when Alpha breached the launch facility.

  He was the first man through the gap. He rushed the breach, as the smoke from the charge was still solid in the gap. The laser projector in his hands crackled, and he danced fire over his targets. His work was precise, mindful of the banks of computers, and the access hatch into the silo itself. The SACR snapped, and lacerated the soldiers beyond, but one was a little too fast, and a lucky subgun round slotted the gap between his trauma plate and collar, ricocheted from his ribcage, and punched deep into his chest.

  Cole was dead the moment the shot hit him, but his body still functioned for several moments after. Even as the TACNET biofeeds began to flash red, and the cutaneous painkillers began to trigger on the patches inside his armor, his aim was true, and he finished the breach. He cleared his flank, and the team poured in behind him.

  All targets down, he lowered his weapon, and called, “Clear” with a ragged voice. Objective secure, he slumped to the ground.

  Sergeant Clausen checked on him, tried to give him a pep talk, but they both knew what that golden bullet had done. Cole, floating on a haze of painkillers, held his position, seated near the door of the control room, for another minute and a half before his body gave out. ASOC. Last to quit.

  When Cole died, his best friend, Technical Sergeant Oswalt Jennings, couldn't take the time to notice, because he was staring into the open silo, looking over racks of modified ballistic missiles, set in cassettes, against the tails of electric railings that angled towards the rooftop hatch. For a moment, Jennings couldn't make sense of what he was seeing, until he made the cognitive leap to not regard this as a missile silo, but instead, as a multiple launch rack for a quench-gun assisted suborbital catapult.

  Once that thought clicked, he sent his feed back to the team, with his summary. He said, “They modified it, Sarge! Looks like we got a mass driver here, at least four warheads on a rotary rack. I'd need to get down there to check them-”

  “Quench catapult?” Staff Sergeant Landis Gerdoux asked, “No boost-phase?”

  “Negative!” Jennings answered, as he looked for a ladder down into the lower levels. He sniffed for the scent of ionization, or the pulse of coolant. Either meant imminent launch. “These aren’t getting shot down if they go up. Not at the speed they’ll come out.”

  “Can you stop it?” Clausen demanded. The Sergeant had set up near the entryway, where he coordinated the impromptu defense.

  Gerdoux linked his soft jack into the missile systems. “Negative, not networked. Looks like each is hard wired. I’d need to get to each, to defuse them. Could take five, maybe ten minutes, if these are wired normal.”

  “What are the targets?” Jennings asked, as he ripped open a control box.

  “No idea.” Gerdoux answered. “Probably hard wired-”

  “Doesn't matter.” Clausen interjected. “These birds don’t fly, end of story!”

  Jennings turned back to the silo. Getting down to those missiles would be a bear, especially if the coils activated. He'd be cooked before he was useful, but without a remote access, there was no way to get to the missiles themselves.

  He’d had always been a fan of flashes of insight, those moments when the things he knew suddenly clicked together into a route forward. One occurred to him right there, and he suddenly blurted out, “I got this, Sarge. We don't need to stop the missile.”

  Clausen gave him the “go ahead” nod, and Jennings explained, “Quench catapult needs power.” He traced the power signatures near the pumps, the coils that surrounded the launch systems, identified the thickly insulated cables, and chased them back to the junction box. He knew an emergency breaker when he saw one. “Got it.”

  He clambered on top of the railing, reaching to the recessed platform, and cut the cover free with his monoknife. Systems like this were not designed to be booby-trapped. They were designed to safely, quickly, and reliably, put their payloads into orbit. Turning it off was as simple as pulling the emergency switch into the disconnect position, and then physically removing the switch. The moment he did that, the slight hum in the coils faded, and the thrum of the pumps ceased. Sometimes, Jennings really loved safety codes.

  When he finished, he cut the switch in twain, just to be sure, and tossed the parts into the silo. They clattered into the depth with satisfying smashes, and Jennings said, “Now I'll disarm the damned missiles, Sarge.”

  “Thank you, Pants!” Clausen said. “You just made a lot of friends out there.”

  “Damn skippy.” Gerdoux added. “Now we just have to hold the position, right?”

  Jennings offered a salute, and stepped onto the ladder, down towards the warheads, to see what, exactly, he had just disarmed. Above, the firefight was getting closer. He never saw it, but TACNET pinged when a sudden blast from an HVR pulverized Landis Gerdoux, his next best friend. Jennings didn't take the time to notice this, either. He buried it all inside, and methodically cut
into the first of the missiles. He had a job to do, and he would do it right, until the end came over him.

  Until then, the list of the dead would grow, and he would mark each passing with quiet dedication.

  #

  It was the night before the end, and Brian Clausen was bound to a time honored tradition of a “last meal”. Of all the assorted customs in the Authority, this was one of the oldest, dating back to an assault on the fortress-town of Arbour, in the hazy years after the Collapse, before the lights of civilization had become watchfires. The soldiers, facing the great walls of the town, had co-opted a local farm, and traded an unneeded motor carriage for hogs. That night, for the first time in months, they’d eaten well. The battle that followed was bloody, and many who’d eaten that night never ate again, but the troops remembered, and kept that meal, in honor of the dead. Facing a tough mission, the soldiers could expect a meal good enough for a king. In the hard times during the wars, that meant game meat, instead of protein packs. In the peace won after them, that meant multiple courses. As fugitives, on the run from their own government, that meant any meal where they could sit down, and eat like people.

  Clausen was pragmatic. He wasn't going to send anyone into the meat-grinder with a heavy stomach or hung over, but he was, at some level, a romantic, and traditions were more than just history, they were the soul. So, with thirty-five hours until launch, he got together with Charlie Rutman and set up the best meal they could muster.

  Rutman was the best scrounger in the unit, maybe the army. The man could make ice appear in the desert. Here, Clausen called upon every bit of that skill. A couple hours of scavenging turned up a smoker in the tenement halls, and a couple more acquired the raw meat and fresh-enough produce. That just left the cooking, but Clausen was quite capable of handling that.

  Firenze had been astounded. “You can cook?” He’d demanded.

  To that, Clausen had only asked, “How do you think I impress the ladies?”

  He wasn’t a chef. He knew that. But he'd learned a few things from his dad before the old man had imploded into a bottle, including how to make proper barbecue, greens, and beans. The meat wasn't the best, and he didn’t have enough time to really cook it right, but part of the art was improvisation and adaptability (as well as dry rub). In the end, he was satisfied with what he’d turned out. Firenze had been won over by the results, at least.

  Rutman brought the “best beer in the district”, which was an impressive act of fact-finding, since they'd only been here for a week, and local opinions were strongly divided. Scooch was rarely wrong on these things, though, so Clausen let the claim stand, even if Rutman insisted on ruining a solid beef barbecue with seafood. Whatever. They’d done this long enough that Clausen had learned to grill haddock, too. This time, though, he had to know, why?

  Rutman explained, “Whenever Mom would get back in from the rig, she'd pick up something from the wharf, and bring it home. She'd grill it up, and we'd pretend we were a normal family for a night.” He shrugged, added, “Sorry, Sarn't. I just like fish.”

  Clausen took a sip from his beer, then held it aloft and tipped it in honor. He said, “I'll grill your fucking whitefish, Scooch.”

  The dinner was, by all accounts, fantastic. The barbecue came apart under a fork, like it should, and struck that perfect balance of tangy and sweet. The beer was excellent, and everyone agreed with Rutman that it, indeed was, “the best in the district”. For a couple of hours, everyone ate, talked, and traded stupid stories that had been told a dozen times before, but brought tears of laughter with each retelling. Tomorrow, they would drop into hell, but tonight, they could pretend everything was fine. The last meal wasn’t just a tradition, after all. It was a psychological break, a reprieve from the grim cadence of preparation, and the fatalistic tenor of the planning. It was a ray of hope in the eye of the storm, before they plunged back into the abyss. It was the moment that would bind them, one and all, before their final stand.

  Which is why, when there was one conspicuous absence, tradition demanded that Clausen hunt down and drag the prodigal one back to the table.

  The door to Berenson’s room was closed, and locked, which was unusual. Berenson normally left every door open, on principle.

  Clausen called out, “Come on! Open the damned door!”

  He pounded on the wooden frame, and bits of the paint peeled off with each blow.

  There was no answer.

  Clausen stopped his pounding, and sighed heavily. He glanced back down the hallway, towards the common room, and the rise and fall of blurred laughter. He sighed, again, and turned back to the rotted door. The edges were dark, from a thousand handprints and a dozen years of neglect. One last time, he called out, “Come on! I know you’re in there. Open the door, or I’m kicking it in!”

  From inside, the response was tiny and worn, “Please, not now.”

  “Stop brooding! There’s dinner on.”

  There was a moment of silence, and Berenson answered him, once more, “I am rather fond of brooding, Mister Clausen. It is one of the strengths of the Titan Five series.” Berenson’s voice was thin, almost tired. The normal mocking cadence dragged, and seemed more forced than amused.

  Evasion. Clausen recognized the dodge. He commanded, “Open the damn door.”

  “Why?” Berenson asked, “So you may engage me in a pointless exercise of fraternal bonding? I assure you, I need no high-minded and heavy-handed refreshment on the stakes of our endeavor.” His words were cutting, but his voice was strained.

  “Damn skippy!” Clausen answered. “It's a matter of tradition!”

  There was no reply. Clausen waited.

  After a moment, a defeated Berenson asked, “You are not going to leave, are you?”

  “Nope.” Clausen replied. “But I will breach this door.”

  “You should not want me to join your meal.” Berenson shot back. “My presence would merely confuse the intent-”

  “Oh, shove it.” Clausen ordered. “Open!”

  There was a click, and the door drifted from its position. Inside, the room was a darkened cave. Berenson stood in the frame, his skin pale, his shirt drenched and sagging, his eyes wide and glossy. The stench hit Clausen, right after, the stink of vomit and sweat. A fever. When Clausen’s eyes adjusted, he saw the pile of autoinjectors on the bed, like an addict’s horde. “You speed-balling boosters?” He asked.

  “Yes.” Berenson said, as he staggered back towards the bed, to pluck up a silver tube. “Welcome to my thrilling evening.” He slammed the autoinjector to his thigh, winced as the click-hiss rang through the room.

  Berenson seized. His jaw clenched. His eyes closed. After a moment, he let out a whine, like a dying engine, and toppled, limp, onto the bed, where he lay still.

  Clausen said, “That does not look fun, just saying.”

  “Correct.” Berenson agreed, his weak voice muffled by the dingy pillow. With a groan, he forced himself over, and stared at the rotted ceiling. “I am familiar with pain, but this hurts like nothing I have ever felt. Consider, that I have been shot, burned, dropped, and impaled, this is quite a new level of sensation.” Without sitting up, he grabbed the next injector, and slapped it against his thigh, once more. He jerked, and froze like a plank of wood. He whined, again, and spasmed across the bed, thrashing like a caught fish. When he fell still, he admitted, “That was the worst one yet. I think they are compounding.”

  Clausen stepped into the hovel, closed the door behind him. “Why?” He asked.

  Berenson chuckled, coughed, and replied, “Because, I need to shock the nanophage. I need to be one hundred percent functional for the final fight. Even one percent less, and Tiberius will destroy me.” He pawed another injector into his grip. “The nanophage plays off my system repair functions, dealing slow damage to cause the maintenance routines to malfunction, harvesting body mass to repair the damage. I needed to stockpile doses, wash the whole phage from my body, and let the regeneration cycle complete, prope
rly. I have enough time to recover before the mission, if I do it now.” He slammed the injector home. This time, he didn’t whine, but screamed, and bolted upright. His eyes were wide and bloodshot. When the seizure ended, he toppled forward. Clausen caught him. When the shaking stopped, Berenson said, “Yes, I can confirm the hypothesis. The effects are definitely compounding.”

  “How many more?” Clausen asked.

  “Seven.” Berenson admitted, like the prisoner facing the long march to the gallows.

  “Fuck that.”

  “No choice. I have no choice.” Berenson said, quietly. “There was never a choice.” He lifted up the next cylinder, let it glimmer in the dim light, and then stabbed down. He screamed, again, and flung himself over the bed. He howled as he thrashed, his voice modulating as cyberware shorted and repaired. Again and again, he snapped from fetal position to full extension, and back. When the seizing stopped, he lay there, like a corpse, except for his ragged gasps for air. If possible, he looked even more pale than he had, moments ago. For nearly a minute, he was still, just labored breathing and wide, searching eyes, until there was a sudden 'pop' as something snapped back into place. At that, Berenson sat up with a forced smile, as he struggled for every centimeter of movement. He pointed to the pile, and asked, “Another?”

  “This is insane. You’re gonna kill yourself. Take a break!”

  “I cannot.” Berenson said, and grasped for the next cylinder. “The dose must be rapid.”

  Clausen grabbed the him by the wrist and stopped him. Berenson’s arm was light, far lighter than it should have been, and weaker as well. What got eaten to rebuild him? How much is gone?