The Sword

by J. M. Kaukola

  The Cataphract simmered, high over the killing fields, as plot and counter-plot brewed under growing tension. In the Citadel, Director Niklaus Draco sat behind his desk, his expression neutral, his fingers pressed together in abstract concern. In the depths of Persephone, there was pandemonium. The boards were alight, the monitors ablaze, and they sent runners for the switch, until they realized that the source wasn’t below, but throughout.

  For even the dead observed the sacrifice.

  That’s when the tide turned upon him.

  It came from below, without warning and without sign. One moment, he owned the net, and the next, he was submerged in it. Like black waters in the river basin, the currents rose. Like a riptide, it pulled him under, a titanic force that shoved him down-

  Lauren was suddenly alone in the TACNET interface. Deprived of a user, she was forced to improvise. Quickly, she ran a backscan of prior behaviors, compiled a virtual Firenze to maintain coherence, and triangulated most likely inputs of intent and direction. All of this, she completed before the squad saw his vitals start to plummet. For that, she had no answer. As Hill and Garrett dragged Firenze’s body through the control center, from “safe corner” to “safer corner”, she worked desperately to keep him alive. There were models of standard human optimals, and his normal health markers were open to her, but there was too much suddenly missing. He wasn’t breathing. She opened a dialog with that portion of his autonomic processes, convinced the stubborn computer in his head to restart the function. His heart wasn’t beating. Another dialog, but the hardware was getting sloppy. She tried to override the network, automate all “standard” functions, but they were alien. These were programs she only grasped through conversation, not experimentation.

  Firenze was dying, but he barely noticed. Even death was abstracted, as he was dragged deeper into the brackish depths, through layers of thought he'd never known, driven by one constant: a thrumming, pulsing intent he'd experienced only once before, in the depths of the EBS.

  WHY?

  The question was. It was not asked. It was not prompted. He did not perceive it as a word, translated into a query. The query was, like gravity or mass.

  WHY?

  There wasn’t time for this. His friends were dying, up above.

  He fought for the surface, tried to hurl raw code against the torrent of intent. Somewhere in the distance, he could feel the tendrils of Lauren's thoughts echoing back, soothing and not-so-alien in this ocean, as she desperately reached down, to back to pull him back to the surface. His fought against the dark, carved out bubbles of thought in the liquid WHY.

  He had friends out there, fighting and dying for the world.

  WHY?

  Fuck the world. Fuck the Authority. Those were just abstractions. Sergeant Clausen was a man he respected. Scooch and Reaper were his friends. Lauren was his world. He had to get back to them.

  WHY?

  He burst from the waters. Before him, the seas were blue, the sands white, and the trees tropical green. He clawed his way onto the sand of the beach, where every grain was a node, every crashing wave another pulse of data. The skies rolled, and turned from paradise blue to alien green, lined with the crashing orange lightning and soupy clouds. The cyclone spun over his head, sheared away the trees, tore them apart like crystals, and sucked them into the maw in the sky.

  The tide ran red.

  WHY?

  Another wave crashed from behind. It picked him up and carried him, hurled him face first into the sands-

  -he was a failing router in a sordid motel-

  -then snatched him by his ankles and dragged him back towards the depths.

  He glanced back, as he scrambled from the clinging black. There were ruins, below the storm-tossed waters. In the churning dark, lightning arced in the sinking city. The Airship still burned, buildings and outriggers snapped away, as it plunged ever further into the deep.

  The island was aflame, buildings strewn like darts through the jungle, the canopy rent with fire.

  There were bodies all around him, detritus on the tides. Kawalski. Halstead. Bodies, as far as he could see, bloated driftwood bumping against the sands.

  WHY?

  One hand at a time, one foot after the other, he pulled himself upon the white sand, desperately pulled himself from the tide. It washed over him, again and again, tried to rip the answers from his flesh, scour the reason from his bones.

  Ahead, a temple rose on the volcanic footsteps, ringed by burning bits of city, and haloed by the maelstrom sky. There, dressed in white, and covered in blood, Striker waited.

  Tiberius Berenson, the greatest of the Titans, raised his ichor-slicked hands in greeting, and smiled his maddening smile. His altar was barren, but the valley beyond was filled with bodies. The dead were stacked so deep, the mounds of corpses stood like foothills against the smoldering volcano. The fires fell amid the dead, set them ablaze, crushed them under the rubble, but there were so many they could never be hidden-

  Striker smiled, louder than any booming laugh, and raised a hammer high. He stood before a great gong, poised to land his blow. His bloodied hands dripped on the handle, sent red spattering onto his pristine robes. His eyes locked on Firenze’s, and Striker took his time to wind up the hit. The gong waited, between the pillars of the temple, It kept vigil over the foothills of corpses and the fiery mountains beyond. The great instrument trembled in anticipation, drenched in hand-painted red. It reflected the crazed laughter of its high priest, the burning jungle, the desolate beach where cities died, and the sinking nether beyond.

  Smoke poured from the rings of the mountains, deep rivers of burning red snaked through the bodies, as Striker brought his hammer down-

  WHY?

  The gong crashed, again-

  WHY?

  Firenze staggered to his feet. The earth shook, with every stroke of the mallet. The quake hurled the broken bits of city back to the surface, spat them up like bits of half-chewed food, dashed the rubble over the beach. Ruins, ever older, burst from the waves, thrust up like spears to heaven. The new mountains were covered in the bones of dead, cloaked in octopus tendrils that ticked away the seconds with unnatural precision-

  WHY?

  Because I have to!

  WHY!

  Because they are still fighting!

  WHY?

  The gong shook the air, and the island rumbled, deep in its volcanic lungs.

  The altar broke apart, pulled the bodies down, into the furnace. Striker raised the mallet, once more. He would strike the chord, now. It would all come to end.

  NO!

  WHY?

  The Authority was broken. It was a flawed construction. But so was everything. They were all flawed, from the people to the institutions to the concepts that drove them. That didn't mean they weren't worth fighting for. Not for vengeance. Not for retribution. They were fighting for the living, not the dead.

  He didn't have time for this, for ghosts and memories and the echoes of NODA. The list of the dead was growing longer, and he had to do something.

  AGREED

  The chaos relented. The temple was gone. The bodies were gone. Striker's mad gong was silent. There was still, order, and purpose. With one will, he directed, and the rumbling subsided.

  The ocean flowed into him, and there he was darkness.

  #

  Clausen knew he was in trouble when the barrels started to arc.

  As a rule, k-gun rails shouldn’t arc. After a shot, when the flashover faded, the gun would stink like a lightning storm, and the air would get hazy from the heat, but you should never see the arc. Once that started, the gun was damn near useless.

  Clausen slapped the release handle, and the gun broke open, hinged down to pop the buffer cartridge. With a flick, the barrel popped up, red-hot and sizzling. He snatched it with his gloved hand, tossed it away. The heat nearly melting through his glove. The lights on his HUD went from red to black, and he rammed a spare barrel into place. A quarter turn
locked the rails, and the power hummed through them from the capacitor. His HUD flickered once more. He dropped a new cartridge into the chamber, and snapped the weapon closed. Green to go.

  It was his last barrel. That was fine. He was nearly out of ammunition, anyway.

  Jennings was behind him, buried two stories down, in the silo. The tech had stripped open the warheads, sent the grisly details to the world. This was what Striker had planned for you. This fight wasn’t about living. They’d known that going in. This was about thumbing their nose at Striker, and going out screaming. They’d done a fine job, but it was nearly time to close accounts.

  Gerdoux was dead. Kelso was dead. The flank teams were dead.

  TACNET links were going red, one by one, scattered points of light on the black canvas. Across the base, Bravo still held the Ops center. Firenze was wounded, being dragged from one pell-mell firefight into another by the dwindling members of the team. Rutman’s lance was thinning, as it pierced through the base. Trevinger still held her tower. That was all that was left.

  There was nothing left to coordinate. There was nothing left to lead. The battle was done. All that remained was question, how much blood would they draw?

  A near miss spanged from the bulkhead, and he ducked. An explosion rattled through silo control, overlapped with the banshee shriek of a hypervelocity rocket. Missed me. The realization was a heady mix of elation, fury, and terror. Clausen harnessed it, swung out, and sent k-gun fire back into the funnel.

  The gun bucked against his shoulder. The air crackled, and when his visor cleared, he saw the dead VIPER. Its armor was pierced, melted, and its battery pack poured molten salt through the wounds. In an instant, it was gone, vanished in a blaze of secondary flashes, the operator boiled alive. Clausen ducked back, popped the k-gun open. Liquid heat poured out of the breach, and the shining buffer cartridge spanged over his shoulder. Return fire punched down the hallway, tore bits of girders free. There’s less wall than hole, now. It was only a matter of time before they got him. A lucky laser would kiss him goodnight, or they’d get a plasma projector into the corridor, or a hyvel rocket would just come through the wall at him.

  Kill a dozen, a dozen more. We are few. They are many.

  Clausen knew it was over, and the enemy knew it, too. They’d stopped racing his team for the silo. The missiles were dead weight. This was a siege, now. The VIPERs had slowed, become methodical, inching slowly forward, to finish the extermination.

  A sledgehammer blow crashed over his back.

  Clausen was hurled to the floor, the wall of heat blooming above him. Pieces of bulkhead rained through the corridor, carried on a plasma curtain. The air ripped from his lungs. His HUD biosigns flashed red, before he felt the pain. Jagged metal pierced stuck through his sleeves like sequins, framed in red. He felt the cold burn of localized painkillers and antiseptic, felt the compression on his right side. That looks like it hurts. The k-gun was on the deck, two feet from him, with shrapnel punched through its plastic frame. Useless.

  He fought through the haze, through the sudden weakness in his right side. More red lights in his HUD.

  He rose, like a gunfighter, from the haze and debris, and pulled the Automag from his holster.

  He stood, in the smoldering wreckage of his position, as blood poured from open wounds.

  Ringed by fire, he stood side-on to the enemy, and pointed the rocket pistol with his good hand.

  The VIPER, overconfident, stepped into the killing ground, to check its work.

  Clausen fired.

  The microrocket careened from the VIPER’s helmet, carried on a streak of flame. It left a shattered mask in its wake. The VIPER staggered, its heavy k-gun off target, as the soldier inside tried to shield his face. Clausen fired, again, and put his second shot through the hole. The VIPER toppled, its arms fell limp. Slow, oily flames climbed from the gap in the visor.

  Another stepped over the fallen, its heavy coat draping over the burning dead. Clausen sent another double-tap of rockets into the breach. The enemy was prepared, and fell back behind the frame of a door. Clausen answered with grenades, and tucked down as the blast pounded over him. No more VIPERs came through the gap. He’d raised his price.

  He had four more rounds in the Automag, one more magazine on his webbing. He could stop a few more VIPERs, but if the AISAS showed up…

  He grimaced, and tried to work his injured arm. More red lights, and dull hiss of painkillers. The servos on the armor helped him move, held the bones in place. Not enough. He glanced behind him. He’d fallen back, as far as he could. The next door was the silo, and the multistory plunge to Jennings’s position. This is it.

  His HUD pinged, and he accepted the transmission.

  “Alpha Six, this is Charlie Six, come in, Sarn't!” Scooch. Rutman yelled, to be heard over gunfire. Clausen flicked his eyes, and the firefight came into focus on TACNET. Charlie was pinned into the old laboratories, but Rutman wasn't directly engaging. Must be important, to make a call in a shoot-out.

  He answered, “This is Six, go ahead.”

  Rutman said, “Sarn't we’ve got some bad shit. Real bad shit!”

  There was movement at the doorway. Clausen turned, angled his body to stabilize the shot, and fired.

  The attacker fell back.

  “Say again!” Clausen demanded. Wet was spreading down his back, from behind his shoulder. More red lights.

  “Human testing, Sarn’t. The worst.” Rutman answered.

  Clausen flicked back to Rutman’s helmet feed, and wished he hadn’t. Son of a bitch. “Roger that.” He answered, grimly. Burn this fucking place to the ground, and salt the earth, once more.

  Rutman had files scattered over a desk, his rifle propped against an old computer. He pulled a file up, let Clausen get a good look at the datasheet, and explained, “Sarn’t, looks like they were testing some new flavor of Blade-” Rutman ducked, the feed shook, flickered - it came back, and smoke was drifting over a new hole in the far wall, “Sorry, Sarn’t, bit of a jam, here. Striker wanted a bad trip. The cages… they’re not good.”

  In Clausen’s hall, the VIPER poked around the corner, his helmet framed by a massive salt pack. Clausen snapped off a shot, and got a gratifying flare-out from the battery. The VIPER went down screaming as his armor melted under the deluge.

  Rutman continued, “One dose, and it's nightmare city. Hallucinations, psychotic breaks - I don’t mean bad dreams. I’m talking: rape, murder, cannibalism, jaywalking…” He tossed the datasheet back into the stack, grabbed another plastic sheet, and held it up. “It’s all in here, Sarn’t. This is the fucking the demon child of Blade, PCP, and khat. Reliable, too, if this is the kind of high you’re aiming for.” Rutman paused, and concluded, “This ain’t a drug, it's a weapon.”

  “Send it to Princess. Put it on the air.” Clausen commanded. “Striker wants to show off? Let's give him a fucking audience.”

  “Sarn't, we got test subjects down here. Alive.”

  Clausen paused. He chewed on that for a second, and nearly lost his head to a plasma bolt. The Automag shrieked again, and he had a moment to think. “Are they stable?” He asked, as he reloaded.

  “Can they fight? That what you mean?” Rutman asked, then answered his own question, “Hell no, Sarn't. Some of the early cases are awake, though. They can talk. They can run.” Rutman snatched his gun from the table, spun, and fired into the hallway behind. Clear, he stated, “We gotta get ‘em out of here, Sarn't.”

  “This isn't a rescue.” Clausen countered. He knew his words sounded cold. He didn’t like them, but he wasn’t one for fantasy. This was a one way trip. “There’s no evac on deck, Scooch.”

  “I know!” Rutman protested. “Maybe they die free, though? Hell, maybe I give them a gun, let them go out swinging? We don’t just let this go, Sarn’t. We can’t.”

  Clausen weighed his options, few as they were. Everything about this was stupid. Any of the civies could be unstable. They could be enemies. They co
uld be - no. It didn’t matter. The matter was settled. He was going to die here. He wouldn’t do it, leaving people left in cages. Treated like animals. Not on his watch. He flicked his eyes again, and a map sprung up. He highlighted the hangar Alpha had breached through, and ordered, “Scooch, I’m sending you a rally point. There was a flitter parked where we came in. Break out anyone who can run, and make a go for it.” He switched to Command channel. “Reaper! Scooch is taking a little jog, can you give him eyes?”

  Hill answered, clearly, “Right, Sarge. We got ‘em!”

  Clausen flipped back to Rutman. “We’ll cover what we can. That’s about three hundred yards over open ground.” They'll never make it. There was a cold calculus to this. Once Hill diverted Rolling Thunder fire from his own position, it would crumble. This would open a gap in the threat envelope. This order was a suicide run.

  “Aye, Sarn’t.” Rutman answered. His voice was heavy, but proud. “It’s been an honor.” Scooch understood. Completely.

  “Likewise.” Clausen answered. He pulled the tactical map, set the waypoints, and packeted the orders.

  It was done.

  He wasn’t given opportunity to dwell. A sudden arc of plasma danced down the hall. He dove back, and his position vanished into flame. He rolled over, ignored the sudden wails of the biosign monitors. He was almost entirely under servo power, now. His chest was in a vice, as compression packs fought to keep him alive. He fired once, twice, three times.

  A fireball bloomed from the other end of the hallway, and the shockwave sent the rubble skittering past him.

  The plasma fire stopped.

  Salt packs are a bitch, ain’t they?

  His HUD chimed again, through the fog and beads of moisture. He took the call, as he pulled himself, slowly, to his feet.

  Jennings said, “Sarge, I'm seeing what Scooch sent over. I think the chemical load on these missiles might be that Blade variant he brewed up.”

  “Of course it is.” Clausen sighed. “You clear down there?”