The Sword

by J. M. Kaukola

“Sure enough.” Jennings answered. “Thermite solves most problems.” He paused, and added, “Sarge, I'm coming up. I’ll bring up Landis's kit. Maybe we can buy Scooch some time.”

  “Do it.” Clausen ordered. He checked his last magazine. Four in the tank and one in the hole. Sorry, Sarah. Looks like I won't be coming home. I hope you understand. At the gap in the wall, there was a tremendous heave, and part of the rubble gave way.

  The AISAS goliath stepped through. It moved with deep, loping strides, as it dragged it’s century laser behind. It did not take cover. It did not suppress. It stood, framed in the fires, its silver frame shining, and waited for the counterstroke.

  Clausen drew up his pistol. He aimed, through open sights, and made his final stand. First to fight.

  The words were on his lips like a prayer, and he didn’t realize he’d spoken.

  The answer came in a chorus, battered and ragged, from a dozen voices. As one, they cried, “LAST TO QUIT!”

  The world listened.

  #

  Specialist Dean Garrett died when Aaron Hill reloaded.

  They’d shifted the base of fire to cover Rutman’s desperate sprint, which meant suppression. Suppression meant extra shots fired. Shots fired meant ammunition expended, and the Rolling Thunder ran dry. The weapon took approximately twenty-two seconds to reload, even for a trained operator. Moments after the blistering light of the AM cannon faded, the AISAS units charged the gap. They opened with hypervelocity rockets, a five-shot volley that annihilated the east face of the control room, and Garrett was gone before he’d recognized the flash.

  Hill hurled himself prone, as the roar of hyvels and DEW fire rushed past. He knew the motto. “If you hear the scream, you’re alive.” He still ducked.

  The cascade of fire rolled over the command center. The east wall was gone, and the west followed. An office chair rolled by, slowly turning as it burned, its plastic arms melted off. Otherwise, there was nothing by fire.

  When the fury receded, there was no sign of Garrett, his cover, or his weapon. The flank was broken.

  Hill elbow-crawled through the burning ruin, the Rolling Thunder cradled in his crossed arms. Once, this had been the operations center for the entire base. Later, it had been the bunker to house the EBS source. Now, it was burning rubble stacked on less-burning rubble, a worthless ruin in the eye of the Waste storms. Thing was, this was Hill’s worthless pile of rubble, and he had a thing or two to say about that.

  For this, he preferred to let Agnes do the talking.

  He popped to his feet, like an infernal jack-in-the-box, hidden in the hellscape. The Rolling Thunder was locked in at his hip, and it spoke.

  From the darkness, there was light. The attackers vanished in the glare, as the cannon sang out another paean to the god of annihilation.

  Hill walked the fire in a lazy arc, as he advanced to the lip of the room. With each burst, he stepped into bolder and bolder positions, until he stood, defiant against the maelstrom. “How you like that?!” He screamed, and raised the weapon to his shoulder, for a better shot.

  He might have imagined it, but he swore he could see panic on those blank AISAS visors.

  Agnes made her point, and the enemy was no more.

  Hill scanned the base. Rutman’s mad dash hadn’t broke surface, yet. Clausen was out of firing line, and too close to the enemy for Agnes. Hill glanced at his hopper. Eleven rounds left. Eleven rounds, and the only question was, how to get the most bang for his buck?

  Princess was alive. Hill could see it on TACNET.

  Firenze lay in the corner, below the sagging Northwest wall. His vitals were weak, but he still held the net in an iron grip. Hill didn’t have time for first aid, and this position was done. That last volley had scared them, made them regroup. He’d bought himself a few seconds.

  Hill tossed the Rolling Thunder over his back, grabbed the hacker, and started to drag Princess towards the south wall, to the most “intact” structure left.

  The enemy was faster than he’d expected.

  A plasma bolt crashed through the twisted metal monuments of the ops center, sheared apart into a brilliant flash of light. Hill dropped Firenze like old potatoes, and tried not to wince, at the sudden plunge in Princess’s biosigns, as the hacker rolled down the ramp to the lower level. Hill stood, framed between two twisted girders, and fired.

  The shadows cast through the twisted wreckage shifted, became solid. The light cleansed, and the threat was gone. Eight rounds left.

  Hill scrambled down, after Firenze. He snatched his buddy with one hand, dragged the hacker by the arm, the Rolling Thunder tossed on his shoulder. There wasn’t time for gentle right now. He had to get Princess into cover, then get back up there to cover Rutman. He shoved Firenze into a gap in the old server farm, tucked the kid between two heavy desks. It’ll have to do. He crouched, tried to peer into the kid’s face. “Come on, Princess.” He whispered. “Wake the hell up.” He got no answer, and Firenze’s vitals kept dropping.

  To his left, an intact door, which led into the buried sections of the base, tore from its hinges, as the familiar bang of breaching charges rang through the room. Hill didn’t wait to see what was coming through. It wasn’t on TACNET. Good enough.

  Hard light dawned through the half-breached door, and Hill realized he couldn’t hear anything.

  The racks of the data center were burned into his vision. His flash goggles flicked to black.

  He was probably irradiated.

  Seven shots.

  Blinded, he relied on TACNET wireframes. The walls were gray and white, the targets skeletal red. He pushed through the rubble, climbed up the crumpled stairs, until the shaded outlines became solid. He raised his weapon, and set the reticle on the “red” building across the base. He touched the trigger, and the building was gone. TACNET boiled down the chaos, but even in the minimalist rendition, he got to see the roof fly off like a graduation cap. By the time his goggles recovered, and vision returned, that entire spoke of the base had collapsed into the bunker below, and the crystal tide had claimed it. That flank was secure, and he had six shots.

  He never saw the VIPER come up on his right. That part of his vision was still reeling from the flash-burn. He never saw the VIPER, but he saw the streak of the Bizon punch through walls to find it. He followed the trail, to the growing puddle and scorched walls, all centered on one comically intact boot. He owed Trevinger a beer. Maybe a dozen.

  His eyes followed the shot, back to her tower.

  Rather, to the lack of it.

  The mast was down, shattered over the burning antennae farm. She was down there, in the maze of wires and domes, playing peek-a-boo with armature drones in the growing crystal dunes. Hill raised his cannon, and called out his warning, “Danger close!” TACNET pinged the shot for him.

  Five shots left. Four.

  The light faded, and Trevinger survived, surrounded by the glass memories of the Rolling Thunder’s smiting fist.

  Hill turned back to the north face. Rutman’s team was going to break surface there. The Faction had an ambush set, two AISAS units babysitting a kilowatt laser. Hill fixed the problem. Three shots left.

  Charlie emerged from the bunker, pursued by all manner of hell.

  Two shots left.

  The Faction descended on Hill’s position. The AISAS came right through the wall. It stepped from darkness. More followed. Hill spun the Rolling Thunder, fired. The last of the ops center gave way, into the tunnels below. Fire claimed them, as well, and the ground opened, to swallow man and machine.

  Hill scrambled back to the lip the building, kept Charlie in view. None pursued. The red lights on TACNET had turned from the flight of the prisoners, to a more pressing matter. The red tide came for him.

  Hill grinned, then laughed, then cackled. He howled, “Come on, you sons a bitches.” He checked the hopper. One round left. “Come on!” He screamed.

  Hill stood, on the last of the elevated ops platform, the Rolling Thunder smoki
ng in his hands, and he reveled in it. Oh, bring it on. Bring it on, and taste what I brought you! He glanced back, to where Firenze was lay, ensconced. He shot a grin, to the sleeping, and said, in a bit of poetry he saved for when no one was looking, “You ready for this, Princess? Last ride of the light brigade?” He paused, and added, with a sly grin, “Betcha didn’t know I could read!”

  Hill raised the cannon to his shoulder, and took aim at the tide. He waited for the shot. He waited, until they’d all poured out, onto the open field. He waited, until they bunched in the only good angles he gave them, and piled up on the choke. He waited until they were beyond danger close, and the proximity charge read “zero”.

  They crossed the lip of the threshold.

  Aaron Hill joined the list of the dead, but he did not go alone.

  #

  High above, Section Chief Michael Raschel watched the carnage unfurl, and the only sign he have was the slight curl of his lip. He said nothing, as the torrent of failures grew. He did not swear, he did not curse. He wanted to. He wanted to snatch up one of the chairs from the deck, and hurl it into the wall, and scream profanity after it. He wanted to, so badly, that it hurt to stop his hands from shaking. He’d been outplayed.

  One after another, ASOC died below his feet. One after another, they exacted their blood price and fell, in pointlessly brutal last stands. They fell, and the echo came back from around the world, in the form of ‘URGENT’ flagged reports and desperate calls for support. All of it flashed over his glasses. Teams failed to respond. Units refused to mobilize. Pandemonium in the Citadel halls. Like a mighty cliff-side fortress, the Authority was being washed away by the tide.

  But it was not destroyed. It had not yet fallen.

  A lesser agent would have snapped. It was so tempting, to just throw in the towel, admit the loss, and then blow Berenson to hell from high orbit. It would have been so very enjoyable, on a primal level. Of course, that same call would end the Authority. The fallout would cross the world. There would be mass insurrection. There would be chaos. It would be total and utter devastation, and the end of the last great hope for human survival.

  It still would have felt good.

  Raschel forced his lips to stop from trembling, swallowed back the spit. To prove he was in control, he gave a polite nod to Captain Sodineri, saw her astonished glance back at him. He could read it, on her furrowed brow and wide eyes, ‘How does he stay so calm?’ That bit of wonder almost made him smile.

  He grabbed that small victory, and ran with it, used it to prime the well. He still had moves to make. He could still win. It would not be pretty. It would not be clean. But it could be done. It would not end well, but it would end, and the Authority would endure.

  The Director was counting on him. The State was counting on him.

  A lesser man would have cracked. They would have snapped. Folded. Not Raschel. That’s why he was the man on the spot. He’d figured something out, a long time ago, that made him the best. It wasn’t about winning all the time. You couldn’t do it. Most players, when they stepped up to the table, they fought tooth and nail for every victory. They pissed resources on bad bets. They showed their hands when they got desperate. Not Raschel. He didn’t play the game. He played the tournament.

  He glanced around the bridge. The faces were pale, gaunt, as they stared into their monitors. They glanced back at him, when they thought he wasn’t looking. Were they waiting for him to snap? Were they plotting? An hour ago, they had been loyal. They had been the crew of an Authority vessel, doing their job. Now, they watched each other, watched him, and waited for the first person to turn.

  Who kills who, when the shooting starts? Does the Captain head the mutiny, or fight to stop it? Raschel watched them play it out, in every furtive glance.

  There were marines on the bridge. That bothered him. Immensely.

  The petty officer that lead them was an old hand, his face worn down by years and a few too-close plasma bursts. That chief was itching for a fight, the way he had his team spread out by the door, but he would follow orders. The chief watched the captain. The captain watched Raschel.

  The bad move would have been to have Reyna park a RAST team on the bridge. Raschel knew about a dozen jackasses that would have done it. They would have weighed out the need for loyal guns, and “played it safe”. They would have slapped the captain across the face with a lack of trust and respect. They would have signed their own epitaph.

  No, he’d have to bet on the bluff.

  He glanced to Reyna, saw her glance back. She tilted her head, just slightly, towards the chief petty officer and his infantry.

  Raschel gave no response. Anything at all would have been too much. Too many frayed nerves up here. Too many armed bodies.

  God damn Antonius Fucking Berenson. He nearly let his grimace slip through, on that traitorous thought.

  He'd been here before, on a bridge outside Dailian. He’d stood next to Bill Halstead against thirty traitorous soldiers. Just the two of them, against a platoon, and they’d beat the bastards. That was the kind of stuff legends were built from.

  Of course, Bill was dead.

  Raschel's fault. Berenson's, too. And Striker's. Everyone was here for the party.

  Fucking hell. Hurry up, Vonner. Give me some goddamned breathing room.

  As if summoned, his earpiece chirped. About goddamn time. Vonner said, “Sir, we're ready. We have the counter-prop.”

  “Good.” Raschel answered, and made sure to keep his voice flat. “Now, stand by.”

  His words had drawn eyes. The captain was watching him. So was the petty officer. Velasquez watched them, right back. She’d have his back, right? God damn you, Berenson. It was all-in, now.

  Raschel cleared his throat, and ordered, “Captain, prepare for bombardment. Strike package bravo.”

  Captain Sodineri nodded to him. She was a good soldier. She’d do her job. She spun on her heel, and barked out gunnery commands.

  From the bridge, those orders became instructions. Those instructions became codes, sent into the belly of the ship. Railguns loaded, missile tubes sealed. Payloads set. In any given second, the Cataphract could unload the equivalent of twenty-eight megatons of TNT, with enough accuracy to perform surgery from orbit. It was the pride of the Authority. It was unparalleled, unrivaled, and about to unleash its full destructive might on an unprepared target.

  Despite himself, he felt his throat clutch, just a little. This was it.

  The room had gone quiet. All eyes were on him.

  He made his play.

  “Captain?” He asked, with a flashed glance to Agent Velasquez.

  “Sir?” Sodineri answered.

  “Fire.”

  #

  The needler rifle struck the floor, its barrels red hot, its magazine empty.

  It lay, smoke wisping from its barrels, and it charred the flesh that it lay upon.

  The dead did not protest.

  Antonius Berenson stood over the grisly remains.

  The rifle was no longer of use. It was no longer a rifle.

  The Faction’s elite were no longer a threat. They were no longer soldiers.

  Berenson drew a deep breath, and tasted the stink of cordite, ozone, and meat. This was his home. He breathed it in, let it fill his chest.

  Two dozen had stood against him. Two dozen were no more.

  Tiberius was going easy on him.

  He reloaded his pistol, without opening his eyes. He knew every curve of its frame, every line and contour. He pulled the old magazine out, tucked it safely into his vest, and loaded the next. It slipped into the well smoothly, with the barest of clicks to let him know it was ready. He flipped the prefire switch, and the hum told him it was good to shoot. He never had to look, never had to fumble. This was his only possession, the one thing he’d ever been allowed to own.

  On the day I was born, they gave me a gun.

  Berenson opened his eyes.

  The last of the dying choked out her last.
He could hear the fluid in her breath. He could calculate how much capacity she retained, when her oxygen-starved brain finally gave out. He could read the unasked questions on her thin, gray lips. Why?

  These had been loyalists. Not mercenaries. Not upgunned Scavs or Authority burn-outs. Not drones or imprints. The dead around him had been the true believers. Augments, all of them. Half of them genejobs.

  Why have you betrayed us?

  Berenson turned from the dead. He counted the tiles until he reached the door.

  It waited for him, the slight bump in the bulkhead failed to conceal the armor beneath.

  This was where the game ended.

  This was why he was built. This was why he had come. His entire life, he had been headed to this moment. Even before he was born, this had been his trial.

  He had been committed, the moment Durandal initiated.

  He had been directed, the day the first shell of the First War landed.

  He had been chosen, from the moment that NODA stitched the first bits of the Terran Provisional Authority together.

  From that moment, in the ashes of the Collapse, a ripple had moved through lines of causation to place Antonius Berenson at this very door.

  I am here to end the game. I am here to kill my family. I am here to murder my other-self.

  The door was polished eggshell plasteel, lit sickly green from the security panel, and covered in blood.

  He pressed his hand to the lock. The door swept aside.

  The chamber beyond was cavernous. Light streamed from the open door, and carved out a carpet of white into the void beyond. From ahead, and above, there came dim light. A hundred monitors flickered in the dark. A hundred fireflies smoldered on a far wall, and cut out the black shadow of a chair. Berenson’s eyes adjusted, and he could see the edges that haunted the room, bits of corners and lines that hinted at furniture.

  Berenson stepped forward, and the door closed behind him.

  The world plunged into darkness.

  He could see the monitors now. Every one of them was controlled by the EBS. He saw Clausen’s final stand. He saw Firenze’s limp body, slumped at the base of the stairs, while white light arced over the landing above. He saw them die. He saw them all die.