The Sword

by J. M. Kaukola

  “Sir, how the hell are you going to explain this to the Director?” She demanded.

  “I'm not.” He answered, with might have been a puckish grin. “I kind-of, sort-of, got his permission. Besides, someone has to burn for this clusterfuck. Looks like this hot potato lands on me.” He handed her his tablet. “Remember, we're all expendable.”

  “Sir, how the hell-”

  “Well, that should buy some favors back from Draco, when I eat the public inquiry. Don't worry, I'll do fine in prison. Oh, and I kept all your logs where you completely objected to every action I took, and totally agreed with Sergeant Clausen's team.” He said, as he pulled his glasses back onto his face.

  “Sir, lesson nineteen: never keep a record-” She recalled.

  “Fuck that. Lesson zero: the rules work for you. Also, keep about four different records. In this one, you're a hero. Congratulations on your impending promotion. If I live, be sure to slap me in cuffs when the camera’s watching.” Raschel pulled a silver tube from his pocket, tapped a cigarette out of it, and held it with his teeth as he lit it. He leaned back, right against the “No Smoking” sign, and took a deep drag.

  Velasquez slapped the “Elevator Release” button, and asked, “So, I owe you a few favors, then? Plush facility, a pardon in the near future-”

  “Not too near, mind you.”

  “Of course not.” She agreed. “Special consulting work with the Agency?”

  “High paid consulting work. With liaising privileges.”

  “And the State lives to see another day.”

  “Whatever the cost. Disregard the leverage, but remember that there is a line. Bill told me that once, and I think I nearly forgot it. Took a fucking psychopath calling me on the carpet to knock that point back into my skull. Fucking Berenson.”

  She shook her head, and tried to work the “new normal” into her operating procedure. Only then did she notice the silver chain around his neck, the little ring stuck between his shirt and his armor. She blinked, twice, and it was still there. She stared straight at him, and, as deadpan as can be, stated, “Sir, your leverage is showing.”

  “Hmm?” Raschel asked, and glanced down. With a brush, the ring was gone, back underneath his layers of protection. “Thanks. Stupid of me to bring it.”

  “Didn’t know you were married, sir.”

  He laughed, again, ruefully, and said, “Not for a long time, Rey. Not for a long time.”

  “What happened?” She asked.

  “Fuck all.” He said, his voice heavy. “Striker fucking happened. It’s the cost of doing business.” He waved his hand, as if to encompass the whole world below their feet. “This? Everything going on right now? People get killed. People go to jail. We deal. We move on. This is a fucking love tap compared to the hands I’ve played.” He stopped, and looked her dead in the eyes. Calmly, and with terrifying sincerity, he added, “Pray, that you never face the ten-pound sledge, and always have a plan for it.”

  “Well, sir, I’ve had decent teacher. Bit of an asshole, though.”

  “That’s the spirit.” He said. For a long moment, he lay there, propped against the wall, quietly puffing on his cigarette. There were bags under his eyes, lines around his lips and over his brow. He looked old. Older than he’d ever looked, and tired. But he looked calm, as well, the kind of actualized exhaustion that caught someone at the end of the marathon, the first time they sat down. He looked back at her, watched her watch him, and gave a wan smile. There was no edge to it, no threat, no power-play. He gave a shrug, to go with it, and closed his eyes, for one last puff. “You know?” He asked, quietly, “I’m fine with this.”

  After a moment, he opened his eyes, and smashed his cigarette out against the warning sign. He stood, straight, his face as stony as ever, no sign of fatigue or old age. He said, “Now, Rey? Keep the shit down while I’m gone, right?” He plucked the service rifle from the floor, checked, cleared, and dropped it back into safe. “Just like old times.”

  “Just don’t get killed.” She said. “There’s a show trial to attend.”

  “Oh, how could I ever miss that?” He passed her his lighter and little cigarette tube. “Keep it. Got them for my thirty years in company. They’re worth money.”

  The elevator dinged, and opened. Beyond, a hangar yawned, filled with a stream of soldiers and the roar of engines. Raschel gave her one last smirk, and then vanished into the tumult. The door closed, and she was alone.

  For a moment, she stood there, dumbly. She flicked the lighter. Once, twice. “Fuck this.” She muttered, and slapped the control panel. By the time the doors opened back onto the bridge, she had her game face on, a stony mask that no one could read. She gave the Captain a nod, and took her position, just to the side. Not in control, but always beside it. Unreadable. Inscrutable. Always watching.

  The mask she wore was just one more little tool in her belt.

  It was the little things that would get her through.

  #

  Firenze couldn’t breathe.

  His eyes flashed open. Twisted orange light filtered through green skies. Sands poured over him, filled his mouth.

  He retched, flung himself onto his stomach, and vomited. Blistering acid and stinking sands mixed. He choked on it. He spat it out, gulped down the air. It tasted like lightning in his mouth. His nose burnt. Where-

  He turned, and beheld the wasteland.

  All that remained of the ops compound was the hint of a wall, half-buried in the sands. Beyond was a tremendous crater, its sides slagged into broken mirrors. At the far edge, a single, scorched AISAS pauldron was the only indication of the battle that had taken place.

  Hill lay against the broken wall, his armor pitted and burnt, his helmet at his side, visor shattered. His left hand lay limp beside it, still clutching the chin-strap. His right hand still clutched a service pistol, slide locked back and chamber empty. A killbot lay broken at his feet.

  “No!” Firenze screamed, and tried to pull himself to his feet.

  His legs wouldn’t work.

  Everyone was dead. He’d failed them.

  “No, please! No!” He screamed, again, as bits of the sand began to drift over Hill’s body.

  He couldn’t stand. He couldn’t force himself up from the loose ground.

  Lauren stood before him. She was radiant against the storm. She was lit in full-white, not the pale, sickly glow of the Waste. She held her hand down to him. He took it.

  With a scream, he stood. His legs burned, his stomach wrenched. Despite themselves, his muscles moved, or, were moved.

  She walked before him, and he staggered on, through the dunes and tattered rubble.

  The signal? How are we broadcasting-

  She pointed, to the skies, and he saw the descending shadows. Like ravens against the sun, the dropships swooped from the destroyer above. He saw, and his mind opened. He could see the feed, bounced through relays on the outer edges of the base, picked up by the Cataphract - for that was its name - and sent beyond. The cavalry.

  The cavalry was late.

  He collapsed into the sands, beside Hill. Lauren knelt, and gave him a solemn shake of her head. Nothing to be done.

  He grabbed for his radio, and gasped one word, “Medic!” His voice failed, and he descended into wracking coughs.

  There was a hand on his shoulder.

  He turned his head, and saw Scooch, running towards him. Rutman’s face was blackened with soot, blood streaked down his cheek, leaked from under his helmet. “Princess…” he gasped.

  “Alive.” Firenze answered.

  Rutman nodded, and replied, “We’ve got a group of civies. Gotta get them to extraction. Gonna need you to focus.” His voice was calm, regulated, like he was describing a game of golf. Scooch always had that terrible calm.

  Firenze glanced back, to the cluster of shaken and hobbled escapees behind Rutman. They clumped in the shadows of the dunes. They clung to each other. Jesus Christ. Who was left?

  Firenze tap
ped the roster, the broken pieces of TACNET. Clausen, Jennings, Rutman, Trevinger. Me. All around them, the remains of the Faction’s army swelled, for one last vengeance rush. The tide was coming.

  Rutman shouldn’t be here. They were supposed to go to the hangar-

  The burning, ruined hangar. What happened?

  Rutman was watching him. We need TACNET. We need support. He reached out, stitched the remains of the network together. ATTN: Trevinger. Need fire support. He toggled the priority threats. Dimly, he was aware of Scooch deploying his citizen-militia, ordering them into cracks and crevasses, for one last stand. We are surrounded. He could see, through a hundred electric eyes, the stream of AISAS goliaths and killbot swarms that poured towards them. In moments, the enemy would crest Hill’s crater. A moment later, they would all be dead.

  “Destroy them.” Lauren whispered.

  Firenze tried to focus.

  “You can do it.”

  I don’t know-

  He felt it. He felt it, in the same corner of his mind where he could feel her thoughts. A link, that tethered him to the ocean below. He could feel the hum of the networks, the roaring fires in the deep, that waited to be turned loose. He could feel every movement of the armature frame killbots. He could taste the murmur of the AISAS reactor packs. He reached down, and felt the pitch ocean at his fingertips, the thick and awful dark that waited at his command. He wasn’t free of it. Not by any means. It moved through him.

  He reached out. Lauren reached out. The gestalt tapped into fury below.

  The great machine in the earth groaned, and responded to his intent.

  He raised it, like a fist. The first AISAS crossed the crater line. He could feel the dim hum of gunfire, the electric wind over his skin.

  He pointed, and loosed, not a word, not a thought, but a single, brutal intent.

  End.

  The dark tide came.

  It came, through wireless networks. It came, through data-streams coded in bursts of light, that slid traitorously through electro-optics. It pierced, around airgaps, like a razor of water, poured through chinks in the armor. It crushed, from walls and monitors and gunsights. It crashed, from thermostats and running lights. All of MacPhereson, all of the fury above and below, moved through this single, fatal command.

  The killbots died first. They stuttered, halted, and tore themselves apart. Robotic seizures rolled through them, with the tide, as they ripped limbs from frames. They turned guns upon themselves, disintegrated into a whirling melee of jagged frames and shattered gyros, with a terrible, electric cry. The AISAS units followed. The tide reached inside, the combined force a million-fold aligned processors, and it scoured the life from the armor. Air systems shut down. Safeties disengages. Servo-driven limbs snapped in impossible contortions, shattering the bones within. Reactors failed.

  The tide rolled over the enemy, but only Firenze saw its black passage.

  The wave of explosions that followed, the world witnessed.

  Orange followed black, and the enemy was undone.

  TACNET was silent. Secure.

  Firenze collapsed.

  The tide was gone, its tar ripped from his veins. The gestalt was broken.

  He was lesser. It had overwhelmed him when it came, broken his mind and pulled him into the depths. Its departure left him shattered.

  The world fell into a tunnel, sights and sounds fading into the far distance, as his mind chased, numbly, down the warren tunnels through which the tide had fled. He was cold. He was weak. He reached for the little pools of intent that remained, but they fled from him, down, into the depths. Despite himself, he yearned for its return. Don’t go…

  What came back was a answer, without words or form. The end. It was a promise, and a warning.

  He called back to it. Not yet! Not yet!

  In time.

  He pushed back to it. Not yet!

  Live. It agreed, and was gone.

  He was in darkness, alone and huddled on the floor. Lauren knelt with him. She pulled him close, pushed the last of the stain from his mind. He clung to her, to the light at the end of the tunnel-

  “They put a bomb around my throat.” She whispered.

  He fell.

  He lay on the ground, under the twisted light of the Waste. He was awake, but could not speak. He could not move. Could not even blink. He was a drained sponge, the water pooled around him. There were medics over him, the dim flashes of lights from vertols flashing past. A bag hung from a rack, a tube was in his arm.

  Rutman leaned over, grabbed his shoulder. The grip must have been strong, but it felt like a feather. “Come on, Princess. Stay with us!”

  Firenze tried to answer, but his mouth was full of clouds. His vision rolled, and he heard his own voice reply, “Princess is in another castle.”

  Rutman stared, as did one of the medics.

  Firenze heard his voice, with the wrong inflection, explain, “The old one pulled him down. I will keep him in stasis until you can repair his hardware.”

  “Lauren?” Rutman demanded.

  “You were the smarter one.” She answered.

  “I’m just gonna pretend you said, ‘I’m injured’. You just… stay in there.” Rutman advised, before the medics shoved him, gently, out of the way.

  I need to get out there. I need to get back in the fight-

  Lauren was over him, with the medics, dressed in hospital whites. “It’s won, Grant. You won.”

  I need to-

  “You need to sleep. Sleep, and get better, my stupid, stupid, warrior.”

  We fought.

  “We kicked ass.” She corrected, and put her hand onto his forehead. “You’ve earned the chance to dream.”

  The world fell into black, once more, but there was no fear.

  #

  Clausen knew he was dead, the moment that the goliath stepped through the breach.

  The AISAS laughed at his pistol fire. One after another, the microrockets bounced from the shining plate, until the gun ran empty. Behind him, he heard the snap-crack of Jennings’ SACR, but the laser fire bloomed uselessly from the armor. They needed the Bizon, or the Rolling Thunder, or an HVR. They had none.

  The juggernaut raised its heavy laser, with callous ease. The massive weapon swung up, its wide mouth pointed down the hallway.

  Clausen’s gun was empty.

  The laser began to whine, as the prefire initiated. All that was left to do was wait for the light.

  Clausen charged.

  It was a decision he’d never consciously made. It was only as his boots pounded over the broken deck plates, and he felt his hand close around the grip of his knife, heard the schlick of steel from leather, that he realized, this is incredibly stupid.

  The goliath shifted, tried to track him as he juked. One thing it wasn’t, was agile. That kept him alive.

  There was a hum, a tremendous snap, and a sudden wave of heat from behind, followed by a hail of splinters. Missed.

  Clausen ducked past the emitter. He was nearly climbing on the armor, now, too close for the cannon. The powered armor started to twist, and he dove to the floor, felt the air rush over his head as the servos whined. Missed me, again. The heavy armor telegraphed its movements. He used that.

  He popped back up, felt the cool sting of more painkillers in his side. He didn’t look at his biosigns.

  The goliath swung the emitter tube back at him, like a baseball bat, and he ducked it, once more. He heard the scream of the servos, as the power-assisted back-swing started to recover. He didn’t wait for it. He jammed the short blade of his karambit into the ball joint near the armor’s shoulder.

  It dinged off, harmlessly.

  Still, the point was made. The behemoth dropped its laser cannon, and stepped back.

  Clausen lunged at it, again, trying to wedge the knife into the black umbilical on its neck. He struck the tubing, but the knife turned away.

  A battering ram struck his chest, and he was hurled back.

  He
crashed onto the deck, felt the spasm of pain through his ribs, followed by the click-hiss of more gels and dope from his armor. The goliath stood, retracted its armored fist, held its hands out to the side-

  With a heavy schklick, monoblades dropped from its forearms.

  You’ve got to be fucking me.

  It loped forward, its arms crossing like scissors. Schklick-schklick. Schklick-schklick. It advanced, mechanically scything back and forth. More laser fire danced from it, uselessly, but it closed on Clausen. Schklick-schklick. Schklick-schklick.

  Clausen scrambled to his feet, dashed back. It loped after him. Its movements were not fluid. It attacked in efficient, obvious angles. He had to use that.

  He scrambled backwards, timed the swings. Schklick-schklick. Schklick-schklick. At the maximum extension, there was a delay, as the pneumatics reset, and the power reversed. He slipped to the side. The goliath stepped back, carefully turned, and reset its attack. It delayed, when it recovered. It's protecting its back.

  He feinted, again,. This time, the enemy preempted him. He nearly ended up in two pieces.

  Schklick-schklick.

  With each swing, he was forced back. He wasn’t far from the corner now. He was being herded. A few more steps, and he’d have nowhere to dodge.

  It was now or never.

  Schklick-schklick.

  He waited for the left-right commit, then lunged forward. He drove the karambit up, into the base of the blade. The weapon shattered.

  The goliath recovered, snapping the intact blade back towards him-

  He dove for the broken sword-

  Fifty-fifty if I lose a hand.

  -he snatched up the silver-white shard. It was smooth, cold, in his hand. He jammed it through the throat of the armor.

  The goliath seized, jerked, sputtered. Its arms flailed wildly.

  Crimson ran down the carbon shard, carried out from the font in the armor.

  The beast fell motionless. Clausen turned back, to Jennings, in relief.

  The other soldier had his weapon pointed at the hole in the wall, firing madly.