“Yeah, yeah, I’m fine,” she said.
Saskia stepped forward from the survivors. Gabriella met her eyes. She remembered her duty as a pillar of strength. Tremblay was already crying.
“Wilson died in the crash, I’m sorry,” the sergeant reported. Why did I say that? Saskia didn’t question it, breaking down right there.
“Come on, we can’t stay put,” Sergeant Neeson said as she marched on in the darkness. Halsey was disoriented and believed it as well. Alex felt Bri release her hold on his shoulder and walk away. He didn’t dare face her. He got to work looking up schematics, if he could find any at all, on the Salamanca storm drain system.
One soldier amongst the remaining invasion force knew the truth. Will had seen that look before. It had been on Kane’s face when he’d confronted him in the Detention Center of UNR Headquarters, and he was sure it had been on his own when Luis had a made a fool out of him.
***
Pat had brought the full ferocity of the UNR air force on himself. A swarm of Vespa-UAVs were relentlessly dogging him. These aircraft were larger than the Dragonfly models and were made specifically for aerial combat. He led them away from his friends, soaring over Red House in the opposite direction of Carrollton.
The four behind him all fired missiles at the Peregrine, which reacted by deploying a salvo of flares. On the radar screen Pat was assured all projectiles had been hit, only to hear an alarm sound off.
Above!
A pack of Vespas were descending on him from the clouds, firing both bullets and missiles. The Peregrine made a sharp descent, unloading flares as it did so. He had once again avoided damage, but his radar told him he was still surrounded. They’re toying with me at this rate!
Pat let his anger get the best of him. He circled, his eyes set on the aircraft that had just been pursuing him. He pressed down on the trigger, blowing one Vespa away with his machine guns. The others broke away, and he pursued like a shark. Bullets turned one into scraps as a missile made work of another.
Far, far, below at Willow Bay Camp Ground, campers couldn’t see the action directly. Up in the black skies, though, they could hear a jet or something like one coupled with unnerving rumbles.
“Are those fireworks, Daddy?” a young boy asked his father.
“No, Robbie, I don’t think so,” he said as he, too, watched the show.
His older son aimed his phone up at the lightshow, but the man put his hand over the camera.
“This ain’t something you need to be recording, Jonah.”
“I wasn’t going to put it up or anything like that. I just wanted to show Mom,” the teenager argued.
“I heard rumors the PSID can watch regardless of whether you post it or keep it stashed away just for yourself.”
Jonah looked frightened now and slipped his phone back into his pocket.
***
“Pat, get clear!” yelled Alex.
The pilot took down yet another drone and maneuvered to take down the one right next to it with a missile. What he’d feared all along flashed on his screen: missile stock depleted. He twisted the Peregrine away and descended even lower. Over and under is my only way. As bad as it was, he assumed they wouldn’t unload on him if he got in proximity of a civilian area. His mind was a mess, listening to the foolishness of the “plan.”
The closest town was Scandia, and he knew he would not make it that far.
Pat leveled out as more missiles came at him. His body went numb as the alarm blared in his ears. Even as low as three hundred feet altitude, Vespas were awaiting him ahead. In his earpiece, Alex was telling him to go around, find some hole in their net, just find a way. Patrick smiled.
“I’m gonna miss your ranting, Alex.”
“Pat!”
Patrick went straight now and pushed the engines to their limit. He didn’t know what drove him to do so. Full speed or not, an explosion would presumably feel no different. All he knew was that he wanted it this way. To hell with it. He fired the last of his flares nonchalantly, and they did their job.
All but two of their missiles were stopped, and those two came at the Peregrine. Sensing they were now in range, the warhead on both detached. As they were mere inches away from their target both exploded into hundreds of thorn-like shrapnel. Like parasites, these tiny machines embedded themselves onto the plane.
Pat’s control panel began to explode with sparks as every screen went on and off. The Peregrine began to dip now instead of flying straight forward. No amount of effort on his part could force it to move upward. Growing ever closer now was the murky Allegheny Reservoir.
Seeing his control panel crackle like fireworks, Patrick instinctively hit the only button that could give him a chance: EJECT.
With one swift motion, the pilot found himself exposed to the frigid air. His heart was beating so hard he swore it was up against his sternum. Below him, the mighty Peregrine fell like a rock. His chute deployed, but he was still less than two hundred feet above the river.
Pat knew it was only water, but from way up here at night, it appeared black as ink. The body of water was now the opening to hell itself, a death not of fire but of cold torment.
Chapter 13 - Familiar Faces
October 22, 2065 - Columbus, Ohio
Gathered around the pristine table was her family and Marisol could smell the rich coffee. The family was on their second batch, and to go along with the drinks, her mother had made a favorite of Mari’s from her teenage years: raspberry cream cheese coffee cake. She could not indulge as everyone else around her did, but it was still a pleasure just to be in the presence of her mother’s cooking.
“I thought you were serving out of country, child,” her mother questioned as she served Maurizo and his wife.
“I am, Mama. I’ve been briefly recalled for an evaluation. You know, paperwork and health assessments.”
“Traveling the world and sharing the load of the UNR, sounds like not too bad a deal, Mari,” commented her brother.
“I do love my work,” she said, though her eyes were drawn to the grand crystalline chandelier dangling above them. “Maurizo, wow, you’ve been generous to Mama. I’m genuinely surprised.”
“What?”
“Look at this place. It’s practically a mansion.”
“No, child, the government paid for all this, in compensation for your service,” her mother explained.
“Oh, that’s great, Mama. I’m glad to know you’re taken care of.”
“Oh, yes, I’m quite fine. The hardest part is still when I heard about your near death.”
The table fell quiet. Mari and Maurizo had heard this oratory many times before. Even though the last time they’d heard it had to be at least a decade ago, it still was resonant for them.
“For god’s sake, you were only eighteen when you enlisted! I was so angry. I honestly felt that you were unappreciative for the childhood I gave you, in such a rush to leave us. But after I thought God had snatched my baby away, Chancellor Venloran was my savior. He brought you back to me.”
“Mother…” Maurizo grumbled. The amount of tears spilling over her face as she spoke made him compare it to groveling, no more, no less; groveling at a lifetime of past mistakes that there was no way of reconciling, apparently, because he’d heard this ramble many, many times now. Perhaps the only difference between right now and past ballads of wallowing in sorrow was the missing fragrance of liquor.
Mari was lost in her mother’s words. It was spot on. Despite her old home being a loving one, at the legal age of eighteen she’d joined the U.S. Army to go fight in a war she hadn’t given a damn about. With every birthday, life in her home had become all the more maddening, a gradual banality taking over. She supposed it had been onset by their inescapable poverty, a time when her routine was so still she took her first chance at getting away from it without question. A car bomb had brought that short-lived freedom to a scalding end before she’d been reborn as a true Crusader.
“I do owe
a lot to that man,” Mari said as she grasped her mother’s hand, “but it’s okay. I’m here now.”
The mother finally seemed to recognize her son’s scolding glance, wiping her eyes.
“Yes,” she said as she released the grip on her daughter’s hand. “I’m going to go freshen up. I’m such a mess now.”
They all nodded and watched as she left. As soon as she began her ascent up the stairs, Antonio pulled out his Zippo and lit a cigarette. He noticed his sister’s icy stare at him.
“We’re not children anymore. You might wanna give that mentality up.”
Disgruntled, Mari turned toward Danielle, who’d remained awfully quiet during it all.
“So, what’s your occupation?”
“Oh, I’m a secretary for Captain Smith in—” she began.
“Danielle,” Maurizo broke in. “Why don’t you get started on the dishes. My mother is having a rough night.”
She said nothing and got up to do as she was told.
“Rough night? What’s that’s supposed to imply?” Mari growled.
Maurizo only took another inhale of his cigarette as if waiting for a catalyst.
“Maurizo!” she demanded. Mari sat up out of her chair.
“Marisol, I am a superior officer. You don’t address me like that, ever!”
“You patronize me?!” she thoughtlessly yelled back.
“You resort to insubordination?”
Marisol quieted down somehow and then sat back down. Her brother didn’t display an expression of amusement. He just continued to smoke.
“What is it you’re trying to say? She’s still my mother.”
“That she is.”
“Maybe I should go talk to her,” she suggested.
“I would not do that. You’ve caused more than enough grief for her.”
“I’m trying to fix that. You’re not letting me!” she slammed a fist on the table, cracking it sharply. Danielle flinched at the sound but did not turn in their direction. The soldier struggled to keep herself composed and then remembered she was going off in another direction entirely. How did this happen? She’d lost focus of her goal in the midst of all this.
“About the evaluation, I need you and Mama’s help.”
“You still don’t get it, do you?”
Danielle looked up from her dishwashing, hearing the whirring propeller blades in the distance. Mari heard it as well, standing up from her chair. This seemed to frighten the women more than anything. The soldier did not attempt to console her.
She rushed up the stairs, past the stained glass window in the hall. As soon as she got to the landing, she heard movement in the room closest to her. Without knocking, Mari opened the door. There, sitting on her bed with a phone in hand, was her mother, unable to look her child in the face.
“Mama?” Marisol said in a snivel.
There was no response, only more sobbing from an elderly woman. Mari was in a state of confusion now, feeling more and more like an animal in a cage it had failed to comprehend. She rushed back downstairs, only to see the shimmer of lights from the window, turning her into a silhouette against its brightness.
Maurizo watched as Marisol reentered the kitchen, tearing just as his mother always had.
“Why are you doing this to me?” she begged.
“I have an obligation. Did you really think that we’d break the law just for you? Or did you really fool yourself into thinking I was so stupid as to fall for your lies?”
“You don’t understand,” the broken woman replied.
“Actually, I do, more than you think. I had constantly put it off, seeing the signs all around me that at some point you might just crack. Every report seemed to confirm it. To that end, I suppose a lot of the blame is on my hands. But there’s more than just your own suffering to contemplate. Our sister’s treatment, mother’s home that she can’t support on her own because of our rat bastard father, did you really think Mama would just throw it all to the wind?”
He put out the cigarette at last, having gone a tad bit over the filter line.
“See, she understands what you don’t: compromise is a fact of life.”
There was no shatter of a window. No door was kicked in. Instead, the front door was casually opened and Mari heard only a single pair of boots step into the house. The door was shut not in a slam, but gently as a regular visitor of utmost casualness. Those lone boots walked into the kitchen and the husband and wife exited to the left into the living room. Marisol remained put, staring across the table at the newly arrived guest.
“S.S.C. Unit 37, Marisol Leone,” Aliss said. “Last time I saw you was in a courtroom. How’ve you been?”
“If it’s you who’s come for me, then I know I was right all along,” was all Mari cared to say. She only talked to analyze the situation. Aliss was armed with a Milkor MGL. She knew what type of rounds were in that weapon.
“I won’t bullshit you, 37. You’ve had it, and everyone knows this is what needs to be done.”
Mari’s tears were long gone, but there was still ache in her voice.
“I would have died for my country.”
“Plenty of time left to do that.”
Aliss raised the grenade launcher, but Marisol flipped the whole table over in defense. One shot left the chamber, shattering the table in a dazzling spectacle. Aliss ducked to avoid any shards piercing his eyes, and by the time he looked back the fridge had been knocked over on its front and was now being pushed at him.
With a single hand he stopped the would-be weapon, but right then Mari came leaping over the fridge itself. She head-butted the fellow cyborg, knocking him against the dishwasher, which he dented beyond repair.
She had her own pistol but decided not to risk it, and scooped up the Milkor. All over the kitchen tiles were the tiny warheads that would’ve paralyzed her if they’d made contact. Unit 37 took off as more soldiers came through the front door and living room windows. She booked it up the stairs and went through the stained glass window.
She did not jump down but rather dug her fingers into the side of the house and hung there for a moment. At last, she saw the astounding amount of UNR soldiers and vehicles standing their ground on the enormous front lawn. A few of them fired but missed, her nimble climbing leading her onto the roof in a flash.
The blinding light returned, but now she could see the helicopter aiming it at her. With little effort, she pointed the launcher and fired one right at her tormentor. The chopper’s ominous eye was shattered, but the miniaturized EMP devices also had a slight effect, throwing the machine off course. She watched it spin around in the air for a few seconds, the pilot slowly regaining control. Only four rounds left, you idiot. Mari assumed it would not crash and turned to leave, only to meet an elbow to her face.
The gun slid under Aliss, stopping behind him. Mari watched as he drew his sword and considered doing so herself. But every minute she wasted time, the more blockades she would have to avoid. She was certain her borrowed motorcycle was already stationed by, bringing her anger to a boil.
Mari decided to fool him, putting one hand on her pistol, another on her saber. He tilted his head as if perplexed, holding steady. With the flick of a wrist she was firing shots, aiming at his groin. She saw his eyes glisten with calculation, and Aliss blocked the bullets precisely. To do so required lowering his sword, and she took her opening.
She leaped over him without a hitch, retrieving the Milkor. As she raised it, though, a shingle came loose, her foot slipping along with it. With that, his sword slashed her across the face. The swipe took out her right eye in a gush of blood as well as dicing the Milkor in two.
“My apologies, but such a crude strategy was deserving of such,” he remarked.
Marisol held one hand over her stinging wound. Her ailment and rage kept her from delivering one of her renowned comebacks.
He came at her in full swing, and as much as she wanted to conceal her unsightly gash, she knew she would need both hands. The bl
ade narrowly missed stabbing into her ribs, a straight jab. Mari was ready, grabbing onto that arm with both her hands, and swung her enemy into the chimney. The blow was a hard one, knocking several bricks loose and badly damaging the red-stone structure. She was on him before he could recover, delivering a hard kick to the chest that sent him through the chimney as if it were made of blocks arranged by a toddler.
In a swirl of dust, 3-05 found himself flying over the edge of the roof, and landing square on his back on the concrete patio next to the pool. The ground around him was smashed in, but he was far from down. He sat up just in time to see his target leap off the roof and over the fence in one bound.
Mari hit the ground sloppily on the other side, crashing into a bunch of alley trashcans in a mess. She was instantly back on her feet and jumped over the next door neighbor’s fence. She landed in a grassy backyard, an empty Jacuzzi beside her. Mari heard a scream and saw a couple gawking at the sight of her from a sliding glass door.
Mari took off at a full sprint into the night, heading for the next fence.
***
Almost two hours of winding through tunnels led the invasion force to a large open space. It was around sixty meters by sixty meters with four rows of three metal pillars. Tubing of some kind went from the floor up to the ceiling, made of a transparent material. Little water remained in these intravenous tubes, but it was clear their purpose had been to send liquid upward. A thin layer of water covered the hard floor, at its deepest only up to the ankles. What used to be bright fluorescent lights above now flickered in decay.
“Where the hell are we, Alex?” Gabby questioned.
Alex studied the room though one of the soldier’s helmet cams. Most of them had left them behind in the Seraph. The news of Pat’s plane going down had only convinced more of them to toss their helmets to the wayside.
“It looks like a cistern,” Will analyzed.
“You’re right. It’s one of President Howard’s from way back in the 2030s. It was meant to give water to the Salamanca Greenhouse on the edge of town. If you guys can get topside, then it’s just a little farther to Carrollton.”
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