But why should the Beirutis have made advances in military technology? They were safe in their sky–cities, protected by international treaty from satellite–based weapons, their cruising altitude too great for them to be vulnerable to attack from below.
Khadija searched the nacelle of each turbine for any sign of life. When she found nothing, she searched each ponderously swinging blade for the shadows of ropes or a discrepancy in rotation, which might have indicated the weight of a human being dragging asymmetrically on the structure.
Nothing.
On Khadija’s advice, dogs had been sent to sniff for urine around the bases of the towers but had been shot before they could come close. They must rely on Sophia revealing herself, perhaps only for a fraction of a second. Khadija must not miss.
She had no targeting computer to help her. That section of rail on her monstrous, white–anodised, stolen StraightLine 20mm sat empty. But these peaks were her brothers and sisters, and her calculating ability had not wasted away like her muscles and bones.
Her body was brittle, she knew. She could not lie full–length in the snow for very long, even in the insulating suit the subcommander had found for her, too big in the shoulders and too tight in the hips.
“Tell me,” she said as he settled alongside her.
“Yes, Hajji. Manual readings verify westerly winds of thirty–seven kilometres per hour, deformed around the turbines in the expected pattern, blade to blade interval a uniform three point two seconds, humidity sixty percent, temperature minus four degrees Celsius, altitude one thousand, five hundred and five metres.”
Khadija did not respond verbally to this information, absorbing it into herself, willing herself to become one with the mountain, with the skies and the whispering forest below, even as she made the physical adjustments.
A moment later, beautiful women sprang up in the pristine snow field between the turbines and the ruins of Ehden.
Seven widely–spaced holographic images of seventeen–year–old Egyptian actress, Badr, raised swan–like arms, imploringly. There was no sound, but the moment was famous, the words immortal.
This bird will stay truthful and virtuous to the very end.
More of the images moved in from the wings. Men and women. Some frozen. Others distorted. Najib had told the truth when he said the recordings were degraded, but the strength of the broadcast was enough that many of the images could not be differentiated in the visible light spectrum from real human beings.
Khadija flicked her sight to its thermo–optical setting. There, the figures blazed. Where the beams of the lasers intersected and the air became ionised, voxels exploded like suns. She could not waste precious time enjoying the show, however.
There.
High atop Turbine Two, the lens of a telescopic sight reflected the light.
Khadija zoomed in. Only the weapon’s sight had been uncovered by the enemy. Seeing her young, doomed mother move across the snow had confounded but not flustered Sophia. She had quickly realised that to distinguish human from hologram, she must discard the cloth. Her body remained hidden by the cloth, but the eye, the eye would be a hand’s–breadth behind the sight.
Khadija lined up her crosshairs. She’d never had a problem looking her victims in the eye, but in that instant she was grateful to Sophia for hiding her face behind the invisible cloth. Without a face, she was an un–person. Even a dog had a face.
She took the shot. The StraightLine was deafening. Her ears rang. The brass casing melted itself a cradle in the snow, and an old, familiar litany of grief and victory whispered between heartbeats, just as the trigger had been pulled between heartbeats: Thank you for the gift of your life.
It was too far for her to hear the body strike the ground but she didn’t need to glimpse the glitter of the scope falling from the turbine tower to know that it was done.
One. One is five hundred thousand lira.
One was enough. She should stand down now. The subcommander beside her murmured, “Casualty confirmed,” and moved to pack up his gear, but Khadija said sharply,
“Wait.”
Her shoulder felt like it was on fire. She no longer had the brute strength to manage the kick of such a weapon. She sensed that once she took it apart, she would never assemble it again.
Then she saw a terrified Najib being forced out into the open.
“He is worse than an animal!” Khadija exclaimed. The order for such an outrage could only have come from the commander, Amr ibn–Amr. The same man who trained his soldiers to use orphan boys to test an enemy sniper’s resolve, the same man who had threatened to burn the cedar forest that was the last thing of splendour and grace left behind when the country was stripped and consigned to the skies.
“You did say there was only one, Hajji,” the subcommander said quietly.
“And what will an animal like that do with the Beiruti women and children who are inside the wreck of the cruiser?”
“That is not for me to guess, Hajji.”
Khadija watched the Mountain Combat Company come out into the open. With increasing confidence, they moved to secure a perimeter around the unprotected craft. The commander himself went to find Sophia’s body.
He wants the light–bending cloth for himself, Khadija realised. Once he has it, nobody will be able to punish him for treating his own allies like paper targets.
Before the subcommander could protest, she shot his superior in the back, placing the bullet where it would emerge from his left breast. The soldiers in formation around their leader dropped into the snow.
“No!” the subcommander breathed, too late.
Two, Khadija thought. Two is one million lira.
She would not be paid, this time. Who cared?
“Congratulations on your promotion,” she said to the shocked subcommander, patting the stock of the StraightLine. “This is yours, now. Use it wisely, and always remember. If you can look in a wild animal’s eye as you take its life, you can look into the eyes of a man. If not, you had better shoot for the chest.”
Rubbing her sore shoulder, she packed up her survival gear. Her water and her dried goat meat. Her explosives and her wire snares.
“If I let you go, I am a traitor, Hajji.”
“Then you had better come along.”
He had carried the weapon in for her. Only he could carry it out, and only its absence would deter pursuit. For a moment, it seemed he would stay there, frozen in the snow, until the men who had been his brothers up until one minute ago came to drag him away.
“I have nothing else,” he said calmly. “I have nothing else but this.”
“I have an unmarried youngest daughter,” Khadija said. “The ball–kicking fool gave me enough gold that we could easily go to visit her. She likes skinny men.”
Snow began to fall as the subcommander helped her with her skis. It was powdery and perfect, hiding them as they swished, silent as wild things, down the sloping side of the mountain.
Invincible
Jay Posey
AT THAT EXACT MOMENT, MURPH would’ve rather been floating in free space, something he usually hated. Instead he was squeezing one eye shut to keep the sweat from dripping into it and trying not to fidget. The chance that they could hear him on the other side was slight, but at this stage of the op he couldn’t risk alerting the bad guys. Or the good guys for that matter.
Between the inner and outer hulls of the Martian cutter wasn’t the most uncomfortable place he’d ever been, but it was starting to gain rank for suck factor. The recon armor protected him from all the immediate challenges—temperature extremes, high radiation, vacuum—but it wasn’t exactly designed for comfort. For all their attention to detail on the way–too–expensive rig, the eggheads still hadn’t figured out how to let him wipe sweat off his brow or scratch his nose.
He checked the time. It’d been almost ninety minutes since his team had silently docked and infiltrated the ship. Most of that time he’d spent slow–crawling his way from
their tiny breach point on the underside all the way around to his current position just behind the bridge. The ship wasn’t all that big, just a six–man cutter, but with the hostages at risk and the hostiles on edge, patience was crucial.
Intel was scant on the bad guys but best guess said they weren’t the type to blow the whole ship if they thought something was up. Probably.
The rest of his team was inside the ship rather than between the hulls. Kit, Lane, and Switch would be moving into position further aft, near the galley, where the bulk of the hostages were being guarded by four pirates. Vance would be pulling security outside when Murph made entry on his target room.
“L.T., Switch,” she said; the suit’s comms made it sound like her voice was in Murph’s own head.
“Yeah,” he whispered. There wasn’t any reason to whisper with his armor on; he could’ve screamed and no one would’ve heard a thing through the sealed faceplate. Still. Tough habit to break. “Go ahead.”
“Floaters are headed your way.”
Two of the hostiles had been roving around the ship, mostly away from where they’d stashed the crew. The plan had been to secure the hostages first and then deal with the rovers afterward. But as the saying went, a plan was just a list of things that didn’t happen anyway.
“Roger that. You guys set?”
“We’re set.”
“All right, I’ll give it a couple to see what they’re up to. We’ll go on my call. Stand by.”
“Roger, standing by.”
§
Captain Morland didn’t wake up so much as have consciousness forced upon him. He cracked an eye but had to shut it again immediately; the light dazzled him and sent a sharp pain shooting through the center of his head. He thought a deep breath would steady him, but instead it lit the left side of his torso with fire. His sluggish mind finally started catching up, assaulting him with image fragments, sounds, smells. The unidentified craft. The unshakeable pursuit. The boarding and the short–lived defense. Broken ribs, probably a concussion. Lieutenant Griffin, dead.
The attackers were dressed like a rag–tag crew, claimed they were freedom fighters off of Mars’s moon Phobos. They made a pretty good show of it, but the takedown was too clean, too precise. Mercenaries, maybe, but they were more likely some military unit from a faction that didn’t want attention.
Morland flexed his hands against the cuffs that bound them behind his back. They’d clamped him to a support down low so he couldn’t stand up, even if he’d had the balance to do so. There was a distant buzzing, a deep drone like something was humming behind him, somewhere inside the wall. It took a moment for him to realize he was only hearing it in his left ear. Add a ruptured ear drum to the list. His head was swimming. He eased his eyes open again, hoping to relieve the lazy spin of the room.
The lights weren’t actually that bright. They’d put him in a storage room just behind the bridge; the single light above the door glowed dull orange. Morland surveyed the room slowly, careful not to shift his view too quickly. A large man stood by the only door to the room, staring down at him with a blank expression. He had a rifle slung across his chest. The rifle was pretty banged up but looked well maintained. The guy was awfully casual for someone supposedly new at this sort of thing. He didn’t even blink when Morland looked at him.
The captain scanned the rest of the storeroom. None of his crew members were imprisoned with him. Another way the “freedom fighters” had tipped their hand. Amateurs tended to keep the prisoners all together: easier to watch over that way. Sometimes amateurs would rough up the ranking officer to show all the others they were in charge. But these guys had separated the leader from the rest of the crew. If Morland had to put money on it, he’d bet the attackers were keeping his crewmates in as much uncertainty as possible, exploiting a wild range of emotions to keep them from trying anything. Was their captain dead? Cooperating with the bad guys? A traitor?
Morland closed his eyes. The room spun lazily whether he could see it or not, and at least the pain in his head wasn’t as sharp when his eyes were shut. He tried to work through the details as best he could.
Were there five or six attackers? They’d moved fast and hadn’t fired many shots. Griff was dead for certain, shot through the throat. Kady was hit, but Morland couldn’t get the image clear enough in his mind to judge the extent of her injuries. Maybe she was all right. Bad guys probably had them all down in the hold. Galley, maybe.
Why they’d targeted the Sunseeker, Morland didn’t know. They were just a small–time private shipping vessel running cargo back and forth between Mars and her moons, and the Belt when the alignments were right. She could make the trip to Earth if she had to, but Morland hadn’t done that in at least a decade. Wouldn’t anytime soon, either. Sunseeker could handle more than the six–man crew, but Morland preferred to keep it light. Now he was wishing maybe he’d taken his wife’s advice and hired on a couple of extra for security.
Then again, in this case, it likely wouldn’t have done much but gotten more of his crew killed. Vera wasn’t going to let him hear the end of it, though. If he got to see her again. He still hadn’t fixed the towel rack on the back of the bathroom door.
Three quick taps sounded on the storeroom door. Morland opened his eyes to see the big man slide to one side and work the latch. Two others were standing in the corridor. The captain noticed that the auxiliary lights were on. Running low–power, then. The thinner of the two men stepped in, his eyes flicking quickly to Morland as he entered. The ringleader. He leaned in close to the guard and held an exchange too quiet for the captain to catch. After a few moments, the ringleader came and crouched in front of the captain.
“How’s ya feel, Cap’n?” he asked. The accent almost sounded authentic enough for a hillbilly from Phobos, but not quite. Just ever so slightly forced. “Thirsty? Hongry?”
Morland held the man’s gaze. A few seconds elapsed before the ringleader nodded. “You know how it deals,” he said with a half–shrug. “Play nice a few more hours, and the big money’ll show. Then we’re on our way, same as you.”
“Not all of us,” Morland said. The ringleader nodded again.
“We are right sorry, Cap’n. If we could unspill it, we would. But all the rest are fine and well, and it’d be nice to keep that way.”
“You don’t need more than me,” Morland said. “There’s a shuttle in Hangar Two. Let the rest of my crew go home.”
The ringleader gave a grim smile and shook his head. “Can’t this time, Cap’n. But I’ll let ’em know you offered.” He gave a little half–nod, stood to his feet. “Just keep your head on. Everything’s gonna work out.”
He went back to the door and again exchanged quiet words with the guard. Before exiting, he glanced back at Morland. “Sure I can’t get you anything?”
There was something in the look, or the tone of voice maybe. The barest trace of sadness or remorse. In that moment, Morland was instantly sure of two things: firstly, the ringleader was indeed a military officer. And secondly, they were going to kill everyone on board.
The captain had to do something. But what? He was still trying to think it through when the ringleader gave him a little nod and started to turn back towards the exit.
Then the bad guy standing guard out in the hallway made a funny noise and fell down. The ringleader and the other guard barely had time to react before there was a sharp hiss and a searing flash, lightning–bright even through Morland’s reflexively closed eyes.
There was a confusion of sound, and when Morland opened his eyes again, he couldn’t quite process what he was seeing. The air was harsh and hazy. In front of him lay a circular piece of steel, smoking faintly and glowing around the edge with the dull red of rapidly cooling metal. And all three of the bad guys were sprawled on the deck, motionless.
And yet someone was talking.
“Captain Morland, sir,” the voice said, insistent. Morland shook his head, trying to clear it, to get his bearings. It sounded
like the voice was coming from above him. He glanced up.
There in the ceiling was a two–foot wide hole, and through it poked the head and shoulders of the owner of the voice. There was no face, just a curved metal shield where one should be.
“We’re here to get you out, sir,” the figure said. The voice sounded slightly distorted: thin and processed.
Morland nodded. The figure above withdrew, and then, a moment later, slipped feet–first through the hole in the ceiling and dropped lightly to the deck. It hardly made any sound when it landed, which was surprising, because it seemed to be encased entirely in a metal suit. That was, the suit had a metallic texture, but it moved too fluidly, more like a rubberized suit than armor. The styling was vaguely reminiscent of the powered armor he’d seen the Marines use back during his time in the Navy, but it was far sleeker, streamlined to the point that comparing them didn’t seem fair. Distant cousins, maybe. Or generations more advanced. A compact weapon was tightly slung across the figure’s chest.
The suited figure came and crouched at the captain’s feet. It moved as easily as if the armor was its own skin.
“Captain Morland, are you injured, sir?”
It took a moment before Morland could respond. “Nothing serious, I don’t think. Concussion, maybe.”
The figure nodded. “We’re going to get you home, sir. I just need to ask you a couple of questions first.”
Morland still wasn’t exactly sure what was going on. And it was unsettling, staring at that dull, featureless plate where a face should be.
“Your wife’s full name, sir?”
Morland blinked; it was such an unexpected question. “Vera… Vera Winslowe Morland.”
“And you were born where, sir?”
“Station H44, Ceres.”
The figure moved around to the captain’s left side, revealing a second person in an identical suit crouched in the room, checking the fallen ringleader. Morland hadn’t heard the second one come in. He felt a vibration in his wrists and suddenly his hands came free; he brought them together in front of him and winced at the burning stiffness in his shoulders.
War Stories Page 14