“Incoming,” Malcolm shouted. “Oh, man. Oh, man.”
He highlighted the sensor contact zooming toward their position. The magnified feed revealed an incoming Elite gunship equipped with dual autocannons and a rocket launcher. It’d broken away from its ground squad of merc exos, who were now engaged in a pitched battle with an Army assault infantry squad.
“He’s coming straight for us,” Jia concluded. “Three kilometers out. It’s like he knows.”
“I don’t think so,” Erik replied after a couple of seconds. “I think he’s taking a shortcut to get to the other Army forces. We’re not in a heavily defended area, and it’s not a high-value sector.”
“We could back off and let him go through,” Malcolm suggested. “The Army can handle him, right?”
Jia raised her gun. “No. I’m not letting that Core monster murder soldiers and kill more innocents.”
“Oh, yeah. Damn.”
Erik jogged to the side. “Load AP ammo, and we’ll nail him with converging fire. But keep moving. Even with our shields, we’re at risk from a gunship with that kind of armament. Wait until he’s a klick and a half distant to engage. Doubt we’ll hit him, but we’ll get his attention. The more time he spends shooting at us, the less time he has to mess with the garrison.”
He wasn’t worried, nor was he overconfident. No weapons system excelled in all engagements, and gunships were specifically designed to be ground-attack aircraft. Fortunately, Erik’s and Jia’s exos possessed higher speed and maneuverability than standard models. The enemy had spent the last month attacking slower models. The difference would throw him off, and they could exploit that.
Jia’s exo kicked into a decent run. She jinked from side to side, never moving in the same direction for more than a couple of seconds, but overall heading toward the enemy. The gunship stayed low, cruising between the buildings as it continued its approach, displaying a little caution. He was taking them seriously. That was a good start.
Erik charged in a traditional serpentine pattern and kept an eye on his target distance. This would come down to timing. Two-point-eight klicks. Two-point-five. Two-point-one. The gunship’s cannons came to life, each burst a vomit of fire and lead tearing into the ground but missing the agile, unpredictable exoskeletons. Yes, it was taking them seriously.
Two klicks. One-point-eight. One-point-five.
“Controlled bursts, angle it in, stagger with me,” Erik ordered. He started the party by firing at the gunship. It was time to show they were taking it just as seriously.
The gunship broke to the side, avoiding his attack. Jia opened fire as well, but the distance combined with the uneven movement of her exo and the target kept it from landing. They continued closing on it, sending bursts at the bobbing and weaving gunship. The enemy placed a couple of shots on Jia’s shield, flaking off a layer of armor. He finally offered up a rocket that Jia avoided with a quick jump. The explosion shoved her forward, but she recovered and bounced to the side to dodge the next missile.
Quick rocket launches followed. The gunship was determined to take Jia down, but her practiced agility made it look like the exo was dancing with each spin, jump, and step. He left her scorched but not disabled or slowed.
Erik’s and Jia’s borrowed drone feeds suddenly died, and the sensor readouts relying on them grew less detailed. Erik didn’t waste time checking anything or doing test transmissions. He flicked on his microphone while continuing to fire and dodge, including a rocket attack aimed at him. Maybe the gunship had grown frustrated with its inability to hit Jia.
That was the advantage of a small group of highly mobile troops. When a force was large, it was inevitable that someone would take a hit, but sometimes a small group could do a lot to wear down a single, more powerful enemy. Erik wanted to do a lot more than tire it out.
“I can force it low,” Erik shouted. “Get ready.”
“Do it,” Jia replied. “That ship is starting to annoy me.”
Not only that, they didn’t have much time. If the ship made it past them, it might not circle back around, more interested in wreaking havoc closer to the Army bases than worrying about two stray exos that were making it waste rockets and cannon rounds. This same gunship could easily kill half a platoon with a single decent pass if they didn’t stop it.
Erik switched to full auto and swept the air. Best-case scenario, he got in some lucky hits and brought down the gunship. Worst case, he’d wasted some rounds he could replace in the hangar.
The enemy took the bait and dove lower, now so close to the ground that one unfortunate raised chunk of the broken road might damage the ship. There was no way a normal pilot could have done that, not that Erik hadn’t already assumed he was dealing with an Elite. He dropped his aim, pinning the gunship, and Jia let her machine gun roar, sending a stream of bullets into the enemy.
Her AP rounds ripped into the ship, the resulting damage evident from the smoke and fiery bursts. The gunship tilted on its side and tried to pull up, which left it open for Erik. Their streams converged, riddling the aircraft with dozens of direct hits from their high-velocity, high-caliber machine guns, which were loaded with armor-piercing rounds. The damaged vehicle spiraled out of control as it headed toward them, leaving twisting columns of smoke behind it.
They continued to fire into it and managed to rip off a wing and destroy a cannon. The gunship tried to fire a rocket, but the projectile spun out of control and exploded against a building. Its cannon fire went wide. The twin streams from the exos continued blasting the crashing aircraft. There wasn’t much left by the time it finally slammed into the ground and exploded in front of them.
Their jammed drone feeds returned with the explosion, including new sensor information marking six exos advancing behind a nearby building.
“Can you hear me?” Malcolm shouted. “I repeat, can you hear me? You might have trouble coming.”
“We see them,” Erik replied.
“Good.” Malcolm let out a sigh of relief. “You were moving too much for laser comms when the jamming kicked in. All that dancing around is annoying.”
“It was for the Elite, too.”
Erik stepped toward the smoking wreckage that used to be the Elite gunship, keeping his eye on the position of the six exos. They’d stopped moving. Their markings and IFF suggested Army, but he wouldn’t put it past the Core to come up with a clever trap and nail friendly garrison troops who thought reinforcements had arrived.
“We know you’re there,” Erik broadcasted unencrypted over a wide frequency range just to be sure. “If you’re not with the rebels, we don’t have a problem. Hell, even if you are, we don’t need to have a problem if you just turn around and stop attacking the garrison. If you’re Elite, then come on. Bring it, assholes. Each and every single one of you metal bitches is going down.”
An exo cleared the corner, shield up and weapon pointed. The other five joined it, ready to unleash on Erik and Jia, but no one fired. No one even made an aggressive jump or step.
A woman’s voice came from one of the exos. “You’re Major Blackwell, aren’t you? It’s been years since I heard it, but there’s no way I could forget that voice.”
He might be unforgettable, but while her voice sounded vaguely familiar, Erik couldn’t place it. That was rare for him, but he didn’t want to give her an advantage in the conversation, so he didn’t admit it. He wasn’t wearing his disguise since he had not thought he would need it in the middle of a battle. Unless he dropped his shield and pulled up his faceplate, she wouldn’t be able to get a good look at him.
“Yeah, that’s me,” he replied, deciding it didn’t matter, and transmitting his codes from Sergeant Vines. He doubted there was a Core spy implanted in an assault infantry squad. This might have been an odd coincidence, but if she were an assassin, she would have fired the second she recognized his voice. It wasn’t like the Core would care about collateral damage in the middle of a brutal colony-destroying rebellion.
The woman snorted. “
Ah, that explains a lot about what happened at the checkpoint and the mysterious ID help. That means you’re what, a ghost now? Really? You didn’t seem like the type.”
“It’s complicated,” Erik replied. “But I’m here to help end the rebellion in my own way.”
The woman advanced in her exo, retracting her shield. She stopped a couple of meters away from Erik and pulled up her faceplate, revealing a dusky-skinned young woman with a fierce look. She looked like she was in her mid-twenties, with no hint of a de-aging treatment.
Erik’s eyes widened in recognition. It’d been a while, yes, but he could extrapolate a few years of aging.
“Cabrina Pena. What the hell are you doing here? Why are you piloting an exo rather than a fighter?”
Cabrina sighed. “Someone needed to continue the Pena family assault infantry tradition. I transferred from the Fleet into the Army. It slowed the career path a little, probably cost me an early promotion, but it was worth it.”
Jia sidled her exo up beside Erik but kept quiet. He appreciated her restraint.
“I want to talk to you,” Cabrina continued, “but we’ve got an offensive to help push back, and saving the colony comes before personal business.” She lowered her faceplate. “But I’ve still got some questions for you, Major. Don’t get me wrong; I appreciate you and your friend taking down that Elite. If I was being responsible, I’d tell you to leave it to the Army and the militia, but we can use any help we can get.”
Erik transmitted the hangar address. “We’re mostly guarding our ship while we wait for some information, but we’ll take out any hostiles who come near us. Might save you some trouble later.”
“You do that. I’ll try and swing by when I have some time.” Cabrina backed up and expanded her shield. “It’s been a long time, Major.”
“Erik now. Just Erik.”
Erik was happy that Jia didn’t say anything until they were back in front of the hangar. It gave him time to organize his thoughts about running into a direct manifestation of his past. Living every moment for revenge had not prepared him for this sort of thing, and his few encounters and messages with relatives had been strained and awkward.
Jia seemed to sense that. Other than a couple of brief comments about positioning, she left him alone as they stood guard.
“My drones are managing to sweep out farther,” Malcolm explained about an hour later. “I’m using those codes from Sergeant Vines. I don’t know how long they’ll last, but I can tell you, the garrison forces are pushing back the rebel forces in a big way. I feel kind of bad about worrying so much.”
“Short offensive,” Jia commented. “Last gasp of desperation after all. Idiots.”
“Maybe,” Erik muttered. “Or a distraction from something else. Anybody else coming our way? It’s not a good direction, given the current distribution of the garrison forces, but if they are desperate, who knows?”
“Not that I can see,” Malcolm reported. “And I’ve gotten pretty good coverage by keeping the drones near roofs.”
“Good. Always nice when something goes our way.”
Erik fell back into silence, remaining alert while skimming the drone feeds. It was vicarious warfare, not that he hadn’t just done his part.
“Are we going to talk about it?” Jia asked with a sigh.
“You mean, Cabrina?” Erik asked
“Yes. You seemed a little off.” Jia’s tone was quiet and worried.
“I don’t know her that well,” Erik explained. “I’ve only met her a few times, and she was a lot younger. She’s the younger sister of Tavio Pena, one of my men on Molino. He was enlisted Army, and she became a Fleet officer, academy and everything, so there was a lot of good-natured sibling rivalry.”
Jia sighed deeper. “Are you okay?”
“I’m fine.” Erik took a deep breath and slowly let it out. “I’m honoring the memory of her brother. It was strange to run into someone like her out here, but it was also inevitable, given the way we zip around the galaxy.”
“You’re worried she might not see you as honoring her brother?”
Erik checked his feeds and sensors before responding. “Frankly, it doesn’t matter if she does. All I need her to do is not get in our way.”
Chapter Forty-Three
October 18, 2230, Gliese 581, New Samarkand, Sogdia, Private Hangar housing the Argo
By the next morning, though it continued, the rebel offensive had been blunted, and garrison casualties were surprisingly low, given the ferocity of the assault. The Army was now trying to capitalize on their momentum and push into rebel-controlled territory. Jia and Erik were content to let them handle that.
Their part of the battle started and ended with the gunship encounter. No other enemies had moved close to the hangar, leaving Erik and Jia with a mostly boring day until they’d stopped worrying about breakthroughs and headed back inside. Jia found herself steering the conversation away from Cabrina Pena most of the day when she threatened to come up, unsure of how Erik was handling it.
Some might argue his whole obsession with vengeance was unhealthy and not a way to deal with loss, but Jia didn’t see it that way. His unit hadn’t died in the normal course of duty. They’d been slaughtered as collateral damage at the hands of a dangerous conspiracy that threatened the entire UTC. His monomaniacal focus on their destruction was, if anything, the sane response. If Cabrina felt otherwise or blamed Erik, it might make for a painful encounter, and Jia didn’t know if it was her place to intervene.
Emma’s decryption continued, surprising everyone and annoying the AI. Whatever was in those files was unusually secure, but she was confident she would have them decoded within the next forty-eight hours. That wasn’t within Erik or Jia’s preferred timeline, but it was better than nothing. After the furious rebel assault, blindly charging into rebel territory looking for trouble made even less sense. One defeated attack didn’t mean the end of the rebellion.
Currently, Jia and Erik stood waiting outside the open hangar. Lanara had brought the MX 60 down and had been working on it inside the hangar, but she’d retreated back into the ship, citing the need to gather supplies and “figure out the least stupid way” to go about finishing her repairs. Given the engineer’s tendencies, there was probably some under-the-hood optimization going on.
They weren’t waiting for Lanara, though. They were waiting because they’d received a message from Cabrina saying she was going to stop by the hangar that afternoon.
Despite Jia’s worries, Erik doubted Cabrina would give him notice before coming to assassinate him and was proven right when she showed up at the appointed time in a hovertruck and not her exoskeleton. She stepped out of the truck and headed toward the door. A standard officer’s pistol rested snugly in a holster. Maybe she wanted her revenge to be a little more personal. Erik stood rigid as she moved toward him, then slowed, her gaze lovingly scanning the Argo.
“Wow, Majo…Erik,” she commented. “Nice ship. Ghosts get all the best toys. When I asked around, I was told to keep my mouth shut because you were here on some big fancy Intelligence Directorate business, all hush-hush and classified.”
Erik shrugged. “There are perks to working with the ID. Not going to deny that.”
“You’re here, which means the ID knew something was coming.” Cabrina frowned. “It’s a long flight from Earth.”
“Who says we weren’t in the neighborhood?” Jia offered with a smile. There was no reason for Cabrina to know about the jump drive, even though their fig-leaf identity of working as private security contractors was useless on the planet due to ID’s codes being required.
“Whatever,” Cabrina replied. “Last I heard, you were retiring from the cops.” She looked Jia up and down. “Both of you were, according to the news, but it’s not like I have a lot of time to keep up with Earth news this tour, especially concerning random cops. It’s still strange, going from famous cops to ghost helpers, and now you’re on a planet in full rebellion, taking down Elites. You
might as well have stayed in the Army if that was how you were going to play it, Erik.”
“Being a cop was…too constricting,” Erik answered. “Being in the Army was also too constricting for what I needed to do.”
Cabrina’s mouth tightened, and she licked her lips. “What, didn’t like being blamed for losing your unit?”
“Most people didn’t blame me.” Erik kept his voice calm, to Jia’s surprise.
She didn’t want to intervene unless he gave her a sign to do so, but it was hard to keep the scowl off her face. Cabrina might have her reasons for her feelings, but there was no one in the UTC who had put as much effort into avenging her brother as Erik.
Erik stepped over to Cabrina. “If you’ve got something to say, say it. I’m not going anywhere for a while. Might as well get it out, because I need to know there isn’t some officer gunning for me when I’m out there doing what I need to do to help end this rebellion.”
“Why are you here, Erik?” Cabrina asked. “Really, why are you here right now? Level with me, and don’t you dare feed me that ‘it’s classified’ bullshit.” She snorted. “That’s what they told me about my brother, too. We’re sorry. He’s dead. Terrorists killed him, but we can’t tell you more because it’s all classified.”
“You want the truth?” Erik asked. “I’m not beholden to the Intelligence Directorate. They just happen to agree with some of the things I’m doing and find me a useful tool. If I tell you the truth, you’ll need to keep your mouth shut if you don’t want to end up with a bullet in the back of your brain when you’re sleeping.”
Cabrina squared her shoulders. “You threatening me, Erik? If you’re going to kill me, do it now.”
“No, I’m telling the truth.” Erik looked at Jia, who nodded. “Terrorists didn’t kill your brother. Mercs did. Mercs who were hired by some dangerous people, the same dangerous people who are probably behind the mercs on this planet. I know they’re behind those Elites.”
Unfaithful Covenant Page 31