Hand of Raziel (Daughter of Mars Book 1)

by Matthew S. Cox

  Every time one of them stumbled over a stone, she flew into one wall or the other. How do these cheap missiles tolerate this? These people are idiots, or careless. Or careless idiots. She suppressed the urge to scream as the exo-suit behind her lost his grip and dropped one end. The fall launched her into the roof of her cage. Apparently deciding the spot was a good a place as any, they set the pallet down and wandered off. Risa exhaled. Before she could relax, a massive forklift drove into the side of the stacked missiles, scooping them up. The harsh acceleration launched her helmet-first into the end cap. Risa flung her arms up, bracing against the walls, gritting her teeth to keep from screaming at them for being morons.

  Her eyes opened at the whump of the pallet setting down. After a few seconds of rest, she rolled onto her stomach and stared through the ghostly holo-pane at the release button. Outside, dust clouds whorled around the giant forklift as it trundled off over a hill. At that moment, Pavo and the others would be sitting in their DS2 dropships, far enough away to evade sensor detection. One finger circled the button that would open the hatch. She stopped twirling it when the reality of her current location chipped away her detachment.

  The ACC wouldn’t kill her. They had other uses for a female prisoner, especially a young, pretty, athletic female prisoner.

  The e-suit’s gloves creaked into fists. Horror stories from recovered POWs as well as women who’d defected flashed through her head. She could not afford to make a mistake here, unless she made one colossal enough not to matter. Even if half of the rumors were pure propaganda, it didn’t matter. POWs were one thing, but if the ACC recognized her, they wouldn’t hold back. Executed prisoners don’t give up their secrets.

  She checked the time, and spent the next twelve minutes daydreaming about Shiro and Pavo, wondering which one of them would be more likely to risk themselves getting her out if things went bad. Risa folded her arms and let the helmet rest on them, grumbling to herself.

  What is wrong with me? I don’t need a protector. I can handle myself.

  Once the sun vanished into the horizon, she blinked at the visor, cycling the view over the three exterior cameras. The idea worked. They’d left the pallet of ordinance outside the main compound, closer to the launch platform than the barracks. No one should be able to see her from there, especially not in the dark. Most of their plan’s success came down to the next five minutes, and the hope that the people stuck out here in the middle of nowhere were too bored and unmotivated to pay close attention to thermal cameras. The launch tower stood a mere hundred meters or so away. She magnified the panel, estimating the distance from where they’d left her to the primary surface station at approximately four thousand feet.

  I guess they don’t want these things anywhere near them either.

  Forty feet tall, the launcher blocked starlight and cast a darker shade of night over the stack of boxes. A turret-shaped pod, wide and flat, perched at the top of a truncated pyramid of gleaming plastisteel. Every so often, it rotated left or right powered by motors so massive they vibrated the ground enough for her to feel at distance.

  She tapped the button. The end of the missile crate popped open and lowered itself on tiny, motorized struts. Risa slithered forward; her hands met the dirt first, absorbing her weight as she slipped out of the tight capsule. For several minutes, she sat with her back against the pile, listening in total silence for any sign of detection. Once confident she hadn’t been noticed, she closed the hatch and peered around the edge. One man leaned against the far wall of the enormous launcher. His posture said he’d have been sucking on a Nicohaler if he wasn’t in an e-suit.

  Guess they’re pretty lax out here. Risa squinted and debated killing him. Don’t let your guard down. Out this far also means it won’t go well for me if I’m captured. There’s no oversight out here. She exhaled a patch of fog onto her visor. They’re not all like that. Some of them might want to defect.

  She shot a look at the black starfield of a sky and mouthed another prayer to Raziel. As soon as the man’s helmet sagged forward, she jogged away from the stack of missiles. A map of the area, also from Shiro’s people, appeared to her left by virtue of her cybernetic eyes. Her objective, the tunnel, opened at a vent two hundred meters from the launcher. Halfway there, she got up to a full sprint.

  Metal glinted in the starlight, drawing her to a trench dug out from a metal grill. Risa vaulted the edge, landing on her knees out of sight below the surface. Her breathing echoed in the tight helmet, and she forced herself to ignore the urge to remove it. Bands of static scrolled over the feed from the missile case, a sign of the little transmitter struggling with distance. Enough of a signal came in to reveal calm―no one had seen her. It could have been luck, lazy guards, or her skill. Having to run away from the launch tower only to crawl back to it irritated her.

  Risa thanked Raziel anyway.

  She flipped open a protective panel on the rigid bracer covering her left forearm, and keyed out a text-only message using an ancient PCM transmitter the ACC would not be monitoring.

  ‹Inpos. Standby.›

  Unbreathable wind lofted dust out of the embedded keypad and over the cyan LED screen. A peppering of pebbles clattered over the helmet. Her chest tightened twenty seconds later at the lack of reply. She found herself sucking on the water line before she remembered what she drank. It tasted pure enough to suppress the gag reflex, and she had to admit to herself having the PWRS on in that confining box was better than holding it. This job would be difficult enough without being uncomfortable. The same way they could make steak from OmniSoy, nanobots had taken urine apart at a molecular level, removed the toxic solids, and reassembled water. Concentrating on scientific semantics didn’t make the thought of drinking piss any less disgusting.

  Her arm vibrated. Words appeared. ‹Rgr hold pos. Standby 4 go.›

  She stared through the slats into the darkness waiting in the square tunnel, thirty inches across at most. If they launched a missile, the shaft would become a crematorium.

  Risa picked at the little screen on her arm, and waited.

  Death wish. The phrase, in Javier’s voice, repeated in her mind. The e-suit would make it difficult to hear the rocket motors before it became too late to flee. If they take a pot shot at something, I’m…

  Cyan light filled her visor as she covered her face with her forearm. The ancient text-only screen remained blank. Come on, Donovan. What’s taking so long? A series of failure scenarios cycled around her mind. If something had happened to the rest of the squad, she’d be stranded thousands of miles away from civilization. It was anyone’s guess what the ACC would do if they captured her. It wouldn’t matter if they realized who I am. This far out, I’m just a piece of meat. She found her hands shaking. Maybe I’ll get lucky and they’ll know who I am and just shoot me in the head.

  She didn’t expect to get that lucky. Not unless something happened to her pretty face.

  Beep. ‹CLR. GO GO GO› appeared on her forearm.

  Thoughts of failure, capture, humiliation, and death vanished in an instant. She lunged forward, squeezing between the slats and slithering on her stomach into the square tunnel. Sweat beaded on her face as she crawled, gloves and knees sliding on the slick metal. She had no way to know how long the diversion would keep the UCF from sending any aircraft near this area. If they launched with her in the shaft, she’d be baked in place. Her heartbeat pounded in her head. Fear she could not show in the briefing room stared back at her from the inside of her visor.

  Night vision mode dispelled her reflection, rendering the shaft in shades of green. Her gloves appeared as flashes of bright lime moving in blurs in and out of her field of view. Speedware didn’t offer much help with an ungainly crawl.

  The frantic scramble ended two minutes later at a dense grating separating the tunnel from a large conical chamber. No time for subtle. Out of instinct, she held her hand out like a claw, but paused. Damn these gloves. Risa yanked a Nano knife from her belt and cut the
finger-thick rods with a two-handed grip. A tiny use of speedware let her catch it before the severed rod fell and made noise. After easing it down, she pulled herself past the opening, and landed on her hands a few inches below the level of the tunnel. She got to her feet and peered up. Toward the top of the chamber, a pair of oval ports nine feet tall led to the twin missile batteries, right as the schematics had indicated. Their shape vectored hot exhaust gases into the passage she had crawled in from.

  This is a bad place to stand. At least I wouldn’t feel much.

  She cleared the chamber in three steps and jumped onto a ladder along the facing wall, which brought her up to a maintenance hatch. To her astonishment, only a mechanical crossbar secured it. Thank the ACC for being cheapskates… Then again, electronics would melt. Guess they figured no one would be crazy enough to try this. She strained at the lever, hanging on it while doing pull ups and letting herself drop. After the fifth time all her weight came down on it, it gave. She slipped off, but caught herself on the ladder a few meters below. Fearing a launch any second, she scrambled back up and whirled the handle around, rotating a central gear that extracted pins from the four corners. As soon as it cleared the frame, a strong blast of dust washed over her. She forced herself through the gale, set her boots on either side of the opening, and strained to pull the hatch closed. The fire can’t get me if this is closed. Come on, come on… She grunted. Sweat ran down her face, into her eyes and mouth. She gasped. Her arms shuddered from the awkward angle. Clenched teeth stifled her scream of urgency as she hauled the hatch up high enough to twist the wheel. As soon as its weight settled on the locking bars, she took three breaths. With the threat of a fiery death locked behind her, she collapsed on her ass and leaned against the wall, panting.

  A rat’s nest of narrow pipes crisscrossed the small chamber above her, no doubt carrying wires. As tempting as it was to wreak havoc, she disregarded them and crawled to another, much lighter looking, hatch in the floor. The words ‘обслуживание’ and ‘Wartung’ were painted across the top and bottom of it. Her headware provided the translation of both: maintenance.

  Perfect. This goes inside.

  She lifted the square panel and lowered herself onto another ladder, pulling it closed behind her. Lights lit up green around the edge of the portal as she descended. She clutched her helmet, wanting to rub her face. An itch at her nose proved maddening. Readouts on her facemask indicated the air was breathable here. As much as she despised the feeling of the e-suit, she had no time to ditch it.

  A quick glance down past her legs found the shaft dim and empty. Risa braced her boots on the outside edge of the ladder and jumped five and six rungs at a time in a controlled slide/fall. The ladder stopped in a recessed alcove along the side of a long, curving hallway. Judging by the rocky walls, ceiling, and floor, she’d reached the underground portion that held the control room. According to Shiro’s map, the sensor operator station waited past the end of this tunnel on the right. She leapt into a sprint, kicking on her speedware to clear a hundred-meter dash in a hair over four seconds. Her attempt to stop at the airlock door at the end turned into a skid. She bounced off the metal wall and attacked the code panel.

  It took longer to hack the lock than it did to run the corridor. Lights flashed green as it opened, letting her into a small airlock. While waiting for the system to cycle, she held up her forearm and transmitted a short text: ‹IN.› The inner door whirred open, revealing a cramped hallway resembling more what she expected to see on a starship than a stationary facility.

  Blue light formed a rectangle on the left wall twenty feet ahead. Shadows moved, the faint hint of a silhouette. Risa crept along the right side, drawing one of her pistols as she advanced. The light came from the control room she needed to neutralize. Coldness filled her chest as she steeled her emotions. The lives of all of her friends depended on her not hesitating. Like every other mission, she would keep guilt at arm’s length until later.

  She edged around the doorway, aiming her pistol. Electronics covered three of the four walls of a ten-foot chamber: holo-panels, proximity sensors, and status indicators showed everything from the temperature of latrine water to orbital radar. A slender girl with medium-brown hair cut in a bob occupied one of the two seats, wearing a drab Mars-red cloth uniform. The other seat, empty, faced the door.

  Faint sniffling echoed in the silence.

  She’s crying?

  Risa’s undrawn sidearm, hanging under her right arm, clanked against the doorjamb. The woman spun, blurting in German Risa’s headware translated in the form of floating subtitles.

  “No! I don’t care! I won’t let you―”

  Both women stared at each other. The operator had red around her eyes and a few of her shirt’s buttons were missing. A faint tan suggested Earthly origin. She looked young, a low-ranking enlisted, based on her DMS insignia. The ACC military, or Department of Motherland Security, shrouded itself in the trappings of a military force rather than a ‘paid-by-the-hour’ company like their police forces. This girl had probably signed away at least eight years of her life.

  Risa’s heart grew heavy, but she aimed her weapon anyway and activated a language chip. Innocent faces meant little on Mars. This young woman might kill her as easily as look at her. Words came slow. The sound of her own voice speaking passable German felt alien.

  “Do not move. I do not want to hurt you.”

  “The phantom.” The girl trembled. “Please… don’t kill me, I’m only seventeen. I don’t even want to be here. I must enlist to be able to go to university. Anatoly…”

  “Shh.” Risa wagged her gun to the side. “On the floor, arms behind your back. Don’t give me a reason.”

  The woman stood, hands raised. Risa removed a small pistol from the woman’s belt, dropped it into the thigh pocket of her e-suit, and pointed at the floor. Sniveling, the younger woman got down and put her arms behind her. Risa squatted and tied the girl’s wrists with flexi-cuffs before helping her back into the chair and securing the binding to the seatback. By the time Risa stood, the teenaged ACC soldier trembled uncontrollably. Risa removed her helmet and gloves, setting them on the counter before taking the adjacent seat. She kept her pistol trained on the girl as she set about the task of cutting power to the perimeter sensors.

  “What’s going on? What are you doing?”

  Risa’s fingers flew across ethereal control panels, disarming a string of EMP mines set up at a quarter-mile radius.

  “Please, don’t just ignore me.” She shivered harder. “I-I’m Ingrid. I…”

  “I’m not going to kill you, Ingrid. You don’t have to spin the psych stuff at me. I’m not ignoring you; I’m concentrating.”

  The room darkened as system after system shut down. Risa raised her forearm, hesitant to release her pistol in order to type on the old pad.

  “How’d you get inside?”

  “Exhaust shaft.” Risa used the handle of the Hotaru-6 to push buttons, keeping the barrel more or less pointed at Ingrid.

  The woman’s eyes opened as far as possible. “That’s…”

  “Crazy or suicidal? Yeah, I know.” She typed: ‹Clear. GO› and hit Send.

  “What will you do now?” Ingrid pressed her knees together, fidgeting. “You are blinding them.”

  “Some friends of mine are on the way.”

  The chair creaked as the girl tried to free herself. “Take me with you, please. Don’t leave me here. If Anatoly finds me tied up, he will rape me.” She whimpered. “I want to defect.”

  Damn, I wish I was psionic.

  She stared over gunsights at the exposed skin between Ingrid’s torn shirt flaps. Three fingernail scratches disappeared beneath a black lace bra.

  Risa raised an eyebrow. “Is that uniform standard issue?”

  A man shouted Russian from the doorway. The word “traitor” appeared in midair.

  “You must be Anatoly.” Risa let the chip speak Russian, and glanced at the figure in the door
. He had his pistol pointed at her, but stared at Ingrid. “Well, Ingrid, I guess you weren’t acting.”

  Ingrid trembled, filling the operations room with the sound of a rattling chair. Anatoly fixated on the small patch of exposed black lace. The teen shrank in on herself, blushing. Risa frowned at the young corporate soldier in the doorway and rolled her eyes with a scoff.

  Anatoly glared at her, reluctant to look away from Ingrid. Disdain did not seem to be the reaction he expected from a woman he pointed a gun at. “Don’t look at me like that.” Her frown deepened. He withstood the attitude for all of ten seconds before blurting, “What?”

  “Look at your uniform.” She gestured at his drab crimson jumpsuit, still speaking Russian. “It looks as though it hasn’t been washed in weeks. Stains everywhere; the crease is not pressed, your pins are out of place, and you smell like a vagrant. I should not expect much from the milk-fed forward operations division. You run this facility like it does not matter, as if you are on vacation. They should have special forces here, not children.”

  His face reddened as the rubber pistol grip creaked in his clenching fist. “I know what you’re doing. You’re trying to trick me. Identification, now!”

  She blinked at him, silent for a long moment. “You are joking, correct? You expect me to carry a badge identifying myself as secret police while on an undercover inspection? You really are as inexperienced as you look. Do you even shave yet?”

  Anatoly looked at Ingrid. “If you are inspecting, why is she tied?”