by P. R. Adams
Once the spotter’s view synchronized with Rimes’s BAS, he scanned the area. It was imperfect, but it gave him a better view of the hangar than he could possibly manage on his own. He scanned the ground, spotted a blood trail that became clearer on the relatively dry hangar floor.
“Okay. Keep them off this area.”
“Will do,” Meyers said. “We need one of those gunships up soon. They’ve got somebody out there directing their forces now. It’s only a matter of time before they counterattack. We can’t stand up to that.”
“Remote piloting’s disabled?”
“They never seem to learn.” Meyers chuckled. “Ladell loaded some scraper bots into their systems from the uplink. The gunships are all yours.”
Rimes entered the hangar, assault rifle tracking the sweep of his eyes. Three gunships filled the expanse. The blood trail led to the back of the nearest. He followed the trail, noting faint boot prints on the painted gray floor. There were two such sets of prints, but he assumed there were others he couldn’t see. He searched beneath the gunship bellies, but if someone was hiding behind the landing gear or equipment they were doing a damned good job of it.
“Dana, take the middle gunship; Trang, the one on the far end. Keep your eyes open. We’ve got mercenaries in here.”
Once Rimes was sure they were safely within the hangar, he moved to the rear of the nearest gunship. The ramp was down, and the airlock door was open. He scanned the interior but couldn’t make much out. The blood trail was visible on the ramp.
As quickly as his leg could manage he took the ramp.
Once in the airlock, he pressed tight against the wall. Beyond the airlock, the gunship was similar to the genie ship he’d been in on Sahara. Rows of seats ran four across from just beyond the airlock to just shy of the cockpit area. A walkway split the rows down the middle, leaving two seats on either side.
He quickly scanned the dark interior, watching for movement and listening for sound rather than trying to see anything clearly. Movement caught his eye even before he heard a weapon being brought up.
He fired.
A voice cried out, and the weapon banged off a seat before clattering to the floor. Two more voices—young, German—cried out, offering surrender. Weapons banged against each other in the center aisle.
“Step out where I can see you,” Rimes called.
Two men stood, one of them leaning weakly against a seat. “Don’t shoot!” It was the wounded mercenary. “Please.”
“How’s your friend?”
The mercenary who hadn’t been shot looked to his left, then shook his head.
“All right. Toss your ammunition down with the guns, then get out.”
The mercenaries dropped magazines into the aisle, then made their way toward the back. Rimes backed down the ramp ahead of them, careful to keep them in sight the entire time. The wounded mercenary was putting most of his weight on his comrade. At the base of the ramp they muttered thanks, then headed for the exit. Rimes saw the terror in their eyes. They were as young as the kids at the gate had been.
“Wait,” he said.
They froze.
“Head north/northeast. There’s a research facility out toward the uplink station, maybe eighty klicks. You push yourself, you can make it in three days.”
“Thank you,” the wounded one said, weak-voice filled with relief.
They disappeared in the heavy rain.
Rimes collected the weapons and ammunition before confirming the third mercenary was dead. Another kid, his head a bloody ruin.
Rimes dragged the corpse out, set it against the near wall, and then returned to the gunship. He squeezed past the remote piloting gear and settled into the pilot’s seat. The controls were slightly different, but not so much that they were unworkable. A few moments of fiddling, and the engine was online. He checked the weapons systems and saw green lights; he was loaded.
Part of the ambush. He opened a channel to Kleigshoen and Trang and connected Meyers in.
“Two mercenaries are heading north,” Rimes said. “Unarmed. Let them go.”
“We see them,” Meyers said.
“Any status on that armor?” Rimes tried to keep the concern out of his voice, but he wasn’t sure he managed. Armor was a game-changer.
“We dropped six incendiary rounds on the shack where they were doing maintenance,” Meyers said. “They’re not going anywhere.”
“I’ve got a gunship ready for launch,” Rimes said. “No missiles, but a full load otherwise. It won’t be going orbital anytime soon, but it can fly.”
“This one’s a wreck.” Kleigshoen sounded disgusted. “I’m on my way to join you.”
“Trang?” Rimes hoped they may get two of the ships up. Trang was a qualified shuttle pilot. He could prove valuable in the air.
“She’s banged up, sir, but she’ll fly. Ready when you are.”
Rimes watched Kleigshoen through the gunship’s belly camera. When she entered the airlock, he retracted the ramp and sealed the ship. “Hold your fire out there. It’s going to take me a second to get a feel for this thing.”
He brought the engines online and gave the control stick a gentle tug as Kleigshoen settled into the nearest seat and buckled up. The gunship lifted abruptly, nearly smashing into the hangar ceiling. Rimes cursed and nudged the controls forward. The gunship roof scraped away a section of the hangar door rail system and deposited onto the apron. He realized he was moving forward too quickly and yanked the controls again, gaining altitude after bouncing off the shack opposite the hangar. Fifty-two meters up he finally settled into something resembling a steady hover.
“Trang, the flight controls are sensitive.” Rimes licked his lips nervously. “I don’t think they bothered building these for extended manual use.”
“Copy that, sir,” Trang said. “I’m going to just try to edge out and up.”
“Good idea.” Rimes banked left and gained a little more altitude to give Trang some space to play in. A quick glance across the battlefield gave a sense of the conflict. Explosions and flares revealed the enemy positions. Unarmored, green or not, the mercenaries still vastly outnumbered Rimes’s forces. Rimes could make out the beginnings of a semicircle forming below.
Out of the corner of his eye, he caught a flash of motion. Rimes banked left again and gave the engines full power, barely avoiding Trang’s gunship, which was slowly spinning in a widening arc. “Trang, go light on the controls.”
“Trying, Colonel.” Trang’s voice was anxious, almost panicky. Finally, the gunship steadied nearly one hundred meters above Rimes’s. “I think I got it. Sorry about that, sir.”
Rimes returned his attention to the battlefield. He could see several mercenary squads edging toward the maintenance complex below. They seemed to be moving toward one of the mortar teams. “Trang, fifty meters west of the hangar. You see that formation advancing on our mortar team?”
“I-I see the squads advancing, Colonel, but I can’t—”
“You see that flash just now, sixty, maybe seventy meters east of the hangar? Follow that canal running north parallel to the maintenance road. See it?”
“Got it, sir,” Trang said, excited.
“Okay.” Rimes tried to bring up the targeting system. “I’m going on a strafing run. Wait until I’m clear, then try and follow.”
As part of his command role, Rimes had learned to pilot the scout ships and shuttles, but he was no ace, and the gunships were nightmarishly sensitive. Still, the targeting system was similar, and the targets were crawling. He nudged the gunship forward, careful not to pick up too much speed. Once he was sure he was clear of his own troops, he lightly tapped the trigger to get a feel for the weapons systems. A section of the hangar collapsed beneath the short burst. Instantly, bullets cracked against the gunship’s hull as the mercenaries spotted him. The reticle flashed, and Rimes tapped the trigger again. He was past the forces in a blur.
“Anything?” Kleigshoen asked.
Rime
s shook his head, frustrated. He pulled up and brought the gunship around for another run. “We’re getting a little light off the sunrise, but the rain’s spoiling it. Shame they didn’t have any missiles loaded.”
Trang completed his strafing run and peeled off. Rimes looked for a better angle for his second attack, then held. The advance had broken; the mercenaries were in full retreat.
Smiling grimly Rimes searched for another pocket of mercenaries, finally settling on a large group south of the hangar.
“Lonny, I’m making a run at a group south of the hangar.”
“We see them. Holding fire.”
Rimes pushed the gunship forward, cursing again at how ineffective he’d been. This time, the mercenaries held their ground. On his second run, he finally got the hang of the targeting system, and the rail gun and machine guns took their toll.
“Trang, see if you can adjust the targeting system sensitivity. I think they’ve set it to account for the communication delay off the remote piloting.”
“I’ll try that, sir.” Trang’s gunship made its run, and its guns tore through a dozen soldiers, shattering limbs and tearing off heads. Whatever discipline had held the mercenaries together evaporated; they broke.
Twice more Rimes and Trang made strafing runs, and twice more the mercenaries fled. It became a rout at that point, with the mortars punctuating the engagement’s end.
Rimes settled his gunship down near Meyers’s position. Visibility had improved greatly with the rain slacking off, but he still barely managed an ugly landing. Rimes and Kleigshoen were able to walk away from it, which was what mattered.
“I’ll keep an eye out up here, sir,” Trang said. He executed a tight circle over the battlefield and rocked the gunship’s wings.
“Looks like he’s got the hang of it,” Meyers said as he approached. He smiled.
“I haven’t seen you smile in a while.” He shook Meyers’s hand.
“Haven’t had a reason to lately. Nice flying. Do we hunt them down now?”
Rimes looked back at Kleigshoen, saw the pain in her eyes. He felt the loss of Oswald as well, but there was nothing he could do about Kleigshoen’s sense of betrayal. Secrecy had been necessary. “They’re broken. With Tymoshenko dead, I can’t imagine the fleet’s going to hang around.”
“So, a little R&R? The troops could really use it.” Meyers punched Rimes gently in the shoulder. “You could use it, Jack.”
“After I see what Anton was going on about.” Rimes dug out Tymoshenko’s earpiece. “He said something about the next big thing. Their alliance could finally be falling apart. Could you work with Ladell, see if you can crack it? My BAS couldn’t get through.”
Meyers caught the earpiece with a chuckle. “Real security, huh? Give me a few.”
“I need to get a message back to Earth. I’ll call you in a bit. Get sentries up, secure the perimeter, then start a rotation: sleep, cleaning up.”
“Thanks.” Meyers jogged away, still smiling.
Rimes walked back to Kleigshoen. “Dana, I’m sorry about Oswald, about keeping the risk secret. I wasn’t sure my source was reliable anymore.”
Kleigshoen wiped away rain that probably hid tears. “Deception’s part of the job, Jack. It’s not like you’re the only one having to do it. I’ll get over it. I’m just trying to…”
Rimes hugged her, felt her squeeze him back. “She was a good kid.”
“I know.”
Rimes stared at all the broken bodies around them. “There are a lot of good kids dying in this war.”
“Colonel!”
He turned. Meyers was squatting several meters away, hunched over, bathed in the glow of his helmet lamp, waving excitedly.
Kleigshoen released Rimes. “Go ahead.”
He jogged to Meyers’s side. “What’s up?”
Meyers was manipulating Tymoshenko’s earpiece interface. “Okay. Got it, Ladell. Thanks.” Meyers looked up at Rimes. “Give it a listen.”
Audio echoed over the soft patter of the dying rain: shouting voices, accented English, what sounded like spaceship commands.
Rimes leaned closer. “A recording?”
“Not yet. Live transmissions,” Meyers said. “They’re asking for permission to disengage. They’re under attack.”
“Under attack? Who? The task force isn’t due for days.”
Meyers stared up into the dark sky, brow creased as if he were focused on the desperate exchanges playing over Tymoshenko’s earpiece. “I don’t know, but whoever it is, they’re causing some serious grief.”
27
3 March, 2174. Bermuda Colony.
* * *
Rimes turned slowly, scanning the horizon to the south and west, where mercenary prisoners gathered bits and pieces of their comrades, bagging what they could to toss in with more intact corpses. It would take days, maybe weeks before the stench of death could be washed from the area. Smoke rose into the afternoon sky, only to disappear beneath the brutal winds of an incoming front. The general, damp misery of the previous night was already being replaced by a full-on, bitter cold. Without the press of battle and the sense of imminent peril, Rimes struggled to stay awake. He told himself sleep was nothing more than an illusion, a succubus come to devour his soul, but his body was ready to collapse.
Bermuda was quiet, the battle was over, the enemy broken.
Construction equipment roared and belched, shoring up weakened walls where buildings could be kept erect, and knocking down ruined skeletons for salvage where there was nothing to save. Most of the vehicles—cranes, haulers, bulldozers—were old, with internal combustion engines that used natural gas. Some were manned by Rimes’s soldiers, but most were driven by locals. Everyone worked in unison.
Rimes headed to the airstrip nearest the terminal. He was limping slightly, straining against wounds new and old. Scars and bandages seemed to be all that held him together now.
He was surprised to find the terminal relatively intact. Given its proximity to the worst of the engagement, he’d expected worse. Its facade had suffered, but it was structurally sound. Two vehicles approached from overhead, one of them Trang’s gunship, the other a shuttle of an all-too-familiar design.
The shuttle landed on the airstrip not far from Rimes, its numbers—Six-Two-Seven—plain to see. Rimes marveled at how well the vessel had been maintained over the years. It looked as if it hadn’t seen much use since its twin had disappeared on Sahara. Rimes seriously doubted that was the case.
The shuttle’s airlock cycled, and a ramp lowered. He shivered, wondering if he might be looking at a ghost.
What would I do if you stepped down that ramp, Rick? What would you do?
He thought of Pasqual and of the years without the chance to talk to him. Rimes had never really thought he would outlive his friend.
Rimes shivered as a single person descended the ramp.
The illusion was shattered. Rather than an armored Commando, the passenger was a slightly built woman dressed in an environmental suit. Rimes noted her gait and posture, things the previous communications couldn’t fully capture. Memories flashed again to Sahara, to Andrea. The confidence, the sense of imminent physical threat, even the auburn hair: the similarities were there, and they were strong. As the woman approached, the similarities were replaced by contrasts. Her hair wasn’t auburn but almost a burnt orange, too vibrant to be natural or at least human, and it framed her face much like a mane. Her eyes had a feline, vertical aperture, little more than a slit in the light of day. Her forehead was high but sloped, her cheeks broad. The closer she came, the stronger the animal sensation, the more clear her genie nature.
“Colonel.” She came to a complete stop and looked him up and down before extending a hand. She was younger than she’d appeared from a distance.
“Imogen. It’s good to meet you in the flesh.” Rimes took her hand. For someone who appeared so frail, she had a powerful grip. “I hope your flight was without incident?”
“You menti
oned a battle.” Her head swiveled to take in the spaceport. “I failed to appreciate the scale of it.”
“I almost did the same thing.” Rimes smiled and pointed toward the terminal. “We can talk inside.”
They walked, at first in silence, then chatting about developments since their first conversation. What EEC ships had survived the attack had fled. As with the spaceport everything now was committed to clean-up operations.
Rimes opened the terminal door for her and received a confused look.
“A courtesy.” He bowed slightly, then followed after her. Other than a small maintenance crew repairing a wall, the building was deserted. He led her deeper into the building, out of earshot of the others. “It’s been quite some time without a word from your people. I don’t mean to sound ungrateful. I’m not. But I am surprised at your sudden appearance.”
“The time was right,” Imogen said. “And we need to be quick about our departure.”
“That’s what I wanted to talk with you about, obviously. You said I could take a handful of my people. I’d like to know where we’re going, what we’re up against.”
“I don’t know the location.” Imogen stared at Rimes’s face, tilting her head as if studying him. Her pupils were normal now, diminishing her alien appearance. “You do.”
I know the destination? Is this some sort of test? “How do you figure that? How’d you know to come here now, but you don’t know where to go afterwards?”
Imogen frowned. “We do what we’re directed to do. We don’t question. We understand our role. Just as you do.”
Rimes walked toward the terminal’s western door. It opened onto a small parking area that connected to Braddock Boulevard. Bullets had shattered the glass and punched holes in the walls, allowing the cold into the building. The maintenance team had left panels leaning against the wall near the door, the sort of panels that had been used in place of wood throughout the colony. Rimes ran his hand over the panels, feeling the strength within them despite their flimsy appearance. Once treated with a sealant, they would be stronger than the glass they would replace, but they wouldn’t be transparent.