Perfect Dark: Initial Vector

by Greg Rucka

  All because the Old Man had said so.

  Steinberg had to wonder how it was that, ever since Jo had come to the Institute, he could count the number of arguments he’d won with Carrington on no fingers whatsoever.

  “Two minutes,” Rogers said. “Pre-drop checks, stand by.”

  Steinberg rose from his bench, feeling the weight of the parachute shifting on his back, the pull of the thirty-plus pounds of equipment he was wearing in addition to trying to heed gravity and fall to the ocean below. Pitch-black in a moonless night, Steinberg knew, and the thought of it made him queasy. He hated jumps, day, night, HALO or LALO, it didn’t matter. He’d barely passed certification in the Rangers. He was with the penguins. Just because someone had wings, it didn’t mean they should fly.

  Jo had likewise risen, following his cue, and he motioned her forward, not bothering to try to speak to her over the roar of the dropship engines.

  The attack plan had ruled out the use of the dropship’s stealth systems, which sacrificed speed for silence. Since the backbone of the anti-air defenses relied on missiles capable of tracking them, there was little point in going in at anything less than top speed. It made for a noisy ride.

  The lighting in the troop compartment was dim, tinged with crimson to preserve their night vision, and it made the red hair that peeked out from beneath her helmet look like it had been painted with fresh blood. Her expression was entirely serious, he noted, and Steinberg was about to take comfort in that, at least, when he caught her eyes and read the excitement there.

  “What is it with you?” he asked her. “Do you only feel alive if you’re trying to get yourself killed?”

  “What?” Jo shouted back at him.

  Steinberg shook his head, dismissing the question. He never should have said it aloud. He motioned her forward further, reached out, and checked her harness, making certain her weapons and associated gear were all secured for the jump. He had to tighten the straps across her chest, the ones pinning the Fairchild against her body. The submachine guns, his and hers, had been outfitted with flash suppressors and night-vision optics, all of their banana clips taped together in doubles for speedy reloading. In addition, Jo had gone with twin Falcons, stripped bare, each in a holster strapped to her thighs. Amongst her gear, Steinberg knew she was carrying two silencers, one to be fitted to each weapon.

  He doubted she’d be using them. He doubted there’d be much need, or opportunity, to go about their business quietly.

  Steinberg motioned for her to turn, and she did so, presenting her back to him. He quickly checked her chute, then the associated straps again. Everything was perfectly secured. She might never have done this before, but you wouldn’t have known it by looking at her.

  Steinberg realized that Jo had threaded the excess of her waist-belt in the same fashion he had done, wrapping it around the secured strap twice before slipping its end through the loop. He wondered if it was unconscious mimicry, or if he should be flattered.

  He tapped her left shoulder, and Jo turned around to face him again, and Steinberg pointed at himself, then extended his arms to allow her to check him. She ran her hands over his body as he had done hers, tugging at his shoulder straps in identical fashion, making sure his own Fairchild was secured. She checked the holster at his thigh, and he thought she pulled a face at the sight of the DY357 Magnum riding there, as if mocking his choice of personal weapon, again. He fought down another surge of profound annoyance.

  Jo motioned for him to turn around, and he did, staring at the rear wall of the troop compartment, at the red light bulb glowing weakly over the bench.

  If she finds anything, I’ll kill myself, Steinberg thought bitterly.

  “One minute,” Rogers said. “Red light on, doors open.”

  Jo tapped him on the shoulder, and he turned back to face her, saw her give him the thumbs-up as the portside door slid back on its tracks. Wind poured into the compartment, buffeting the both of them, making the fabric of their CI combat suits snap against their skin. The wind, Steinberg noted, was warm and wet, and he tasted salt air on his lips.

  Steinberg moved cautiously to the open door, the red jump light above it pulsing slowly. Beside it, still dim, was the green go light.

  Despite his better judgment, Steinberg took a look out the open door, at the world beneath them. Directly below, the South Pacific spread in an endless blanket of darkness, kissing the coastline of New Georgia Island. Jo had moved up beside him, was likewise peering out, and if there was a fear of heights in the woman, she gave no sign of it. Steinberg moved his gaze along the coast, in the direction the dropship was thundering, then tapped Jo’s arm and indicated for her to look the same way.

  “Thirty seconds.”

  Ahead of them, on the edge of the coast, the darkness of the island ended in a flurry of munitions color. Blooms of red and orange and yellow burst on the ground, clouds of blackness ringed with green rising from the earth. The red streaks of tracer fire rose from the ground, arcing toward the sky like fireworks. Steinberg was certain he could hear the thump and crack of the big guns that R-C/Bowman had brought to the fight, the roar of the Core-Mantis missile batteries.

  “Fifteen seconds, stand by, stand by.”

  Steinberg exhaled sharply, steeling himself. Not much longer now, he thought. Not much longer and you can die the way you’re supposed to, on the ground.

  He checked his helmet, then pulled the headphones off and tossed them back to the bench he’d been using. He tugged his NVG goggles down over his eyes. Again, Jo mirrored his movements, the mimicry perfect.

  Steinberg turned his head to Jo, shouting over the roar of the engines and the shriek of the wind. “Follow me out!”

  Jo nodded.

  He looked to the lights above the door, the red light now constant, no longer flashing. Then it winked out, and the green light came on.

  He put his hand to the side of the compartment door, sucked in as deep a breath as he could manage against the pressure of the wind, readying himself to leap.

  She went out the door first.

  Bitch, he thought, and then threw himself into the night sky after her.

  RUMORS OF HYPERCORP MILITARY ACTION “EXAGGERATED”

  Reported Combat in Solomon Islands a Hoax?

  By Timothy Squire, O’BRIEN’S DEFENSE UPDATE Staff Correspondent

  October 14, 2020: Hovoro—New Georgia Island

  Authorities in the city of Hovoro, situated on the northeastern corner of New Georgia Island, have reacted with concern to unsubstantiated reports of military conflict in the region.

  “There is absolutely no evidence that anything of the sort has occurred,” Mayor Douglas Carmichael told reporters earlier this morning. “Hovoro is a modest community, with modest people living modest lives. I have no idea how stories like this get started, but the very idea is preposterous.”

  Rumors of fighting centering around Hovoro began circulating late last night, when the crew of a Runyon-Adams Concern cargo aircraft reported seeing explosions and anti-aircraft fire along the coastal region. Runyon-Adams Concern is a dataDyne subsidiary, and as such has no docking or distribution rights in the region.

  “Certainly those pilots have a vivid imagination,” Core-Mantis spokeswoman Leslie Ann Dunlop said, when contacted for comment. “Core-Mantis OmniGlobal’s regional defense subcontractor, with full authorization of the local government, detonated some defective and obsolete munitions near the coast last evening, nothing more.”

  Dunlop declined to name the regional defense subcontractor, citing the need to maintain security of their personnel. “For whatever reason, perhaps jealousy, dataDyne has attempted to create a tempest in a teacup, and we simply will not allow such irresponsible scaremongering to jeopardize the good men and women in our employ.” dataDyne spokespeople were unavailable for comment.

  “The worst thing about this kind of vicious, slanderous attack, is that it scares people,” said Mayor Carmichael. “I can only hope that whoev
er is behind these rumors puts a stop to it, before innocent lives suffer as a result.”

  CHAPTER 27

  Core-Mantis OmniGlobal-Solomon Islands Health and Healing Center—Hovoro Sacurad Facility—17 km WSW Hovoro October 14th/15th (International Date Line), 2020

  Jo hit the ground—quite literally—just after midnight.

  The shock of her collision with the earth slammed through her boots and up her shins, making her hips ache. She let herself collapse with the impact, the way Steinberg had told her to, falling backward, half onto her side, smelling the wet and warmth of the New Georgia Island earth. Her chute billowed behind her, filling with the wind, and she felt herself being dragged backward.

  She hit the quick-release on her right shoulder, then her left, felt the parachute silk fly away from her, freed from its restraints. She scrambled to her feet, scanning her surroundings quickly as she shucked off the remains of the parachute, dropping the Fairchild into her hands and taking it off safety. She tried to orient herself, looking for Steinberg as well as anyone else who might’ve seen the landing. The sound of open battle cut through the thick jungle air. Somewhere off to her right, she felt, then heard, the concussion of something big blowing itself to bits.

  Steinberg had landed some fifteen meters from her position, deeper in the jungle undergrowth, and he was already out of his chute with his Fairchild at the ready as she approached. He motioned her closer, crouching down, his face oddly surreal with the thin Institute-supplied night-vision goggles hiding his eyes.

  “Got all your fingers and toes?” he whispered as Jo dropped to one knee beside him. He didn’t look at her, craning his head to peer through the thick undergrowth around them.

  “Last I checked,” Jo said.

  “Right, stay low and stay close.” He looked at her, and she thought his expression was remarkably close to hostile. “And damn well do what I tell you to do.”

  “Yes, sir!” Jo said, and snapped off a salute with her free hand.

  Steinberg muttered something, possibly about her ancestry, then rose and began picking his way through the jungle. Jo followed, keeping a good three meters between them, carrying the Fairchild with its stock deployed, tucked against her shoulder. Neither of them was entirely sure where they’d come down in relation to the Hovoro facility, but she imagined that neither of them saw that as a problem.

  They had the sounds of war to guide them.

  It took almost half an hour to clear the jungle surrounding the facility and reach the outer perimeter, where the jungle had been cut back to make room for Core-Mantis’s construction. Twice during the trip they were assaulted by the sounds of nearby fighting, and each time Steinberg had motioned Jo to drop prone, doing the same. In each instance, the sounds of battle had passed them by.

  The second time, just as they’d regained their feet and begun moving forward again, she’d heard a whine coming from behind her, high overhead. Without thinking, she’d leapt forward into Steinberg’s back, riding him to the ground, and almost instantly there’d come the explosion. The shock wave of the detonating bomb had been enough to make Jo’s ears ache, made her feel as if she were being crushed against Steinberg’s back. Wood and foliage had rained down around them, and when the last pieces of earth had finally stopped falling and she’d dared to raise her head again, she’d been barely able to make out the shape of a squat, arrow-shaped dropship roaring by overhead, less than fifteen meters above them.

  “Son of a bitch,” Steinberg had said. “Did you see markings? Did it have any markings?”

  Jo had shook her head, and together they’d each cautiously gotten back to their feet. She’d heard screams, already weak, coming from somewhere ahead of them.

  The sound had stopped by the time they reached the perimeter clearing, and the sight of the carnage there gave the explanation, and it gave them both pause.

  Bodies littered the approach to the facility’s entrance, Core-Mantis and dataDyne soldiers strewn across the roadway, some of them in pieces. The hulks of two ground assault vehicles—military hovercraft with null-g assistors used to help them negotiate the jungle terrain—smoldered and smoked near the entrance to the main gates. The gates themselves, as well as massive chunks of both the outer and inner fences surrounding the compound, had been blown apart, leaving a ragged hole. If this had been the site of the most intense fighting—and Jo suspected that it had been—then the battle here, at least, was over. There had to be over one hundred dead strewn across the ground ahead of them, Core-Mantis and dataDyne alike.

  Steinberg held up his left hand, motioning for Jo to stop advancing, then went down on one knee once more. She saw that he was perspiring, realized that she was, as well. It wasn’t strictly hot here, no more than the mid-seventies, Fahrenheit, but the humidity was vicious, and it made Jo feel as if her combat suit had been soaked in water.

  Jo kept her eyes moving, scanning the area around them, straining to discern the various sounds she was hearing. There was sporadic gunfire coming from beyond the double fence, the occasional muffled explosion, but nothing more from the direction they’d come. Either the jungle fighting had ended, or it had reached a lull. She hoped it was the former; the latter would leave them with enemies at their back.

  Steinberg pushed his NVG up onto his forehead, then reached around to a pouch on the back of his belt, freeing his binoculars. Out of the corner of her eye, Jo saw him put the optics to his eyes, searching the fence carefully.

  He paused, then said, “Hawks. God damn it to hell.”

  It was such a non sequitur that Jo wasn’t certain she’d heard him correctly.

  “Sorry?” she whispered in response.

  Steinberg lowered the binoculars, handing them over to her without looking away from the gap in the fence. “Eleven o’clock, just inside the breach on the second fence.”

  Jo moved her NVG out of the way, placed the binos to her own eyes, looking where Steinberg had directed. With the darkness and the added shadow thrown down by the broken fencing, it took her a second, but then she saw a man in combat dress similar to their own, crouched just inside the inner fence. He was armed with a long gun of some sort, what Jo suspected was an assault rifle. He was scanning the approach to his position with the weapon ready at his shoulder, securing the access.

  The man adjusted his position slightly as she watched, and she saw the patch sewn onto his shoulder, the fabric of it lighter than the rest of his clothing, but couldn’t quite make out the detail on the emblem itself. She zoomed the binos in closer, using her right forefinger to hold down the auto button, heard the optics whine quietly.

  The symbol was of a gold-headed bird of prey with a bloodied beak, and she didn’t recognize it. If it was a dataDyne or R-C/Bowman or Core-Mantis OmniGlobal emblem, it was one she’d never encountered before.

  She lowered the binos to see that Steinberg had motioned her down to her belly, that he had already fallen to his. She lay down beside him.

  “He’s a merc,” Steinberg said softly. “A goddamn merc, which means there’s at least one other player on this field.”

  “I’ve never heard of ‘hawks,’ at least not ones that weren’t extinct.”

  “Hawk Teams,” he said, the tension in his voice making it clear that he’d already passed from annoyed to pissed off. “They’re mercenaries, damn good ones, too. They specialize in dirty jobs, and they work almost exclusively for dataDyne. You remember the Shock Troopers?”

  “Yes,” Jo said, not particularly pleased at the thought of recalling Macau.

  “Like that. Just as good, but without the corporate oversight. They’re just in it for the money.”

  “Which means they’ve been paid to be here.”

  “And paid a lot, because they sure as hell ain’t cheap. So either Sexton bought himself a Hawk Team or two to back up his takeover bid—”

  “—or there’s another player on the field, yes, I see.”

  “We have to take him out if we want to get in there.”
>
  Jo reached up to one of the pouches on her arm, unzipping it silently and rolling the silencer she’d been carrying there into her hand, began screwing it onto the end of one of her two Falcons. “I’ll take care of it.”

  Steinberg put a gloved hand on her forearm. “You can’t be nice about this one, Jo.”

  “What?”

  “You’re going to have to kill him. You’re in a war zone, you don’t leave the enemy alive.”

  She stopped what she was doing for a second, then gave the silencer a final twist, feeling it lock into place. “I understand.”

  “And don’t screw it up.”

  “I’ll try not to.” She slid her Fairchild over to Steinberg. “Hold that for me.”

  “I mean it, Jo,” Steinberg said. “No dying.”

  “I didn’t realize you cared so much, Jonathan.”

  “I don’t,” he said. “But if you don’t come back from this alive, the Old Man will kill me.”

  She took the better part of five minutes to make her way to the wall, finding an approach that kept her out of the mercenary’s line of sight. The exterior fence had once been electrified, but the damage done to it during the height of the battle had ended that particular hazard, and now it was nothing more than a chain-link obstacle, and one that Jo had no difficulty in quietly overcoming.

  Once inside the first fence, she worked her way along the second, toward the breach point. Occasional bursts of gunfire were still erupting from the trees beyond, and twice she heard exchanges from inside the facility compound, and the dull thud of explosives, most likely grenades. A wind had kicked up, smelling of rot and saltwater and burning flesh, the war mixing with the jungle.