Duty, Honor, Planet: The Complete Trilogy

by Rick Partlow

  “It’s Anya.” He almost spat the word.

  “Carr, you getting this?” Franks asked quickly, turning his ‘link and capturing an image. “We need that woman alive.”

  “We have the photo,” Carr reported curtly, and this time Manning could hear her transmission since it was on the command net. “We’re a minute out.”

  “Oh, that might just be a bit too late,” Manning murmured, watching the group advancing on the café.

  “Colonel Podbyrin,” Franks said, his voice surprisingly calm, “get up and start walking west. Turn into the first alley you come to on the north side of the street.”

  The old man didn’t reply, but he immediately rose from his seat and began walking briskly down the street away from the approaching enemy, breaking into a trot to avoid colliding with a pedi-cab.

  “Where do you want me, sir?” Manning asked, muscles tensed to move.

  “Wait until they pass,” he told her, “then cut up another alley and circle around. I’ll follow from behind them.”

  “Got it,” she acknowledged.

  She could see the goon platoon picking up their pace as Podbyrin drew further away, going from a normal walk to a jog, with that Anya woman in the lead. It wasn’t another ten seconds before they passed Manning and Franks’ table and headed down the street, drawing stares from some of the other patrons. Trying to move casually and naturally, Manning stood and walked directly across the street, heading into the first alley between two clusters of stores and then breaking into a sprint the second she was out of sight.

  The alley was narrow and cluttered with empty plastic cartons---the kind that were used to deliver raw materials for fabricators or raw foodstuffs for the processors; and the pavement was caked with mud from a recent rain. Manning had to watch her footing as she weaved through the tight space, feet dancing around the debris as the mud threatened to send her sprawling at any moment.

  She emerged from the alley into the next street over, nearly running directly into the path of a chugging, patched-together pickup truck before she stopped herself short, heels digging into the dirt-crusted pavement.

  “Manning here,” she said into her ‘link as she hopped onto the sidewalk, dodging a wobbly drunk who was mumbling incoherently in what could have been Russian. “I’m heading west on Tsentralnaya Ulitsa. The Bait is inbound with the Gomers in tow and Franks is behind them.”

  “This is Franks,” she heard the officer on the command channel. “Carr, circle around and come up behind Manning where Tsentralnaya Ulitsa intersects with Molodyozhnaya Ulitsa.”

  “Got it,” Agent Carr responded. “Thirty seconds.”

  “And Manning,” she heard Franks say, his voice still light and unconcerned, “I’ll buy you a drink if you manage to keep Podbyrin from getting shot.”

  Manning allowed herself a grin as she jogged along the sidewalk, weaving through the crowd and drawing a few curious stares. “I’m holding out for a nice steak dinner,” she replied, noting that she was coming up on the end of the block and the intersection.

  “It’s a deal,” Franks said. “You take care of keeping him alive and I’ll take care of Anya.”

  He’d barely stopped speaking when Manning saw Podbyrin come around the corner, running as fast as he was capable, which pretty much worked out to a slow jog for her. The former Protectorate officer saw her and turned her way, heading down Tsentralnaya Ulitsa near the edge of the street and the sidewalk, breathing heavily from the exertion. She waved at him to get behind her and he seemed to visibly gather his remaining energy and used it to break into a slightly-faster trot. Manning kept one eye on him and the other fixed on the oncoming bratva enforcers.

  The dozen men and women following Anya around the corner spread out as they reached Tsentralnaya Ulitsa, half of them heading to the opposite side of the street while the others walked down the middle of the avenue, guns drawn, bringing traffic to nearly a standstill.

  So much for subtlety, Manning thought with a silent chuckle.

  “D’mitry!” the woman Podbyrin had called “Anya” yelled, her hand filled with the ancient bulk of a large, metal revolver. “Stop running, you old fool. You can’t run faster than us…I know, because you whined constantly about how old and infirm you were!”

  She was speaking Russian, but Manning knew the language well: it had been part of her professional development. If Antonov had accomplished nothing else with his attempts at conquest, at least he’d made the Russian language relevant again.

  Podbyrin didn’t respond to the woman; he just kept making his way through the stalled traffic, ignoring the bratva enforcers who were getting ever closer to him. Manning stepped off the sidewalk into the street, pulling her submachine gun from her shoulder bag and unfolding the stock as she walked.

  “Look out!” Manning heard the warning yelled in Russian and assumed one of the enforcers had finally noticed her, but it was too late for that.

  She settled the buttstock into her shoulder and targeted the nearest of the bratva gunmen, the image from the subgun’s optical sight transmitted directly to the right lens of her sunglasses as she touched the trigger. The compact weapon stuttered hoarsely through its built-in sound suppressor and the stock pushed firmly into her shoulder as three 10mm rounds punched into the big, bearded man’s face, obliterating it in a splash of blood.

  Headshots were showing off, she knew, but there was always the possibility of body armor.

  The crowd screamed and the Russians were shouting in panic, but she was still moving. Sgt. Major Crossman had taught her early in her training never to stop moving in a gunfight, and she’d yet to find him wrong about anything. Shots rang out loud and unsuppressed from the older handguns the enforcers were carrying, but none came near her; she wasn’t certain any of them even knew what they were shooting at yet.

  As she passed by a 50-year-old gas-powered groundcar, Manning put another burst into the next enforcer on her side of the street: a stocky, broad-bodied man with long hair tied back in a ponytail and a network of scars across the left side of his face. He went down without firing a shot, but immediately after she heard a handgun round smack into the antique car’s side panel and she ducked instinctively behind the vehicle, taking shelter behind its front wheel.

  At least two different shooters opened up on her, the bullet impacts sounding like hail on a tin roof on the opposite side of the car. The driver vacated the vehicle with a panicked scream, leaving his door open, but Manning ignored him, focusing on the threats to her front. She poked her head around the front of the car very quickly and saw three of the enforcers making their way through the traffic towards her, firing sporadically and not that accurately at her position.

  A flurry of shots erupted immediately but she had already gone back behind cover and the old car was too dense for handgun rounds to penetrate its engine block. Manning counted to three, then ran back around the rear of the vehicle, popping up over its trunk and squeezing off six rounds that walked up the chest of the shooter closest to her. He pitched forward, a heavy autopistol flying from his hands, and Manning ran to the next available cover, a small cargo truck.

  Part of Manning’s mind noted with clinical detachment that the red paint on the front passenger’s side of the truck’s hood was flaking and faded, revealing bare, white polymer beneath it in spots. The truck was abandoned, its driver leaving it in the middle of the street and running for cover at the onset of the gunfight, and she noted that the torn and tattered plastic of the seat cushions inside reflected the condition of the truck on the outside. It bothered her when people didn’t take care of their equipment.

  Not that the truck would have been in great condition anyway, given the fusillade of handgun rounds that were smashing into its driver’s side.

  “Sgt. Manning,” she heard Miller’s voice in her ear. “We have Podbyrin secured in the vehicle. We’re moving up to support you.”

  “Roger that, Miller,” she said, her voice steady and well modulated…she
remembered not being that calm the first time she’d been in combat. “Captain Franks, where do you want us?”

  Franks’ voice was strained when he replied. “Keep their attention to the west side of the street,” he said. “I’m moving up the east side and I have Anya with me.”

  Manning saw movement out of the corner of her eyes and swung around the barrel of her weapon before she saw that it was Staff Sgt. Miller and Corporal Costa bounding up to join her behind cover. Both men were dressed in civilian clothes, as she was, but they had heavier weapons: 8mm carbines, fitted with suppressors.

  “Miller,” she said curtly, “lay down suppressive fire here and keep them occupied. I’m heading over to support Captain Franks.”

  She didn’t wait for a reply, just swapped out magazines for her submachine gun and then darted out the east side of the abandoned truck, already hearing the coughing of the military carbines firing behind her. The diversion would work or it wouldn’t; she had a job to do either way.

  The sidewalks were mostly clear of bystanders at this point: they had all retreated into the businesses or simply run away, except for a few who were probably tourists who were huddled on the ground in fetal positions. No one seemed to be injured, for which she was grateful, but the fact that the crowds had scattered made her traverse down the east sidewalk painfully obvious to anyone who bothered to look.

  She filed that information away and kept running, dividing her attention between watching for threats from the street and locating Captain Franks. She caught sight of him coming around the edge of a sidewalk kiosk, walking purposefully with the sizable bulk of the woman Anya thrown over his left shoulder. She appeared to be unconscious and was definitely dead weight, but Franks didn’t seem to be faltering under the load. He was using both hands to steady the woman, however, and that didn’t leave one free to shoot.

  Manning checked the street with a quick glance and saw that the remaining enforcers had taken cover behind various vehicles and were shooting blindly, pinned down by the accurate rifle fire from Miller and Costa. But when she turned her attention back to her front, she saw one of the dark-suited men running up the sidewalk, his face a mask of rage and determination, only twenty or thirty meters behind Franks. He had a large, metal pistol in his right hand, but she was guessing he didn’t want to fire because he was afraid of hitting Anya. And she couldn’t fire at him without the risk of hitting Franks…

  “Franks,” she said, calling him via her ‘link, “get down!”

  The Intelligence officer threw himself to the ground, not being too delicate with his prisoner; she was fairly sure he’d used her to cushion the fall, actually. Manning’s submachine gun came up to her shoulder almost of its own volition, her training and instinct working faster than her conscious mind, and she stroked the trigger with gentle precision.

  She came to a halt, soles skidding slightly on the damp sidewalk, her eyes locked on the prone form of the fallen enforcer, watching him for a long moment before turning back to Captain Franks. The officer was clambering to his feet, his handgun out and his eyes scanning the street. The remaining Russian gunmen were being driven back by Manning’s team, retreating into an adjoining alley as their return fire died down to the occasional wild shot.

  “Come on,” Manning urged Franks, grabbing the fallen Anya by an arm. “Let’s get to the car.”

  “Thanks for the assist,” he told her as they hefted Anya between them, the woman’s head lolling as her eyes rolled back in her head. Franks must have stunned her, Manning reasoned.

  “You kidding?” Manning grunted, jogging into the street in tandem with him. She shot him a grin. “You still owe me a steak dinner.”

  Manning cocked an ear as she heard sirens in the distance.

  “Shit,” Franks muttered. “Cops are on the way.”

  “We have authorization to do pretty much anything we want,” she reminded him as they passed by Miller and Costa’s position behind the truck.

  “Need to know, Sgt. Manning,” he said, shaking his head. “If they don’t know we’re here, they won’t start asking why.”

  Finally they reached the vehicle, where Carr, Podbyrin and Assange sat in the front while the rest of Manning’s squad pulled security around the passenger van. They passed Anya off to two of the junior NCOs, who loaded her into the back as Miller and Costa made their way back to them, guarding the rear.

  “Get us out of here,” Franks ordered, piling into the van and taking a seat in the second row, next to Manning.

  “Look at this fucking mess, Franks,” Assange growled as he pulled a quick K-turn and headed back up the street, hanging a turn at the first intersection. “This isn’t some colony outpost, war hero…this is part of a Developed Nation.”

  “Agent Assange,” Manning replied, her voice going cold in a way that surprised even her, “I recall quite vividly being involved in more than one combat situation right in the middle of the United States, right here on Earth and deep in the heart of the Republic. And you may have audited the news reports about Houston ‘plex…three thousand people died right in the heart of the Republic. Bad things happen everywhere, not just on some backwoods colony world.”

  “Well said, Sgt. Manning,” Franks said, flashing a charming, boyish smile. “And if you’ll get us someplace secure, Agent Assange, we can ask this lady,” he nodded towards Anya, “some pointed questions and avoid even more bad things happening.”

  “We’re breaking quite a few laws here,” Caitlyn Carr said, shaking her head worriedly. “Presidential blessing or not, it bothers me.”

  “Save lives now, Caitlyn,” Franks told her, the smile on his face turning to stone. “Feel guilty later.”

  Chapter Nine

  Lieutenant Claudia Brandt crouched behind the solid metal of the cargo loader, trying hard not to flinch as yet another rocket-propelled grenade slammed into the other side of the machine, rocking it back on its tracks.

  Just like a training sim, she told herself. No difference at all, except the dying part.

  “Whiskey Foxtrot Niner Niner,” she broadcast over her helmet radio, trying to keep her voice calm, “this is Whiskey Foxtrot One requesting air support, over.”

  “Roger, Whiskey Foxtrot One,” the laconic voice of the assault lander’s pilot responded. “You are cleared for air support. Command advises that they would like some prisoners if possible, over.”

  “I will definitely keep that in mind,” Brandt snapped. “Now if you would be so kind, there are…” She paused, lifting her rifle over the top edge of the loader’s hood and viewing the feed from the rifle’s sight on her helmet’s reticle.

  The walls of the separation facility were forbidding stretches of bare metal a hundred meters tall and two hundred meters long, interrupted by the housings for the gigantic, three-meter-across feed hoses to the storage tanks; and by a single doorway. The opening was ten meters across and five high to let the loaders through when they carried out replacement parts for the tanks or the feeder hoses, but at the moment, the entrance was blocked by a pair of all-terrain rovers---massive, tracked vehicles that could get through the methane snows of the moon’s winter or the jagged, bare rock of its summer.

  The rovers were being used for cover by at least two dozen enemy troops, anonymous behind the narrow visors of their helmets and the dull grey of their sealed combat armor. Their rifles were familiar to her, though: she’d seen them in briefings and in documentaries and dramatized movies about the Protectorate invasion. They were simple and crude, made of metal stampings and firing steel slugs from brass cartridges. Together with the reloadable rocket launchers they were using quite liberally, they’d been enough to hold off her platoon.

  It had only been five minutes since the lander had dropped them off the rear ramp, hovering less than two meters off the fusion-form concrete to let them jump to the ground, then flying off to cover them. They’d approached the facility on foot, spread out thirty meters apart in a wedge formation, and the minute they’d come wi
thin sight of the entrance, the gun and missile fire had begun.

  Luckily, there’d been cover available in the form of a parked loader and a pair of old cargo containers, but that had left them pinned down. Time to change that situation.

  “There are two dozen of the enemy clustered around the utility rovers in the entrance,” Brandt broadcast to the lander. “They’re too deep inside for you to get a good shot with the cannons, so we’re going to need a missile strike, over.”

  “Roger that. Make sure your people are behind cover…missiles inbound. Out.”

  “Gunny,” Brandt called to her senior NCO, “missile strike incoming.”

  “Aye, ma’am,” Gunnery Sergeant Sandell grunted, then switched to the platoon frequency. “Hunker down, boys and girls; the pigeon’s about to shit on someone’s head. Let’s hope it’s not ours.”

  Brandt chuckled in the privacy of her helmet. Gunny Sandell was a bit of a dinosaur, but he was her dinosaur. He was also a combat veteran, which no one else in the platoon, including her, could say.

  The platoon leader heard the lander before she saw it: it came in low across the pale sea and then leaped into the amber sky, the roar of its jets cutting through the explosions and the gunfire as it swung around the massive separation building and hovered for just a heartbeat.

  The missiles kicked free of the lander’s twin weapons bays with a puff of coldgas, seemingly hanging in the air for just an eyeblink before their main rocket engines ignited and they shot towards their target faster than the eye could follow. Brandt was behind the track of the loader, crouched low with two others of her platoon, but she was watching from the camera feed on the lander’s nose, so she saw the missiles curve beneath the overhang of the building’s cargo entrance and spear into the parked rovers.

  The concussion from the explosions was a bass drum beating deep in her chest and she could feel the wash of heat right through the heavy cargo loader and her sealed combat armor. Everything was plunged into darkness and she thought for a moment that her helmet’s HUD had been knocked out; but then she realized that she had just instinctively squeezed her eyes shut. When she opened them, she could see in the feed from the lander that the edges of the entranceway were charred and twisted, and the two rovers were scattered, smoldering wreckage.