by M. D. Cooper
They moved down a series of streets, threading their way between kilometer-high towers, the tall buildings doing a fair job of muting the sounds of a battle she knew must be waging just ahead. The structures were surrounded by beautiful plazas and gardens, but Katelyn barely saw them, her focus still on the feed of the Marine tanks.
She swallowed a gasp as the tanks suddenly leapt across the river, firing on the defenders and killing hundreds before touching down on the near side of the river.
What’s it going to take to stop those things?
The faces of the soldiers they passed showed similar concern. For a minute, she worried that the tanks would move directly toward the tower, but then the markers on the map showed them circling around to the west.
She knew there were several broad avenues in that direction, and surmised that the Marines planned to make a more direct approach to the tower.
She stumbled as she rounded a corner and came face to face with a phalanx of soldiers, rows of SWSF troops mixed with Veef separatists and local peacekeepers in riot gear. They crouched behind CFT barriers, exchanging shots with tower security and those loyal to the federation. She could see where the tower had taken a few hits from heavy weapons; craters now existed where riot control pulse cannons had once been mounted.
On her right was a maglev station, and on the left, an open mall area just before the base of the tower. It looked like a wasteland. Once-decorative hedges now denuded by weapons fire lay along pathways strewn with debris. Park benches sat twisted and torn, riddled by railgun slugs from both sides.
She heard a loud crack, and the wall of the building behind her exploded under a fusillade of fire, flinging shrapnel toward Katelyn like miniature missiles. She ducked and raced for cover, the soldiers nearest her responding with a barrage of their own railfire.
As she slid against the protective shield of a nearby barrier, she stared across the space that separated them from the tower, and wondered how in the hell they were going to traverse it. The distance was only a matter of meters, but the structure might as well have been on Mars for all the good it did her. The deadly rain of projectiles sheeting the area made it impossible to cross.
A SWSF soldier joined them from a nearby barrier, snagging her attention. The woman pointed, and Katelyn caught sight of a peacekeeping vessel shrouded in ablative armor. Its door was open, and a Venusian soldier crouched behind it. His gaze was fixed on the reticle of his weapon, waiting to pick off anyone in the tower who looked like they might be showing any interest his way.
“Lieutenant Marks will escort you to the maglev station,” the SWSF soldier shouted above the din of a particularly intense barrage, gesturing toward the man crouched beside the vehicle. “He’ll take you down into the maglev maintenance tunnels. They’re setting up there to breach the tower from down under.”
Katelyn nodded, and Aaron sent his assent. She gathered herself for one last burst of speed, and awaited the soldier’s signal. Over the combat net, she heard someone give the order for a diversion. Fresh railfire sprang up several meters to their west, and Marks motioned them over.
A few stray slugs zinged around them as Katelyn launched herself across the open space and into the vessel’s interior. She quickly scooted over, making room for Aaron and the node beside her, in the back. The vehicle began to move the moment Marks slid into the front and sealed the car. It rocked and swayed as someone up in the tower noticed the car’s movement and began to fire upon it.
A Venusian in coast guard light armor nodded a greeting to them from his position in the driver’s seat.
“No worries,” he assured Katelyn. “They don’t have anything heavy enough to pierce this baby.”
They came to a stop snugged up against the maglev station. Katelyn could see more soldiers crouched inside, weapons aimed outward. Lieutenant Marks exited first, followed by Aaron, and then her.
In a far corner of the station, a door marked ‘Authorized Personnel Only’ had been pushed partially open, and she could see a passageway leading downward on the other side.
Marks tilted his head to indicate the entrance. “This way, ma’am. Admiral’s already inside.”
Katelyn shot a glance over at Aaron, and they both turned to follow.
The tunnel shared the same ubiquitous feel as any other passageway of its kind. Whether it led underground or snaked through the bowels of a space station, tunnels like this always seemed to be chilly and dank—and smell of stale air and sweat.
The rough, grey, plascrete walls were starkly lit. Marks’s footsteps, and hers and Aaron’s, echoed off the steel grating beneath their feet. It would be impossible to mask their presence, short of sound-dampening microdrones.
Katelyn reached out to touch Marks’s shoulder, establishing a point-to-point connection with the man.
The man snorted.
He stopped at another door. This, too, was marked ‘Authorized Personnel’ and had been forced open. Stepping through it brought them into another corridor, this one much cleaner and well-kept.
They’d made it. They were inside the tower.
A few meters down, the corridor opened into a large building maintenance area, and Katelyn found herself face to face with the business end of several E-SCAR rifles.
A request popped up over her Link, asking her to submit her identity token. She accepted it, lips twitching at how politely worded the automatic query was. It wasn’t fooling anybody. She was pretty sure if she denied the request, she’d be shut down by the soldiers before her, and with extreme prejudice.
The token cleared, and the guards lowered their weapons, motioning them forward.
Beyond the line of soldiers was a group of people clustered around a small holotank that looked like it had been jacked into the tower’s central node. As she and Aaron neared, the crowd parted, and Katelyn spied two people she recognized. The first was Wren, the AI from Hjerta. The second, she’d only seen once before, and that had been from a distance. It was Admiral Urdon himself.
The man turned as Wren caught his attention and indicated Katelyn and Aaron. His gaze settled on Katelyn before moving to Aaron, and she stifled an involuntary shudder.
His eyes were cold and hard, and the expression in them made her feel as if death had just clamped its hand on her shoulder.
She shook off the feeling, but decided to hang back when Aaron stepped forward to hand the NSAI node over. That only lasted until Wren noticed and beckoned her to join them.
Katelyn sent her thanks, her eyes wandering back to where Aaron’s cylinder was being lifted from the node and reseated into the mech frame. She’d almost forgotten he’d been piloting the thing remotely.
Her attention sharpened as the woman handling the AI’s core seemed to need an unusually long amount of time to get him mounted properly. Katelyn stepped forward just in time to see the woman close a small kit that looked like a cosmetics case and slide it off to one side.
Katelyn averted her gaze before the woman saw her, not wanting her to know she’d been observed. When the woman finished and returned to the admiral’s side, Katelyn sidled up to Aaron and rested a hand on one of his arms.
She waited as he paused briefly before returning to their conversation.
He did, and she reached behind him to take it. Palming it open, she frowned at the array of unmarked vials.
Her hand jerked as Wren’s voice spoke right behind her. She let the lid of the case drop, spinning to face the AI.
“Admiral said for you two to stick around,” Wren informed them, apparently oblivious to Katelyn’s snooping. “He wants a word with you later.” The AI looked like she wanted to say more, but an exclamation over at the holotank drew her attention and she moved away.
Katelyn followed, staying on the edge of the small crowd as Wren worked her way back to the admiral’s side. Aaron stepped up beside Katelyn just as the holotank’s view switched from a schematic of the tower’s uplink systems to an image of the two artificial suns orbiting above Venus.
She reached out to grasp Aaron’s hand once more to reestablish their private connection.
Katelyn snorted, glad to hear the old Aaron resurfacing after two days of being on the run.
She reached for a snarky comeback, but the quip fled her mind as she saw the holoimage of the suns sprout trajectory lines. The lines traced a pathway down, until they intersected with the capital, on the far side of the planet.
She eased closer, straining to hear what the small group around the holo was saying.
The woman who had been fiddling with Aaron’s core was now standing beside the admiral, gesturing excitedly at the trajectory lines. Her face was animated, and her hands inscribed large arcs, movements Katelyn abruptly realized were mimicking explosions.
Explosions that would occur when the suns detonated upon impact.
She gasped, pushing her way through the people that stood between her and the woman speaking, wanting to hear what she was saying.
“—equal to over a million megatons, and that’s just the initial impact,” the woman told the admiral. “The fusion plants would then layer another—”
“You’re planning to crash the suns onto Venus?!” Katelyn plowed through the front of the line to confront the woman speaking. “You can’t do that! Billions would die! Wren?”
She appealed to the AI standing between the woman and the admiral, but Wren remained silent.
Katelyn swung around frantically, and her eyes clashed with those of one of the SWSF soldiers standing nearby. The woman shifted under Katelyn’s accusing glare, then averted her gaze, expression haunted.
Katelyn caught sight of Aaron, and turned to him, demanding, “Did you know this was the plan? Have you known all this time?”
Wren stepped aside to allow Aaron’s frame through.
“I did not,” he assured her. Then he swung to face Urdon. “And I agree with Katelyn. To do what you suggest is unthinkable, an atrocity. You said the plan was to hack the uplink, and gain control of it. That the threat of what we can do with those two suns would be enough leverage to get the SSF senate to back down.”
The admiral’s eyes narrowed, and he directed a cold stare at Aaron. At the same time, the woman next to him stepped forward, lightwand in hand. She flicked her wrist, and the weapon flared to life. She brought its point to rest in front of the casing that held Aaron’s core.
“Moira.”
It was the only word the admiral uttered, but it had the woman stepping back and flicking the wand to an upright position, an annoyed expression on her face.
Urdon turned away from Aaron, gazing at the holotank once more. “The plans have changed. In fact,” he gestured to the suns, “they’ve already begun their descent. I’m fully prepared for the Federation to retaliate. In fact, it’s what we want. This will be the powder keg that finally ignites this war.”
Aaron made a disagreeing noise. “That’s not what we want,” he argued. “I’m an SSID agent, sir. I know the enemy. You pay me to know the enemy, to study how they think and how they will respond. I’m telling you this is the wrong move.”
Helpless anger consumed Katelyn as Aaron continued to try to argue with Urdon. Her eyes darted around the room, seeking anyone else who might join them in standing up to the admiral, to get him to see reason.
To a one, they all looked away. Frustration mounted. She couldn’t just stand here and watch billions murdered. Surely there was something she could do—
Her gaze landed on the NSAI node, its task complete, sitting off to one side. Beside it sat a bandolier. Attached to the bandolier was a pair of pulse grenades. Her eyes swept the crowd, but after her initial protest, she’d been once more dismissed.
Heart beating in her throat, she began to ease back toward the node. Everyone’s attention remained arrested on the argument Aaron was having with Urdon, and she silently urged him to keep it up.
When she bumped up against the table, she slid her hand back, groping blindly for the bandolier, while her eyes scanned the crowd for any indication her actions had been noticed. Her fingers made contact, and she wiggled the two grenades free. Palming them, she stepped to the side, putting the console between herself and the others.
Here goes nothing. She pulled the pins and launched the grenades into the crowd, calling out to her friend at the same time.
Katelyn dropped to the ground as a shuddering concussive wave swept the room, followed by the sound of several bodies hitting the floor.
Peering around the console, she saw that only Aaron and Wren remained standing.
“Tell me you’re with us, Wren,” Katelyn urged as she stepped around the console and neared the Hjerta AI.
“I’m…conflicted,” Wren admitted. “I didn’t sign up with the SWSF to murder millions of people, but I’m not one to disobey orders.”
She swiveled her battle frame and surveyed the room, her voice taking on a slightly awed tone. “I can’t believe you did that, Katelyn. What are you going to do once they rouse?”
Katelyn released a nervous laugh. “Um, run?” She shrugged. “I have no idea. It’s just…as evil and corrupt as the Federation has become, well, it doesn’t mean we should match them.”
Aaron made a frustrated noise and shifted, drawing Katelyn’s attention.
“Problem?” she asked.
“They’ve set a lockout sequence, but I think I can get around it. It’s just going to take a bit of time—”
“Time you no longer have, agent.”
Katelyn spun around, dismayed to see Urdon already standing. Moira was shaking her head, slowly clambering to her feet.
Urdon turned and favored Katelyn with an icy look. “You disappoint me, Evans. When your initiative at Makemake was pointed out to me, I had hopes you might be groomed for a position with SSID. But now….” He cocked his head and glanced at Moira, giving her a small nod.
The woman’s mouth creased into a tight smile; the look on her face was predatory. She reached for the lightwand that had been extinguished the moment it had fallen from her hands, flicking it on as she advanced slowly toward Katelyn.
“Shouldn’t
have disappointed the admiral,” she chided, tossing the lightwand from her left hand to her right. “He likes to make examples of those who fail to meet his standards.”
She jerked to the right as the woman feinted with the blade, backpedaling to put more space between them.
That seemed to amuse Moira. The woman tossed the blade between her hands once more, and then with a fast movement, sent it hurtling toward Katelyn.
It happened too fast.
Katelyn moved, but not far enough, and searing pain gripped her as the wand sank into her upper thigh. Reflexively, she reached for the hilt, shuddering as her grasp jerked the blade, causing it to slice further into her leg.
Moira unholstered a small flechette pistol that looked remarkably like the one the MICI agent had used against Clarke. She pointed its barrel at Katelyn and gestured with it.
“Go ahead, pull it out. Saves me the time and trouble. But, girl….” She clicked her tongue in mock dismay. “Didn’t anyone ever tell you not to bring a knife to a gunfight?”
Her free hand pressed against the wound, and she stumbled back a step, her gaze fixed on Moira.
“I think the legs, first,” the SSDI agent mused, tapping her lips with her free hand, “and then the torso.”
“Stop toying with your kill,” Urdon muttered, his gaze never leaving the holotank. “We need to confirm the suns’ trajectory and return to the shuttle.”
“Fiiine.” The SSID agent chuckled as she sighted along her pistol’s barrel, aiming at Katelyn’s head. “You’re really rather pathet—”