“You’re right,” he finally said. “And Lanara’s right. You can’t fight a war if you’re not willing to take casualties. The universe isn’t kind, and no matter how many rules and laws of war we make, there’s always somebody who doesn’t care. Somebody who will take it too far. Since we can’t afford to become them, the good guys are always at a disadvantage.”
“But it’s not hopeless,” Jia murmured.
Erik nodded, a slight smile on his face. “If you’re breathing, it’s not hopeless. Let me give you a tip I learned the hard way in my time in the service. If you focus on your losses, you’re always going to feel like crap. You need to focus on your wins because if you aren’t dead, those are going to lead to your victories. I know what brought this on.”
“You do?”
“Yeah,” Erik replied. “A lot of good men and women lost their lives in the fight against the Hunters, including Cutter, but I look at it differently. A small group of humans fought off an alien race far more advanced and ruthless than us. We won, and if we can win against the Hunters, we can win against the conspiracy.”
Jia offered him a rueful smile. “That makes far too much sense. You’re right.”
“One other tip. It’s okay to be angry about those we lost, but do what I’m doing.” Erik’s mouth twitched into a frown.
“Which is what?” Jia asked.
“Adding every death to the conspiracy’s bill,” Erik intoned.
Chapter Twelve
July 15, 2230, France, Provence
The MX 60 sped low over the dense treetops, guided both by Emma’s navigation and direct control. They’d changed the color to a forest green that helped them blend in with the canopy below.
To Erik’s and Jia’s surprise, when they unloaded from the transport, a soldier approached them and gave them a set of coordinates before ushering them off-base with an appropriate security pass.
The pair had expected they’d get their briefing at the base, but it made more sense that they wouldn’t. Colonel Adeyemi was running an off-the-books operation, and no matter how much goodwill or respect he’d accumulated in the Army and how many strings people pulled on his behalf, there was only so much they could tolerate.
It was a dark irony that the whole thing was for the protection of the UTC, and they only had to play so many ghosts games because the tentacles of the conspiracy stretched into so many parts of the government.
Erik often wondered what it’d be like to sit in a meeting of the leaders of the conspiracy, if they had such a thing. There were so many questions he wanted clear answers to. Sophia Vand’s death had wounded them, but Alina couldn’t say how much. Other than collecting alien artifacts, no one knew the ultimate goal of their enemy.
He used to worry that he wouldn’t know when he’d finally won, that there might always be one more bastard out there. Those concerns had vanished after the fight with the Hunter ship. His allies had momentum now, and they could continue chipping away at the enemy, with each victory bringing more targets.
No one could control as much as the conspiracy did without leaving a trail, and now the bloodhounds were sniffing out their awful scent.
“It’s beautiful,” Jia murmured.
“Huh?” Erik looked her way. “What is?”
She gestured out the window at the passing trees and rolling hills in the distance. A curtain of blooming lavender covered a field to their right.
“It’s okay,” Erik admitted.
Jia laughed. “It’s something I let myself forget. Neo SoCal is the ultimate city, and we mainly travel to cities or domes. Sometimes pure nature is nice.”
“You don’t seem like much of a country girl to me.”
“I didn’t say I was, but I can appreciate beauty.” Jia smiled and rested her head against the window. “All that technology and the conspiracy isn’t concentrating on making more beauty, just more monstrous ways to kill and destroy.”
“Weapons always come first,” Erik uttered. “That’s the way things go for humans.”
“It’s not that it bothers me.” Jia lifted her head and laughed. “It’s absurd if you think about it.”
“What is?”
“We’re in the beautiful French countryside, but we’re here not on vacation. We’re here to blow things up.” She mimed an explosion with both hands.
Erik grinned. “It’s not like we have to blow things up, but yeah, that’s probably how things will turn out.”
“It’s humorous.” Jia shook her head. “I’ve traveled more in these last couple of years than in my entire life, and all over. I’m seeing the world and the Solar System.”
“See, I take you nice places,” Erik joked.
“Places to blow up.” Jia tapped her PNIU, and a data window appeared with a city outline that looked familiar.
“Where’s that?” Erik asked.
“Bogota,” Jia replied. “I’d wanted to visit there before we went, but what did we do? We went there in the middle of the night to blow up a Tin Man factory on New Year’s.”
Erik laughed. “Hey, it made for some nice fireworks. We probably saw more of the city than a lot of tourists, and it’s not like we never get to see cool things in the places we visit.”
“The Sky Garden.” Jia smiled warmly. “I have to say, that trip to Lagos does go to show that seeing something up close and in person is different than seeing a hologram, even in VR.”
“And we didn’t blow it up,” Erik insisted. “Rather, we stopped someone from blowing it up.”
“We blew them up,” she counter-argued.
“We shot them for the most part. That’s not the same thing.” Erik shrugged.
“Chang’e City,” Jia commented. “Parvati. Unity City. Lots of explosions along the way.”
“A lot of people might travel in their lifetime, but most barely leave their area,” Erik replied with an amused look. “If I hadn’t joined the Army, I bet I would never have left Detroit.”
“And I’d be the person who spent her entire life in Neo SoCal, not convinced I needed to leave the great metroplex either.” Jia let out a quiet chuckle. “We’ve seen a lot of nice things there, too, some I never bothered to go see until my job took me there or Alina chose them for a meeting.”
“Just goes to show that it’s easy to not appreciate what you have, let alone everything else you might have.”
Jia returned to staring at the trees and colorful fields. “We’re a well-traveled couple. Our vacations just tend to involve explosions and bullets, and the occasional laser.”
“For now,” he admitted. Was that hope?
Jia turned to face him. “Somehow, I think you’d get bored if there wasn’t at least the chance of an explosion.”
“Maybe.” Erik grinned playfully. “Is that so bad?”
“No.” Jia patted his arm. “It’s not.”
The MX 60 slowed and they descended. Erik wouldn’t recommend flying through such a dense forest normally, but Emma wasn’t about to do anything she couldn’t handle. If the MX 60 was smashed to pieces, she’d not only risk destruction, but she would also lose her preferred body.
“We’re about five minutes from the target location,” Emma announced. “I’ve established communications with the colonel’s team.”
Erik rubbed his hands together. “Time to add another location to our explosions and bullets tour list.”
Chapter Thirteen
The shift was dramatic, amusing Jia more than she expected.
They were flying through a mostly untouched and beautiful part of the French countryside, before suddenly arriving at a large clearing dominated by a cargo flitter loaded with exoskeletons. Soldiers stood around in tactical suits, watching impassively as the MX 60 descended into the clearing and landed.
Erik and Jia exited the flitter and walked over to Colonel Adeyemi. He wasn’t in uniform, but he was in a tactical suit. A rifle was slung over his shoulder.
“You planning to come with us on the op, Colonel?” Erik as
ked.
“Not with the first wave.” Colonel Adeyemi looked thoughtful. “I’d just get in the way.”
“You’re going to miss all the fun.” Erik decided not to press him on what he meant by “the first wave.”
“Blackwell, unlike you, I’m glad to be a REMF at this point.” The colonel grinned.
Seconds later, his grin disappeared, the hard mask marking their normal dealings returning. He circled his hand in the air and yelled, “Listen up, people. Pay attention.”
The soldiers fell into formation immediately, shifting to parade rest. No one spoke. They all focused on Colonel Adeyemi, awaiting orders. Erik and Jia moved to the side of the formation but didn’t join it. Emma appeared in a uniform standing beside them. None of the soldiers so much as blinked at the hologram.
“Good,” Colonel Adeyemi announced, his voice loud and clear.
He tapped his PNIU and a large map appeared. A red dot marked their position, and a curved arrow marked their path. Additional windows appeared, showing aerial views of the mansion and the forest around it.
“First of all,” the colonel continued, “I want to thank each and every one of you for volunteering for this mission. You know we’re doing this off the books. You all are aware of the cancer that eats away at the UTC, a cancer that has threatened military projects and killed military personnel. The rest of the DD has been supportive of my efforts to aid the ID in crushing this conspiracy that would undermine us all, but the enemy is getting smarter and sneakier.” He swept the crowd with his hard gaze. “They think they can outplay us that way. Do you agree with that?”
“No, sir!” the formation bellowed.
Colonel Adeyemi nodded. “You all know good soldiers gave their lives in May to fight a threat none of us could have imagined existed. The conspiracy dared try to unleash an ancient weapon of war.” He inclined his head toward Erik. “Those two, along with your fellow soldiers, stopped that. Today, we don’t have to face an ancient alien super-vessel. We just need to go into a mansion and probably cut down some Tin Men and a few guards. You think you can handle that?”
“Yes, sir!”
“Good.” Colonel Adeyemi gestured to the map. “Then let’s get this over with. The ID lost their friend, and Blackwell and Lin are going to lead your team to recover him. Let me make this clear: we only care about recovering the information. If you meet hostile resistance during this mission, feel free to send them to hell. Now, at ease as I give the general briefing.”
The formation shifted, some dropping their arms. No one took their attention off the colonel. Eagerness and excitement covered their faces.
Jia’s heart rate sped up. She was used to missions, but calmness always eluded her before they launched. That didn’t upset her. It was just like Erik had told her. Total calm could lead to underestimating the enemy. No one should go into the battle thinking they couldn’t lose. Surprise was the enemy’s greatest weapon.
“This is the target mansion,” the colonel announced. “Because we don’t want to throw your lives away, we’ve done our best to glean intel without tipping off any little cockroach spies the conspiracy has in either the Intelligence or Defense Directorates. Since none of you are blind, I’m sure you’ve noticed these.”
Multiple images of anti-craft cannons appeared, depicting various weapons from different angles. Some of the excitement vanished from the squad.
“That’s right, people,” Colonel Adeyemi continued. “This nice, fancy mansion in the forest in the middle of nowhere has enough triple-A to take down a whole squadron of Dragons. If that doesn’t scream suspicious, I don’t know what does, and because of that, we can’t risk a direct drop into the target area.”
“We’re hoofing it?” Erik asked.
“In the exos, yes,” the colonel replied. “We have to assume the enemy has perimeter alarms and defenses, but we’ll get to how we’re going to deal with those in a minute. We’re going to try to get closer with the cargo flitter. We’re taking a calculated risk by using that class of vehicle, but it’ll give us the speed and mobility we need to get close enough to the target that you can all drop in while hopefully not getting shot down.”
Jia wondered if the choice of vehicle was partially constrained by logistics. An off-the-books mission could get away with transport redirection here and there, but the more gear and vehicles the colonel grabbed, the more he risked leakage.
She glanced at Erik. He didn’t look concerned, and she trusted his judgment. None of the other soldiers looked all that worried, but she did find herself asking if that was as reliable a measure as she would have thought. After all, many of these men and women had probably dropped onto planets from orbit.
Their sense of relative danger might be just a bit skewed.
Counting Erik and Jia, there would be twelve military-grade exoskeletons. Erik’s complaint about the maneuverability aside, that was a lot of firepower, and they were being accompanied by trained operators who wouldn’t be fighting super-aliens.
Jia was liking their odds.
“You’ve all been briefed on the appearance of the informant,” Colonel Adeyemi explained. “If you locate him and he is dead, the ID still wants his body back. If you establish that early on, feel free to inflict as much damage as you want on your way out. Remember, this is first and foremost a rescue mission, not a search and destroy, but I’m not going to complain if you burn the place down on your way out. If by some miracle you can take control without significant risk, I’m sure the ID wouldn’t mind.”
He stared at Erik, who shrugged, an innocent smile on his face.
The colonel gestured at Emma. “We’re blessed to have the UTC’s best AI on our team during this mission. She’s going to handle the electronic warfare, so all of you don’t have to worry about anything but shooting. Why don’t you take the next bit, Emma?”
She vanished and reappeared next to the colonel. “All publicly available satellite data indicates there is no mansion in this location. The images you have been shown were taken with long-range cameras from drones. Because of the risk, no drone assets have been able to get too close.”
“Exactly,” the colonel announced. “You’re all going to use jammers and laser comms in tight formation. Disrupting command and control will be to our advantage, given the cameras and drones they’ll likely have available.”
Erik frowned and nodded at one of the data windows. “With that kind of AAA, we can’t risk the MX 60. Emma, you’re going to need to ride with me.”
She smiled. “I was going to suggest that.”
One of the soldiers cleared his throat. “Sir, this all sounds reasonable, but like you said, they’ll probably see us coming.”
“Exos aren’t the only thing I have packed back there,” Colonel Adeyemi replied, motioning to the cargo flitter. “We’ve got entire squadrons of drones with stun rifles and chaff ready to go. Emma can mass-program them to flood the area and continue disruption even under jamming conditions. We’re going to use those drones as a distraction when you get close.”
“Why not lethals?”
Colonel Adeyemi frowned. “Because we can’t have some drone accidentally killing our target. Let’s move on to completion and recovery. The primary mission is to rescue our target. After that’s been achieved, you can drop jamming and transmit, so the cargo flitter can come and extract him.”
“I’ll be using a drone chain as repeaters,” Emma added with a hint of smugness.
“If, at that point, the enemy is still jamming the area, send up a flare, and I’ll go with the backup, some Dragons supporting the cargo flitter. I’d prefer to not call the Dragons because it’ll raise questions, but we’ll do what we need to.” The colonel frowned. “Emma assures me she has a good chance of controlling the cargo flitter using bridged laser comms, but if she can’t establish control within five minutes of the flare, I will fly the damned thing in. If I don’t arrive in five minutes, you will withdraw to this location on foot.”
T
he soldiers exchanged looks, some surprised, some impressed. Jia didn’t think it’d be much of a problem. The conspiracy might have reinforced their base, but they didn’t know an entire squad of exoskeletons was about to smash into them.
It was time to win another battle in the war.
Chapter Fourteen
Erik was annoyed and had die-hard plans to continue being annoyed.
When a freelancer is asked to commit violence, he wants to use the best tools—the ones he’d trained with and gotten used to in a high-ops-tempo environment.
All the complaints about having to use a standard-model exo vanished when Erik strapped into the machine offered by the colonel. The concerns about his recent training felt petty and distant, like they’d come from someone else.
The exo was comfortable and familiar, like a beloved family member showing up at a reunion. The Army might not always use the latest, greatest cutting-edge machinery, but every weapon system employed by soldiers in the field was battle-tested and reliable.
Sometimes sacrificing features for reliability helped a soldier win a battle.
Erik grinned as he remembered that truth, thinking about his TR-7. He used the weapon both out of habit and because of its reliability. Sometimes a man could get the best of both worlds, but today he’d settle for the Army exo with a very solid grenade launcher.
All the other men and women gathered in the back of the cargo flitter waited in their exos for the drop. He didn’t know if they weren’t normally a chatty bunch, or if they didn’t feel comfortable talking in front of him and Jia.
During his time with the Knights Errant, he’d enjoyed the last-minute banter before a battle. He’d looked forward to it. If someone died in battle, he wanted his last real conversation with them to be something funny and interesting. That way, he could carry their memories with them for eternity.
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