Uprising

by David Ryker

  “I’m beginning to wish I hadn’t even brought it up,” said Bishop.

  Gomez rose from his seat and headed back toward the bridge. “The longer we sit here invisible, the greater the risk that someone’s going to accidentally fly into us. I’ll get back to the controls and wait for your signal to drop the cloak and open the door.”

  Quinn noticed Gomez didn’t wish them luck as he and the rest of the drop team made their way to the back of the cargo area. He turned back to see Maggott standing with his arms folded, trying not to look like a lost puppy. Thorson Shane simply stood at ease next to him, his expression placid, like this was just another mission to him.

  “Look after the ship, big guy.” Quinn gave Maggott a gloved thumbs-up and dropped his visor into place. “We’ll rendezvous back in Seoul.”

  “Roger that,” Maggott croaked.

  “Try not to eat all the bulgogi before we get there,” said Bishop. It was his usual jab, but Quinn thought he heard a slight hitch in his friend’s voice.

  “Don’t ferget to avenge our deaths,” said Ulysses. “Y’know, if’n it comes to that.”

  “It won’t,” said Maggott, his voice clearer now. “I’ve told ye plenty o’times, the only one who gets tae punch yuir ticket is me.”

  Ulysses grinned wide and offered the big man a passable salute as he dropped his own visor and the hydraulics began to push the cargo door down. The hold was suddenly blasted by a gust of air as the pressure equalized, forcing Shane to grab a nearby safety bar on the wall. Maggott didn’t appear to be affected by it.

  “You know what to do,” Han told Shane.

  “Always,” he replied. “See you soon.”

  With that, they lined up behind the ramp that led out of the cargo hold and into the sky over the city of Moscow some 30,000 feet below. Han took point, followed by Quinn, then Bishop and Ulysses, and finally Elliot at the rear.

  “Hey, Elliot!” Shane called out. “You know what to do, too, right?”

  Elliot didn’t answer. Quinn wondered about the odd dynamic of his former teammates. They had been the closest of friends during the war, and yet now they acted as if they could barely stand one another. One of them reaches out to a comrade who might be jumping to his death, and that comrade just ignores him? These weren’t the people he used to know.

  “Radio check,” Han said through the speaker at Quinn’s ear.

  “Check,” he replied. The other three followed suit, though Elliot sounded somewhat distracted. Quinn checked the display on his visor—the Raft had been visible for fifteen seconds now.

  “All right, then.” Han dropped into a crouch, her arms stretched out behind her. “Let’s do this.”

  She leapt forward and dropped like a stone into the blue depths of the sky. Quinn took a deep breath and did the same, adopting a similar position. The sound of his own breathing filled his ears as the cloud bank below began to rush toward him at an astounding speed.

  It’s only 120 miles per hour, his brain informed him. Terminal velocity, the maximum speed an object can fall in Earth’s atmosphere. He wondered briefly why the word “terminal” had to be part of the name.

  “Status,” he said into his microphone.

  “YaHOOO!” Ulysses bleated over the speaker, causing Quinn to wince.

  “Outstanding,” said Han.

  “Ditto,” said Bishop. “I mean, if you don’t count the load of shit in my pants.”

  Quinn waited for a few beats. “Elliot?”

  “What?”

  “Everything okay?”

  “Uh, yeah, sure. Oorah.”

  Quinn checked his visor display: they had another hundred and eighty seconds until they reached their target over Gorky Park and the spot where they had to shift to a standing attitude. It didn’t occur to him then just how much could potentially happen in a hundred and eighty seconds, but he would have occasion to think about it very soon.

  The winds were virtually non-existent, which meant they wouldn’t have to worry much about course correction on the way down.

  “Formation,” said Han.

  The others fell into a grouping around her, so that they were all within arm’s length of each other. Even Ulysses seemed to have gotten the hang of things.

  “That was easier’n ah thought it’d be,” he said. “This freefall shit’s kinda fun.”

  “Like the old saying goes,” said Bishop, “it’s not the fall that gets you, it’s the sudden stop at the end.”

  “Same old Bishop,” Han muttered. “Unfortunately.”

  Hopefully these wonderboots take care of the sudden stop, Quinn thought somberly. Otherwise this mission will be over before it even begins.

  His thoughts didn’t linger on the boots for long, however, as his full attention was soon taken up by three heavily armed, jet-powered drone ships that were currently slicing through the clouds below and heading straight for their position in a screaming power climb.

  “Shit!” Han cried. “They’re headed straight for us!”

  Quinn’s mind raced: the drones must have already been in the area when their alarms went off after the Raft decloaked. It was sheer dumb luck—Jarhead luck, he thought absently—that their group just happened to be positioned between the drones and the spot where the Raft had appeared.

  “Tighten formation!” he barked. “Stay together!”

  The five of them drifted closer to each other, to the point where Quinn could touch all of his companions with either an arm or a foot. His heart had begun to gallop in his chest when he first spotted the airships, but it was racing at full clip right now as the drones, and their weapons, became clearer. They were sleek and spear-like, with wings set almost at the rear, like the old Lockheed Blackbirds he had seen in history books. Each nose was armed with a rotary electric cannon on either side, which likely fired plasma-charged projectiles.

  Precious seconds ticked by as he tried to calculate the drones’ trajectory. If they moved to their right, they might just have enough time to get out of the way.

  “Bank!” he called, tilting his head and his body weight to the right, and the others followed him, clutching at him to keep formation. It was a gamble—by moving, they risked setting off the drone’s sensors—but he needn’t have worried. Han was right about them ignoring organic tissue, even if eight hundred pounds of it was dropping from the sky right in front of them.

  Banking had allowed them to get out of the path of the drones, which seemed to be climbing at almost a ninety-degree angle. Quinn estimated they were now a good fifty meters from the noses of the jets as they roared into the spot where the drop team had been just a few moments earlier.

  “We did it!” Elliot hooted as the drones climbed past and were instantly above them.

  Quinn felt a wave of relief and allowed himself a moment to ponder how incredible it had been that the whole thing had happened in the space of less than ten seconds. Time really did speed up when your life was on the line.

  Then the backwash hit them and everything went to hell.

  12

  The entire Earth began to spin around Quinn in 360 degrees as the heavy thrust of the drones’ engines tossed him and his companions as easily as a ball of tissue paper in a hurricane.

  “Close your eyes and keep equilibrium!” he ordered, trying to use sheer force of will to halt the bile from rising in his throat. “If we puke in our helmets, we’re dead!”

  “Goddamn!” Ulysses hollered. “Ah didn’t sign up fer this shit!”

  He was clutching two of his companions, though he didn’t know which as the centrifugal force spun them in the maelstrom, but the two holding onto his legs earlier were no longer there. The fact barely had time to register before he felt the impact of something hard and heavy against the side of his helmet, knocking his head painfully to the side at an angle his neck wasn’t designed to handle. Luckily, he still had the presence of mind to realize whatever had hit him was likely attached to one of his missing companions, and he reached out to grab
it. As it turned out, it was a boot, attached to a leg.

  “Sorry about that, Lee!” Bishop called.

  “We’re one short!” said Quinn. The speed of their spinning had begun to slow to the point where he could almost get his bearings. “Who’s loose?”

  “I am!” Elliot cried.

  Quinn looked to his left and saw Han, who was looking in the same direction. Elliot was about twenty meters away, still spinning but in a flat starfish position that would help him right himself. His experience was on full display, and Quinn was immediately grateful for it.

  “Regroup!” yelled Han. “We have to get back into formation!”

  Precious seconds ticked by as Quinn’s group and Elliot managed to stop their rotation. Elliot finally made it into position to bank toward them; Han responded by reaching out and snatching his hand to pull him into the cluster as soon as he was within range.

  Quinn checked his visor display as he felt the imminent threat of vomit finally subside. The whole thing had taken less than thirty seconds. They still had two minutes of falling to go.

  “Holy shit,” Han breathed into her microphone. “This is amazing.”

  “Welcome t’our world, lady,” said Ulysses.

  “No, I mean the display shows we’re still on track for Gorky Park! I thought for sure we were going to get blown so far off course we’d end up landing in the middle of a crowd.”

  Quinn heaved a sigh. Thank heaven for small favors. A few seconds later, his visor was showing a series of readouts that meant they had entered the sensor grid around Moscow. The clock said they would have to shift their attitude to feet-first in another sixty seconds.

  “Oh shit,” Bishop muttered. The alarm in his voice sent a stab of adrenaline into Quinn’s belly.

  “What’s the matter?”

  “My boot; the light on the side is supposed to be green, right?”

  So much for small favors. “And yours isn’t?”

  “The right one is flashing red.”

  “Wait, whassat mean?” asked Ulysses.

  “Shit!” Han cried. “It means the inertial dampener unit is damaged!”

  “It must have happened when it hit your helmet,” Bishop said, his voice low. “Son of a bitch.”

  Quinn felt his pulse in his ears as he glanced at his display again. Forty seconds until they changed position, then another twenty to impact.

  “Options!” he barked.

  “I try to land on one boot and the rest of you don’t worry about me,” said Bishop. “That’s the only option I can see.”

  “Fuck that,” said Ulysses. “Jes hop on m’back, Stretch. Y’all can piggyback on me.”

  “That’s not how this works!” Han snapped. “The dampeners are rated for specific weights! That’s why Maggott couldn’t jump—the boots are only good for fifty kilos per unit! One boot can’t disperse his full weight!”

  “And my weight added to yours will just kill us both,” Bishop sighed. “I appreciate the offer, though, man.”

  “That sounds like giving up!” Quinn yelled. “I don’t recall listing that as an option, so we fucking well come up with another one!”

  “It’s possible that two of us could do it,” said Elliot. It startled Quinn, as the man had barely spoken in the entire time they’d been together. But he also had the most knowledge about what they were doing, so Quinn was grateful for the interruption.

  “If we could position one of us on either side, the one in the middle might survive with one boot,” Elliot continued. “It’d knock the hell out of all three, but there’s a possibility they’d all live.”

  “Forget it!” said Han. “The risk is too high! We could lose all three!”

  “Whut if we tossed ‘im up at the last second?” asked Ulysses. “Like that jumpin’ in a fallin’ elevator thing!”

  “That’s a myth,” said Elliot. “The net downward momentum is still more than enough to be deadly.”

  Quinn checked his display: thirty seconds to go. All his battle-honed instincts were telling him to cut their losses, but his heart was telling him that he hadn’t come this far with Geordie Bishop to give up on him. That wasn’t the Marine way.

  “We try it,” he said. “Ulysses, you and I take Geordie’s flank.”

  “No way!” Han cried. “You’re not doing this!”

  “I’m in command here!” Quinn growled. “Do not countermand me again, is that clear?”

  Han was silent as Quinn saw the visor display hit twenty seconds.

  “Get into position between us—” he began, but was immediately interrupted.

  “What the hell?” Bishop shouted. “What are you doing?”

  “Report!” Quinn barked. He couldn’t afford to turn around to see what was happening.

  “Elliot’s out of formation!” said Bishop. “What are you doing with—hey, let go of my boot!”

  “Sit still!” Elliot grunted.

  Quinn’s mind raced, trying to keep track of the fall and figure out what the hell was happening behind him.

  “Report!” he yelled again. “Elliot, you better have a fucking good reason—”

  “I swapped my own dampener pack for the damaged one! Bishop is at full capacity again!”

  “What?” Han’s voice sounded on the verge of panic. “Elliot, are you insane?”

  “No, Marcie,” said Elliot. “I’m thinking clearly for the first time in a long time. You should try it.”

  Quinn didn’t have time to wonder what the hell that meant: the display read fifteen seconds.

  “You just swapped one problem for another,” he said. “Now you have to get between me and Ulysses.”

  “Sir, I don’t think—”

  “Follow my orders, Marine!” The flash of anger helped clarify Quinn’s thoughts. No man left behind, no matter who it was.

  Elliot responded by grabbing Quinn’s leg and pulling himself forward. At the same time, Ulysses let go of him and clutched Elliot’s shoulder. Bishop and Han broke formation to give the three some space to maneuver, until they had their arms around each other like a trio of drunk friends after a night at the bar.

  “Ten seconds to feet-first!” Quinn called.

  “There some special way t’do this?” asked Ulysses. “I mean, with three of us now?”

  “Bring your knees up to your chest,” said Elliot. “Once the boot soles are facing downward, they’ll start to work automatically. That should slow our descent enough to keep us vertical. Just do it slow and easy, you’ll be fine.”

  “Let’s do this!” Han yelled as the display showed the clock hit zero.

  Quinn, Ulysses and Elliot moved as one, and Quinn could feel the change as soon as his knees were up. The sudden activation of the dampeners almost forced him to overcompensate and start somersaulting backward, but the weight of Elliot’s body on his left helped to keep him stable. Three seconds later, they were dropping in proper formation. A glance in front of him confirmed that Han and Bishop had pulled it off, too.

  Below them, the Towers of Moscow gleamed with golden light through the thick back of yellow fog that blanketed the city. Quinn could make out the river and the sandy scrub of Gorky Park now, even without the expanding red circle on his visor display.

  “Fifteen seconds to touchdown,” Han said in a wavering voice.

  Quinn inhaled sharply. The rest of the next quarter-minute was out of his hands; all he could do was prepare for impact and hope.

  “Whut’re yuh doin,’ man?”

  Quinn felt it at the same moment as Ulysses: Elliot had lifted his arms from their shoulders and crossed them over his chest.

  “Elliot!” His heart gave a hard thump. “Get back in formation!”

  “It won’t work,” Elliot said, his voice calm despite the situation. “You two will be crippled.”

  “That’s not your call, Marine!” Quinn felt panic rising in his chest.

  “Elliot!” Han said in a strangely warning tone. “Don’t—”

  The ground of Gorky
Park was rushing toward them at tremendous speed, the size doubling by the second. There were no structures left in the space, just worn-out scrub and the milky gray of the Moscow River.

  Elliot turned to face Ulysses. “You risked your life for me,” he said, his voice bemused. “Someone you don’t even know. Someone who betrayed your friends.”

  “Uh, now ain’t the time, dude…”

  Elliot turned back to Quinn. “I’m sorry, sir,” Elliot whispered. “For everything.”

  “Elliot, this isn’t—”

  “Watch your six, sir.”

  Several things happened at that moment. The ground suddenly met them, going from a distant concept to a hard reality in the matter of seconds, but Quinn felt nothing in the way of impact. One moment he was plummeting, the next he was standing still. He almost fell over because he’d prepared himself to roll with the impact.

  An instant later, the world turned crimson. Everything he could see through his visor—his companions, standing uncertainly the same way he was, the river some fifty meters away, the sky, the smog—was painted red. It took Quinn a couple of seconds to realize what had happened, and when he did, he felt a slick lightning bolt of despair run through him.

  It was Elliot’s blood.

  Quinn staggered forward a couple steps, looking down at the ground next to him. What had been a human being moments earlier was now a heap of bones jutting out at impossible angles from an ill-fitting bag that used to be a jumpsuit. He had seen his fair share of men killed during the war, and even after they’d left the front, but he’d never seen anything like this.

  “Jesus, Mary n’ Joseph.” Ulysses dropped to one knee on the ground beside what used to be Elliot.

  Bishop popped his visor and it rose with a hiss. “He sacrificed himself to make sure we made it,” he breathed. “To make sure I made it.”

  Han joined them next to the body. Her face was pale, her eyes haunted. Quinn felt a sense of déjà vu, as if they were all on the front again, dealing with their war dead.