by David Ryker
“Uh, yes,” I growled. “That’d be handy — it’s not like I’ve ever shot grenades at a goddamn plane before.”
“It appears active targeting is unavailable. Our antennae and auxiliary feed cameras were damaged during reentry.”
“What the hell does that mean?” I started strafing, remembering my training — keep moving, don’t stay still. The F-Series was packed with four-inch steel plating, but a tracer round or rail pulse would rip through it like cotton wool. It was only designed to deflect incoming projectile fire, glancing blows from small caliber arms, and to protect from blast damage. The House Cat was, for all intents and purposes, cannon fodder, designed to be marched in en masse and overwhelm the enemy forces with sheer brute force. The Federation weren’t going to waste good money on something they knew was just going to get ripped apart. I sighed and pushed that thought out of my mind.
Greg chimed back in. “It means that you must aim manually. I won’t be able to advise on matters of targeting, nor will I be able to track the craft as it comes in. It is likely, however, that it is circling around for an ordnance run.”
I set my jaw. “Fucking great.”
“It is not great. The odds of survival are not in our favor.”
“I was being sarcastic.”
“I was not.”
I sighed and pulled my hand out of the glove, massaging my pulsing temples. “Is there anything you can do?”
“Yes.” Greg dinged like a microwave and a small crosshairs appeared on the screen in front of me.
I sucked my cheeks. “Thanks.” As I moved my arms, each equipped with a launcher, the reticle split into two and they moved freely around the screen, giving me some idea of where I was shooting.
Not a second later, the cloud ceiling burst and the plane swept down and levelled out, coming in fast. It was sleek and wide, like a disk, with jets on either wing, and a pointed nose like a beak. Fins stuck up above and below, making it look like a flying shark zooming toward us. Something glowed on its belly and then minigun fire lit up the ground, charging us down in a line of exploding earth. I dived to the side and Greg kicked me in the ass with the thrusters. The world inverted as my heels flipped over my head and then turned the right way up again as I landed on one foot and one knee, grinding in the dirt. My head swung forward and stopped an inch or two from the screen, the harness choking me.
The plane peeled off the ground and took to the sky again. Mac raised his arms and yelled the words, “What the fuck was that?”
I ignored him, but shared the sentiment. “What the fuck was that?”
“The Federation Standard F-Series is equipped with dash-boosting. A burst of thrust to evade incoming fire,” Greg stated, his voice sounding just a little tired of having to explain everything.
“A little fucking warning would be nice!”
“If I had not engaged them, we would have been, how do you say it, toast.”
“Are you making jokes?” I pulled us back up to our feet and headed back into the field, ready for the second round.
“Would you like me to reduce my humor settings?”
“We’ll talk about it later,” I grumbled, rubbing my cricked neck. I tightened the harness as much as it would go, but I still felt loose.
“A pilot’s helmet is essential during combat, and is held via a suction vacuum to the headrest, in order to prevent neck injury. I would not recommend future engagements without one.”
I was focused on the screen in front of me. The crosshairs waved gently as I kept the grenades trained on the spot where the plane had popped out last time.
“It’s unlikely that it will strike from the same vector twice.”
“If you don’t have anything helpful to say, shut the fuck up,” I grunted at Greg. He fell quiet and reserved himself to whatever it was that AIs do when they’re not berating their pilots.
I could hear the jets rumbling somewhere above the cloud ceiling and I dragged in ragged breaths, trying to ignore my heartrate, which despite reading one thirty in my peripheral, felt like it was vibrating against my ribs. I tiled my feet into the cages and felt the thrusters push against the ground. “Alright, let’s fucking do this,” I muttered, trying to tune out the quiver in my voice. My fingers felt sweaty in the gloves, but there was no time for self-doubt now. If I let it in, it was going to get me killed. Not that I thought anyone had any confidence in me as it was.
I waited for the engine not to change as the plane swept around for its descent above, and then jammed my toes down and engaged the thrusters, leaping forward into a hard run. I needed to get close if I was going to have any chance of tagging it, and I hoped that a flat-out charge would be the last thing it would expect. I think it was the last thing anyone expected.
Mac yelled, “What the fuck are you doing?”
Greg asked, “Would you like to know the chances of success in a head-on engagement?”
The only thing that escaped my lips was a muffled, gargled noise that resembled the sound I’d heard a Gargax Hippo make once on a video I’d watched in bed while on Genesis, which seemed like a lifetime ago.
The plane popped into view, trailing cloud, and opened fire. I raised both arms, strafed right and then back left until I was right under it. The barrel of its gun swung wide and laid into the ground and I emptied my chambers into the air overhead as it flew by. The first nine and last six missed, but one, right in the middle, fizzed out of the barrel and exploded on the exposed underbelly in a shower of fire and shrapnel. The plane tilted and then spiraled, shedding half a wing and one of its tail fins. I covered my head instinctively and ground to a stop. The ground shuddered under the impact and the plane disintegrated and flipped, its nose digging into the meadow and pitting it over. Mac popped his head up from his hollow and waved at me, gesticulating in the distance. The air rippled next to me and Fish appeared, one of the long blades affixed to the forearms of his Panther protruding. He turned to look at me, and the blade retracted with a hiss, as though I’d taken down the plane a second before he was about to do the same. I sighed and gave him a thumbs up with the huge metal hand at my disposal. He didn’t return it and instead sidled casually toward Mac, who was already high-tailing it toward the plane.
I jogged to catch up and boosted past Fish, leaping the last twenty meters or so and landing in a skip next to Mac. I reached up and popped the hatch, crouching as I did. It opened with a worn-out whine and I hauled myself out. Greg had fallen silent. Maybe he didn’t like being wrong. Maybe he was calculating the odds of it.
I dropped to the ground and sprung forward next to Mac. He fired me a quick smirk, approaching the plane. “That was some fine shooting, kid.” He stuck his bottom lip out. “Though the screaming was a little much. A little dramatic, maybe.”
I shrugged, finally feeling my heart rate slow. “Eh, guess I just saw red.”
He laughed. “Maybe there is some fight in you after all. Saw red, hah — and your middle name was, what, Alfred?” He paused for a second and stared at me.
I nodded.
“What do they call you, eh? Got a nickname? You survive long enough, you gotta have a nickname. Not going to be stuck calling you James the entire fucking day.”
“Jim. My old work buddies used to call me Jim.”
He chuckled and clapped me on the shoulder. “That’s a terrible name. I think Red suits you much better.” He waggled a finger at me. “People will think it’s because your middle name is Alfred, but we’ll know better. It’s because you’ve got a hell of a temper… And because you yell like a girl.”
I opened my mouth to respond, but he was already walking. Red. Huh, I guess it could work. So long as Mac didn’t tell people the real reason. I sighed. I didn’t really have the energy to argue. “What’re you doing?” I asked after him as he approached the cockpit window, rifle raised.
“Gonna see if this fucker’s still alive.”
“And if he is?”
“Humph, then Fish and I are going to show yo
u what being in the Federation’s really like.”
Fish appeared next to me, as was seemingly his way. He’d disembarked his T-Series, too, and stood watching Mac edge toward the window. He reached slowly down to his belt and pulled out a long, curved knife. He held it up in front of his eyes and ran his finger down the blade, checking that it was as sharp as it looked. He looked at it sinisterly as Mac opened the cockpit door and jammed the rifle in the face of the pilot.
Fish almost smiled, and his gills flickered. I wasn’t sure I was liking where this was going.
He lowered the knife and walked toward Mac. I drew a hard breath, felt my heart kick up, and then followed.
18
I watched silently as Fish pushed the blade into the base of the Free pilot’s skull, and then levered it upwards, severing his spinal cord with the sort of ease and precision that only comes from practice and repetition.
My blood ran cold and I turned away, taking only slight solace in the fact that Mac had cracked him hard enough in the head with his rifle that he’d been knocked unconscious.
“So interrogations are what being in the Federation is really like?” I asked, my voice strained as I tried to keep the vomit in my stomach.
Fish pulled the blade out and cleaned it on the guy’s shoulder before putting it back into the sheath. He took no notice of my comment.
Mac sighed and came over, standing half in my face, half off, eyes hard and cold. “Dunno if you realize, kid, but this is war. We’ve been at war with the sons of bitches for centuries. Under different names on different planets. They’re not an organized force, just bands of rebels and outcasts and criminals who wave the Free colors and think that makes their cause benevolent. All you’ve got to do is paint your fucking face and raise a middle finger to the Federation and you’re one of them. They take every Federation life they can, when they can, however they can, just because. The only reason they’re taking prisoners this time is because they need something to ransom and with all the shit that was on that carrier — well, it’s something they think they can sell. Only, just like the Federation, they’ve got no intention of dealing. We call in backup, so do they. Federation come to deal, with no want to do so, and the Free don’t, either. Blood’s getting spilled either way. Either the Free take what’s brought for ransom and then execute every last Federation soldier, or the Federation destroy the entire fucking planet. So, while you’re quibbling over the life of someone who tried to tear you apart with a minigun not minutes ago, someone that would have happily watched you bleed out for their cause, you’re saying that you’d rather us not have interrogated him, despite securing information that could save thousands of Federation lives?”
I gritted my teeth. “No… it’s just… you didn’t have to execute him like that,” I sighed. “It’s a little cold-blooded, don’t you think?”
Fish perked up and narrowed his eyes at me, a low hiss escaping his lips. Mac motioned him down with his hands, eyes not leaving mine. “I think that was pretty fucking human. I told him from the start, didn’t I, that it was going to hurt if he didn’t give us what we wanted?”
I nodded, wondering how many hadn’t given them what they wanted, and how many times it had to have ‘hurt.’ I touched my fingers to my head again and felt a wave of pain surge through my skull. Why did everything have to be pain? Why blood? Why war? I broke my gaze with Mac and stared down at the crash site. How many people had felt pain for no reason? How many innocent people had died? How many people that I’d known and lived with for the last four months? Meyers, Jonas, Saxon… Everett? Were they all dead? Wounded? Captured? I felt my fists close at my sides as anger welled in me, but I wasn’t sure who I was angry at — myself, the Free, the Federation… all of them. None of them.
“And I could have,” Mac went on. “Hell, I have. It’s not my first go-round, and he could tell that. Which is why he talked. And because he obliged me, I gave him a quick and painless death, didn’t I? So I’d say he got off pretty lightly, wouldn’t you? Considering what he and his people have done to us already today, and intend to do in the next however many fucking years that’ll follow this goddamn mess.”
I swallowed. “Yes.” I couldn’t say otherwise, even if I didn’t like it — which I didn’t.
“You don’t get it yet, Red, but you will.” He half clapped me on the shoulder, half shoved me. “You’ll be pulling fingernails with the rest of us in no time at all, just you watch.”
He turned away and I watched him go to the plane to salvage what he could. I didn’t know what scared me more — the fact that Mac and Fish could so easily take the life of a defenseless person, or that I didn’t doubt in years to come, I’d be doing the same. I rammed the thought down and shook it off, approaching the open cockpit, ignoring the eyes of the dead man against the fuselage.
Mac stood up and turned to me, tossing a pistol my way. I caught it and stared down at the black slab of metal. It was cold and heavy. I swallowed. I’d never held a gun before — at least not a real one. I’d fired lots in virtual, and I’d fired them at lots of things, too. And I thought it’d be just the same. Point and click. But the idea of pulling the trigger and putting a bullet in someone seemed strange — wrong almost. Being in a mech was different. Removed. Like the simulations. I turned and stared at Greg’s charred shell. It loomed like an obelisk, heavy and steel clad — a suit of armor to protect the pilot, and shield them not only from artillery and enemy fire, but from the reality of it all, too.
I swallowed and curled my fingers around the gun, looking up as Mac offered me two more things. In his left hand was a belt and holster for the pistol. In the right was a full-face pilot’s helmet, domed and gray with camera lenses and visored sections across the front and a bulbous jawline. I looked from one to the other.
“Well?” Mac asked, jerking them at me.
I took the holster first, slotted the pistol into it and then took the helmet, staring into the dead lenses.
“It’s frankly astonishing you’ve survived this far without one of these,” he said, rapping on the helmet with his knuckles.
I tried to smile, to return his genuine one, given as an older brother might hand down an old porno mag, like he hadn’t just interrogated someone and then ordered an amphibious assassin to push a knife into a man’s brain. I put it on quickly so that I could let the smile go.
I slammed the helmet down and felt the foam squeeze around my head, seeing nothing but darkness. Mac reached over and flicked a switch behind my ear and everything burst to life in front of me. The Federation logo, a huge mech hand reaching out for a planet, burned in front of me and then faded. A message flashed up saying that there was no AI chip detected, and that I needed to insert one. The pilot must have pulled it before putting the helmet on. I doubted that a Federation AI would be very cooperative with a Free rebel at the controls of one of their ships. Mac gave me a thumbs’ up. “You hear me in there?”
I nodded. “Yeah, I hear you.”
“A pilot’s helmet is his best friend, alright? It’s not just protection, it’s the difference between life and death.” His face hardened. He was serious. I was getting a crash course in piloting, literally and metaphorically. “Get your shit together,” he said, pointing at Greg. “We move out in thirty seconds, before this smoke attracts any unwanted attention.”
I waited for him to turn away and then I slowly strapped the holster onto my thigh. My hands shook as I did. I clenched my fist to stop it, but it wouldn’t. I was hungry, tired, bloodied, and more than anything I just wanted to go home.
All I’d ever dreamed of growing up on Genesis was getting off-world. Seeing another planet. Seeing anything other than red fucking dust and rocks, and I never thought in a million lifetimes I’d miss it. That I’d be thinking about my own bed in my hab, staring up at the ceiling plastered with photographs of other planets — of mountains, and seas, and lush forests, wishing I could see them. And now that I was here, standing on grass greener than I knew it could be,
a hundred meters from forests I’d only imagined, with air cleaner than I’d ever breathed, I was craving the stale stench of Settlement Ninety-Three and the dry, choking, blinding red dust.
I sucked in a deep breath to calm my nerves and felt it whistle in through the helmet vents. The world looked shiny through the lens, distant almost. The camera produced a wider field of vision than my eyes could alone. My peripheral was wider, and the contrast pumped up to make things clearer — easier to pick out. Easier to shoot. It was almost like the simulations. Removal. Just that one step back from the real thing. Mac’s words swam in my head. The difference between life and death. Maybe it’d be the difference between me pulling the trigger first and putting someone down before they did it to me. I couldn’t say, and I didn’t like thinking about it.
On autopilot I walked up to Greg’s hunched form and climbed up and in. I slotted down into the seat and strapped myself in.
“You found a helmet,” Greg said.
“Mac gave it to me,” I muttered.
“I saw.”
“So why’d you ask?” I asked flatly.
“My core programming indicates that humans find extraneous conversation soothing.”
I stopped fiddling with the buckle and looked up. “Soothing? What am I, a baby?”
“I detect that your helmet has no AI chip installed. Would you like me to walk you through the installation process?” Greg started moving forward under his own steam, following Mac, who had already set off around the plane.
“What, so I can have you in my head as well?” I sighed. “No, I think I like the peace.”
“It is much more than that. I’ll be able to assist you with many things, including combat.” He said it like he knew that was the part of this whole thing that was getting at me.
I didn’t answer. Instead, I just pushed my hands into the gloves and slotted my feet into the cages, but didn’t take control. Greg followed in silence, trundling after Mac. I resigned myself to thinking, distinctly aware of the pistol knocking against my thigh with every passing step.