Future Unleashed

by Daniel Pierce

  “I have sixteen hippos in full armor, along with sixty Konnodar. All carry the gun mounts and, if not the newest weapons, then an automatic big bore at minimum. All animals are healthy, but untested in battle with guns—with swords, yes, they’ve fought that way, but this will be new to them, as well as their riders. They stand ready at the rally point just north of here, in good order,” Tegan said. Her report was crisp and professional, and I gave her a thankful smile.

  “So we’ve got the heavies going in. What about foot? Armor?” I asked.

  Yulin spoke up from the shadows. “Ten trucks with gun mounts, and ten smaller vehicles. We can’t spare the buses, and they wouldn’t get far anyway. We also have eighty Daymares in that column alone; my sister can tell you the strength of her platoons better than I.”

  “General?” I asked Aristine.

  “I have forty hardened Daymares and fifty more ready to fight with goggles. They’re not fully acclimatized to full sun, so if the fight goes past noon, their effectiveness will drop like a stone, but as to their quality, there is none better,” Aristine said.

  “Andi? What about air?” I asked. Andi was swiping a tablet, nodding to herself. When she looked up, I could tell she was nervous. She was a hardass, but she was also an engineer, and numbers meant something to her.

  “I’ll have both Vampires in the air, three Condors, and one fire-and-forget model I cobbled together in case you want to perform a hit,” Andi said.

  “A hit?” I asked.

  “A fatal attack by the unmanned drone. I’ve got a nose cone with three pounds of explosives, and the drone can reach speeds of two hundred knots. You give me a location—even below ground—and I can rattle it hard, if not blow it to pieces. All I need are coordinates. Or a tightbeam. Either one,” Andi said.

  I let that sink in for a good long while, then smiled. “That might come in handy, now that you mention it. With our people here, we have three hundred combat ready and all the tech support we can hope for. What about Valor?”

  In answer, a wolf cut loose with a blood-curdling howl, just outside the city.

  “She told you she would wait outside. Didn’t think her pretties would play well in a big group at night,” Yulin said, smiling with dark glee.

  “I’ll be sure to thank her, then. Okay, commanders with me. I’ll show you the plan up close, and then we march out two hours before dawn. We’ll arrive at Kassos in the night, and we attack without hesitation thirty minutes before sunup. I want them shitting in their beds when the first spray of darts hits from the Condors. Dismissed,” I said, and the group began to filter away in small groups, talking in low, urgent tones.

  Then it was just my core of trusted people, and I had to give orders that were going to result in bloodshed or worse. I knew we might lose, even with our planning, and armor, and air support, and all of the technology my world had created in the name of warfare. We were attacking the Procs and their defenders in their own home, and that meant they could fall back and bleed us white if necessary—an option I couldn’t allow. I needed a victory that was fast, vicious, and decisive, yet one that saved the city from complete destruction. Ashes were hard to build on, and for the survivors, even harder to forgive those who had made them in the name of peace.

  “Complex plans don’t have a place here, so we’re going to use our strengths against their weaknesses. Follow me here,” I said, tapping a map on the table next to the firepit. Someone turned on a streetlight, and the column of gold light shone down on the map from above. “Aristine, you leave two hours sooner and sweep west. Your people will wait until we engage on the eastern gates, and then you’ll crack them like an egg. I want all the air support to concentrate fire here, here, and here—the rings of defense we saw from our sat data. I make these troops as levies or conscripts, and little more than guard posts. When you get to the walls, the fighting will really begin. Our cavalry will advance to contact at the gates, but not directly. We don’t want their guns trained on our beasts without giving them a challenge, and the short period of darkness will give you time enough to cover the open ground between the scrub lands and the gates,” I said.

  “What about traps? Trenches?” Yulin asked.

  “We have them marked. They show up like flares under the right Condor scans, and we’ve got them pegged as recently as this morning,” I said.

  “Snipers?” Neve asked.

  “Marked as well. They’ve got shooting hides on the wall, but there are angles if you can get far enough south,” I said.

  “I will,” Neve said simply. I believed her.

  “What about the north and south walls? Are we not going in there?” Yulin asked.

  “We are, but you’re not. I have plans for them, and Aristine’s people will be heavily engaged even if they flood the eastern wall with soldiers. Remember, these are people who think they’re fighting for the right to eternal life, and nothing short of a killshot will stop them from doing everything they can to repulse our attack once they understand who we are and what we want. Any questions?” I asked.

  There were several—some born of nerves, some good, some trivial, but I answered them all until there was only me, Silk, and the stars once again, the street light turned off by a sleepy Natif, who had wandered out to ask if we were ever going to stop talking.

  “You’ve done all you can for now,” Silk said, peering up at the sparkle of stars. The moon had gone down, and the night was alarmingly dark, even for the Empty.

  “Nothing will hold together after the first rounds are fired. That’s the way things go. You plan, and position, and then things go to hell because—well, it’s war. The only thing I can hope for is to protect our people and not turn Kassos into a raging inferno, and I have to do it while trying to win. It’s like fighting with one hand tied behind my back, but I don’t see any better options,” I said.

  “What if you just . . . let Kassos go?”

  “As in leave them be? Can’t do that, because our borders will touch soon enough. What the Procs are doing is—well, it has to end. I can’t allow it to go on another day. I swore I would stop the ogres from being used as slaves, and the same goes for actual humans. I won’t let them be stripped of their dignity, their flesh . . . their lives, and all so a handful of fossils can continue to live like kings, holding science and butchery over the land like a shadow,” I said.

  “If you’re in, then I’m in. We all are,” Silk said.

  “I’m glad. I couldn’t do this without you, and this is just the beginning.”

  “I know. I’ll be with the medevac at the eastern rear. If you need me, find me, and even if you don’t, find me. It’s going to be a long day,” Silk said, and she already sounded tired.

  “The longest. But not for us. For them.”

  22

  Even in the dark of night, dust clouds drifted up, occluding the band of the Milky Way sprawling lazily overhead. We were hundreds strong in fighters and beasts, with some of the most advanced tech that still existed on the planet, and I still felt a pang of nerves that wouldn’t go away until victory was in hand.

  “You all know what to do, and you know that your blood means more to me than my own. I’d open a vein for any one of you, and I’m honored that you’re here. Do your jobs, listen to your commanders, and under no circumstances do you let a Proc escape the city. Spare who you can, and save the innocents. This is our first step as a nation. Let’s make it worth everything we’re putting on the line. That’s all. See you in the city walls,” I said.

  There was a quiet chorus of agreement, peppered with the odd shout, and then teams began leaving in the darkness. To my left, the Konnodar and hippos thundered away, their bulk shaking the ground until they were hundreds of meters to the west and still going strong. Overhead, I heard the telltale rush of Vampire wings, followed by a low hum as the Condors followed suit, their small forms almost invisible against the starry sky.

  “Jack,” my comm whispered. It was Aristine.

  “Go ahead.
”

  “I’m in. Got an entry point just inside the walls, but there’s a problem. We’ve run into the only decently engineered structures in the known world, and it’s going to take time to break through,” she said. “I think it’s Memrock, or something like it based on your description.”

  I cursed inwardly. The one thing that could resist our assault, and it had somehow been found in the city we needed to crack like a nut. “We’re just now on the move,” I said, adjusting my steering wheel. I drove a four-wheeler by myself, surrounded by two trucks with Daymares and enough weapons to take a small nation. I was using the trio of vehicles as my mobile command post—at least until I reached Kassos. Then, my plans would kick into high gear as the final components came together in what would be a crushing victory or the end of my command.

  “I’ll ping the map. How soon until the Condors hit?” Aristine asked.

  “Hours, but you’ll know. Andi will send out a channel-wide command when the drones go in. I’m not risking the Vampires until we’ve softened them up, and once the element of surprise is gone, the real fight starts,” I said.

  “I’ll listen for it and go on her call, but not for a few minutes. I want their combat runs draining away guards on this side of the city. I had no idea they would be this active at night, but we’re seeing plenty of people on the walls. Think they knew we were coming?” Aristine asked.

  “Maybe. The Procs are slippery bastards, and we put ours on lockdown, but that doesn’t mean they didn’t have a tripwire set up in case one of the drills was compromised,” I growled. I didn’t suspect my own people, but I knew the Procs hadn’t survived for two thousand years without having bolt holes, escape routes, and a well-developed comm network. Hell, they were the comm network north of us, and they’d been operating in the shadows for so long nothing would surprise me.

  “Agreed. They’re as old as we are, or older. Not for long, though,” Aristine said.

  “That’s the spirit. Keep your head down, General. I need you and Yulin and every last one of your people. If it gets too hot, let me know. We’ll pound them with drones if we have to and go to a siege. I won’t lose you, understood?”

  “The same to you, Jack. You’re going to be in the thick of it, but remember—it’s a big city. Don’t get caught in the middle,” Aristine said.

  “Thanks. I’ll kick hell out of the sides, then,” I said, earning a laugh from her that broke our tension. “I’ll be in touch. Out.”

  “Out.” Aristine cut the link, and I looked at my tablet, seeing that we were making excellent time. The cavalry had broken north, sweeping away in the darkness as we continued toward the southern gates. I squinted into the night and saw a Vampire’s outline as it swept past, the Daymare underneath it a blur.

  “Thirty klicks, Jack,” came a voice from close by. I looked and saw Breslin waving from a truck next to us that matched our speed. “Time to split?”

  “Go. Good hunting,” I said, watching his face fade into the night. I cut the wheel, following the glowing line on my tablet as the klicks rolled away under the tires. It was good country—only the west was a hard approach, given the land, but we worked around that—and soon, I was close enough to Kassos that I began to see city lights and worn paths across the desert.

  Traders had carved routes out of the Empty, but I didn’t follow them. When I got three klicks out, I slowed, waiting for my team to follow as we all came to a stop just below a twisted copse of desert scrub and oaks, the foliage just thick enough to act as a screen. I dismounted and waved everyone over. There were ten of us in all—nine Daymares and me, armed to the teeth and entering the outskirts of Kassos in absolute silence. We’d gone a hundred meters when the first Condor opened up to the east, and even at our distance, the show was horrifying.

  The Condor swept in at speed, darts barking from its gun as it arced along the outer ditches, spraying high-velocity death with mechanical precision. In seconds, I was glad I’d sent the unmanned craft in first, because a bright light spiraled up from the ground, impacting the Condor and turning it into an incandescent point of chaos that faded as it streaked to the ground, shattered.

  “They’ve got AA,” came a voice over the comms. It sounded like one of the Vampire pilots, but his voice was calm, even a little bored.

  “Keep sending drones,” I said, cutting in before anyone thought to bring the bigger guns to bear. Let the drones take the heat.

  “Will do,” came Andi’s voice. “Drones two and three on opposing passes. Plan on losing them, so they’re going low and slow for maximum hurt.”

  She wasn’t lying. The Condors crawled across the sky, burping darts that hissed down like the hand of God, chewing through everything they touched. I heard faint screams among the small-arms fire that drifted up toward the Condor, but the shooters were too late even though the drone was just above stall speed. With the sunrise coming closer, that would change, but for now we held the night—and the advantage.

  The first drone made it across the entire pass unscathed, raining death on people who had done nothing except choose the wrong side. No matter. I felt the rage of combat building in my blood like a ghost as my boots carried me forward, ‘bots singing, urging, calling to me to run until I smashed into Kassos like a storm.

  But I held back, if only for a moment. The Daymares fanned out on either side of me at ten-meter intervals, and then when we took no fire, fifteen. Their weapons were up, eyes forward as we crept ever closer to the lumpy shape of a defensive berm intended to keep danger out of the Proc’s prize laboratory.

  But dirt wasn’t enough. It would take steel or something worse to keep me from finding every Proc and sending them on to the darkness. The second drone’s pass began just then, but it was taken out almost immediately by another rocket, carving one wing from the drone to send it spinning into the city wall where it exploded with a muffled whump. As the wreck slid to the ground, a staccato of pops filled the air as ammo cooked off like fireworks, but a rifle cracked ahead of me and then it was time to fight.

  I tapped my comm. “Aristine, go.”

  “Go it.” Her reply was immediate, and then I was running, leaping over the berm to land between a pair of guards who were surprised but ready to fight. That was their mistake, as I blew the left guard’s head off with a shotgun round, then followed on to ram my shoulder into the second. He grunted in pain as bones broke, and I stomped down on his skull, saving my weapons for legitimate threats. The Daymares were firing in short, controlled bursts, each shot causing a grunt or scream as we advanced through the defenses toward the southern gates. In less than a minute, we were into the second concentric ring, where the pits and snipers and traps were positioned as the next line of defense.

  A Daymare howled in pain as he went down, but there was no shot or explosion. “What was it?” I barked, waiting for an answer.

  “Mine. Blades. Didn’t see it on scan. Some kind of—fuck, it’s—” his voice stopped in midsentence, replaced by a wet cough.

  I tapped my comm. “Be advised, non-metallic mines. Some kind of blade traps.”

  “Got it,” came the voice of a Daymare, who then began squawking channel wide. The south gates were seventy meters away, looming up with the first gray of pre-dawn casting shadows along their smooth bulk. At this range, I knew it was the gates or nothing, as the walls themselves were seven meters high.

  “Gonna need a key,” I shouted, and one of my team shouted back in agreement, breaking off to form a three-person strike package that would demo the gate once we were close enough. All at once, the shooters on the wall opened up. “They know we’re here,” I said, and I was answered with a chorus of curses and growls.

  The Daymares were angry, and that was bad news for anyone sending rounds downrange at them, regardless of their position. A sniper fell screaming from the left gate house, his cry cut short by a thump as his skull met the earth. I was less than twenty meters from the gate, and the shooter’s angle was gone for anyone defending the wall.<
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  My comm lit up in a voice I didn’t expect—Tegan. “Meeting the first lines, Jack. The Konnodar and hippos have reached the inner circle, and we’re—” Her voice dissolved in a hail of static, then came back, pitched higher and louder. “They’re firing on us with rockets, but we’re making it through the pits.” A bellow of animal rage filled the comm channel, followed by a shriek of human pain.

  “Tegan?” I said, firing up with my shotgun at the right gatehouse. I had no chance of a kill, but I needed a moment to clarify our situation on the eastern wall.

  “I’m here. We’re losing people, and their rockets are punching through our armor,” she said.

  “Retreat and wait for drone cover,” I ordered.

  “Can’t do that. There are soldiers behind us now, they must have come from a hidden trench. It’s forward or nothing, Jack.”

  I ground my teeth in frustration. “Go on then. For god’s sake, mass your fire on the gates. Don’t let them split you.”

  “I will. We will,” she said, and then she was gone.

  A Vampire broke loose with a cannon run, splitting the eastern guard shacks into kindling. It swept away into the growing dawn, replaced by another crossing from the opposite way. That one banked hard, and a series of small black discs separated from its underside to collide with the massive wooden gates. They exploded into searing white fire, sending an afterimage across my retinas that took some seconds to fade. They were using phosphorous to burn the gates down. I only hoped it wouldn’t be too hot for the cavalry to get through, since the animals had on armor that would make them susceptible to heat.

  A head pooped up over the gate, and promptly bloomed into a red mist as one of the Daymares put a round through the woman’s eye. She tumbled back in silence, and then I was staring up at the massive doors, split logs and steel bands looming overhead like I was standing outside an ancient ruin filled with secrets.

  There were seven Daymares with me, and no time to ask where the others had fallen. I had support troops and medical three klicks back, and I sent a quick message to Beba’s people that she should send her people forward with all haste. She sent a terse reply and clicked off, already dealing with the wounded. I knew she too was in for a long, hard day, and I resolved to spare her as much work as I could.