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Mairwen nodded. She respected Haberville’s piloting skills. The woman’s personal opinions didn’t matter as long as she did her job.
They each attached the stolen earwires to their mandibles, hooking the thin wire in the ear, then tested them while pocketing the spares. Mairwen gave Jerzi the range booster, figuring he’d be better able to protect it. She hoped they wouldn’t need it, but it would be a nice fallback for when, not if, things went twisty.
It only took them twenty minutes to get to the downed tree. She crossed first, just to make sure the mercs hadn’t decided to add a guard. They hadn’t, so she gave the all-clear sign.
Once beyond the fence, they could hear shouting from the direction of the installation. When they got close enough, they saw two mercs fighting. Several others were cheering them on instead of separating the combatants.
Jerzi took the opportunity to slip away toward the east to find a nest for himself. Mairwen led Luka and Haberville to one of the larger dense thickets southwest of the landing field. They shucked their packs and hid them under the foliage, along with the medical and xeno sample kits.
Mairwen subvocalized into the earwires. “Give me ten minutes to check status. Luka and Haberville, take out any singles who come your way, if you can do it quietly. Jerzi, protect us as long as you can.” Luka’s expression was focused and determined. Haberville was, thankfully, in professional pilot mode, and had no comment, though her cough was back.
She hoped to hell Luka would be all right, because there was nothing she could do about it if he wasn’t. She’d never been on a mission with a team, let alone with people she cared about.
She used the vigorous undergrowth for camouflage as she eased around the airfield toward the building. She listened closely as she circled the light-drive ship that took up about half the field, but heard nothing, not even near the ship’s portal. She’d need to get inside to take control of it, but that would have to be done later.
Once clear of the ship, she got a better look at the mercs watching the skirmish. The fighters, a small man and tall woman, were still going strong, and the spectators now numbered eight. She had no idea why the squad’s commander was allowing the fight to continue, but she wasn’t going to let the opportunity go to waste.
She slipped into half-tracker mode and ghosted closer to the corner of the building, where she discovered the mercs had rolled one of the ship-killer guns onto the landing field and locked its anchors. She eyed it quickly, looking for the features Luka had described, but had to duck away fast when two mercs pushed the second ship-killer, with its trailing cable, out of the big equipment storage area. It was slow going because the field’s plascrete pad had cracked and buckled where vigorous rainforest plants had pushed up through it. The two mercs complained to each other about not getting any help.
It was hard to pass up the chance to disable the mercs and slag the guns with her beamer, but the likelihood of being discovered was too high, and she still needed to find the other mercs. She also decided against infiltrating the building for now, since she’d lost the cover of darkness. She subvocalized to the team what she’d seen so far. Someone snorted—Jerzi, she suspected—when she described the continued fight and its growing audience.
She eased around the northeast side of the building, peering into the small, high windows of the sleeping areas she’d discovered during her pre-dawn reconnaissance. The rooms were empty, but the beds had been slept in. She slowed as she approached the southwest corner of the building, listening to the fight. She dropped into full-tracker mode and time slowed...
The smells of the vegetation were more varied, and she detected hints of charring and harsh chemicals mixed with it. She dropped into a low crouch, then stretched into a lunge that let her peek around the corner at the area where the flitter was resting.
It may once have been intended as a shaded area, but the hard canopy had fallen apart and left pieces on the ground. The burned vegetation smell came from a blackened spot on the far side of the flitter, and the chemicals were unburned accelerant, meaning somewhere there was flame-throwing equipment. More likely in the building than on the light-drive ship or the flitter, she judged. Considering how undisciplined the squad was, it wouldn’t surprise her to learn they’d found a flamethrower in the building and had been playing with it.
The flitter was half-angled in between the canopy’s support posts. It was unattended with its side doors wide open, but they faced toward the fighters, who were only about six meters away. Mairwen studied the mercs for a few hundred milliseconds to confirm they weren’t looking her way at all, then leaped and rolled to the far side of the flitter, out of their view. She contemplated whether or not to take the unexpected opportunity to disable the flitter, knowing it to be a gamble either way.
Finally, she decided on the simple expedient of using her wrist blade to cut the control cables to the front and back airflows. It could be fixed, but it would take the mercs time to track down the problem. She chanced a peek around the back end of the flitter to see what was happening with the fight. One of the fighters had misjudged a kick and hit one of the spectators, and the group dynamics were changing.
She allowed time to speed up to half-tracker mode as she faded back to the partially charred thicket behind her and used it for cover. She told the team what she’d done as she made her way quickly to Luka and Haberville’s position.
She crouched next to Luka and subvocalized the plan she’d come up with. She hoped it would survive first contact with the enemy.
CHAPTER 19
* Planet: Insche 255C * GDAT 3237.044 *
Another shot whined by, and the projectile thudded into the dirt. Luka was pinned down behind the long side of the flitter, with shooters targeting him from both ends. Thus far, the mercs had taken care not to damage the flitter, but they might be willing to sacrifice it if they got desperate. His emotions were a roiling mass in the pit of his stomach. It was completely insane to be taking on an enemy squad of fifteen, except the alternatives were even worse.
It had started with good luck. When the fight ended, the mercs had dispersed and gone their separate ways, and he, Eve, and Mairwen had neutralized five mercs before anyone even noticed they were missing. He’d chosen the hand-held beamer with the best cohesion range, and it did the job.
Their luck continued until someone’s shout drew two people out of the light-drive ship to see what was happening, and Jerzi took them both down. The remaining mercs came alive after that and the battle was on.
The mercs were using the cover of the building to shoot from, but it had several blind spots. His small team had managed to keep any of the mercs from getting to the light-drive ship, but so far hadn’t been able to pry them out of the building. Luka felt the pressure of time, knowing the mercs would have called for reinforcements by now.
His and Eve’s task had been to keep the mercs distracted so Mairwen could disable the ship-killers. He thought she’d already gotten one. From what he’d overheard, the mercs thought there were six or seven attackers, probably because Jerzi moved between takedowns, Luka was good at anticipating movements, Eve only took guaranteed shots, and Mairwen was devastatingly fast and deadly. It kept the remaining mercs cautious and behind the building’s walls instead of boiling out to kill him, but he was still pinned.
Without the tree canopy for protection, the base was hot and getting hotter as the sun inched higher in the sky. He was sweating rivers. His beamer wasn’t recharging itself anymore. He hadn’t heard or seen Mairwen in the last ten minutes, and he couldn’t keep the worry from intruding, no matter how much he tried to subdue it.
He almost had coronary arrest when someone slid down beside him in the dirt.
“It’s me,” said Jerzi, only just avoiding Luka’s elbow to the face.
“Have you seen Mairwen?” Luka asked.
Just as Jerzi was shaking his head, he heard Mairwen’s voice through the earwire. “I lost my first wire. I’m fine.”
“How bad?” he subvocalized. Jerzi’s puzzled look said he wasn’t aware of Mairwen’s overly broad definition of the word “fine.”
There was a moment of silence. “A scrape or two,” came the answer. “You?”
“Functional,” he replied, ignoring the blood oozing from a large, long scrape on his right thigh. It had soaked his pant leg and seeped through the armor. He looked at Jerzi, who looked uninjured but was covered in dust and dirt. “Jerzi, why are you here?”
“For you,” Jerzi said, giving him a hand-beamer. He subvocalized so the team could hear. “I’m extracting Luka. Eve’ll keep them busy while we fall back to the shrubs where they can’t see.”
Mairwen gave more precise orders. “Skirt around toward the ship. Adams, set up to take anyone coming out of the building or going to the ship. Haberville, get as close to the ship as you can so we can get in fast. Luka, on my mark, slag the second ship-killer, the one closer to the flitter.”
“Will a beamer to the compulsator be good enough?” he asked.
“Yes.”
Under the cover of a flurry of weapons fire, Luka followed Jerzi as he slithered backward, aiming the hand-beamer at the window where a merc could have line of site. The window was empty.
He and Jerzi slid into the undergrowth. Somewhere along the way, Jerzi had abandoned his homemade sniper’s cloak. Luka felt vulnerable as they moved, knowing the mercs had more than enough firepower to kill them. They stopped long enough for Jerzi to retrieve his railgun and ammo bag, then worked their way toward the ship.
As they traveled, Luka made it a point to confiscate several new weapons from fallen mercs. He didn’t want to be caught without a working weapon again. He thought he saw Eve moving on the other side of the ship, but he couldn’t be sure. Jerzi found a spot he liked and waved Luka on.
Luka crept carefully toward the end of the building where the big ship-killers were. When he had a good view of the guns, the closest one looking distinctly charred, he focused on the high bay doorway and the storeroom beyond. He thought he saw at least one merc in blue behind some stacked crates, and he knew there had to be more. He was a fast runner, but not faster than weapons could shoot. Even if his armor prevented major damage, the impact of a projectile would still knock him sideways.
Jerzi’s voice came quietly in his ear. “I’ve got a clear vector on one target, north corner, second window in. Should I take the shot?”
“Not yet,” Mairwen’s voice said. “You’d have to move too soon.”
“Copy,” said Jerzi. He sounded marvelously calm.
Luka wished he could say the same. Waiting was almost more difficult than running for his life while dodging beams and bullets. His adrenalin pumped in fits and starts, and his stomach was in knots. He was heartily glad that he’d stayed in the civilian side of law enforcement and the military, because he’d have hated to do this for a living.
After what felt like hours but was probably only minutes, Mairwen’s voice came over the wire.
“Explosion coming in five seconds. Jerzi, take your shot if available. Luka, wait until I say ‘go.’ Haberville, get in the ship if you can, but don’t get hurt. We need you.”
“Copy,” said Jerzi and Eve, at the same time Luka said “Okay.”
A second later, Luka heard the high-pitched whine of a projectile and breaking glass. He doubted the unlucky merc’s body even had a chance to fall before a huge fireball of an ear-ringing boom shattered the silence. The northeast end of the building erupted in flames.
Inside the storage area, he saw a flash of movement as someone in blue ran toward the explosion. A high-pitched whine and a collapsing body said Jerzi had seen the runner, too. Another merc hulked out of the shadows holding a larger weapon, aiming toward the area where Luka had last seen Jerzi.
“Jerzi, move. Heatseeker pointed at you,” he said.
“Already gone,” said Jerzi.
Luka remembered that heatseekers were more useful in urban settings. Hot, humid climates threw off their targeting, but it would only take one hit to ruin Jerzi’s whole day. Luka was tempted to shoot the merc aiming the heatseeker, but if he missed because of the bad angle, he’d give away his own position. The merc, watching the display, started swinging the muzzle in wider sweeps, trying to get a lock on a target. Luka flattened himself on the ground even more and angled his body away to make himself less detectible. He hid his beamer underneath him, to mask its heat signature. He hoped Eve was doing the same.
The merc stepped toward the open doorway and froze. “You’re mine, chingado,” he said loud enough that Luka could hear. The merc took another step, but instead of firing, he sank to his knees, dropping the weapon, then collapsed. Luka thought he caught a glimpse of blood at the man’s throat.
Silence prevailed.
Luka had lost count of the remaining mercs. He didn’t see any in the storage area, but maybe smarter ones were hiding in the shadows.
In his ear, Mairwen said, “Luka, go.”
He rose to his feet and half-ran to the gun, willfully ignoring how incredibly vulnerable he felt to anyone who might be in the open bay of the storage area. He pulled out one of the large hand beamers he’d acquired. He tried to visualize the specs in his head to locate the power unit so he could fry it.
Suddenly he heard the rapidly rising whine of a flitter in emergency lift mode. The flitter only got about a meter off the ground before it started listing badly to the far side. A wide-array plasma beam from the flitter cut through the awning support pillar and scored a path through the undergrowth and onto the airfield pad, then up toward the sky before cutting off. The flitter’s front end swung around, and he got a glimpse of a snarling woman in merc uniform in the pilot bay. Luka knew she’d seen him. The wide-array beam stabbed out, but suddenly the flitter bucked out of control, and its beam went wide and seared the armored hull of the light-drive ship.
Luka couldn’t let the flitter destroy their only hope for getting off the planet. Dropping the beamer, he unlocked the ship-killer’s gimbal and free-aimed the barrel toward the flitter, then pushed the firepin. Nothing happened. The whine of tortured flitter airfoils assaulted his ears. Luka frantically looked for the problem and found a safety release. He aimed and pushed the firepin. The kickback knocked him on his ass, but the ship-killer round shot straight through the flitter, leaving a gaping hole.
Unfortunately, the flitter was still airborne, though sagging toward the back. The wide-array beam sheared off the tops of some trees.
Luka scrambled frantically for the manual feed mechanism to load another round, then re-aimed for the cockpit and fired again, bracing himself this time so he stayed upright. The round pierced the front and spun the flitter around like a wobbling top. The wide-array beam sliced up into the sky and then down into the building as the flitter broke apart and the pieces tumbled into the clearing and nearby undergrowth.
Luka bent to pick up the dropped hand-beamer. Suddenly he saw a flash, followed by an earsplitting whump, and the shockwave of a massive explosion slammed into him, knocking him off his feet and onto his left shoulder. Dust and burning debris stung his exposed skin as he curled into a protective ball.
He’d have liked to stay there until everything quieted down, but Mairwen was counting on him to slag the ship-killer. Telling the eye-watering pain in his shoulder to get in line behind the screaming pain in his thigh, he crawled back to the big gun, found the hand-beamer, and used it to thoroughly destroy the target controls of the big gun. Even if he hadn’t gotten its power, the ship-killer would now be useless.
As the dust cleared, Luka saw that the whole north end of the building was obliterated, with only rubble remaining at the base. Whatever they’d stored in that part of the building had gone off like a supernova.
The only sound came from the ringing in his ears. He knew he needed to crawl to safety, but he didn’t know where that would be.
From far away, he heard someone calling his name. He looked around, then realized the voic
e was coming from the earwire still attached to his jaw. He tried to speak, but inhaled a cloud of dust and had to cough it out first. Finally he was able to croak, “This is Luka. I’m okay, but I can’t hear sjitt.”
Jerzi’s voice was loud enough to hear this time. “Same here. Eve’s in the ship, I think. Have you seen Mairwen?”
“No,” said Luka, as a new surge of adrenalin spiked through him. He needed to find her. He pulled himself to his feet and limped to what was left of the storage bay, hand-beamer at the ready. Inside, he found the body of the merc who’d had the heatseeker, with a knife impaled in his throat. Luka saw it was one of Mairwen’s and pulled it out. He used the merc’s uniform to wipe the blood off, then slid the blade in the back of his belt.
He stumbled through the rubble and found more bodies and another of Mairwen’s knives, but not her. The walls had collapsed, so to go further, he had to leave the building and approach it from the outside. He found what was left of two other bloody bodies, but they were wearing merc uniforms.
He was blackly amused that his wild reconstruction talent was meekly silent in a war zone, and planned to tell Mairwen about it. If she was still alive.
CHAPTER 20
* Planet: Insche 255C * GDAT 3237.044 *
Mairwen awoke in hot, humid, pitch-black darkness. Pain seeped into her awareness, but it meant she was alive, so she took it as a good sign. She was able to ignore most of the pain except for her head, which ached abominably. She was lying on her side, knees bent, and felt pressure above her shoulder and hip.
She cautiously opened her senses. Her hearing was impaired by multi-threaded high-pitched tones that signified temporary damage. At least she hoped it was temporary. As much as she’d once resented the senses that made her irreversibly different, she’d grown to embrace them if it meant keeping herself and Luka alive. She’d like to continue doing that in the future, assuming they had a future.