6
“Keep your head down, Miko.”
“That’s it? Not on your life am I going to let you get away with that. Come give me a hug.”
M-49 in his hand, Rev leaned forward, enveloping the much smaller Marine. Lima and Fydor stood back and patiently waited.
Rev didn’t like splitting up with her, but there was just too much for them to cover. Tomiko was going with Fydor to the market, while Rev and Lima were going to the job site. Other teams were staging around their AO. None of them knew what was going to happen, only that they were to be ready to react.
Rev hadn’t gotten involved with that, and that scared him. Amicia Lin was in charge of that effort, and he knew she was a confident, proven commodity, one who understood the web of distribution. But getting food delivered was not the same as leading people into combat.
And that is what this was. Everyone hoped for a safe evacuation, but in fifty minutes, the planet would be embroiled in a shooting war, and people were going to get killed.
“I said a hug, not a mauling,” Tomiko said, pulling back. “Time’s a-wasting.”
“See you at the market,” Rev said.
“Just make sure you do, and bring a few hundred lee . . . uh, civilians with you,” Tomiko said as she glanced at the two Tenerifians.
If they knew she’d been about to say “leeches,” they didn’t show it.
“Let’s hit it, Lima,” Rev said, and the two slipped out the back of the building.
He patted his M-49, glad to have it. He was happier with the four M-554 Morays, which had replaced the older Mantises, on his back. He’d fired one when it was still the XM-554 back at Nguyen, and he’d fired countless simulations, but this was the first time he planned to use them in combat.
He’d feel even more comfortable being with his team for this, but that just wasn’t in the cards. He had to make do with who he had with him.
“Lead on,” he told Lima.
She had selected a route that should minimize being spotted, but it was hard to miss the fact that Rev was armed. It would be harder when he stripped down to his Marine singlet, but that was still to come. It was almost a certainty that some word had slipped out, but pretty soon, everything would be evident.
Lima wasn’t armed with anything other than her ceramic knife.
I guess she’s proven herself to be pretty competent with it, he had to admit to himself.
Still, he’d have felt more comfortable taking point. The only problem with that was he didn’t know where the heck they were going.
Rats scurried among the trash that littered the narrow alleys. A one-eyed cat warily watched them pass from the top of a broken crate. A rotting stench rose up from under a large jumbled pile of what looked to be discarded, soiled blankets, and Rev was glad his sense of smell hadn’t been augmented. He didn’t stop to investigate what or who was under there.
Out in the main thoroughfares and the market, there was the façade of life going on, but this was evidence that things had broken down.
Lima turned down an even narrower alley that led to a small square, bounded by five-story tall buildings.
“Wait here,” she said, before ducking through a door.
Rev considered the entrance to the little courtyard, then the door. With a sigh, he swiveled to face the entrance, M-49 at the ready. If Lima wasn’t who she said she was, if she was going to turn him into the kapos, she’d had plenty of opportunities to do so already, starting when she slit that first kapos’ throat.
It didn’t take long. In less than a minute, the door opened again, and Lima led a thin, older man out. His back was stooped, and his face was lined with age. Rev guessed he was in his eighties, possibly his nineties.
“Corporal, this is Tanton McCough.”
“Semper fi, Corporal. Staff Sergeant McCough. Oh-seven-forty-two,” the man said, holding out his hand.
Oh-seven-forty-two. Engineer, then. At least he’s Direct Combat.
“Semper fi, uh . . . Staff Sergeant.”
Rev could feel the former Marine’s eyes examining him as if taking in his mettle, which was disconcerting. Rev was the one who should be determining if this old man was up to the task, not the other way around.
“Lima here says you need some reinforcements.”
The man’s body may be showing the effects of a hard life, but his eyes were bright, his voice sure. Eighty wasn’t end-of-life old, per se, but it wasn’t twenty.
“You been in the shit before?” Rev asked.
The man lifted his head back and laughed, the sound reverberating between the high walls surrounding him. “Me? Plastina. Taylor’s World. The Massan Rebellion. Seven ship takedowns including the Sunshine Carnival.”
Rev knew about the Sunshine Carnival, of course. A holovid had been made about the rescue of the 3,000-plus tourists from the New Order pirates. Tough battle, carried out extremely well, at least as depicted. He was vaguely aware of the Massan Rebellion. He must have been sleeping during that part of the history classes at boot camp, but yes, this former Marine had been in combat.
“Remind me to ask you about those other battles.”
<Noted. The Massan Rebellion was a particularly vicious battle.>
“OK, then,” he said, pulling one of the Morays off his back. “This is the M-554 Moray.”
McCough’s eyes lit up like a child’s at Christmas, and Rev instantly knew in his heart that the old man was the real deal. Marines loved things that go boom.
“Sweet. Old-Corps, though, by the look of it. Not some high-tech wonder-weapon.”
“It’s dual-mode. Steam-powered after launch, then active or lock-on seeking.”
“Steam?” he asked, taking the weapon from Rev and examining it with professional eyes, fingers immediately going to the trigger and the rest of the weapon.
The more Rev saw of him, the more comfortable he was getting. This Marine knew what he was doing.
“It’s to defeat the tin-asses’ jamming.”
“‘Tin-asses?’ Typical Marine name for the bastards,” McCough said with a half-laugh, half-grunt. “But steam? Like in boiling water?”
“No, some synthetic. The laser in the launch housing boils the liquid, which provides propulsion and guidance.”
“So, I need to keep the sight housing reticule on the target,” he said without Rev having to explain it.
Yeah, this guy’s a pro.
“And if something happens to me, or the Cents EMP the laser?”
“It locks on the last command and continues on the track.”
McCough nodded and brought the Moray to his shoulder.
“This is the safety, and this is the trigger. There’s a small charge to eject the missile before the laser takes over.
The former Marine brought the weapon up to his shoulder several times, sighting and mimicking following a target.
“Easy-peasy, kinda like the old Kraits we had when I was a boot. Not the steam, bit, but the sight and the feel.
“But Lima didn’t get me just so I can get an update of the Corps’ new toys. Who am I going to kill? I mean, specifically?” McCough asked.
In about thirty minutes, Marines will be landing to take back the planet.”
“About fucking time,” McCough said in excitement. “And what’s my role in all of this?”
“There’re two tin-asses at the—”
“PASCO,” McCough interrupted. “The emitter station.”
“Yeah, the emitter station. I need someone else to fire in tandem with me to take them both out before they can activate any self-defense systems.”
McCough considered that and then said, “Lots of people inside working right now. What’s your plan for them?”
“I’m not part of the invasion force, at least in an offensive measure. I’m here to help with the evacuation. There are lots of us here already, all with the same mission.”
“A NEO, then.”
This guy really is Old Corps. We haven’t called these missions Non-combatant Evacuation Operations for years. Not that it matters if he can deliver on the goods.
“And what about the Cents inside?” McCough asked.
“They’re in construction mode. No weapons. I’ve been inside with them.”
“It don’t take them but a few minutes to convert,” the former Marine said.
That was something Rev hadn’t realized, but it made sense. The chassis were the same. This was just one more obstacle in the way.
“Then we’ll just have to get the people out before that happens.”
“Uh, I hate to interrupt your little gun-porn-fest here, but maybe we need to get going?” Lima said.
“Yeah, of course,” Rev said. “Let’s go.”
“This is pretty serious stuff, in case you forgot. Lots of lives on the line.”
“Isn’t Henrik working days at PASCO?” McCough asked her.
She nodded, then opened the door and disappeared inside the building.
“Who’s Henrik?” Rev asked McCough as they started to follow.
“Her son.”
That hit Rev hard. To him, in many ways, this was just a mission. Yes, he cared about the people of the planet, but still, it was something assigned to him, a duty he had to perform for the greater good. But for Lima, for McCough, for millions of people on the planet, this was their lives. This was everything.
I swear, I’m not going to fail you.
The shop was mostly empty, a dozen racks each with a few items of clothing hanging from them. From the dust, it probably hadn’t been open since the initial invasion, but it was also a far cry from the garbage out in the alleyways he and Lima had taken to get there. The shop opened to the street Rev recognized from his trip to the emitter station. They were only a block or so away from the entrance to it. A few people were outside on the street, going about their business.
The people outside like that, along with those inside their homes, were a major concern to Rev and the rest of the Marines. Right now, people chosen by Fydor were being brought up to speed on what was happening, and their tasks were to root out and find those people and get them moving to the evacuation centers.
Rev was pretty sure that effort was going to devolve into a clusterfuck. There was just too much uncertainty. He’d already discussed this with Tomiko, and he knew his mission wasn’t going to be over once he got the PASCO civilians to the market. He’d still have thousands of people scattered throughout the two cordons—and maybe more from the adjoining ones. He’d have to tackle that the best he could.
“Hold on, Lima. We’re about a block away, right?” he asked as she started to open the front door.
“Yeah. PASCO Place is the next street over, then it’s one block to the gate.”
“Time?” he subvocalized. He had his own timer clicking down in the lower right corner of his sight, but he wanted to confirm.
<Five minutes, fourteen seconds.>
He sidled up to the front window and blinked a marker at the edge of the corner up ahead.
“Distance.”
<Eighty-three-point-four meters.>
Rev pulled up McCough and pointed to the corner. “How long will it take you to run those eighty-five meters to the corner, get into a kneeling position, and fire?”
“Don’t rightly know, Corporal. Fifteen seconds, maybe a few more for these old legs to get me there, but I need to snap in with this thing, first.”
Crap. I should have had him do that already.
“We’ve got five minutes. Go to it.”
McCough smiled, then dropped to a perfect sitting position, smoothly bringing the Moray to his shoulder. He stood and went through it again.
“Don’t you think you should get in position now? You can wait just this side of Takhsin’s Deli. That’s the red building on the corner,” Lima quietly asked him while McCough went through his paces.
“We’re more than a little obvious when we’re armed, and I’ll be more so when I shuck these clothes. Plus we don’t know if any of those people on the street are Angel shits.”
Her eyes widened, and she asked, “You’re going out there naked? Is that some sort of Marine thing?”
“What? No! Why do you . . . oh, I guess I didn’t tell you.” He pulled down his collar to reveal the top of his Marine singlet. “I’m going out in uniform.”
She seemed relieved. “OK, I’m just . . . I mean, I don’t want anything—”
“Don’t worry,” Rev said, putting a hand on her shoulder. “We’ll get Henrik out.”
“I hope so,” she whispered. “I don’t want any special consideration, though. He’s—”
“He’s your son. Of course, you’re worried. And that’s OK.
“But now that you reminded me, time for me to get out of these civvies.”
Rev dropped his pack, laid his M-49 and Morays on it, and shucked out of his shirt.
<Three minutes and ten seconds,> Punch reminded him.
Rev considered the pants for a moment before saying, “Screw it.” He took out his lance, powered it up, and slit down each leg. That was quicker than taking off his boots. He wasn’t in a real uniform, and it certainly wasn’t his PAL-5, but it felt good to be in an issue singlet, MARINES emblazoned in gold across his back, his corporal chevrons on his shoulders. He had two armbands, both with PUMC in large letters and the Crossed Rifles and Anchor—the Marines’ CRA emblem—as well. The MARINES on the back were not standard but had been added to make them stand out to the civilians.
None of them knew if that would make them stand out to the Centaurs as well, and Rev, like the rest of them, didn’t dwell on that.
“Looking good there, son,” McCough said from his firing position on the floor. “Kinda wimpy for a grunt, but still better than the mufti you were wearing. I shoulda brought my CRA to put on, too. And I still got my bush hat. I coulda worn that.”
Rev didn’t hesitate. He slipped off one of the armbands and handed it to the former Marine.
With hesitant hands, McCough took it. He stroked the CRA and the PUMC reverently for a moment, then slid the armband up to his biceps. There was a slight glistening in his eyes.
Rev could feel the moment, and it choked him up ever-so-slightly, but now wasn’t the time for maudlin sentimentality.
“How long to get into position?”
“Oh, shit. Yeah. Five seconds, max,” he said, all business again.
Rev looked back out the window at the intersection adding the time in his head. He wanted to fire just before the first wave of the Marines came out of cloaking to start their descent. He didn’t know what the mini-Centaurs had in the way of comms, and he wanted to take them out before the Centaurs would know they were under attack—if they didn’t know already.
They hadn’t shown any change in posture, at least as far as Rev and Tomiko could tell, but the Centaurs didn’t react as humans do. For all Rev knew, they had detected the Marines already and were just playing possum, luring the attacking force into a trap.
“We’re moving out in . . .” He paused to check the timer. Two minutes and four seconds until the Marines appeared in the system. So, that meant, “ . . . one-minute-and-thirty-five seconds. Let’s get ready.”
The two crowded the door, Lima right behind.
“Count me down. We leave here at twenty-five seconds.”
<One hundred eighteen, one hundred seventeen . . .>
“You know that the bigger tin-asses, like the paladins and coursers, and even the rievers, have self-defense belts around them,” Rev told McCough.
McCough tensed for a second before he relaxed again and asked, “What’s the range on those things?”
“It differs. Paladins and coursers can reach two hundred meters with an ECR of half that. That means—”
“I knew what an effective casualty radius was, son, before you were a gleam in your father’s eye.”
“Yeah, sorry. Of course, you know. The rievers, maybe a one-fifty with half that as the ECR. These mini-tin-asses? They may not have them. And if they do, I don’t know the range.”
“And how far from the corner are the Cents?”
“Could be a hundred and twenty meters or a hundred thirty.” He paused a moment.
<One hundred seven, one hundred six . . .>
“They’ll be stationary, so you can fire-and-forget. Launch and duck back under cover. The missile will just lock on.”
“How fast do these things fly?”
“It’ll take maybe two seconds to cover the ground,” Rev said.
“More than enough time for their AI-brain to get them moving.”
<Ninety-nine, ninety-eight . . .>
“But we’ve got to hold our sights on target, to make sure we zero the fuckers, right?” He added, “What are you going to do?”
<Ninety-three, ninety-two . . .>
“I’m holding lock.”
“That’s what I thought. You may not be Old Corps, but I guess you new Marines haven’t gone soft. I’m holding, too.”
“You sure? We don’t know the range on the mini-Centaurs.”
“Life sucks, and then you die. What else is new?”
It was true that they didn’t know the range of the mini-Centaurs’ self-defense systems, or if they even had them. But Punch and Pikachu had run over the known data using Comparative Analysis to come up with an estimate. It had a large probability of error, but the range of a mini-Centaur’s self-defense system was probably around 114 meters, and for an unarmored person, it would only take one hit to take them out.
Rev had to be there to run the evacuation, but the civilians were now locked in and knew what to do if he was killed, and the risk was worth taking, especially given the probability that functioning mini-Centaurs would wreak havoc upon the people fleeing the emitter site.
<Seventy-six, seventy-five . . .>
“We’ve got a little over a minute. Let’s get ready,” Rev said.
Rev could feel the adrenaline start to flow. Not enough to make him a hazard, but just a little kick. He idly wondered how much of that was in his augments. If he were his natural self, would he be scared right now or too hyped up to think clearly. He’d never know.
“Uh, Corporal. After we fire these things, then what’s next? You haven’t told me.”
Damn! Good point.
“I’ll be ready with another Moray, if needed. If not, I’ll take out any kapos in sight,” he said, patting the M-49 that was slung on his back. “Then it’s into the emitter to help guide the workers out.”
“And me?”
“You’ll have done your duty, Staff Sergeant. You head for the market to be evac’d.”
“It’s your mission, but iffen you don’t mind, there, Corporal, I think I’ll tag along. I think you can use my help.”
Rev thought about it for a moment, then nodded.
“And if you might need another shot with the Moray, then I might, too.”
McCough looked pointedly at the remaining two missiles. Once again, he had a point. Rev might be in charge, but he’d only been in the service for four years now, and as a staff sergeant, McCough had a lot more combat experience than he had.
With the mission at stake, Rev had no problem taking the older Marine’s advice. He removed one of the two extra Morays from the harness and handed it over.
<Twenty-six, twenty-five . . .>
“Twenty seconds,” Rev said.
Behind him, he could hear Lima quietly praying.
McCough raised the Moray again, then snapped it in, before lowering it. “I’m ready. Let’s kick some Cent ass.”
<Twelve, eleven . . .>
“Ten seconds.” He shifted his feet, ready to bolt.
<Three, two, one, go!>
Rev turned the doorknob, but it didn’t budge.
“What the hell?”
He tensed up his arm, ready to rip the door off its hinges, when Lima reached between the two Marines and flipped the locking lever. Two steel bars retracted from the recesses in the frame.
Stupid!
But there was no time for mental recriminations. Rev opened the door and almost ran over a very startled civilian man as he headed for the intersection. He stopped at the corner of the building to wait for the unaugmented older Marine to reach him.
“On three. One, two, THREE!”
The two moved in tandem as if they’d trained together for years. It was that muscle memory beaten into them. A couple of people shouted out, but Rev ignored them as he went to his knees two meters from the wall. He brought his sight onto the far-left Centaur and locked on. With his peripheral vision, he saw McCough sink to a sitting position and raise his Moray.
The two mini-Centaurs didn’t react. There were two kapos at the gate itself in deep conversation with three civilians. Rev hadn’t expected any workers at this time of day, but he couldn’t let them affect what he had to do.
“I’m up,” McCough told him.
“Fire!” he said as he launched the missile.
There was a slight recoil as the missile shot out of the tube, before the laser took over, powering the missile down the street. There was an almost immediate reaction from the mini-Centaurs, a slight movement that reminded him of a dog sensing a rat. One of the kapos turned around, looking confused.
Both missiles, almost even with each other, were about twenty meters from impact when one or both of the mini-Centaurs’ self-defense belts detonated, the blast rolling away from them, obliterating the five humans standing at the gate.
Rev winced as he lost contact with the missile, but the nose cones, specifically designed to withstand the shock wave and shrapnel, continued, their course locked on. An instant later, both impacted their targets . . . and shrapnel pinged around the two Marines. Luckily, most of the pieces had lost their velocity, and other than a stinging piece that struck Rev in the cheek, no damage was done.
“Back!” Rev yelled, too little, too late.
He dove for cover as Lima helped McCough up.
“Did you get them?” she asked.
Rev didn’t know. The dust had hidden their targets from sight.
He cautiously leaned his head out. Both mini-Centaurs were little more than chunks of scrap. Evidently, they didn’t have the same self-destruct that turned the larger ones into so many scattered molecules. There wasn’t much left of the five humans, at least nothing very large. Rev didn’t focus on them.
Three of them were probably just workers.
But he couldn’t dwell on that now.
“Let’s go,” he told the other two, getting to his feet.
He took off at a controlled run, his M-49 at the ready as he closed the distance to the building. He could hear the other two follow, but he didn’t waste a glance at them.
There was a large chunk of what had been part of a human and a smear of blood and organs. Rev’s feet slipped as he hit the mess, and he struggled to keep upright. He’d have gone down if McCough hadn’t caught him.
“Steady, son. Don’t look at them.”
Which was easier said than done. A fully formed arm was stuck between the bars of the open gate. In a way, that was worse than the bloody mess at his feet. It was so human.
“Hey, what the heck just happened?” a voice called as a man rushed out of the main entrance, a communicator in his hand.
Rev didn’t hesitate. The white band around the man’s arm was enough to seal his fate. With an efficient swing of his rifle, Rev swept a burst of darts across the man’s body. The kapo was dead before the body hit the ground.
Rev regained his feet and started running again, covering the forty meters in just a couple of seconds. The walls and entrance were peppered from the ground up to about three meters. The mini-Centaurs’ systems had been powerful enough to gouge out the algae-polymer siding at this range.
“Amplify!”
<Roger.>
“Union Marines. We’re here to rescue you!” he shouted as he burst through the entrance, his voice amplified by the tiny loudspeaker hooked to his collar.
Most of the people had stopped what they were doing, but the mini-Centaurs were still at work constructing the array. Several people started shouting out orders. They had to be the proctors springing to action. Two kapos started running at Rev, one with a face red and fuming in anger.
“What the hell do you think you’re doing, the woman shouted. “I’m calling—”
“Drop the communicator, or I’m dropping you,” Rev yelled, aiming right at her forehead.
His tone must have registered as rage turned into fear. She carefully dropped the communicator to the deck, raised her empty hands into the air, and froze.
“Proctor! Give me a proctor!”
A young man, face flushed with excitement, ran up. “Teddy Sorenson. You’re a Marine. They didn’t tell us, but I knew it!”
“Take these two and keep them from causing any trouble.”
“Yes, sir!”
Teddy took the woman by the upper arm and beckoned the young man with her, who was white with shock, fear, or a combination of both.
“Teddy, I’ve known you since you were a baby!” the woman wailed.
“You should have thought of that before you went to the damn Cents,” Teddy snarled.
But Rev didn’t have time for them.
“You need to evacuate. Follow the proctors’ orders!”
The confused mass of people started to swarm forward, panic evident.
“Keep calm! Follow the proctors!” Rev yelled.
Behind the mob, the mini-Centaurs finally seemed to notice that things were not going as they should. First one, then all of them started moving toward the back of the immense building. Rev didn’t care. As long as they weren’t attacking the people, he didn’t care what they did. Let the Marines in the assault round them up.
People were shouting for attention, and one man rushed Rev, screaming out something—his words were so garbled that Rev couldn’t make out what he was saying. Rev grabbed the man by the upper arms and hoisted him over his head.
“KEEP . . . FUCKING . . . CALM. We’ve got Marines and Navy incoming to evacuate you all.”
The proctors were beginning to have an effect, and already, people were streaming out the entrance. Rev put the man down but kept hold of his arms.
“Are you going to calm down?”
“Yes, sir. I’m just . . . this is . . . when the Cents first came . . .”
“I know, sir. Look. The Marines are here now. Just follow the proctors. They’ll get you to safety.”
The man took a deep breath and nodded. Rev released him, and he started walking to the entrance to join the rest of the people heading out.
There was a chuff, and Rev wheeled around, weapon ready. McCough was fifteen meters away, and he’d just fired his Moray.
“What the—”
Rev’s words were cut off as the missile slammed into a locker along the back wall, the mini-Centaurs gathered around.
Screams erupted from the crowd as panic set in again, too strong for the proctors to fight.
“What the hell did you do that for?” Rev shouted, his voice still amplified.
“Look what I hit.”
Rev turned back to the rear of the building. Several of the mini-Centaurs looked damaged, and the locker was demolished. Pieces of . . .”
Rev took several steps closer to get a better angle.
“Do those look like cannons?”
<They look like the remnants of the same cannons on the two Centaurs that were at the gate. I can’t tell if they are the exact same given the visuals, but the outer structure matches.>
“You knew those lockers held cannon attachments,” Rev told McCough.
“No, I didn’t know. I suspected, however. We’ve been long wondering what they had in there, and I figured that was where they kept ’em.”
Two of the mini-Centaurs looked undamaged, and they were using their loading arms to rummage through the parts.
And now the staff sergeant was unarmed. Rev pulled his MF-30 sidearm out of his singlet pocket and handed it over to him. It wasn’t much, but it was better than nothing.
The staff sergeant nodded his thanks and pocketed it. “You might want to light them up.”
Rev considered for a moment, but he only had one Moray left, and he had a feeling that this mission was going to attract the attention of something a little more powerful than a mini-Centaur.
The people were still in panic mode, jammed at the entrance.
“Keep an eye on them. If they start installing a cannon, or if they turn their attention to us, get me.” With that, he wheeled and ran toward the entrance. He passed two bodies, crumpled and bloody on the ground, and for a moment, he thought they’d been crushed in the mass rush to get out. But a white armband was the tell. They were the two kapos he’d turned over to Teddy.
He barely spared them a thought, other than you reap what you sow.
“Keep calm. We’ve got time to get everyone to the evacuation site,” he boomed out before he started to bodily pull people from the edges of the mass, heedless if he was hurting them.
He made his way into the middle, and even with his augments, it was tough going. More than once, he thought he was going down. But he bulled his way to the door and turned around to face the people.
“Listen up. I don’t know how else to say this, but you’ve got to calm down. We’ve got time.”
I don’t know just how much time.
“Can we just do that?” he asked.
Amazingly, the shouting died down.
“The door’s too small, sir,” a woman said, her body pressed up against him.
Rev twisted around again. It was a typical double door, a partition in the middle.
“You, in front of me, get through. No shoving, and it will work.”
Some of the people held back, and that broke the logjam. Within twenty seconds, the people between him and the doorway were through and were being rounded up by proctors. Rev went up to the door and gave the partition a pull. It gave the slightest bit but held fast.
He probably had the strength to rip it away, but he’d lose all the skin on his hands, and he needed to be at a hundred percent. That left his feet.
“Stand back,” he said to those still inside the building.
He took two steps, then kicked at the partition close to the bottom. It bent and partially tore free from the floor. One more kick sent it flying, making one of the proctors duck for cover.
“OK, we’ve got more room. Let’s move it through.”
The crowd surged forward but without the downright panic as before. Rev fought to the side, trusting the half-dozen proctors there to start guiding them people to the market, twelve hundred meters away. He didn’t like the distance, but he and Tomiko were authorized one evacuation site in their AO.
“Do you need me here?” Lima asked as he passed her.
A young man in his late twenties was standing protectively just off her shoulder.
I don’t think she needs protecting, son.
“No. You help the proctors push the people along. Find Corporal Reiser and see if she needs any help.”
“Don’t stay around too long. The Cents are going to respond,” Lima said before she joined the crowd, her son keeping close.
About half of the workforce was already outside, but without the panic overwhelming everyone, that was rapidly diminished. Another group of people had broken open a side exit, and that helped as well.
“What are they doing?” Rev asked McCough as he approached the former Marine.
“Two of the bastards keep working on the junk. They might figure it out, though.”
The two undamaged mini-Centaurs were using their loading arms to work on a mostly intact cannon. Another mini-Centaur, all four of its starboard legs collapsed, was helping.
“Why aren’t they reacting to the people?” Rev wondered aloud.
<It is probable that they are programmed to prioritize the construction first, equipment second.>
“They’re dumb asses,” McCough said at the same time, thinking the rhetorical question was aimed at him.
I wasn’t asking either one of them.
But Punch’s answer intrigued him.
“And if they repair one of those cannons?” This time, he made sure to subvocalize.
<The most obvious answer would be that the programming would then shift to attacking the humans.>
“What are you basing that on?”
<I’m afraid that’s pure conjecture based on a long history of AIs.>
“Human-made AIs, not tin-ass-made.”
<Well, I am a human-made AI, so I guess that would fit.>
Is he trying to be funny? And not ha-ha-tell-a-joke funny?
This wasn’t the time to get to the bottom of it. He agreed with Punch, though. It looked like they were safe from the mini-Centaurs up until the time they managed to fix that cannon and get it mounted.
About a quarter of the people were still left inside. He thought they might be in the clear . . . from these Centaurs, at least.
“Keep watching them. If it looks like they’re about to switch out to the cannon, give me a shout.”
“Now maybe you might want to light them up?” McCough said, pointing at Rev’s last Moray.
“No. Not now, at least. With them dispersed like that, I can’t get both of those guys with one shot. And I’ve got a feeling that I really might need it.”
“Your call.”
With fewer people, the panic had eased, the shoving less. Rev wanted to get outside himself to see how it was going, but he couldn’t leave McCough and the mini-Centaurs. Instead, he went to the entrance and stood to the side.
“Thank you, Marine!” and “Thank you, sir,” were called out to him with several people raising clenched fists of gratitude. Rev nodded and gave a half-raised fist in acknowledgment. The problem was that he knew this was just the first step, and there were a lot more to go before the people would be safe. Until the last person either was evacuated or the planet was declared secure, he couldn’t let his guard down.
“Time until the assault?”
<Two hours, fourteen minutes.>
That was a long time to keep the people safe. Up in orbit, the Navy would be getting the Marines in position to descend onto the planet—that is, if they even made it that far. While the Centaur Navy avoided in-system battles if they could, they ruled deep space. It was a real possibility that the invasion fleet, even widely dispersed and coming in on different axes, could have been intercepted.
Hopefully, the small Centaur footprint on Tenerife meant that the Centaur Navy had a small presence as well.
“Do you think we can hold on until then?”
This was the first time Rev had asked his battle buddy something like that, but without Tomiko or other Marines, he was feeling isolated.
<It depends on the Centaur reaction. But you’re a trained, experienced NCO. If anyone can hold this together, it’s you.>
Rev’s eyes widened in surprise. That little vote of confidence was something totally new. Was that just programming designed to bolster him in a moment of uncertainty, or was that real?
“Thanks,” he said automatically.
But now wasn’t the time to ponder the sapience of his AI. Maybe it was never the time, and he should just accept things as they were. He clamped down on that train of thought and turned a hundred percent of his attention back to the task at hand.
As the numbers of people inside the station dwindled, five bodies were revealed, each wearing a white armband: not only the two Rev had turned over to Teddy, but three more. Evidently, the people had exacted more revenge.
Not that Rev cared much—just desserts. But he turned to where the last of the people were filing out the door. There was another kapo out there, the one he’d killed.
Rev was a Marine, trained to dish out violence. And he’d killed before . . . just not another human. A Centaur was an alien, and killing one had filled him with joy. But a human? Even an evil one? That was different, and there wasn’t that same sense of joy. It was more along the lines of sadness.
Buck up, Reverent. He was the enemy.
“Staff Sergeant, that’s the last of them. Let’s go,” he shouted with his amplified voice.
McCough waved and started toward him. Against the far wall, the mini-Centaurs were still busy. This was so surreal. The mini-Centaurs could have caused mayhem with their construction arms, flailing the packed humans, but they seemed totally focused on changing out to a weapons attachment to the exclusion of what would serve them better.
Not that Rev was complaining. But once again, it just went to prove that Centaurs and humans were just so different, even the Centaur AI equivalent, if that was what they really were.
Rev just shook his head. It grated at him to leave an enemy still functioning, but he really didn’t have the means to do anything about that, and at the moment, they were not a threat.
I just hope they don’t fix one of the cannons and come up our backside.
McCough reached him, his face beaming.
“Well, Corporal, mission accomplished. Damn, that feels good to say again after all these years.”
Rev started to say that this was only the first step, but looking at the staff sergeant, he didn’t want to rain on his parade. Let him have his moment.
“We need to shepherd the stragglers,” Rev told him. “In two hours, everyone needs to be at the market.”
“No fire zone?”
“Yeah. The rest of the place,” Rev said, sweeping an arm to encompass the area, “could be leveled.”
“And anybody trying to hide out in their basement,” McCough said, his voice a notch more serious.
“We’ve got people assigned to get the word to everyone not working here this shift.”
“If they listen. We Tenerifians can be stubborn.”
Rev didn’t have an answer for that. He knew civilians would be among the casualties, and all he could do was to minimize those numbers in his AO.
The two followed the last of the workers out of the building. Rev made a conscious effort not to look to where the body of the kapo he killed lay.
“Teddy,” he called, spotting the proctor.
“Yes, sir?” the young man asked, jogging over.
“Any issues?” he asked, ignoring the matter of the two kapos Rev had given into the young man’s care.
“Everyone’s on their way to the market. We’ve got some people banged up in the crush, though.”
At least a couple-dozen people were either limping along or being helped by others. It could have been worse.
“You go ahead. Staff Sergeant McCough and I’ll bring up the rear. We need to keep everyone moving.”
Teddy nodded and ran off. A couple of blocks over, Rev could hear someone on a loudspeaker telling everyone to get out of their homes and head to the market.
“Let’s keep them moving,” Rev told McCough. “But keep your head on a swivel.”
“Always.”
Rev took a position behind the last two people: a young man with an injured leg, and the matronly woman helping him. He could pick up the slight man and easily carry him, and for a moment, he moved to help before his rational mind took back over. It wasn’t his job to help individuals. He had to think of the whole.
If a single paladin or courser attacked the column of people, Rev and his Moray were the only things standing in the way. If two attacked . . . well, Rev didn’t want to think of that.
But he could still ask.
“You doing OK?” he asked the pair.
The young man’s face was white, his eyes unfocused. His medi-nanos, although not as advanced as Rev’s, should be kicking in to fight the shock.
The woman grunted, shifting the man’s arm farther around her shoulders, then said, “I’ve got him. You worry about keeping us safe.”
Even she understands.
“OK, ma’am. I’ll do that.”
“Vivian.”
“What?”
“Vivian. My name’s Vivian. I ain’t no ma’am. And this here’s Craig.”
Rev suppressed a smile. If all of the people were like this woman, then they stood a chance.
“OK, Vivian. I’ve got you two covered,” he said as he took a position directly behind them.
He had to pick his way through the debris of the two mini-Centaurs. Whatever was left of the five people had been trampled into smears on the cerrocrete road surface.
“How long to reach the market?”
<Approximately forty-five minutes at the current pace. However, injured people may slow down as they walk.>
That still left almost an hour before the invasion kicked off in earnest. He’d have to get together with Tomiko to best determine what would be their best course of action on how to use that time.
They turned onto Geltrain Street, which would lead them over the Silver Bridge, spanning the Muddy River and within four blocks of the market. Stretched out in front of them were more than the three hundred workers from the emitter station. Other people were making their way down side streets and joining the march.
At least that’s working.
But was it too many people on a constrained street? Rev moved to the side and onto a set of steps leading into a residence to get a better look.
<Can I tell you a joke?>
“Are you kidding me, Punch? Now?” Rev tried to subvocalize, but it came out as more of a snarl.
<Your pulse rate is up, your bios indicate stress, and your mental waves are jumbled. That indicates that your priorities are both scattered and misplaced. A joke is a common way to clear and reset the mind.>
Rev was about to shut his battle buddy down, but Punch was right. He’d just told McCough to keep his head on a swivel, and here he was, worrying about the wrong thing. He had to trust Fydor’s proctors to do their thing and leave him to security of the movement.
“OK,” Rev said, meaning that he’d refocus his attention.
And, of course, his battle buddy took that as assent to his original question.
<What do you call a fish with no eyes?>
He was going to tell him not now, but it was easier just to say, “What?”
<A fsh.>
It took a moment for Rev to understand, and when he did, he rolled his own “i”s, but he managed not to laugh. It was bad, but there was some juvenile humor to it—not that he’d admit that.
And, surprisingly, it worked. He was still amped, he was still concerned, but the stress had been taken down a notch. Once again, he wondered how much he was being manipulated by the Navy and civilian psychologists who had a hand—even still—in the augmented Rev.
“OK, Punch. You’ve done your duty.”
<Happy to be of service.>
He turned his attention back to the surrounding area. The Centaurs had to know of the approaching Marines. Like the Japanese back in the Twentieth Century’s World War II, if the Centaurs’ Navy didn’t destroy the humans’ assault force in space, they would lay back and hit them during the final descent, even letting some forces establish a beachhead before cutting the forces in two.
But that didn’t mean that they wouldn’t react to something like this exodus. They would know how long they had before the Marines would start the actual descent, and it wouldn’t take much to divert a paladin to wipe out the column.
It didn’t mean they would, but Rev couldn’t take that chance. He pulled an overlay of the area, wishing he had any of his drones. As they moved slowly down Geltrain, he considered all the likely avenues of approach. A paladin was a pretty big hunk of Centaur, so he could ignore some of the narrower alleys, but that still left too many routes for one of them to use to hit the column.
Slowly, the column inched forward and spread out as the people marched. Rev couldn’t see beyond the arch of the bridge ahead, but people were hurrying over it while those with Rev and McCough were lagging.
“Hey, Staff Sergeant. See if you can goose everyone up a bit,” he called out.
“Don’t think many of them can go much faster, Corporal.”
Which was probably right. Vivian was starting to slow down as Craig’s limping became more pronounced.
Why the hell didn’t we arrange for some sort of transport?
The answer was that they didn’t want emissions from a vehicle to draw Centaur attention. That didn’t take into consideration that there could be injured people, however.
“How are we doing on time?”
<At this rate, we’ll reach the market with approximately thirty minutes to spare.>
We’ve slowed down.
He knew that, of course, but now he knew exactly where they stood. If nothing else happened, they’d be inside the market before the landing.
More and more people crossed the bridge, but a gap was forming between the rear of the main body and the laggards. Rev didn’t like that, but it was out of his control. Hopefully, it wouldn’t matter in the long run.
He started to pass a middle-aged man who was sitting on the step into a store. He stared at Rev with dull eyes.
“Come on, sir. You’ve got to keep moving.”
“I can’t.”
There was nothing obviously wrong with the man, but that didn’t mean much.
“Can you tell what’s wrong with him?”
<Not with any degree of assuredness. But from the butterfly pulse through his carotid, it may be cardiological.>
Rev could see the pulse fluttering in the man’s neck, but he hadn’t put two and two together. He hesitated a moment, looking ahead to the bridge. They weren’t far now. Two hundred meters to cross the river, then another three or four hundred on the other side. He could cover that in less than a minute. This man, however, didn’t have his augments and was in cardiac distress to boot.
Screw it. Why did they give me extra strength if they didn’t want me to use it?
Forgetting all the reasons he hadn’t helped Vivian, he stooped to help the man to his feet, then took almost all of the man’s weight with his left arm, leaving his right to hold the Moray at the ready. It might not be the correct tactical decision, but he was not going to leave this man behind.
“What’s your name, sir.”
“Fint,” the man gasped out.
“Well, Fint, we’re going to make it to where a doctor can take a look at you.”
The man’s legs barely moved as he tried to walk, so Rev hitched him up to take the full weight of his body. He carried much more weight with a full combat load, so this was nothing.
McCough, up ahead and on the opposite side of the street, turned and caught his eyes. He raised his eyebrows but said nothing as he continued on, shepherding the people ahead.
Vivian stopped to catch her breath, and Rev stepped up alongside her.
“Not very far, now.”
“We’ll make it. Don’t you worry none. Just need to let these old bones rest a moment.”
Rev pulled up the map overlay and measured the distance to the crown of the bridge.
“Look, only a hundred and fifteen meters to the bridge; then it’s all downhill from there.”
“We’ll make it.” She started walking again with Craig grimacing in pain.
The young man still looked to be in shock, and Rev wondered if his nanos were on the fritz. There’d have to be a doctor at the market who could check him out.
He looked back up at the bridge. “See that, Fint? Almost there.”
The man’s head lolled, and saliva dripped out of his open mouth. He was still breathing, though.
That wasn’t just blowing smoke. They really were getting close, and Rev started feeling more confident. Maybe they were going to get through this without a hiccup.
The Gods of War hated complacency, however. As if to punish his hubris, the last of the main group crossing the bridge started screaming and running, heading back to Rev and the rest.
“Take cover!” Rev screamed before he even knew what was happening.
He dropped Fint inside the recessed entrance to a clothing shop, then darted to the side to pull Vivian and Craig in as well. Up ahead, McCough had reacted immediately, pulling people into a side alley.
Rev stepped away, deploying his Moray, all senses on alert, when half a dozen people on the bridge exploded. That was the only way to describe it. One moment they were living, breathing people. The next moment, they were a red mist.
“SHIT!” Rev screamed at the top of his voice.
He didn’t need his battle buddy to tell him what had done that. He’d never seen the weapon deployed, but he’d see the holos during training. The weapon was an ultrasonic directed-energy projector, a beam weapon of sorts, but not like the more common meson cannon. The beam excited water molecules into intense vibration. Anything with water, such as a human body, exploded. Anything without water, such as a building, was untouched.
The Centaur up ahead wanted to scour away the humans while protecting the city’s infrastructure.
People had halted when Rev screamed, looking about uncertainly, but when the bodies on the bridge exploded, panic set in. People started running in all directions. Some took whatever cover they could. Others were mindless.
Rev ran forward to the opposite alley from McCough and started shoving people inside all the time watching for the Centaur. Screams from beyond the bridge reached him.
“Isolate the sound!” he ordered.
A Centaur is relatively quiet for something of its bulk with just the tick-tick-tick of the legs hitting the road. Rev couldn’t hear the sound over the shouts, but Punch could eliminate those. As if flipping a switch, the screams fell away to whispers, but there he couldn’t pick out the telltale ticks. There was just a soft, grinding-type sound.
Rev continued to get people out of the road while he listened. A woman took off her shoes and tossed them, then made a break for the bridge. She didn’t come close. Five meters from the bottom, she was hit.
“Do not try for the bridge!” he shouted at full amplification.
“What the hell is that? A paladin?”
<From the audio footprint, it has to be—>
But Rev didn’t need an answer. He saw it. On the road along the far side of the river, a true monster appeared. Twice the size of a paladin and too large for the reticulated legs of other Centaur armor, a courser appeared, rolling along on almost human-like armor tracks.
The huge vehicle’s cannon tracked to its right and fired just as Rev jumped back into the cover of buildings. Five or six people still on Geltrain disappeared into red mist.
“Get off the street!” Rev screamed.
“What’s the probability of success against that thing with my Moray?”
<Not good. Current estimates average to 14.3 percent.>
Rev leaned his back up against the wall of a building, his eyes closed. Those odds were horrible. He looked down at the Moray in his hands as if he could will it into something more powerful.
A tree on the south side of Geltrain exploded into splinters. The courser had the angle to cover a good chunk of the south side of the street, while on the north side, where Rev was, the buildings put the people in defilade. If the Centaur advanced to the bridge, it would have fields of fire all the way up and down Geltrain. And to the east was the market, with at least a hundred people rushing toward it.
There were a couple dozen people still on this side of the bridge with Rev. He knew what he had to do.
He put down his Moray and unslung his M-49. He swung out until he could see the courser and fired a quick burst at it before he darted back just as the air centimeters from him snapped with ionization. His right arm tingled, as if he’d gotten a sunburn.
Rev flexed his fingers, but they still worked. He didn’t want to know how close he’d come to getting hit.
“Just come to us,” he muttered.
But who knew if it would take the bait and steer away from the market and those still on the road? Rev readied his Moray again. The odds weren’t good, but any chance was better than none.
He turned and looked at eleven sets of eyes locked onto him. The alley was a dead-end, a four-story building blocking the way. Rev studied it for a moment. He might be able to scale it and get away, but he doubted anyone else could.
Rev turned to look across the street to McCough. He gave the hand-and-arm signals for retreat. Evidently, the signals hadn’t changed since the older man’s time in the Corps, because he signaled negative.
It is what it is.
Now that he knew what he was listening for, he was able to track the courser as it rolled to the bridge. Rev stuck his head out, then, knowing the arch gave him cover. He prayed it wouldn’t turn to the east. He heard the snap of the cannon, and he realized it had fired toward the market. Most of the market was still blocked by buildings, but once the Centaur reached the square, it could raze the place.
He stepped out, ready to run to the top of the bridge and take his chances when the top of the cannon appeared. Rev jumped back into cover. It had evidently fired one shot to the east before deciding to cross the bridge. Then the sound stopped.
What is it doing?
Rev didn’t have his full combat load by any stretch of the imagination, but he was able to bring some of his gear. He reached into his pocket and pulled out a small Optiscope, a flexible periscope. He gave it a ninety-degree turn, raised the eyepiece, then slid it out. The courser was sitting at the apex of the arch, the cannon rotating toward the west.
He mentally kicked himself. He’d had a few seconds with the cannon pointing to the east where he could have engaged it. Now, that slight advantage was gone. Rev had seen how quickly the courser could engage him when he’d snapped off the M-49 burst at it. That had taken just two seconds, two seconds that almost got him fried. He’d need at least four seconds with the Moray. He needed a diversion.
There was only one he knew, and it had to be done quickly. The courser could move at any moment.
McCough was watching him from the temporary protection of the alley. With a heavy heart, he signaled to the staff sergeant what he wanted. The man didn’t hesitate. He signaled he understood, then pulled Rev’s MF-30 handgun out of his pocket and held it ready.
They needed to act, but Rev signaled “Semper fi, Marine,” and a huge smile broke out across his face.
The staff sergeant didn’t signal but yelled, “Semper fi, brother. Let’s kick some ass!”
There was the grinding noise of the courser’s tracks. Rev pulled the Moray up to his shoulder and shouted, “Now!”
Former Staff Sergeant Tanton McCough, Perseus Union Marines, emerged from safety screaming at the top of his lungs as he charged the courser, emptying Rev’s MF-30 at the hulk.
Rev followed, and an instant later, standing tall as he activated the sight reticule, he saw the cannon swivel and fire, cutting off McCough’s shouting. He got a lock just as the cannon started to swivel back.
“Run true,” he muttered, thumb depressing the trigger . . . when for a reason he’d never be able to determine, he dropped the reticule to the bridge’s surface right in front of the descending courser and fired.
He was a dead man anyway, so instead of diving for cover, he watched, just as he had when firing the prototype back at Camp Nguyen so long ago. The missile took a split second to cover the distance, hitting the bridge just as the Centaur’s cannon lined up on Rev. The resultant explosion jolted the courser just enough so that the beam was knocked off target, hitting the adjacent building. Reflections off the building’s walls made Rev’s skin tingle, but he barely noticed as the courser lurched forward with a jolt as its front tracks hit the hole that had opened onto the bridge’s surface. Rev stood in awe as the Centaur tried to reverse the tracks, but its weight, combined with the damage to the bridge, was just too much. Ten meters of the bridge fell into the river below, and the courser started to tip over when with a roar, the entire bridge collapsed, a fountain of water rising into the air before falling back.
Rev had almost been killed when a paladin had gone into self-destruct mode, so he hit the surface of the road. But there was no detonation.
Rev stood. The first thing he did was to look for Staff Sergeant McCough, hoping for a miracle, but there wasn’t much left of the man. He felt a hollow pit in his stomach, an overriding sense of sorrow and guilt. Rev had essentially ordered the man to die. Maybe officers were used to that, but Rev was just a corporal, and he’d never had to do that before.
<Rev.>
Rev shook his head at Punch’s simple reminder. He couldn’t afford to get lost in that now. He ran up to the edge of the river wall and cautiously looked over. Ten or twelve meters below and on the other side of the river, the courser was three-quarters submerged in the water and futilely attempting to scale the river walls. It kept ramming it, using the cannon as an arm to reach the top and pull itself up. But the cannon continued slipping off.
Evidently, the Centaur inside realized it was a lost cause, because the courser turned downstream and drove off. When the cannon started traversing, Rev ducked back out of sight.
He knew he should feel a sense of victory. He hadn’t killed the courser, but he’d stopped it. But the weights of the dead, of Staff Sergeant McCough, were heavy loads to bear.
“Corporal?” a weak voice called out. “Is it safe?”
He still had a job to do. Rev turned around and spotted Vivian sticking her head out of the shop’s recessed entrance.
“Everyone, come on out!” he shouted as he strode to check on the woman, Craig, and Fint. Slowly, nervous heads poked out of more places than Rev had expected.
He passed the alley into which he’d ducked, and reached Vivian. She helped Craig up and said, “I don’t think your guy made it.”
Rev looked back at the destroyed bridge. The three of them should have been safe from the cannon.
“Fint? You with us?” he asked as he took the man’s arm and turned him over. He dropped the arm and stood back.
Vivian was right. The man was dead. As before, he didn’t have a mark on him, but there was no mistaking the face of death.
<The indications are cardiac arrest.>
“Son of a bitch,” Rev muttered. He quickly raised his arm to wipe the tears that had started to flow.
People had just been killed. Lots of them. McCough had sacrificed his life, but somehow this hit him hard.
“What now, Corporal?” Vivian asked.
He looked up where people were starting to gather, looking at him for guidance.
Rev took a deep breath, mentally shook his head, and said, “We’ve still got to reach the market. The bridge is gone. You tell me the best way.”
“The walking bridge should still be up,” someone said.
Rev pulled up his map overlay. The walking bridge was three blocks upstream. They could cross there, then cut straight across and hit the market closer to the north end of it instead of at the southwest entrance.
He looked down at Fint’s body. In a medical facility, he’d been dead for a short enough time for them to try and bring him back. In this situation, with the assault imminent, he doubted anything could be done. But he wasn’t going to abandon the man. He picked the body up and slung him over his shoulder.
“Lead on,” he told the man who’d mentioned the walking bridge.
Rev waited for the last one to start moving. He didn’t have another Moray, only his M-49, but protecting him was still his mission.
He avoided looking at the red splotches on the road as they moved, but something still caught his eye. He stopped, knelt, and picked up his bloody but undamaged MF-30, and slid it into his pocket before following Vivian and the rest.