Time for War
The New Gods took their time setting up.
Fox suspected several reasons. Their mutual
animosities getting the better of them, forcing them to delay and confirm and
double-confirm every move and every step. Local commanders calling in muscle
and firepower from every corner of Nova Babylonia. Tacticians formulating plans
within plans, plans to destroy the Black Watch while snatching up the data for
their own faction without letting the others know. Speakers of the New Gods
pulling levers, calling on favors, preparing the inevitable cover story. Foot
soldiers slowly tightening the noose.
But the New Gods had time.
DNA computing wasn’t like regular computing. Printing
the DNA sequences in a single batch had taken twelve hours. It would take
between twenty minutes to three hours to sequence each DNA solution, if not
longer. Processing the raw data would take longer still. The New Gods could
afford to wait.
More precisely, they could afford to wait for the team
to finish preparing and sequencing the solutions, saving them the time and
trouble of doing it themselves.
As the hours passed, the city block slowly vacated.
Students and staff filed out of the campus. Nearby shops closed. Cars pulled
out, leaving the surveillance teams behind. The Black Watch noted every
movement, adjusting their positions and plans in tandem with the opposition.
Yamamoto made a series of phone calls.
At midnight, they came.
A convoy of armored vehicles approached from the
south. Sleek, discreet SUVs; black-painted trucks with aggressive angles and
stylings; a slapdash collection of pick-ups and civilian vehicles with hastily-welded
armor plates. They spilled into the parking lot, a ragged, disorganized mess
composed of multiple tightly-knit cells, and disgorged their Elect.
The Court of Shadows led the pack, an eight-man squad
of black-furred winged wolves adorned with tactical gear. Their kit was cheap
and commonplace and crude, completely disposable, but their weapons would kill
a man as easily as their fangs and teeth. Behind them were the Superusers of
the Singularity Network, proclaiming their exalted status with the cybernetic
third eyes implanted in their foreheads. They had gone high-speed low-drag,
eschewing external armor for tactical harnesses laden with magazine and grenade
pouches. Their rivals in tech, the Guild of the Maker, stood right beside them.
They were ordinary humans kitted up as soldiers, but their armored exoskeletons
and their weapons had come from the foundries and fevered minds of their
Godtouched, the designs seen nowhere else on the planet, doubtlessly offering
performance exceeding even the equipment from the Singularity Network.
From the north, more heavy trucks screeched in,
halting by the sidewalks, blocking off the roads, discharging streams of foot
soldiers.
The Liberated were the most easily identifiable among
them, having discarded their masks of unearthly beauty to reveal the monsters
within. Eight-foot-tall giants lumbered towards the campus building, walking
mountains of muscle and munitions, hefting crew-served weapons as though they
were toys; regenerators with carbines and chest rigs, so confident in their
healing abilities they wore no armor; unarmed men in civilian clothing,
doubtless capable of shapeshifting their bodies into weapons. Mingling among
them were the Godmen of the Pantheon, humans morphed into the aspects of their
gods. From their heads to their hips they were enormous elephants, hard-shelled
turtles, sharp-tusked rhinos; they walked on two legs and thick as tree trunks
and had huge scaly hands with delicate digits. As tall and massive as the
Liberated giants, they carried an eclectic mix of rifles and swords and
shotguns and hammers and pistols and clubs. Clustered in the rear, keeping to
themselves, were four men dressed all in black, carrying identical equipment
and weapons. These were the shooters of the Void Collective, so similar to each
other they could have been dolls cast from the same mold.
But the main assault came from the east.
In the light of a full moon, bulbous blurs darkened
the horizon, swooping low over the trees. Two of them. The one in the lead
dipped sharply below the treetops. The one in the rear maintained a steady
course. A flock of flying drones surrounded them, the whine of their engines
piercing the darkness.
“Looks like everyone’s here for the party,” Connor
remarked.
In a corner of the classroom, well away from the
windows, Tan stared furiously at his laptop, mumbling under his breath,
occasionally typing a stream of commands. Fox was on her battle rifle, slowly
pivoting through a wide arc, seeing the world through her thermal imager in
black and white.
The huge flying objects were Goshawks. Their
camouflage wasn’t perfect; now that she knew what to look for, their
retractable belly guns radiated just enough heat for Fox to ID them. The drones
weren’t camouflaged at all: their tiny gravity mirrors were spots of bright
white light, and on their fuselages they mounted sensor pods and gun mounts.
And, at the tree line, she saw the monsters.
Tall armored bulks, shaped like men but ballooned out
of proportion, massive arms and trunk-like legs married to gigantic torsos,
topped with tiny heads like domes. Eight of them. Four were armed with general
purpose machine guns, the other four carried 35mm autocannons.
Fox gulped.
“Contact. Tree line, three hundred meters. Two Goshawk
dropships. Two dozen armed quadcopters. Eight Hellions with ACs and GPMGs. One
dropship is hanging back, the other is closing in. Looks like an air assault.”
“Acknowledged,” Yamamoto said. “ZT, how’s it going?”
“Still need a bit of time,” Tan replied.
“Understood. We’ll kick off. Addy, Betty, initiate.”
****
To the north, down the street from the campus, the
trunk of a car opened from inside. A statuesque woman clambered out. The
streetlights painted her pale hair amber, reflected the glossy liquid curves of
her form-fitting bodysuit, revealed her H-harness and the M585 PDW slung around
her neck. She spun on the heels of her combat boots, quick and tight and
precise, and sprinted down the sidewalk.
To the south, parked kitty-corner across the block,
the rear doors of a white four-panel van opened. A cat-eared woman in a
knee-length black dress with a white apron daintily stepped out. A blank smile
on her face, whistling a soft tune, she sauntered down the street, walking
right up to the surveillance van.
The driver and the passenger twisted in their seats,
staring at her through the windows, their hands by their belts.
“Good evening!” she chimed cheerily.
“Eh?” the driver mumbled.
The passenger cleared his throat. “Miss, there’s a
police operation going on. For your safety—”
Her left hand flashed, lifting her skirt.
Revealing a holstered M585 strapped to her shapely
right leg.
“Oh—”
Her right hand blurred.
“—Shit—”
She brought the PDW up in a single graceful movement,
her left hand flying to grab the weapon’s foregrip. The small barrel aligned
itself with the passenger’s face. Her thumb clicked the safety to full auto.
“Goodbye!”
A bright cone of fire blossomed from the muzzle. The
window dissolved under the impact of five AP rounds, tracking to the right,
ripping through heads and blasting their contents out the window.
Swiveling, she held down the trigger, stitching the
van lengthwise with a long, long burst. Fifteen rounds punctured a
laser-straight line through the body of the vehicle. Metal shrieked. Men
screamed. The weapon’s recoil was light, and she was deceptively strong; the
PDW barely vibrated in her hands.
She popped the side door open with her left hand. Blood
gushed out. Poking her head inside, she saw two men in the rear, lying on the
floor. She popped a pair of quick double-taps, one for each head.
“CONTACT REAR!” a man yelled.
She planted herself by the engine block. Stuck her
weapon around the bumper, pointing it at the Elect gathered in the parking lot.
And mashed down the trigger.
Men shouted and cursed and sprinted. Empty casings
geysered from the ejection port, hot and smoking, bouncing off the windshield
and the trunk. A few of them struck her face and neck, another rolled down to
her chest.
She didn’t react.
The PDW went dry. Throwing her head back, she opened
her mouth. The roar of a tiger issued forth, filling the world with the
full-throated cry of a predator on the hunt.
The weapon had a spare magazine, mounted on an
L-clamp. She ejected the empty magazine, rotated it forward, slotted the fresh
one in place, worked the charging handle.
Which bought the enemy enough time to rally.
A fusillade of fire poured down on her position,
tearing through metal and rubber and asphalt and concrete.
Meanwhile, on the other side of the block, unnoticed
in the darkness and the confusion, the woman in the bodysuit reached her
position. Stepping around the corner, the stock of the PDW braced against her
left shoulder, she aimed down at the northernmost surveillance van.
She fired.
A long, long burst, dumping twenty-five rounds into
the vehicle, left to right, right to left, shredding the cargo compartment and
the cab and the engine. She pivoted smartly, then dumped the rest of her
magazine into the other surveillance van down the road.
The Pantheon and the Liberated took just slightly
longer to react. Long enough for the woman to sprint to the shot-up van to the
north, reloading her weapon, poke her PDW above the hood, and work the crowd.
No spray and pray, just precise single shots, fired so
rapidly they almost sounded like
full-auto. Bullets slammed into heads, necks, hearts. The troopers of the Void
Collective were the first to go, dropping like marionettes with their strings
cut in the opening moments.
But the tiny rounds didn’t do much damage to the
others. Not against Liberated with redundant hearts and healing abilities so
powerful they could bring themselves back from the brink of death, not against
Pantheon Godmen who could turn their skin and flesh as hard as steel.
Which was why she altered her aim, hammering each
exposed head twice, thrice, four times, driving the AP rounds into their
brains, extinguishing the spark of consciousness before the powers could fire.
A few Elect dropped.
And the rest returned fire.
“Addy, Betty, fall back now,” Yamamoto ordered.
The cat-eared woman leapt back, soaring through a
graceful parabola, letting the streetlights catch her ears and tail. In
mid-air, her knees and ankles and feet rotated through a full one-eighty
degrees. When she landed, she took off again, her legs running and jumping and
leaping, her upper body laying down full-auto fire to the rear.
The bodysuited woman pulled off the same trick, rotating
her legs and knees, firing parting shots as she retreated. But her shots were
aimed semiauto fire, every bullet striking a throat, a head, an eye.
“Addy, at my vehicle,” the cat-eared maid said.
“Betty, at my vehicle,” the tacsuited woman reported.
“Take cover and prepare to move out,” Yamamoto said.
“Stand by to intercept enemy reinforcements.”
“Roger,” the killbots said in sync.
****
Fox had heard the shooting and the radio calls. A
small, detached part of her brain logged them, building her mental picture of
the battle. The rest of her conscious mind was focused on the Seeker detachment
dead ahead.
The grounded Goshawk lifted off from the park. The Hellions
emplaced themselves among the trees, setting up a base of fire. The second
Goshawk was screaming towards the campus, a hundred meters out, escorted by a
half-dozen killer drones. The remaining drones fanned out.
The shooting hadn’t derailed their approach. The
incoming Goshawk swiveled its gun left to right, the drones oriented their guns
and sensors outwards, but otherwise, they were still coming.
“ZT, any time now,” Yamamoto said mildly.
“Five seconds,” Tan said. “Let the drones spread out a
bit more.”
“They are eighty meters out and closing,” she said.
“Any closer and they can use millimeter wave scanners to find us.”
Even chameleon suits couldn’t defend against
millimeter wave scanners. The ultra-high-frequency waves would penetrate solid
walls and barriers and reflect off hidden objects and humans. The only defense
against those were distance and a huge intervening medium.
Neither of which the Black Watch had in abundance.
“One second…”
She fought the urge to hurry him up. Instead she
tracked the Goshawk in her thermal imager, calculating the ballistics of a
belly gun shot. She had done it before, no big deal, but if she missed… if she
didn’t disable the weapon in the first few shots…
“Initiating!” ZT said.
The drones wobbled. Spun about in mid-air.
And fired.
Rifles crackled out single shots in the dark. Every
shot was aimed at a head, a chest, a vehicle the drone didn’t recognize. With
so many drones in play, the only way for an operator to manage them all was to
set them on semi-autonomous mode. To give them a set of instructions, an IFF
code, and let them do their thing. Standard operating procedure.
Right up to the moment an enterprising hacker uploaded
fresh IFF codes and shut out the controller.
The Goshawk’s escorts turned on their former
protectee. Buzzing about the dropship, they fired at the cockpit, the gravity
pod, the belly gun. Their rounds sparked off uselessly in the dark, but the
Goshawk pilot aborted his run, pulling a tight turn. The belly gun fired a
quick burst, taking out a drone, and suddenly went silent. Another shot, and
the exposed ammo can exploded like fireworks.
From ground level, an assorted chorus of full-auto
fire rang out, accompanied by the booming of shotguns and the cracking of
pistols. Animalistic roars reverberated in the air, a litany of curses and
blasphemies piled upon each other in languages no human could pronounce.
In his corner, Tan pounded at the keys, face split in
a wide smile.
The rest of the Black Watch waited and watched.
Abby’s cat ears and tail and her high-agility
maneuvers replicated the powers of the Liberated or the blessings of the
Pantheon. Betty’s precision fires pointed to aiming software developed by the
Singularity Network or the Guild of the Maker. The drones could have belonged
to any faction, but they most likely came from the Seekers.
All it took was one paranoid Elect to jump to the
wrong conclusion, for someone to make one wrong move, and—
“Samurai, Boomer. The Court of Shadows have gone berserk.
They are shooting up everybody. The
drones, the Sinners, the Guild. It’s becoming a free-for-all down here.”
“Farmer here. The Liberated and the Pantheon are
exchanging shots with the drones and the other force down the street as well.”
Fox grinned.
Yuri,
you magnificent son of a bitch!
A beam of blinding white light seared through the air,
dispelling the darkness, lancing through the closer of the two Goshawks. The
beam was tiny, barely the width of a fingertip, lasting only for an eyeblink,
but it punched clean through a gravity mirror pod.
The dropship dropped sharply, flipping through an arc,
its surviving pod straining to keep it aloft.
A second beam blasted through the night.
And the dropship fell from the sky like a rock.
Gritting her teeth, Fox blinked away the line seared
across her eyes. What the hell was that? More to the point, where the hell had
it come from?
The remaining airborne Goshawk pulled an incredible
maneuver. Rising rapidly through the air, it rotated on its axis to face the
south, backing up and away into the sky. Its belly gun blazed—
A third beam speared right through it, penetrating
lengthwise and flashing out into the heavens.
And the Goshawk dropped.
“My God…”
It was the surviving surveillance van. She was sure of
it. They had brought heavy firepower into the game, maybe a particle beam
weapon. But PBWs weren’t supposed to be man-portable. Hell, they weren’t even
supposed to exist outside a laboratory.
Whoever they were, they weren’t Seekers.
The Hellions bellowed a challenge. GPMGs and autocannons
thundered in the night. Explosions ripped through the world, quickly followed
by secondaries.
Survivors scrambled out of the crashed Goshawks. The
drones swarmed them, picking them off as they climbed out. The Hellions opened
fire, peppering the skies with airburst shells, shattering windows with
shrapnel.
Gasping, Fox ducked for cover. More bursts erupted
outside.
And, just as abruptly, the guns went silent.
She poked her head above the table. Stars danced
before her eyes. Little dots scrambled in the darkness. She couldn’t make out
what was going on, only that the gravity mirrors had been silenced.
“All call signs, Farmer. It looks like the Liberated
and the Pantheon are getting their act together. Two giants, four regenerators,
four Godmen. They are advancing on my position. I’m going to need help.”
This was bad. The plan counted on the soldiers of the
New Gods slaughtering each other. If they rallied…
“Do you need me here?” Tan asked.
Fox stepped away from her rifle. “No. Go.”
Tan snatched up the M83 and sprinted for the door.
“Farmer, ZT. On the way.”
“Boomer here. There’s just four guys left over here,
taking potshots at each other. I can mow them down in a couple of bursts and
reinforce Farmer.”
“Boomer, Samurai. Go ahead. Once you leave, I’ll take
over. Farmer, once ZT and Boomer are with you, fire at will. Cindy, on my
position.”
“Copy.”
Boomer’s machine gun chattered, the first shots fired
by the Black Watch proper. A burst of six. Pause. A second burst.
“Samurai, Boomer. Done. All threats eliminated.”
“Roger that. Go!”
More shots rang out to the north.
“Samurai, Farmer. Bad guys have crossed the red line.
Engaging.”
“Understood. Addy, Betty, head to Waypoint Charlie and
engage all hostiles.”
“Roger,” the killbots chimed.
The men would pin the assault force in place. The
killbots would flank them, the hammer to their anvil. If they couldn’t get off
the X, they were as good as dead.
Now there was only the issue of the Seekers.
The Hellions bounded forward, fire and maneuver
straight from the textbook. The base of fire element laid down fire, GPMGs and
autocannons blasting, hosing down the streets, the corners, anywhere and
everywhere within their line of sight that might conceal an enemy. The maneuver
team rushed forward, sprinting for a count of five, right in the open.
Glass shattered. Munitions exploded. Windows
disintegrated under the violence of the blasts and vibrations. Fox felt the
blasts through her boots, her belly, her weapon. She ignored them all, slowly
scanning with the thermal imager on her humongous M180.
“Samurai, Deadeye. The Seekers are making their
assault on Side 1. Hellions, eight of them.”
“Acknowledged. Green light.”
“Roger that,” she whispered.
And waited.
The maneuver team hunkered down, throwing themselves
down on the grass in a staggered line, seeking depressions and knolls and
microterrain for cover. Their weapons blared, working windows and doors and
cars. They were firing blindly, focusing their attentions on the last known
positions of their rival Elect, now and then throwing a shell at the campus. As
hellfire erupted all around, the first team of Hellions emerged from the
forest, charging dead ahead.
She pivoted to the closest exposed Hellion. This rifle
didn’t have a SmartShot, not that it or she needed one. Peering through the 20X
scope, she saw the illuminated red crosshairs bisect its head. She tracked it
as it ran, lowering her point of aim to its neck, adjusting a little to the
right, running ballistics calculations and approximations in her head. When the
numbers lined up with her sights, her thumb flicked off the safety, her finger
found the trigger.
The rifle boomed.
The heavy HEIAP round flew true, clearing the aperture
she had cut in the window, striking the Hellion in the head. On impact, a
pyrotechnic charge ignited, firing the incendiary mix. Right behind it, the
high explosive charge detonated, punching through armor. Last of all came the
tungsten penetrator, drilling deep into the Hellion’s skull.
It went down.
At
last!
She pivoted, found another Hellion in the open, fired
again. The suppressor eliminated the muzzle flash and diffused the boom, making
it sound like it came from everywhere and nowhere at once. Dust clouds swirled
about in the room. The stock slammed into her shoulder with bruising force.
And the second Hellion went down.
The surviving Hellions retaliated. GPMGs hosed down
the campus with long bursts of high-velocity 6.8mm rounds. Autocannons pounded
the windows and doors, blasting the rooms beyond with fire and shrapnel,
systematically working their way up. She displaced to her right, repositioning
her rifle, taking care to aim through the loophole she had cut in the glass.
The thermal imager revealed a third Hellion. She
shifted a little to the left, bringing her crosshairs on target. She fired, it
went down with a round in the brain, and the machine gunners adjusted fire,
lashing the upper floors with long bursts. Rounds smacked into the ceiling,
sending debris showering on her head. She ducked away from the rifle, coughing
through a mouthful of dust.
And four portals, blacker than night, opened in front
of her.
“SAMURAI! VC ON MY POSITION!”
And in the darkness, human figures formed.
Her right hand swept up her pistol, bringing it up to
her chest. Her feet exploded into motion, lunging away from the table. Her left
hand found her grip. Punching out her pistol, she turned on her weapon-mounted
light. Soft white light flooded the room, revealing four VC troopers stepping
out of the portals.
Her red dot sight rested on the nose of the closest
trooper. She pressed the trigger, once, twice, saw him go down. She swiveled to
the next threat, sensing him raise his weapon in her peripheral vision.
Automatically she stepped in quartata, transitioning to a one-hand grip, her
left hip swiveling back, blading her towards the threat.
A muzzle flashed, a weapon roared, a hot bullet kissed
the air past her cheek.
She fired, and her rounds took down the second threat.
She went low, knees flying to her chest. A burst
whizzed above her. She oriented on the third threat, raised the weapon to his
face, fired and fired.
Nothing happened.
In the glass window of her optic sight, she saw an
outstretched palm covered in black leather.
It was the other
power of VC soldiers: the ability to dissolve bullets in mid-air.
She launched off the floor, cutting diagonally to her
left, pistol tracking—
“AUM!”
The word surged through the room, a tsunami of sound
that reset reality and overrode attempts to pervert it. The troopers froze,
suddenly powerless—
A carbine barked.
The left-hand trooper’s head vanished in a red cloud.
The other operative turned. But not fast enough. A
second shot, and his head exploded.
Fox blinked.
Yamamoto stood by the doorway, his weapon smoking.
“Deadeye,” Yamamoto whispered. “Are you okay?”
She swallowed, wetting her mouth. Her left hand rubbed
at the spot where she’d been shot.
“Yeah,” she gasped. “Thanks.”
“You hit?”
“Plate shot. I think.”
She coughed, sitting back up. Pain shot through her
lungs. Blood hammered her temples.
And suddenly she realized her pistol light could be seen
from the outside.
She turned it off.
Too late.
Machine gun fire shattered the glass, ripping up the
ceiling and walls. Yamamoto cursed, ducking low.
“We have to move!” he yelled.
Fox holstered her pistol. Grabbed her rifle. Kept low.
Ran to him.
Together, they charged out into the hallway beyond,
sprinting for—
Explosions rocked the abandoned classroom. Fire
spilled out the door. Metal sang through the air. The shockwaves pummeled them,
stealing their balance, knocking them down.
Fox crashed into Yamamoto. He grunted, falling
forward.
Rotating his right arm, carbine pointed safely away,
he landed on the outer side of his forearm. He flowed with the momentum, rolling
over his shoulder across the floor, coming back up on his knees.
Fox just fell flat on her face.
Just before impact, she arched her spine and spread
her limbs back and away, taking the impact on her belly.
“Ouch,” she said.
“Are you okay?”
She tested her fingers and feet, arms and legs. All
good. She picked herself up.
“Yeah,” she said.
“Come on,” he urged.
They scrambled back up to their feet. Fox checked her
rifle, hoping against hope that the fall hadn’t jarred her sights.
“What the hell was that?” she mumbled.
“Airburst shells. Everything in the room has gotta be
wiped.”
She believed it. Clouds of smoke billowed from the
open door.
“Fallback shooting position,” she said. “Let’s go.”
Two doors down, they burst into another classroom. The
windows didn’t offer such a grand view of the field, but it had the singular
advantage of being mostly intact. She set up her rifle on a table by the
window, carefully aligning the barrel with a loophole, and aimed out.
The Hellions were still at it, bounding their way
forward. But now a second force
emerged from the woods. She saw them as little squiggles of white dots, barely
cooler than the background. But bright lights sparkled and flashed from their
positions. And there were lots of
them.
“Samurai, enemy reinforcements have arrived. Looks
like a platoon of infantry with thermal camo uniforms. They’re coming in from
the woods. The first Goshawk must have dropped them with the Hellions.”
“Boss, Boomer here. A second wave of enemies are
incoming. I’m looking at ten, twelve,
trucks, barreling down the road to the north. There might be more coming in
from elsewhere.”
Fox licked her lips. “I don’t think we have enough
ammo for all of them.”
Yamamoto’s teeth gleamed in the darkness.
“We don’t need to.”
“What do you mean?”
“Watch.”
He hit his radio’s push-to-talk switch.
“Addy, Betty, fall back now. Return to your vehicles
and get under hard cover. Break. ZT, head to side 4 and observe the perimeter.
All call signs, weapons hold. Do not fire except in self-defense, or to keep
the enemy from penetrating our position.”
As the team acknowledged his orders, he dug out a
phone from his chest pocket, hit the speed dial, and activated the loudspeaker.
“Nightwing, this is Samurai. Are you in position?”
“That’s an affirmative,” a deep voice drawled. “Looks
like you’re in a bit of a pinch down there. You need help?”
“Yes. The enemy has committed their reserves. A team
of Hellions, a platoon of light infantry by the park, vehicles to the north,
possibly more we haven’t seen yet. We are inside Bear Campus. The entire area
outside the building is a free-fire zone. If you see a weapon, an Elect, a
vehicle, slag it. Be advised, there may be enemy PBWs in the area.”
“Acknowledged, Samurai. Hang tight. We’re gonna erase
the grid square.”
“Is that…?” Fox asked.
Yamamoto nodded. “Yeah.”
“How?”
His lips pressed into a tight line.
“I called in a favor.”
High above the park, brighter but smaller than
the full moon, distant lights winked.
A sharp, steady drumming filled the air. A gigantic
liquid tearing sound, like an enormous canvas sail ripping apart, shredded the
night in quick bursts. Streaks of red light fell from the sky, destroying all
they touched.
Fireballs marched across the grass. Fountains of dirt
blasted high into the air. In crisp black-and-white, Fox saw men disintegrate
in the barrage. Explosions wiped out Hellions, heavy guns, infantry
concentrations.
And more and more and more munitions erupted, every
blast striking like the hammer of Heaven. Monsters roared. Men screamed.
Hellions fired futilely up into the sky before vanishing in a stream of fire.
Figures scrambled for cover, but there was none to be found. Humans, Hellions,
Elect, before the guns of the AC-252 Wraith, all died equally.
The huge gunship, lumbering through the heavens,
invisible and untouchable by mere mortals on the ground, shifted fire.
Autocannon and howitzer shells tore up the streets surrounding the campus.
Precision guided munitions homed in on targeting lasers and reflected radar
waves, destroying trucks, cars, anything that counted as a hard target. Walls
of flame surrounded the campus, cutting it off from the world. Fox could barely
see the gunship, tracking it only by the faraway flames wheeling slowly around
the building.
Through her thermal scope, she surveyed the field.
Fires blazed brightly, disrupting her sight picture. She switched between
thermal vision and her naked eye, sweeping the shadows and the lighted areas,
looking for signs of life.
She saw a shattered Hellion blasted into multiple
fragments. The upper torso of a man, a boot near his face. The lower half of a
Hellion, bleeding copiously on the grass. Ammunition and weapons exploding and
cooking off in the ferocious heat. Ground-up pulpy things that barely resembled humans.
They were all dead.
“Lord have mercy,” Yamamoto whispered. “Christ have
mercy.”
And still the killing continued.
The autocannon spat short, sharp bursts. The howitzer
boomed once, twice, thrice. Bombs and missiles exploded in the darkness. In the
intervals between explosions, men shrieked, cried, begged, prayed, their voices
reaching the heavens.
And still the Wraith continued its gun run, circling
once again, working over the old targets with its autocannon. A fresh
bombardment pounded the grass to mud. Explosive autocannon shells stirred what
was left. The gunship turned its attention to the other points of the compass,
its autocannon firing in ever-shorter bursts.
And, at last, it went silent.
“Samurai, this is Nightwing. Gun run complete. No
active targets on my scope.”
“Nightwing, Samurai,” Yamamoto said. “Thank you.
Please remain on station and keep watch for reinforcements. I need to switch
lines. I’ll call you if I need you again.”
“Aye-firm-ative, Samurai.”
He hung up. Closed his eyes. Clasped his hands and
lowered his head.
“What’s wrong?” Fox asked.
“Just… getting ready.”
“For what?”
He sighed.
“I said I called in a favor. But all favors come with
a price.”
“What do you mean?”
His phone vibrated.
He ignored it.
“Yuri?”
“Shh.”
The phone vibrated again.
He stayed where he was.
A third round of vibrations.
And he answered.
“Yuri Yamamoto, this is Commander Joshua Gregory. We
are here to take you in. Do you understand?”
Gregory was the founder and commander of the STS.
Being the equivalent of a Director, he never
took to the field. Unless absolutely necessary.
“Yes sir,” he said, fatigue dripping from his voice.
“I am here with the rest of the STS. Every operational
team. It’s been a crazy few weeks, and now we’re going to put a stop to that.
We’re here to clean house. We need you to come in. Stand your team down and put
down your weapons.”
Through her thermal imager, she saw white blobs cut
through the skies above the park. Sentinel armored gravtrucks, the flying vehicles
of the Special Tasks Section.
Cold sweat rolled down her neck. Was Gregory among
those compromised by the New Gods? Alex hadn’t said so. And they never had a
chance to confirm.
“Yuri…” she began.
He patted her shoulder.
“It’s okay.”
“Yuri, did you get my last?” Gregory asked.
“Affirmative, sir. We are standing down.”
“Good man. Enough people have died today. Let’s make
things right.”
“Yes sir.”
Yamamoto hung up.
Sighed.
And hit his push-to-talk switch.
“Black Watch, this is Samurai. The STS are coming in
on our position. Stand down now. Say again, stand down. Safe your weapons and
set them down. It’s over.”
“That’s it?” Connor exclaimed. “Just like that?”
“Just like that,” Yamamoto said. “This is the endgame.
And… ZT. Do your thing. Your laptop’s destroyed; you need the computer in the
lab. And give Alex the heads-up on our situation.”
“Acknowledged,” Tan said.
“Girls, disperse. E&E your way home. Do not get
caught, but do not use lethal force to resist lawful authorities.”
“Roger,” the bots said as one.
Boots pounded outside, Tan and Cindy sprinting at full
speed. The humming of gravity mirrors grew louder, the Sentinels closing in. Metal
clicks and sighs echoed softly in the room.
Fox safed her M180. Ejected the magazine. Worked the
bolt and caught the last round. Unholstered her weapon, unloaded it, set it on
the table. Stripped off her knives, placed them next to her guns.
Next to her, Yamamoto disarmed in silence. He laid out
his gear neatly, slowly, mindfully. His carbine first, then his pistol, and
last of all, his three blades, in order of increasing length.
In silence, they turned to face each other.
“Well,” Fox said. “It… it was a good run.”
He nodded. “Yeah.”
“Crazy, huh.”
“Absolutely.”
“I never expected to take on all the New Gods at once,
much less survive, but… here we are.”
Yamamoto nodded. “We made it.”
“We made it,” she repeated. “But…”
“But?”
“I just… what’s going to happen next?”
He smiled.
“Everything is in God’s hands. No matter what, we did
what was right. That’s what happens most. And…”
“And?”
He took her gloved hands in hers. They were warm.
Large. Firm.
She blinked. Blinked again. In the moonlight, she saw
his steely gray eyes trained on hers, his gaze so intense she felt she was
drowning in them.
“Everything will be all right.”
She smiled.
“Okay.”
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