14 September, 2115:
We delay the Stilson’s leaving for two days, hopefully just long enough for the Shinkyo to wonder what we’re doing. We assume they’d already set their trap before the attack on the Stations, just in case Paul and Simon left immediately upon receiving the news. Two days isn’t enough time for us to get any sense of where they may have set up or what they’re up to, but it gave us time to plan countermeasures of our own.
Testing the water, we sent an ASV out, to see if they would show their hand if a ship headed in the direction of a Station. There was no response. Simon suggested that they might have some way of detecting an actual ETE presence, possibly learned from previous encounters, so a decoy wouldn’t work. I suggested sending a Sphere on an unmanned ASV, but Simon reminded me that their tools are inert when not in proximity to their owners. That meant the only thing the Shinkyo would respond to was the detection of a live ETE presence, the very thing we’d rather not risk. But the brothers were more than eager to take that risk.
Minutes before sunrise on day two, we raise an ASV up out of the bays and push it through a combat liftoff. It makes a dash for the nearest ETE Station—Blue Station—and we almost immediately get word from Council Blue that an attack has commenced against that Station.
I get video feed of a pair of small jets like the ones that hit Stations Orange and Gold, throwing missiles wildly at the towers. Council Blue was prepared: everything gets deflected by ETE Spheres that had been ready and waiting for this.
“You called that one, Mikey,” Matthew mutters praise as he watches the fireworks in Ops. The tactic is a sensible one: The Shinkyo could not anticipate with certainty which of the Stations the Stilsons would head for, so they had to try to draw them to one. Bombing their home Station made sense because of the emotional connection as well as the proximity, and we let them think we fall for it. The ASV goes into full burn toward Blue Station.
But then it cuts hard into a bank that flips the ship almost full around, turning south-southeast. Now they’re burning across the valley for Green Station, which sits on the eastern extreme of the Melas South Rim—the Station closest to Melas Three. It’s a hundred-and-twenty-five-mile run across open valley, and we’re hoping it’s tempting, especially because we start squeezing.
Council Blue springs his own trap. A handful of his most experienced “technicians” burst up out of the soil well down-slope from the Station. They’d used the subsurface Feed Lines to tunnel into position undetected. And now they use their tools to fly up right into the midst of the attacking jets. An instant later, both ships have been slammed out of the sky, and his men are moving in to secure any survivors. The Councilman takes a moment to call and officially thank us for both the intel and the tactical advice—it’s the most joy I’ve heard out of that mask yet.
Out in the valley, the game is on.
“Here they come,” Metzger announces from Aircom. Radar gives us a triad of blips that appear from the east-central valley floor—it looks like they’d been using the Arcadia ruin for cover. It’s an ideal location to give them the best run at us, no matter which Station we headed for.
“I see ‘em,” I hear Smith confirm. “Let’s see what this old bucket can do.”
“Two more,” Metzger adds to her running report as blips appear out of gutted Mariner Colony. “They really were hoping we’d go straight for Blue Station.” The two new blips head south, desperate to catch up with the action.
The three from Arcadia try to intercept the ASV by getting between it and its goal. Smith does the expected thing and banks east, trying to do an end-run around them, but the ASV is no match for the speed of the light Shinkyo jets.
“Send in the cavalry,” I order on cue. Two ASVs spin up and blast off our pads, a reinforcement that both sides know will get there too late.
“Come on, baby…” Smith sings to his ship as we watch the enemy bear down on it.
“They’re splitting,” Metzger announces. “Two targets are dropping out.”
I see it on the tactical map: two of the three jets from Arcadia suddenly brake and drop into a ravine. The third flies full out at our transport. Suicidally.
“I was wondering how they planned to beat…” Matthew begins. The sudden flashover on our screens cuts him off mid-sentence.
“Holy shit…” I hear Metzger gasp. All I can do is watch.
The lead attack ship becomes a flare that swallows almost a square mile of valley. Our instruments flutter with static. Smith’s feed goes dead.
“You’ve got your answer,” I tell Matthew. Seconds later, we feel the rumble of the blast like a mild quake through our boots.
“Tactical mini-nuke,” Rick appraises, his voice sounding distant, numb.
“How?” I hear Lisa demand over the still-fuzzy Link from Melas Three.
“I was afraid of this,” Rick offers, shaky. “Incoming nukes got picked off during the Big One. There had to be warheads that came down at least partially intact.”
“And these fuckers found one?” Matthew wants not to believe.
“That was too small,” Rick tells him. “Looks like less than half-kiloton yield. Likely they broke one down into smaller devices.”
“Which means they have more?” Matthew sounds like he wants blood.
“Smith?” I ask. He disengages from the makeshift remote flight control Anton had installed in the Lancer’s cockpit, and turns to me with a sheepish but accepting nod.
“Yeah. I’m dead,” he answers me matter-of-factly, then turns back to the Lancer’s own controls.
Imaging tries to cut through the billowing dust, but the surface isn’t visible for miles around.
“Our friends are making their move,” Metzger lets me know. The remaining two jets come back up, but their radar contacts are fuzzy with all the crap in the air.
“Are we done with these fuckers yet?” Matthew asks me on Link.
“Let’s drop in and say hello, Lieutenant,” I tell Smith.
“With pleasure, Colonel. Hang onto something…”
The Lancer drops us quick. I wonder if they even see us coming through all the mess they’ve made.
“Weapons free. Fire at will,” I add, almost as an afterthought.
We’d moved the Lancer the day before, as soon as it was clear they weren’t going to try to intercept anything that wasn’t carrying an ETE. It went casually with the regular salvage traffic to Melas Three. Then in the dark of this morning, at the same time our “bait” transport was lifting off from the Melas Two pads, the Lancer went straight up. And she stayed up, hovering just over the electrostatic atmosphere shield, hoping that its interference, combined with the Lancer’s own stealth-skin, would effectively cloak us from the Shinkyo (especially if they weren’t focused on Melas Three).
The ASV’s sudden southward dash wasn’t a blind retreat: it brought them closer to Melas Three, which the Shinkyo likely considered of little consequence—they’d expect any significant armed response to come from Melas Two.
While we watched and waited, Smith did dual duty remote piloting the “bait” ASV (the least air-worthy of our salvaged ships—Morales wasn’t even sure it would survive the hard burn), then took back manual control of the Lancer. Now that he’s flying the ship he’s actually in, he moves with a vengeance.
Smith locks the guns and starts shredding the two closest enemy jets before they likely even see us through the radioactive dust cloud. They never get off a shot. I watch them break up and tumble into the billowing grit.
The remaining two coming in from the north realize their situation and turn to run home.
Now all we need to do is find Paul and Simon.
The Shinkyo “ninja” always seem to have at least two purposes for everything they do—that’s getting more apparent with every encounter. Their various attacks on the ETE were not just about the obvious objective of obtaining nanotech—I even doubt they had any real confidence of succeeding with that on their prior raids. It became clearer each time I
reviewed the ETE video records of the attacks: What they were really doing was probing their targets’ defenses, getting them to show their capabilities, and maybe even their limitations (and the ETE do have limitations—I can see that myself on the playback).
Somewhere in there they figured out how to scan for whatever energy signatures ETE gear emits when it’s active, or how to read a nano-enhanced body from a distance. That’s why they wouldn’t go for a ship that didn’t have an ETE on it, but went right for the ASV when Paul and Simon got on board. And that’s what forced us to put the brothers at risk (no matter how willing they were to go along with the plan).
Then they proved time-and-again that conventional weapons couldn’t pierce whatever field an ETE Sphere could project. They also knew they couldn’t risk trying to attack faster than one of the brothers could respond. But from the attacks on the Stations they learned three very important things: One, that the Spheres and Rods have very limited range; two, that the concussion of a big blast could send their operators reeling; and three, that it takes concentration (and in most cases a physical grip on the tools) to make them work.
From there came the extrapolation we weren’t sure about: how would they hit hard enough to guarantee the Stilsons would be out of play, or at least unable to effectively defend themselves (but not obliterate them in the process). What we missed was that they thought more specifically: they chose a weapon that had punch, but would also throw out EM interference that would potentially interfere with the ETE tools.
And now I’m feeling particularly stupid to have assumed that none of the “primitive” surviving factions would have both the technology and the sheer genocidal lunacy to make themselves a nuclear arsenal.
“Matthew, make sure those jets stay on the run,” I tell him over the Link, which is still suffering from all the charged air between us. “Anything incoming is suspect—we need to be ready to intercept while it’s still well away from us.”
“Already on it,” he assures me, though I can hear the edge in his voice. “And I’m having the ASVs watch the ground, too: quietest way to deliver a bomb is to walk it right up to our doorstep.”
“Rick, I’m going to need some kind of countermeasures. Some way to detect an incoming nuke from the greatest distance. Coming in by air or by ground.”
“I’m sorry, Colonel,” he starts apologizing. “I should have seen this coming. I should have.”
“Me, too, Doctor. I’m going to assume that since they didn’t just nuke us directly, they either didn’t care to or assumed we would intercept them,” I try to reassure. “They knew they only had this one shot and after that we’d know what they had. Lisa, get on the line to the ETE and let them know what happened. Maybe they can whip up a defense better than we can.”
“Yes, sir,” she replies officiously, only to soften: “Have you found them yet?”
“Too much crap in the air,” Smith inserts by way of an answer. “Can’t see the damn ground…” Then he yelps as an electrostatic arc cuts through the clouds just in front of us. “Jesus…”
“How hot is it out there?” I need to know. “Can we go outside?”
“The H-A Troopers can,” Rick answers. “Otherwise, I wouldn’t be out there without a full surface-suit. And then you’ll all need a hell of a scrub before you come back inside.”
We’d turned the crew section of the Lancer into a makeshift squad-bay, anticipating that we would need to engage the enemy on the surface. Rios hand-picked a dozen seasoned armor troopers to cram into a space not really made for their bulk.
“Any signal?” Matthew wants to know, even though his screens back at Ops should be showing him the same as everyone else’s.
“Bastards calculated it just right,” Anton tells him, monitoring the surface from his “station” in the Lancer cockpit. “Detonated so that our ship got caught hard in the EMP, but not close enough for the shockwave to blow it apart. Every circuit on that thing is likely fried, even the tracking tags.”
I’m wondering if ETE healing nanotech is EMP-proof. Worry is starting to cut through the rage I focus into doing the job.
“MAI’s modeled the blast,” Lisa offers. “Matched with the last trajectory of the ASV. Location should be good to within…”
“Got ‘em!” Smith rejoices. Then: “Fuck…”
I’m watching it myself on the Lancer’s screens: The dust clears enough to show us the battered and torn hulk of the ASV. It’s lying on its side, both wings gone, every surface smashed. The trench it dug as it came down tells me it did a lot of rolling. I’m hoping the Stilsons did what they were told and stayed in their crash-couches. But I’m not sure how much good the harnesses would have done, given the damage. The ship looks like it’s been thrown at the ground.
“Bring her down close,” I order, even though Smith is already doing so. I signal the troopers to seal up and I depressurize their section so they can just drop out of outer hatches without cycling the airlocks. I feel a crunch as the Lancer touches down on the rocks. The lower hatches pop and the armored troopers drop out fast and start moving. They fan into a defensive posture, watching all sides as well as the wreck. There’s no sign of life for a few tense moments. Sergeant Jensen is the first one to the ship, and she shows me the transport module has been torn open. There’s no one inside, but there is blood. I feel my stomach sink. It gets worse when Jensen finds Paul’s helmet. Then Simon’s.
“Got ‘em!” Smith shouts. “Due east of you. One hundred meters…”
I can see a blue suit waving from the crest of a fissure—likely an ancient wash—in the valley floor. I’m guessing they got away from the ship and tried to hide, just in case. But I only see one of them. He’s wearing one of our masks. There’s blood on his face and on his suit and he’s covered in dust. It takes the troopers several seconds to bound over to him. He waves frantically, gesturing them to follow, to hurry, then hops back down out of sight into the fissure. I follow Jensen’s visual feed as she skips over the rough ground to the edge of the fissure. The waving figure is now cradling another blue suit, which he’d apparently concealed beneath a small rock overhang. This suit is also wearing one of our masks, and is bloodier by far than the first. The limbs look tangled in ways that tell me they’re broken. Jensen gets me a good enough shot of the face to tell me it’s Paul. His eyes are closed, his body shivering in shock or pain or both. Simon pushes his face close to Jensen’s faceplate.
“I need to get my brother home!” he shouts like he’s deaf. “I need to get him home now!!!”
We turn the aft lab section into a combination ambulance and decontamination chamber, and shut hatches to seal it off from the rest of the ship. Paul gets strapped onto a trauma gurney (one of two we’d brought just in case), and the med-gear gives him a quick scan. He’s snapped both legs (one at the femur), cracked his pelvis and several ribs, and his right arm is out at the shoulder joint. Both his spleen and liver are bleeding, and we had to mechanically re-inflate his right lung. He’s also got head-trauma. Simon has a nasty cut on his head, a bad limp and is nursing one arm, but he won’t let anyone examine him.
Because of the radiation, I can’t go back to see him. I order Smith to get us in the air and burn straight for Green Station. Then I go back to watching Paul on my screen. I’m waiting for him to heal, waiting for his marvelous technology to put him back together before my eyes, but it isn’t happening. And Simon’s head is still bleeding.
“Why didn’t he heal?”
“He tried to,” Simon tells me after we’ve touched down and a brace of green sealsuits meet us on the pad to take Paul into the Station. He touches his own bleeding forehead, looks at the blood on his fingers, looks like he’s either going to laugh or be sick.
“Big secret, Colonel Ram,” Simon gets quiet but I can still feel his rage. “EMP does fry our nanites like any other micro-tech. The body itself provides enough insulation to keep it all from being killed, but we’re both working at severe deficits right now. Paul may
need full re-implantation.”
More green suits come for Simon, but he waves them to wait with his bloody hand. Then he touches his fingers to his wound again. Grimaces. Giggles.
“Never felt this… not like this…” he mumbles. “Paul… His couch broke loose. I saw him… He bounced and broke all over as we tumbled. I carried him. I dragged him out…”
I nod in understanding but don’t interrupt him, don’t tell him he needs to go with the green suits.
“Our masks didn’t work,” he continues. “Our tools didn’t work. I used your masks, your masks worked, got him to breathe, carried him…” He’s staring blankly at the hatch into the Station, the same hatch his brother was just taken through. The green suits move closer, ready to catch him because he’s starting to fold up on his feet. They’re all masked, so I can’t see their expressions. I wonder how much this is unsettling them. Then Simon turns his eyes to mine. Shows me his bloody fingers like a child who’s found something fascinating.
“Is this… Is this what it’s like for you?”
The green suits take hold of him and lead him away. They don’t say a word to me at all.
Part Three: Warriors