Authors: Tony Gonzales
“Must get off street,” she heard Mack say.
“More patrols nearby.”
Jonas could barely breathe.
“Okay,” he gasped.
“She’s … getting heavier by the second.”
“This way,” Mack said.
Gable felt Jonas make his way up a small mound of rubble.
She saw one of the Rantula’s plated legs scoot by.
“In here,” she heard Mack say.
Jonas grunted as he knelt; and then she was gently let down onto the floor.
It was pitch black.
“Put your night optics on,” Jonas said.
The room brightened into shades of gray and white; Jonas’s eyes were eerie orbs in the enhanced lighting.
Mack set the 20mm cannon down and began scouting the area, sniffing the air on occasion.
The Rantula’s head peered into the opening where they entered; it reminded Gable of a lonely pet that wanted to come inside and play.
“Up,” Mack told it.
“Overwatch position.”
With a cheerful chirp, the death machine scurried up the side of the building.
Gable saw children’s toys, old furniture, and cooking appliances strewn among the bones of small animals and the carcasses of dead laaknyds.
Several walls had been knocked down, revealing the apartments next door; destroyed pipes and twisted support beams were exposed.
A hole in the ceiling went straight through to the roof five stories above them.
Her back hurt so much she wanted to cry.
“What the hell happened to this place?”
Jonas asked.
“It was abandoned when I arrived,” Gable said, trying to find a more comfortable position.
“More than a hundred thousand people lived here once.
Most died during the fighting; others were lucky enough to leave.
General Kintreb kept those who remained closer to the barracks.”
“Voices low,” Mack reminded them, lurking about in the shadows.
“Captain Varitec, are you still alive?”
the radio blurted.
It was Mordu.
“Yes,” Jonas answered.
“For now anyway.”
Mack’s chin suddenly went up; he took a deep sniff of the air.
“Time is short, so I must be brief,” he said.
“Your friend Vince is still alive, and Ishukone Watch and the Gallente Federation have both agreed to help you find him.”
Mack frantically motioned for Jonas to keep his mouth shut, then pointed to his own nose: His augmented olfactive abilities sensed that trouble was coming.
After slowly pulling the vowrtech off his back, he reached up through the hole in the ceiling and quietly pushed the weapon over the edge.
Then he pulled himself up and over the ledge effortlessly, courtesy of his cybernetic arm.
“They’re going to try to funnel him toward you in the hope you can persuade him to join us,” Mordu continued.
“We need you to make your way south, toward the spaceport.
There’s enough room there for a gunship extraction.”
Gable was terrified.
The radio was audible only inside the earpieces they were all wearing, but now Jonas tensed up as well, his rifle drawn.
He motioned for her to shut the radio off.
“Jonas, do you copy this?”
Mordu asked.
“Jonas!”
Gable did so, and then just listened.
The wind had picked up, passing through the broken building with a ghostly hum.
There was a clicking noise, perhaps made by the insects that made their home here; and the distant sound of war, with muffled thumps and explosions carrying through the corridors of buildings outside.
Jonas was backing away from the entrance when a
whoosh-thud
startled her; he fired a burst from his rifle wildly as sparks jumped out from the space where a wall once stood.
A figure uncloaked as it collapsed in the opening; a knife hilt was protruding from his neck.
Gunfire rang out from above them.
Jonas was whirling around looking for something to shoot, when Mack appeared at the room’s entrance and fired the vowrtech almost directly at him.
Gable flinched as another soldier uncloaked in midair, pummeled by the weapon’s focused overpressure blast.
He landed in a heap, white-hot blood foaming from his mouth and ears.
By the time her eyes moved back to the door, Mack had pushed Jonas to the ground and fired the weapon a second time; the round missed whatever he was aiming at and threw several pieces of kitchen furniture into the wall.
A third figure emerged in front of Mack.
A gun discharged as he swung his cybernetic arm downward, cracking the man in his shoulder and driving him to his knees.
Mack staggered back once, then stepped forward and swung so hard and fast that the man’s head came clean off.
It rolled to a halt beside Gable.
“Special Forces,” Mack said.
“Paladin cloaking armor.
More approaching.
Must move.”
“
Fuck
me,” Jonas said.
“Are you hurt?”
Gable could tell he was; Mack’s body armor was shredded in the abdominal plating.
“Come here,” she said.
“Let me see it.”
“No time,” he said, hoisting up the 20mm cannon.
“We go now.
Hurry!”
She dreaded the thought of moving, but before she could protest, Jonas injected her with more painkillers.
“Up we go,” he grunted, lifting her up.
Mack was leading them through the first floor of the building, using his arm to bash obstacles out of the way.
“Mordu, this is Jonas.
We’re in direct contact with hostile forces and moving to the southwest, per your instructions.”
“Tank!”
Mack screamed.
“Get down!”
A horrible, numbing blast made the wall in front of them vanish; Gable shrieked as she felt herself fall, blasted by a rain of heavy debris.
Gasping for air, she flipped onto her back.
Jonas was hurt; he had a dazed look in his eyes.
His helmet was cracked.
“Stay down!”
Mack shouted.
She could see the street outside; the tank’s beam had obliterated the ground-floor wall.
They were completely exposed from this position.
The Rantula was scurrying down the street in a zigzag pattern, as a tank about sixty meters away fired at it but missed; the drone leapt onto the tank’s turret and began cutting into it with plasma torches.
Mack took aim with the cannon, but it jammed; the feed mechanism for the belt must have been dented during the attack.
As the tank’s turret trained on them, Gable felt a rhythmic pounding that shook the crumbling gravel around her.
The turret suddenly changed directions just as a bright white beam blew it apart; an MTAC stomped past its flaming wreck, approaching their position.
The Rantula changed targets and began charging after the walking machine; another beam blew the drone to pieces.
She pulled herself behind some rubble, for all the good it would do.
Mack, still defiantly standing out in the open, pointed the cannon in its direction, then threw it down in disgust as the MTAC marched directly toward him and stopped.
Its spotlights made everyone shield their eyes.
As Gable shivered, waiting to be killed, the walker turned its lights off.
* * *
THE TARGETING RETICLE CENTERED
on the scarred man’s face.
Vince recognized him instantly.
His rage returned; the gold-plated arm of the Guardian pointed its tank-shredding cannon his way.
Stop,
the Architect pleaded.
He could be dear to the one you seek.
Vince shook his head.
He can bring you to her!
To harmony!
Your rage brings nothing but torment.
The scarred man was thinking, he saw.… But he stood defiant.
He wouldn’t move.
As if he was protecting something.
He does as you would,
the Architect said.
Protecting the one you love.
Vince felt a familiar fear descend over him … like in the days when he feared coming home to an abusive father, of facing his instructors as a military cadet, and of dying aboard the
Retford.
Let yourself be vulnerable.
Just this one time.
* * *
GABLE WAS PRAYING
when Mack called out.
“Lifegiver,” he said, “come forward.”
She tried to move; it hurt so much.
“Do it!”
Mack shouted.
“Show yourself!”
The drugs and the adrenaline compelled her to listen.
She pulled herself forward.
Mack hurried over and lifted her up, then walked close enough for her to see that the MTAC had its cockpit hatch open.
“Gable,” Vince called out.
“Can you help me.…”
* * *
ADMIRAL FREEMAN WATCHED HELPLESSLY
as another Judgment beam lashed out from the Avatar and destroyed one of his dreadnoughts from 250 kilometers away.
A lot of people died today, and he wasn’t sure why.
It was time to test this new alliance.
“Commander Reppola, I just lost half my towing capacity and have a mechanized division stranded on the surface,” he said.
“That titan is murdering anything in low orbit.”
“We’ll get them back,” Mens said.
“But it would go faster if we could focus on personnel and abandon the equipment.”
“Whatever it takes,” Admiral Freeman said.
“I’m in your debt.”
“Gentlemen, we have him,” Mordu interrupted.
“My team has made contact, and the HVI is cooperating.
We can start pulling back, but they need an extraction, and the LZ is hot.
Do either of you have gunships nearby that can assist?”
“Eagle One, do you copy?”
Admiral Freeman said.
“Yes, sir, go ahead.”
“Alright, Mordu—where are they?”
“An apartment complex in the southwest of the colony.
Two klicks south of that is a spaceport.”
“Yes, it’s marked on our maps as grid one-one-five,” Eagle One said.
“The HVI is in a Guardian-class MTAC,” Mordu said.
“Our team marked it
and
themselves with IR strobes, six flash pulse.
Got it?”
“Affirmative,” Eagle One said.
“Can we communicate with them directly?”
“Yes; stand by.
Mack?”
“Copy,” Mack said.
“Have two casualties.
Need extraction.”
“Mack, this is Eagle One, Federation Marines.
Can you make it to the top of any of those buildings?”
“Negative.
Building structure unstable.”
Admiral Freeman was directed to his display by more warnings: A huge fleet of Minmatar ships warped onto the battlefield.
Six Naglfar-class dreadnoughts were already in the gauntlet, with the rest of the armada 900 kilometers above them.
The Avatar was turning away from the surface.
“We need to hurry,” Mordu warned.
“I don’t know what those crazy Minnies are going to shoot.
We have to get off the surface or this is going to get ugly.”
“Concur, Mack, this is Eagle One.
Stay where you are; we’re coming to you.
Close air is in your grid.”
“Copy.”
“Command, this is Hightower.
If you don’t get him now, you’re not going to.
They’re surrounded by foot mobiles, with armor closing in.”
“Those targets will be priority for our own armor,” Eagle One said.
“After we get them, we’re fast-tracking south and west to your dropsites, correct, Watch?”
“That’s correct,” Mens said.
“We’ll cover your flanks.”
“Mordu, I recommend you start pulling your ships out,” Admiral Freeman suggested.
“You can’t do anything else from there.”
“We’re not leaving until our team is off the surface,” Mordu said.
“Your call,” Mens said.
“But you need to trust us.”
* * *
JONAS FELT A CRUSHING GROGGINESS
obscuring his view of the world as it slowly came back into focus.
Someone was screaming into his ear: “Jonas, talk to us!”