Shadow Ops: Fortress Frontier-ARC (pdf conv.) (25 page)

The Physiomancer pointed, the tip of his finger stretching into a bone spike that hovered in front of the Britton’s eyeball, so close he could see the pores in the bone, flecked with glistening red. “Are you fucking stupid? Do you have any idea how much I can hurt you? Do you want to die?”

Britton remembered Harlequin, diving from the flight-line tower to save him. The one thing he could count on the SOC to do was try to preserve his power, bend it to their uses. He knew the Sculptor’s threats of torture weren’t idle. But his threats of death were.

“Do you want to kill me?” Britton mused. “Because that’s what you’re going to have to do to get me to open another gate anywhere, ever.” He strained to see Downer, but the girl was screened by the legs and boots of soldiers and SOC operators, crowding around her. He thought of calling out to her, then remembered the expression on her face as she’d dropped to her knees.
I don’t have anywhere else,
she’d said. He hadn’t been able to make her see that she did have somewhere else, and now she’d made her choice. Failure choked him.

The Sculptor cocked an eyebrow as one of the operators moved behind Britton, his voice firm and low. “Hands behind your back. Spread your fingers.” Britton thought briefly of fighting, then considered the array of weapons pointed at him. He complied, wincing as the cuffs cinched tight.

“All right, let’s go.” They began to walk him toward the rear of the hothouse, where a pair of metal-framed double doors stood open. As he passed the Sculptor, he twisted toward him, glaring.

“Be nice,” the Sculptor said, meeting his eyes. “I Rend as well as I disguise. We have a lot of questions to ask you, Oscar. And I’m going to be helping out in that regard, so you’d do well to be kind to me.”

Britton was forced out onto a cracked concrete driveway, beside which he could see an unmarked white van. Beyond it, a river reflected the lights of assembled skyscrapers, straining skyward like glittering concrete teeth. Police cars blocked the street at both ends, sirens spinning, yellow tape keeping pedestrians well away.

They stopped him, and the Sculptor came forward, raising a black hood. “You know the drill.” He held it over Britton’s head, meeting his glare. The Sculptor’s eyes were pale gray and filmy.

The eyes of a dead man. Pitiless.

Sick fear churned in Britton’s stomach. His heart fluttered like a caged bird.

“Oh, you and I are going to be spending some quality time together from now on, my dear Oscar Britton,” the Sculptor said.

“I am so looking forward to it.”

The hood came down, and Britton drowned in darkness.

Cross-Purposes

The “Embracer” faith centers around the belief that magic is the wellspring of life. All those who live outside the faith are thought to have become “lost,” wandering from that pivotal origin. It is the duty of all rightly minded goblins to bring all living things back to that flow. Success in this endeavor will bring about some kind of heralded golden age. Bringing the “lost” home is a matter of dogma among the Embracers, and the defense of those they choose to embrace one of the few things that will move them to violence. The Mattab On Sorrah exist in a constant state of war with the neighboring Defender tribes that wish to fight against humans.

—Simon Truelove

“A Sojourn Among the Mattab on Sorrah”

Bookbinder was awakened by explosions and shrieking gunfire.

He rolled into a sitting position, blinking and rubbing his eyes.

He felt the hair on the back of his neck rise as Aeromantic magic drove what must have been a massive column of lightning into the ground just outside his hooch. The converted container shook, and the smell of ozone filled the tiny room.

He yawned, shook his head and buckled on his gun belt, strapped on his body armor and helmet, tied his boots. He opened the door and made his way outside, not hurrying. Why should he? Repulsing the attacking goblins bought them two days of peace. The attacks had come roughly every other day since then, increasing in intensity. It was as if the local tribes knew they were cut off and running low on supplies. Or maybe they had seen the interior of the FOB when they’d first overrun the SASS and gone mad at the thought of plunder.

Soldiers raced pell-mell on the muddy track. The attack seemed to be on the flight-line perimeter this time, a bad call by the attackers, as air support didn’t have far to go to get in the fight.

Bookbinder saw an MP standing in front of the hooch across from his rocking back and forth like he was wrestling with something. Bookbinder stared until the man drew back his fist and began punching, then he jogged over. As he drew closer, he could see the MP had a goblin contractor pinned against the side of the hooch. The creature’s face was bruised and going bloody under the blows. The MP’s battle buddy stood to one side, watching impassively.

Bookbinder noted the man’s stripes before shouting. “Damn it, Sergeant! What the hell is going on here?”

The man turned and saluted, his knuckles bloody. His other hand still held the goblin by its skinny throat. “Sorry, sir. I caught this little fucker spotting for the enemy.”

“What was he doing?” Bookbinder asked. “Drawing a map?”

The MP’s partner, an army private first class, replied. “You know how it is, sir.”

“No, I do
not
fucking know how it is. You’re going to explain it to me right now.”

The PFC might have rolled his eyes, but it was impossible to tell in the half-light, smoke, and chaos around them. “He was pacing off, sir, to guide in the indirect.”

Bookbinder gestured around him. “Here? A bunch of residential hooches that are far apart and sandbagged out the ass? They might get three people if they’re lucky. Spotters would be working the crowded areas, like the DFAC or the cash.”

The PFC shrugged, and the sergeant began to look irritated.

“He was pacing off, sir. They give that to their Sorcerers to call in the magical strikes.”

“I know how they do it. And what you’re telling me is that he was
walking
.”

The sergeant’s eyes narrowed, “Pacing, sir. We’re taking him in.”

“Take him in, question him. That’s your job. You know what’s not your job? Beating the living shit out of him.”

“He was resisting, sir,” the sergeant said. He was at least double the creature’s size and kitted out in full battle rattle, while the goblin was unarmed and only semiconscious.

“Uh–huh, looks like a real threat. Let him go and let me see your ID, we’re going to have a little chat with your—”

Bookbinder was cut off by the deafening howl of one of the air-defense systems engaging. It popped from its nest of wire and concrete gabions, the radar in its white dome tracking something, and let loose a volley of twenty-millimeter rounds.

Bookbinder looked up just in time to see a smallish dragon, its dark blue hide almost invisible in the night sky, dodging around the vicious column of fire. A goblin, skin painted white and nearly as big as the flying creature, clung tightly to its back, legs wrapped around its underbelly, arms around its long neck.

As it passed over them, the goblin howled something in its own language and pointed downward. The ground beneath Bookbinder’s feet rolled like an ocean wave. A fist-sized chunk of rock careened off his body armor and spun past his head with enough force that it would have decapitated him had it been just a few inches closer. It collided with the white radar dome of the air-defense system, shattering the plastic and sending a spray of sparks showering over Bookbinder. The gunfire stopped immediately.

Bookbinder heard a shriek and cursing from the MPs. He shut his eyes against the sparks as the air-defense system coughed and died. He flailed for his pistol, unable to get his footing on the rolling ground.

Boot tips brushed the top of Bookbinder’s helmet and, suddenly, the ground steadied. He yanked his pistol from his holster and jerked it skyward, just in time to see the goblin sorcerer winging away from him, two SOC Aeromancers in close pursuit, a summoned storm cloud belching fist-sized hailstones, pummeling the little dragon that served as its mount.

“Fuuuuuck! Oh, fuck!” someone wailed.

Bookbinder looked down. The sergeant and the goblin were gone. The PFC remained, swallowed by the earth from his waist down. His helmet and goggles were gone, and blood trickled from the corner of one eye. His face had gone white.

Bookbinder ran to his side and knelt. “Are you okay?”
You
idiot. Does he look okay?
“You’re stuck?” He thrust his hands into the PFC’s armpits, trying to haul him up.

“No! No! No!” the PFC shrieked. “My . . . I’m all smashed up down there! Stop! Stop!”

Bookbinder jumped to his feet. “Okay . . . Hang on, I’ll go for help.”

He bolted for the cash. “Medic!” he shouted. “Need a medic here!”

The farther he got from the flight line, the quieter the FOB became. Before long, the muddy pathways were completely deserted.

That all changed once he reached the cash. Lines of wounded stretched out of the entrance flaps, some draped over gurneys, others sprawled in the mud, their buddies trying vainly to help them. The cries and moans reached Bookbinder long before he reached them. A few white-coated doctors, assistants, and orderlies buzzed among the wounded, engaged in desperate triage.

Bookbinder’s stomach fell as he realized that PFC would have to linger in agony or die until this assault passed. There was simply no help to spare.

I can at least get him a syringe of morphine.
The PFC had been involved in what was likely the illegal beating of an innocent contractor. But that was no reason not to help the man. He was a soldier, and Bookbinder was a leader of soldiers. That PFC wasn’t the only one who had begun to look askance at the sizeable cadre of goblin contractors who worked on the base. Many had disappeared following Britton’s escape. The hostility and distrust of the indig skyrocketed with the increasing pace of attacks.

Bookbinder knelt beside an orderly in scrubs so blood-soaked they were a shade between rust and purple. Though he already knew the answer, he said, “I’ve got a guy about a quarter klick east hurt bad. I need a medic.”

The orderly shook his head without turning. “Sorry, we’re all hands on deck here. There’s a map in the trauma tent. Mark his location there and fill out a casualty card. We’ll get to him when we can.”

Bookbinder nodded and stood. “Think they’d let me take him some morphine? He’s in a lot of pain.”

But the orderly was already moving down the line to the next group of wounded, pointing those that could walk to one stretch of freezing mud, calling on others to attend to those who didn’t look mobile.

Bookbinder sighed and went to look for the map, nearly rebounding off Colonel Taylor’s chest. The bigger man looked wan, exhausted.

“Colonel Taylor! What are you doing here?” Bookbinder asked. The tension between them had been palpable ever since their confrontation, but it simmered beneath a surface of polite respect. Taylor answered Bookbinder’s questions, and Bookbinder let Taylor do his best to resolve their increasingly desperate plight. They agreed not to make a formal announcement to the FOB, though Bookbinder figured they could only go another day before having to make some kind of public statement.

Taylor actually looked glad to see him. “I sent a runner to your hooch. Looks like you read my mind. I need you to take over here. I have to get in the fight.”

Bookbinder nodded, glad to have something he could do to help. “Sure thing. What’s the situation?”

“Pretty much what you see. Overwhelmed and undermanned, and now supply problems: saline, hemostatic agents, clean syringes. I’ve got Pyromancers cauterizing wounds. We’re in the dark ages. Come inside, I’ll hook you up with Lieutenant Colonel Dacic. He could use a full bird to give his orders some weight.”

Bookbinder followed him into the tent. “The pace of the attacks is increasing. I think they have an idea we’re in trouble here.”

Taylor grunted. “Concur. It’s not sustainable. We’ve got to find a way to button this up.” He stopped walking, and Bookbinder had to check his stride to avoid running into him. Taylor turned toward him and sighed. “This is a goddamn mess, Alan.”

He had begun calling Bookbinder by his first name consistently ever since the confrontation. Bookbinder didn’t want to risk damaging the fragile détente that had built between them by reciprocating.

Taylor shook his head. “I was hoping to hold off on this, but I’m going to initiate Emergency Plan Tiger Smile as soon as I get you settled here.”

Bookbinder groaned inwardly at the ridiculous code names these combat types used.

“What is that?” he asked, trying not to let his reaction show on his face.

Taylor looked embarrassed. “Classified.”

Bookbinder didn’t want another fight with Taylor, but he was not about to lose all the forward progress he’d made. “Come on, Colonel. I thought we were in this together. I can help here, but you’ve got to give me the tools I need to do the job.”

Taylor grimaced. Bookbinder waited for the color to rise in his face, for his bullying petulance to return.

But Taylor only pursed his lips. “I know, Alan. I know. Read–on for this one’s a pain in the ass. Let me double-check a couple of things, then I’ll get you up to speed. Just give me a few hours to cover my ass, okay?”