Under Strange Suns (6 page)

The chattering of the SAW so near reverberated in his head, muting the sounds of the conflict in the encampment. He thought he heard firing from Sinclair’s position. Then a furious exchange of gunfire from within Farouq’s house. He couldn’t see the house from his position, but he spared a glance in that direction, his night-vision catching gunfire as jagged white flares that provided strobes of illumination to walls and hard-packed mud streets. Well, he had his fire sector. If the Captain needed him, he’d call. He returned his attention where it belonged.

Yells, exhortations to God he’d heard too many times, announced his next visitors.
Shit
, thought Aidan,
twenty fighters my ass; fucking intel can’t count
. There might have been twenty in just this group, filling the space between the village wall and the nearest houses. They came on like a wave, flooding toward him, rifles, naked blades, and at least a couple of RPG launchers bobbing up and down in the mass of humanity. His visor kept up, the individual components of the human wave were picked out and given a sense of depth.

Right
. Aidan wished he’d gone prone and set up the bipod. He tucked the buttstock tight to his shoulder and opened up. The wave came on, sections collapsing, breaking apart. Still it came on, bright flashes and loud reports telling him the firefight wasn’t one-sided. Rounds embedded into the mud bricks behind him, others skipping off of the hard-packed earth around him. He kept the trigger depressed, sweeping across the front of attackers, his shoulder absorbing the jack-hammer recoil. Spent brass and the disintegrating links from the belt littered the street about him.

Shit! They kept coming. How many did he have to kill before they stopped coming? There, one kneeling with an RPG. Traverse left. More rounds hammering from the SAW.
Got him. But, oh fuck, another one. Traverse right
. God, he was getting so tired of this.
But, keep firing
, he thought wearily.
They keep coming so keep knocking them down
.

And then the firing ceased. Click. 200-hundred round plastic magazine empty already. Still one man coming at him, brandishing a goddamned scimitar. Or was it a tulwar? Aidan wasn’t clear on the difference. He also wasn’t clear on why military procurement insisted on clinging to fifty-year old weapons platforms. Why wasn’t he carrying something with electronically ignited, caseless rounds, something with a greater magazine capacity? Something that wasn’t strapped so tightly to his chest and was a bit more practical in a close quarters fight?

Aidan didn’t have time to load another magazine of linked ammunition or even slap a thirty-round M-16 magazine in the well. The strap configuration on his rifle was optimized for weapon retention, security, and ease in bringing it to a firing position. It wasn’t optimized for hand-to-hand combat. The weapon wasn’t really built for bayonet lunges or delivering a butt-stroke to the head. Wasn’t a bayonet lug on the short SAW anyway and its collapsible butt-stock wouldn’t deliver much of a wallop.

But there was the bolo knife in the belt of the first man he’d killed. He released his grip on the SAW, let it dangle, and lunged for the long knife. Seemed so far away from him.

He imagined the scimitar arcing down at him, burying deep in his neck. Not hard enough to take his head off but hard enough the bastard couldn’t tug it easily free, had to yank it out. Take a couple more whacks, and he’d feel each one before the dull blade severed his spinal cord.

And then Aidan’s gloved fingers reached the handle of the bolo; he snatched it free from the cord belt, raising himself to one knee to catch the descending sword stroke.

The blades clanged, Aidan twisted his wrist and the scimitar slid away to his right, throwing the swordsman off balance. Aidan used the split-second respite to push himself to his feet, swivel side-on in a fencer’s stance. It felt a trifle unnatural; his training was in the Italian school, sword and parrying dagger. But he’d cross-trained, acting as Captain Merit’s sparring partner in enough classical fencing bouts in the VR Salle that he pulled off the maneuver as fluidly as practical given all the gear strapped to him. His reaction seemed to take his attacker aback and Aidan had a chance to get a decent look at him, his greenish tinted face thin, mostly beardless.
Oh Christ
, he thought,
not much more than fifteen years old. Another goddamn kid
.

And then the kid was moving again, starting a looping backhand, going for Aidan’s neck. Aidan lunged, plunging the bolo knife into the kid’s abdomen as the scimitar whooshed overhead.

The kid screamed, dropping the sword and backing away. The thick blade of the bolo slid out of the gaping hole, a brighter shade of green beginning to spread from the wound.

Aidan let the knife drop. He detached the spent magazine and grabbed another 200-round magazine.

“Fallback to the rally point,” came Merit’s voice. Aidan took another glance down the street, saw nothing but the kid, now on his knees, still screaming, a pile of bodies behind him, some still writhing, pleas to God interspersed with groans and wails. A momentary glance, but the image imprinted itself vividly, indelibly. Then Aidan tore himself away and pelted back down the street, making for the south gate.

He saw Hearse, a burden slung over his shoulder. Two dots overlapped on his visor. Shit, that was Summers in a fireman’s carry. Behind came Captain Merit, walking backwards, M4 panning left to right, triggering three-round bursts every few seconds. Sinclair sprinted toward them. They all met at the gate.

Aidan and Sinclair took over rear guard from the Captain, who eased Summers from Massey’s shoulder.

“Hang on, Summers,” Merit said. Turning his back, he grabbed the Master Sergeant beneath the knees and hoisted while Hearse lifted him by the armpits.

“I’ll hang on so long as you and Massey do,” Summers answered. Aidan noted he didn’t refer to the medic as ‘Hearse’ this time.

They returned to the rally point at a trot without seeing any further pursuit, Merit explaining that they’d taken out Farouq easily enough, took his mug shots, fingerprints and hair sample. Merit had snatched a datapad and was looking for a computer or any storage devices when the bodyguards arrived. More bodyguards than there should have been. Summers had taken two below his vest, but stayed on his feet, helping clear the room before they scampered.

“Shit, sir, it’s just a flesh wound,” Summers said. “Well, okay, two. Two, deep, very painful flesh wounds.”

“That’s right, Summers,” Merit said. “Let’s get you to the Mule and head to the rendezvous. You can show us the scars over beer. Or better yet, considering where you got shot, let’s just stick to drinking the beer.”

It was a thirty mile hump to the exfiltration site, where an Army Special Air chopper would be waiting to fly them out to an aircraft carrier. From there, another helicopter would deliver them to Diego Garcia. And then Aidan would go back to what was left of the States and get his discharge papers. He had had his fill. There was something else out there for him. He didn’t know what it was but he was damned sure going to look. He didn’t know what the others would do. Probably more of the same; killing the seemingly inexhaustible supply of people filled with seemingly bottomless wells of hate.

Except for Master Sergeant Summers. He’d never squeeze another trigger or drink another beer. He died before they reached the Mule.

A
IDAN CARSON HOISTED THE FAMILIAR WEIGHT
of the green canvas duffel bag over one shoulder as the bus whined away. The bus stop provided an ideal vantage point for taking in the spaceport sprawling over the desert before him. The low, glass-sided buildings nearest him looked smaller than they actually were against the immensity of the New Mexico landscape. These were the administrative offices, passenger terminals, and hotels. Taller, fancifully futuristic short spires jutted above this first grouping: the showpiece headquarters of the more prosperous launch companies. Farther out squatted more modest structures: supply sheds, emergency vehicle garages, and the like. The size of the buildings increased beyond those to massive hangars and maintenance bays. And beyond the vast collection of edifices–a small city, really–spread the spaceport proper. Runways drew perspective lines in the desert, dwindling to vanishing points. Launch gantries reached skyward, like the scaffolding and sky-cranes of a never-to-be-built metropolis. Hydrogen powered rail-gun launchers like a labyrinth of half-completed roller-coasters, covered the slopes of a rising group of stony brown hills. The lofty red and yellow girders of the air traffic and launch control towers, sprouting radar arrays and radio antennae, clustered roughly in the center of it all.

A brief impulse to pick up a visitor’s map caused him to quirk his lips. Captain Merit loved to base adventure maps for the team’s weekly Dungeons & Dragons games on colorful tourist guides the team members picked up on their travels. Well, no more of that. The party would have to do without its cleric/ranger.

The spaceport hummed. Vehicles and pedestrians swarmed over tarmac that shimmered in the desert heat. As he stood there a payload hurtled down a rail-gun track, up the curving end and away, disappearing into the pale blue sky with supersonic report like a .50 rifle. Supply trucks were huddling about a towering rocket like worker ants catering to the queen. The bustle of modernity, of civilization, made Aidan a trifle uneasy. On one hand, the contrast to the environs he’d been immersed in for most of the last two years was refreshing, an image of efficiency and technological competency. Forward looking. On the other hand, this vestige of America’s recent past felt unreal, like a historical recreation of a bygone age, earnestly recreated but ultimately a little sad, a nostalgic grasping after what could never be reattained.

Aidan flipped up the Kevlar reinforced flap protecting the army issue datapad strapped to his wrist, and consulted the screen, confirming the address of his destination and calling up a direct route. That he even had the datapad after his discharge spoke to the greater disarray of the country. Before DC there was no way in hell the Army would let him walk away with the datapad any more than it would with a rifle, or night vision gear, or any of a dozen other expensive bits of gear he had signed for over the years. But the rest of the world was falling apart. Why should the military be any different?

He looked up, picking out what he believed was the building indicated by the datapad, a nondescript aluminum shed tucked into the maze of similar structures about a kilometer from the bus stop. He shifted the duffel higher up his shoulder and began walking.

The massive glass walls of the spaceport’s iconic buildings engulfed him, his reflection cast greenly back. He wished he could stop in for a cold beer, but his funds were limited. Pay had grown intermittent the last few months. He had spent a good chunk of his savings on the bus ticket. Most of the rest he’d sent to Summers’ widow. Also, he probably shouldn’t show up for an interview with the whiff of barley pop on his breath, and he’d only just make the appointment on time as it was.

He left the eye candy behind and entered the warren of the purely functional structures, nodding to the people whose paths he crossed, each moving purposefully but with the contained stride of those used to working in a desert environment. He got lost just once, finding his destination–looking like a Quonset hut with a Napoleon complex–with a minute to spare.

Aidan shrugged off his duffel bag, opened it and retrieved the camouflage jacket. It was too warm for a jacket but he felt the military touch would help. The jacket sensed the ambient temperature and numerous apertures slid open to assist airflow. The nano-tubes within the smart fabric began circulating coolant. He was still too hot.

He straightened the jacket, ran a hand through his hair, which was about a week overdue for cutting if he wanted to maintain a high-and-tight, and knocked on the door, right beneath the cheap, magnetic placard labeled “Vance Aerospace.” And waited. He jiggled the door handle. It was locked.

He checked the time on his wrist datapad. “Typical civilians,” he said.

“How so?” came a smooth, alto voice.

Aidan looked up. A woman walked toward him; young, maybe late twenties. She was compact, going five foot four in the knee-length boots encasing her legs. A ponytail, dirty blond, escaped the back of the battered grey ball cap on her head and aviator glasses concealed her eyes. A looker, Aidan decided–maybe a bit unconventionally so, but still a looker.

“Casual about time,” he said, attempting to hide his chagrin. “You here about a job also?”

“That depends,” she said, head tilted as she studied him. “I’m always open to a job if the pay is right. What job are you here about?”

“Supposed to meet a Captain Vance at, oh, two minutes ago about the Security Officer position aboard a starship. Hard to make a good first impression when there’s no one to impress.”

“Oh, I don’t know. I think the interview’s going well so far. You’ve demonstrated excellent promptness. Also contempt for civilian employers.” She produced a key and stepped past Aidan to unlock the door. She pushed it open and gestured to him to enter. “I’m Captain Brooklynn Vance. Come on in.”

Aidan flashed the “aww-shucks-you’ve-caught-me” grin that he’d always employed when a superior supplied a dressing down. It was a look that displayed contriteness without a hint of servility, a good-natured acceptance of discipline but no willingness to take any bullshit. He hoisted his duffel again and entered.