The Expendable Few: A Spinward Fringe Novel (27 page)

Tamera thumped him on the shoulder with her fist and nodded. Davi couldn’t help but be surprised but nodded after a moment.

Kipley laughed loud enough to break through the cacophony. “Have I ever turned you down?”

Davi looked towards the issyrians, who were bracing behind their heavy portable cover, trying to inch the armour plating they carried along to create more cover between the shuttle and the counter island, where they were trying to open a main terraforming pipe. “All right, you’re going to have to get a canister from the issyrians and rush back. Go on three!” Tamera and Kipley positioned themselves, ready to spring over the sturdy counter top and across the distance as fast as they could. As Davi signalled his count with his fingers, he couldn’t help but think that he had never seen twelve metres look so long in all his life. When he flashed three fingers, the pair were off.

Kipley and Tamera sprinted as hard and as fast as Davi had ever seen, and after five steps one was struck fully in the chest by a broad pulse beam. Kipley didn’t pay any notice to Tamera as an entire section of her upper torso was vaporized. Davi didn’t watch long enough to see if Kipley made it all the way, but turned towards the origin point of the beam burst.

The soldier bearing the heavy cannon was under thick plated metal. The blades from Davi’s ripper sparked against the surface, showing no sign of penetrating. It was the heaviest armour Davi had ever seen, partially mechanized, but definitely built onto a soldier, or something shaped like one. He took careful aim at the slowly marching, dark green plated combatant and tried to fire on the horizontal lights running down the front of his helmet. The blades from his ripper sent sparks in all directions, but he didn’t see any real damage. “What the hell is that?” Davi asked.

“That’s the kind of armour we thought all Order Knights wore before we saw one slumming it the other day!” Remmy shouted over the din. “Aim for the power cable!”

“Isn’t an Order Knight some kind of framework?” asked Judge.

“It’ll disarm his main weapon, so he’ll have to come after us with coarse language and fisticuffs!” Remmy answered. “And, yeah, some of them might be frameworks, I’ve never seen one go down.”

Davi, Judge, Remmy, and Isabel all aimed for the cables leading to the soldier’s weapon. Most shots missed, their broken blade ammunition turning into high speed flack that caught the soldiers around him by fortuitous chance. Another beam flashed from the muzzle of their target’s weapon, burning into the floor close to Kipley as he ran back with the canister of toxins in a grinning frenzy.

Davi couldn’t help but notice that the container was of a Freeground design. It was another sign to him that he was fighting alongside Freegrounders who had turned their back on their people entirely, to the point of assisting another people with the construction of terrible weaponry. It was a breach, but he wasn’t innocent of that himself. Getting involved with the politics on Uumen was an unrecoverable deviation from the mission. He returned his full attention to the Order Knight and took a moment to sigh in relief as one of the armoured cables showed some evidence of damage and fraying. The Knight twitched as a hail of blade rounds ripped at his weaponry. There was no telling why exactly, but something - perhaps a busted control or power system - forced him to detach the harness that supported his large weapon and let it drop. Without drawing another weapon, he leapt over thirty metres, landing with a skid towards the issyrians who tried to hold their makeshift shield wall halfway between Davi and the shuttle.

“Focus fire on the rest of the soldiers! Ignore the Knight!” Remmy ordered as he took the canister from Kipley, who was all too eager to surrender it and get back to the fight.

Davi turned his attention back to the tram entrance. “What about the knight? Can’t we slow him down?” he asked.

“Don’t worry!” Remmy shouted back as he stomped the canister firmly into the terraforming pipe that led outside.

Davi watched as the Order Knight leapt into the air again, only to collide with Doctor Marcelles in mid-air. The doctor landed atop the armoured soldier and dug into him with bare claws. The scream of metal being torn apart pierced the air. Marcelles pried the top half of the Knight’s helmet open and reached inside. With a motion as casual as peeling half an orange out of its shell, the human-issyrian hybrid ripped most of the soldier’s head free of its metal carapace. A personal shield repelled most of the bolts of energy the other soldiers fired at him.

A beam weapon caught Marcelles in the shoulder, severing his arm, and before Davi’s eyes, another grew in its place. It took less than two seconds for the arm to fully form. Marcelles leapt back towards the shuttle, signalling in mid air to Remmy, who peeked over the counter behind him and shook his head. “Two more Order Knights just arrived.” He dropped the canister into the hatch they had come to secure. “But we’re done here.”

“Retreat!” Davi called out.

Kipley was over the bar, shooting and running before Davi finished giving the order. “Come get me, you mother-fuckers!” he screeched with a wild laugh.

“I think he’s starting to think he’s charmed,” Davi told Judge as he got ready to make the leap.

“We’ve all got our time,” Judge replied.

Davi turned to signal everyone else to follow, and when he looked back towards the shuttle he saw what was left of Judge fall over the other side of the bar. He didn’t even hear his best friend die. He was alive one moment and gone the next. Gretch bumped his shoulder, “Nothing you could do, come on!” he said.

Press on. It was what Judge was good at, and Davi followed his example, rushing across the no man’s land between the counter tops and the shuttle. The issyrians dropped their makeshift cover as they passed, joining their flight.

By the time Davi was aboard and the shuttle was taking off, they were down to two issyrians, Isabel, Remmy, Mary, and Kipley.

Through the rear view of the armoured shuttle, Davi watched the products of the canister pour out of the old environmental terraforming systems’ pipes. A brown tinged font of air filled the sky and spread faster than anything he’d ever seen. “A package of viruses targeting the Order’s terraforming crap carried by trillions of nanobot crop dusters.” Remmy said. “That should do it.”

Davi sat quietly, trying not to think about Judge, the best right hand man he’d ever had, and Tamera, who he just met. She might have been a pain in the ass, but she had the kind of dedication to duty that he couldn’t help but respect. Under other circumstances they could have been close friends, but there was always a tendency to glorify the dead.

“Fuck, I can’t believe I’m alive,” Kipley said with a chuckle. He drew several sour stares from human and issyrian alike. “I was sure that big fucker Judge would outlive me.”

“Shut it down, Kip,” Davi growled.

“Shut ‘er down!” Kipley shouted, pumping his fist in the air.

Before anyone could stop him, Davi leaned back and kicked Kipley in the face as hard as he would the Order soldier who killed Judge. He sat back with his hands up, watching Kipley reel from the blow, holding the right side of his face as he leaned across Isabel’s lap.

“Mother fucker! You trying to kill me?” Kipley said.

There wouldn’t be any retribution from the irritating grunt, he knew better. Davi sat back and crossed his arms, breathing deeply, trying to take control of the rage he felt towards the only survivor of his unit. “This one cut deep,” Davi growled finally. “So shut your hole before I have it wired shut, hear me?”

“Yes, Sir,” Kipley barked with a salute. The whole right side of his face was red; the bruises would start coming out soon.

Davi let his gaze drift to the transparent metal beside Kipley, and he watched as the Regent Galactic forest began to discolour, turning a sickly shade of green and brown. The heavy branches already seemed to wilt, but that could have been a trick of the eye. Doctor Marcelles entered the rear of the shuttle and sat in one of the many empty seats. “Congratulations, ladies and gentlemen,” he offered quietly. “The mission was successful, the toxins are spreading better than expected thanks to an eastern wind. The Order will not be able to prevent a full ecological shift on this planet.”

“Thank God,” Remmy said. “There’s no way I’ll take that ride again.”

That was met with momentary, timid chuckles and weak smiles.

Davi let silence settle over the occupants before asking, “So that’s it, we take you back to the Sunspire. We held up our end.”

Doctor Marcelles regarded him, obviously ill at ease and nodded after narrowing his solid yellow eyes. He was looking less human all the time.

They crossed under some trees and into shadow, into some tunnel that led through a lake that had emptied and begun to rot. It was a former clutch, where thousands of issyrians once lived underwater. The darkness outside seemed to bring silence to the shuttle occupants, who passed bottled water around in the dim cab light.

Davi had never participated in a mission where he didn’t know their exit details, how they were going to get off world once their work was done, and he took it as a bad sign. Being left with one squad member, Jack Kipley of all people, didn’t make anything better. At a glance he could see that Kipley had fallen asleep, and Davi envied him.

The shuttle landed so softly he could only tell by the easing of the engines under his feet. Remmy handed him a water bottle and nodded. “We’re on our way back, Jack. We’re just transferring to another ship.”

The hatch opened, and with no other options, Davi shook Kipley. “Switching transport. Almost home,” he said.

Kipley roused as though from a deep sleep and repeated; “almost home.” He drew deeply from a bottle Remmy handed him on his way through the hatch and said; “Almost home, Dad.”

The ground was soft underfoot, and the smell reminded him of the garden pods on Freeground, after the artificial rain had soaked everything in its path. The landing lights of over a dozen shuttles were the only source of illumination. He followed Remmy and Doctor Marcelles to one at the rear, and Isabel was already climbing into the cockpit. “These are loaded with issyrians,” Davi said to Remmy as he caught up.

“Yup. Everyone who had anything to do with Trest, the whole ghetto,” Remmy replied.

“You and I both know that’s not the deal,” Davi said.

“C’mon, Lieutenant,” Kipley interjected, sounding sincerely desperate. “I thought about what you said, my luck’s runnin’ out. There’s just the two of us, and where we’re going after this mission is through can’t be better than where we’ve been.”

Davi disregarded him and continued to press Remmy. “I don’t know that this will work, it’s not like we’re dealing with Freeground, it’s up to an Oversight Officer, and you know what she’s like.”

“No, Sam,” Remmy said with a smile that was visible even in the dim light. “It’s your call. You’re the commander on the ground, you tell us if this goes. We’ll deal with the rest once we’re in the hangar.” Remmy paused a moment, watching Davi closely. “So are we on, or are you pulling the plug on us?”

Davi looked at the silhouettes of issyrians hurrying between the shuttles. Emergency lights didn’t let him see much. The people who would be marooned, left to the mercy of the Order of Eden if they didn’t escape, looked skeletal, or as if whole pieces were missing. They were in no shape to fight a force like the Order, especially since they’d be seeking nothing more than retribution on a global scale. “We’re on.”

“The scans are in and confirmed, Sir,” reported the flight officer. “Seven hundred and eighty nine issyrians, many smaller signals who are most likely children, and nine humans.”

Captain McPatrick tapped his finger against the bridge rail, watching the shuttles on the holoprojector with a furrowed brow. “And there’s no sign that they’re being pursued.”

“Nothing for eight point four million kilometres. All signs say they’re clear,” the flight officer replied.

“Should we signal them, Sir?” asked the lead comms officer. She was an impatient one at the best of times, and her tone offered more advice than Captain McPatrick was interested in hearing. It told him that they should leave the shuttles be, offer no navnet instructions, and leave the solar system, call it a lost cause. That would irritate Freeground Intelligence, which would be gratifying for a while, but he didn’t know if Anderson was ready for that kind of move.

“Put the ship on full alert, and get a full squad to the bridge. Send four squads to the main hangar. Any other ready teams should report to adjacent compartments,” Captain McPatrick ordered calmly. Alarms went off across the ship, waking anyone at rest and prompting all hands to report to battle stations. “Now you can signal them.” He took a deep breath and shook his head before activating his comm and entering Doctor Anderson’s ident. “We’ve got returns and refugees coming in. I’ll meet you in Forward Observation.”

“And I was just falling asleep,” Doctor Anderson replied. “See you there.”

“Should I inform Oversight?” Captain McPatrick asked.

“She’s Oversight, she should already know, shouldn’t she?” Anderson asked with a smirk.

Two soldiers in full combat gear followed Captain McPatrick off the bridge. He knew that two more cloaked soldiers joined them the moment he stepped into the lift. He was never alone. Something he liked about serving on a ship like the Sunspire. What he didn’t like was the amount of pointless reporting and record keeping he had to do for Oversight.

He was beginning to understand why his nephew defected. It took every scrap of effort Captain McPatrick had to remain in control of his own ship. If he stopped jumping through hoops that were presented as elective, he would start losing his command. It was what Freeground Intelligence Oversight wanted, to take control with a captain aboard so he could take the fall if anything went wrong.

He accessed the latest program to hit his comm - an elective memory test. That morning the program had read several different expressions to him, and he was to recite them if prompted. “Expression,” he said.