The Drift Wars (9 page)

“Damn,”
Saul shouted, slapping the monitor. He turned to apologize to the
men on either side and spotted Peter. “Look who’s back,” he
said. “I was sure Mickelson would leave you out to dry again.”

“I
think I wore him out,” Peter said.

“You
keep everything down?”

“Wasn’t
much left.”

“I’m
sure. Good to be out of our suits, no matter what the reason. Nice
just to pee in a toilet.”

“Yeah,”
Peter said. He didn’t want to talk about it. He pointed at the
terminal. “What is that?”

“Battle
simulator,” Saul said.

“Really?”
Peter leaned in for a better look.

“Yeah,”
Saul said. “Lets me play general in some of the hardest battles in
the war.” He tried to make room for Peter, but as was usually the
case with Saul, there wasn’t much room left.

The
big man leaned back, scratching a toothbrush on the metal interface
port installed just below his ear. The men all had neural webs
stitched into their skulls on the very first day of Basic, and the
port connected magnetically to the collar in their combat suits,
giving them direct mental control. It was much faster than buttons
or joysticks, but you were screwed if the connection went bad, so
cleaning their contacts was basic hygiene.

“It’s
called the Sim Test,” Saul said. “You ever wanna be a colonel,
this is how. When a promotion opens up, it goes to whoever has the
most wins. You’d pick up on these important facts if you weren’t
off getting private flying lessons.”

Peter
tried to imagine Saul as colonel, barking orders with a six-pack
under his arm. “How does it work?” he asked.

“Just
like on our visor maps. You’re the blue guys, and the Riel are
red. You can’t see the Riel to start with, so you send out scouts
and sensor pods. Each Riel has a different symbol. These are Gyrines
and this is a missile turret, and that big
X
over there is a
Typhon. You move your men by dragging a finger across the screen.
Tap to assign a target and the battle computer handles the details.”

Saul
demonstrated, flicking his hand over five blue dots and sending them
toward the Typhon, where they blinked and disappeared. Peter
frowned.

“That’s
all there is to it?”

“It
takes practice,” Saul said defensively. “You’ve got to give it
some strategy.”

“Show
me,” Peter said, pulling up a chair.

Saul
scanned the map. “This is a cluster of four Gyrines,” he said.
“So I’ll start by firing a few missiles at them to soften them
up. Then I’ll send in these two platoons, plus this one from over
there. Hit them from two directions.” He moved his hands over the
monitor, putting his words into action.

“It
won’t work,” Peter said.

“You
a sudden expert?”

“No,
but look at that rocket battery. It’ll pick off your missiles. And
this platoon here, their heavy weaponry has laser sweeps. Those are
useless against Gyrines.”

“Doesn’t
matter,” Saul assured him. “It’s ten-to-one. I’ve got them
completely outnumbered.”

The
two men watched the blue dots move across the screen. The missiles
disappeared as they passed the rocket turret and the platoons. They
reached the target at different times and blinked out as quickly as
they arrived. Peter fought back a smile as Saul punched the terminal
off.

“This
thing is stupid,” Saul said.

“If
you two generals are done playing,” Mickelson said, appearing
behind them, “then I’ll remind you that your first
high-atmosphere jump is less than six hours away. Assuming this time
everyone has a good hold on his breakfast.”

“Yes,
sir,” Peter and Saul said in unison, rising and saluting.
Mickelson walked off, muttering and shaking his head.

—   —   —

“There
are scientists who postulate that the two species of the Riel are
simply the two sexes of a single race,” Mickelson said. “If
that’s so, then my money’s on this one for the female.”

The
projection beside the sergeant was so large that, were it real,
they’d have to cut a hole in the roof of the four-story lecture
hall just so it could stand up.

The
creature had two distinct parts. The bottom was like a mechanical
spider, with each of its six legs broken into four joints, and each
of these joints larger than a man. Capping the legs was a round
metal plate, above which the colossus became flesh—a monstrous
Lucifer, with red skin over rippled muscle.

Two
god-thick arms swung to the ground, with human-shaped hands,
yard-long fingers, and shovelhead fingernails. High at the top
loomed a bearded, triangular face, with horns jutting from the
forehead. Its eyes were golden yellow, the edges curving up like a
screaming mouth. It was the most horrible thing Peter had ever seen,
in life or in nightmare. It was a Typhon.

“Whenever
I look at this thing,” Mickelson continued, “I can’t help but
wonder if one of them didn’t happen upon the original homeworld,
back when men were jotting down the great book. But Satan himself
was never so evil—and probably a hell of lot easier to kill. I
figure that if just one of these had shown up back in biblical
times, there’d be nothing left of the human race but a well-chewed
pile of bones.

“As
terrifying as it looks, there’s more to this thing than size.
There are motorized turrets at the top of each leg, mounted with
either a rocket launcher or a ninety-three-millimeter recoiler,
which is strong enough to shoot clean through your average naval
destroyer. And it’ll have any number of armaments mounted on that
plate up there, where the monster meets the machine. Sometimes, just
to mix it up, it’ll strap a few missiles on its back or carry a
Delta-class heavy impulse blaster around like it was a rifle.

“In
other words,” Mickelson concluded, “the Typhon is a walking
fortress. Nothing in your armory will even tickle it. If you happen
upon one of these in the battlefield, the best you can hope for is
that your last will and testament is in good order.”

—   —   —

The
sun dropped behind the distant hills, purpling the sky and raising a
cool wind. Peter cupped Amber as they lay facing the sunset. She had
been sleeping, but now stirred, rolling her head toward him.

“You
have your knife?” she asked.

Peter
reached for his pants and dug out a bone-handled pocketknife. She
combed her fingers through her hair, separating out a pencil-thick
clump. “Hold this,” she said. He pulled it taut as she sliced
off the last few inches. Then she grabbed her dress and pulled out a
well-worn gold locket.

“I
brought this just in case,” she said sheepishly. “It belonged to
Mimi.” Amber curled the hair into the locket and snapped it shut.
“For you,” she said. “So I’ll always be there with you.”

They
sat up and faced each other. Amber slid her arms around his neck and
fixed the clasp behind him. Peter pulled her close, her bare skin
warm and soft. She hugged back, hard, and then pushed loose.

“We
have to go,” she said, standing up and motioning for him to do the
same. His lust slaked, Peter admired her coolly. The gentle curves
of her white body and the soft definition of her legs and stomach. A
wisp of hair trickled up her belly, and full breasts pillowed to her
ribs, tapering to light pink. She was perfect. They dressed in
silence and began the long walk home.

The
next morning was overcast. Amber borrowed her father’s pickup and
drove Peter to Bentings Naval Base, which was no more than a
half-dozen small buildings with a fenced-in landing pad. A
rocketship was parked on the pad, a dull-gray bullet with stubby
wings. It was visible for miles over the empty farmland and, as they
approached, seemed to scrape the sky.

“Is
that your ship?” Amber asked, wide-eyed.

“That’s
just a shuttle,” Peter replied, trying not to be impressed. “The
transitship’s up in orbit.”

Cars
were backed up for a half mile. When they finally reached the base,
Amber pulled up to the curb and threw the truck in park. She turned
to Peter and took his hands in hers.

“Promise
me…” she started.

“I’ll
be careful.”

Amber
seemed to want to say more, but instead she just threw her arms
around him, kissing him all over his head and ending at his mouth.
They were interrupted by a knock on the roof. A man in fatigues
walked by, swinging a riding crop. “Kiss and go,” he called to
no one in particular. “Kiss and go.”

Peter
pulled away, their lips separating like warm glue. He slid backward
from the truck, keeping his eyes locked with Amber’s, then turned
away. A man at the gate checked his name and waved him to the
shuttle. He climbed the metal steps to the hatch, then stopped to
look back.

Amber
was still at the curb, watching through the dog-wire fence. She made
herself smile, and Peter, feeling his throat tighten, turned and
rushed inside.

—   —   —

Military
graduation ceremonies are for the generals. After five months of the
hell that is Basic, the last thing any marine wants is to stand at
attention in full dress for an hour while an old man rambles on
about honor and valor.

When
the general—whose name Peter had forgotten—ran out of things to
say, all two hundred thousand marines of the freshly christened
Digamma San Division hefted their duffels in unison and marched
through massive hangar doors to the launch pad.

The
men were shuttled up to the transitship a few hundred at a time.
Peter’s platoon was late on the list, so the men spent the
afternoon lounging on the grassy parade field. It was the first free
time since arriving at the orbital, and no one knew what to do with
it. They didn’t even have a deck of cards.

The
shuttle ride took an hour, after which they joined a long line of
marines in the transitship’s cavernous landing bay, waiting to be
loaded into cryo chambers. It was a long journey—the UF base was
deep inside the Drift—so they would be frozen to conserve
resources. Passing through the Drift boundary was hard on the human
body, killing one in ten men and injuring the rest. Being frozen
somehow protected them. Peter didn’t understand the explanation,
but he was used to that by now.

When
he reached the front of the line, Peter stripped naked and stuffed
his clothes into his duffle, which he tossed onto a nearby cart.
Then he lay in his assigned chamber, flinching as his skin touched
the cold vinyl. Unsure what came next, he crossed his arms as if in
a casket.

A
silver-haired med tech appeared. She smiled down at him, then
apologized that he couldn’t keep his locket inside. Peter
unclasped it and handed it out. She slipped it into her pocket and
assured him that she would put it in his duffle. Then she jammed an
IV needle into his wrist and attached a bag of greenish fluid. She
checked that it was flowing, hung it inside, and closed the lid. The
chamber was dark but for a blue indicator light by his head.

The
chamber moved, rolling into the ship’s cargo hold. Peter wondered
whether he would be filed alphabetically or by his platoon’s
ident-code, but he forgot the question before he could decide. He
took a deep breath and released it as the blue light faded away.

Peter
blinked, squinting as the white light clicked on. He lay on a bed, a
nurse in a green surgical mask working on the monitor over his head.
But there was something else, something that had happened in
between. He searched his memory, but it only made his head ache. He
tried to rub it, but his arm was strapped down.

“Don’t
rush,” the nurse said sternly. “You’re still quite cold.”

She
unstrapped his arm and raised it, injecting him with oily liquid.
The warm fluid trickled in, spreading through his body. The nurse
turned back to the monitor, nodded, then walked to the top of the
bed. She tugged at his head as if pulling his hair out a strand at a
time. Each tug was followed by a metallic ping. She hummed, but
Peter didn’t know the tune.

“What’s
your name?” he asked, his voice hoarse.

“Linda,”
she said, tapping the tag on her jacket. It read Linda 75.

“Seventy-five?”

“The
room number.” She motioned to the door, which had a large
75
painted on it.

“They
worry you’ll get lost?”

Linda
laughed, surprisingly warm. “More worried that they’ll lose me.
This is a big place, you know.”

“Not
yet,” Peter said.

“Of
course not,” Linda said, frowning. “You only just got here.”
She moved back beside him, wiping her hands and inspecting the
monitor.

“Only
just,” he tried. “But I’m in for the long haul.”

“Squeeze
this, kid,” Linda said curtly, offering him a foam ball. “It’ll
speed up the resuscitation process.”

Peter
reached for the ball but stopped, feeling the heat radiating off her
hand. He touched her skin warily, curious. Linda took his hand and
pressed the ball into it.

“Pump,”
she ordered. She let go, grabbed a steel tray at the head of the
bed, and walked to a sink on the far side of the room. She dumped
the tray; Peter saw a flash of red as its contents clanked into the
basin.

“Boys,”
she muttered, spraying water around the sink.

Peter
pumped the foam ball and watched Linda work. She looked to be about
ten years older than him, which put her in her late twenties. But
her movements were slow and deliberate, like those of someone much
older.

—   —   —

Linda
finished cleaning and sat at a desk across the room, her back to
Peter. She stared at the wall for a few moments, then pulled a stack
of worn papers from the side drawer. She flipped through them,
selected one, and began to scribble.

The
scratching of Linda’s pen and the wheezing of Peter’s foam ball
filled the next two hours; then a chime sounded overhead. Linda put
the papers away and walked back to Peter.