Trial by Ice (14 page)

A small girl, no more than four years-old, had climbed onto Tik’s lap. The tiny thing latched one hand into her jacket and squeezed Tik’s arm with the other. The girl’s face was against her chest with crystal blue eyes looking upward. Her eyes were the only thing that was clean.

Tik looked around quickly to the others in the truck. No one seemed to pay any mind to the little girl on her lap. She relaxed her back and felt the girl’s weight resting on her.

What should she say? Motherly thoughts didn’t come easy to her—she focused everything on being a Marine. “Who are you?” she asked in a quiet voice. Was that her voice?
Shit,
she thought,
I sound like a sissy.

The little girl squeezed tighter and buried her face.

Tik looked down and slowly lay an arm over the little girl. It felt awkward at first, tense, unusual. She frowned slightly and shifted herself. The little girl tightened and gripped more. “It’s okay.” She relaxed her arm and drooped it over the little girl, squeezing her in.

The added weight made her back sore. The little girl looked up at her with eyes that said nothing. Tik looked down and nodded. She ran her hand through the little girl’s grubby hair and watched as her eyes fluttered and closed.

The vulnerability struck her as she realized that not long ago she was the one asleep. Her anger over being the invalid blinded her to the fact that she was the vulnerable one. She ran her hand over the girl’s cold cheeks and watched her sleep.

Avi smiled. “Nice kid.”

“Shut the fuck up. I’ll come over there and shove my boot so far up your dumb fucking ass that your teeth will scrape the sheep shit out of my soles.” She glared at Avi. “You’ll wake her up. Now piss off.”

Avi grinned back at her. “I knew you were feeling better. A proper Marine.” He nodded and closed his eyes.

Tik looked down and watched the child sleep until the sleep came for her, too.

* * *

The truck had the unfortunate tendency to bounce with any bump of significance. The bounce would amplify until the wheels would nearly hop off the ground. Selim had to slow to nearly a crawl before starting forward once more. Every lurch brought the cries of the wounded.

William turned and looked into the back of the truck. His crew, he thought. Were they really his crew? He felt a nagging desire to ask each and every one about his command but quickly tossed the idea aside. He needed to stand tall—if not for their sake, definitely for his own.

A set of eyes caught William’s attention. Saul. The boy was looking up from the gray blanket right at him. The nasty wound looked congealed but not set. He suddenly had an odd envy, he didn’t even have scars from his ordeals as a child.

“Mr. Grace, explain to me what the plan is?” Selim said. His hands were tight on the ancient worn steel steering wheel.

“We drop the civilians off at the next town.”

“Then?”

William looked to the civilians. “If there’s only a company, we might be able to rally the folks in town.”

Selim’s eyes were hard and dark. “Why in the fuck would we do that? We need to get off the planet.”

“Because what better diversion than starting a revolt?”

Selim narrowed his eyes and squinted. “Go on.”

“We don’t have the ammunition to engage a company of mercenaries, regardless of how fat and out of shape they are, so we need to use it wisely.” William gripped tightly as another dip lurched the truck. “Once we stir the pot, we can hit the mercs with a riot while we seize the elevator. If they succeed, then better for all of us.”

“And if they don’t?”

“They will,” David answered strongly. His back was against the cab and his eyes closed.

“How do you know?” Selim asked over his shoulder.

“My son works in a refinery, no one wants to do it anymore, but the options are a bit thin. Things have been a bit tense as of late. Quotas up and the beatings as well.”

“Who are you, old man?” Selim asked.

David smiled with thin lips and nodded. “I was a Councilor—
the
Councilor. I ran the Colony, my grandfather was Redmond, so I get some votes for that. I also, unfortunately, agreed to let them land.”

“Redmond?” Vito said. “Is his tomb in the Capital?”

David looked confused a moment. “No, he left. Supposedly back to Earth.”

Vito blinked and took his turn as the confused party.

“So you let the mercs land?” William asked.

“At that point it was engineers, they offered work, medicine, things we didn’t have.”

“Hmph,” Selim snorted.

“Don’t judge me,” David turned and yelled up front, “we live in the shadow of what our forefathers were.”

“Enough. How many refineries are there?”

David turned to William. “Maybe two hundred, the raw ore is extracted from the south and shipped north. From there the stamp mills break it up and the refineries in the city extract the raw metals, while the main refinery purifies it.”

“Two hundred? What does your capital look like?”

David closed his eyes. “Not what it used to.”

William nodded. “I would imagine.”

Selim sat with a scowl.

“Once we get into the Capital, we’ll find my son, he’ll know more.”

“Time is not on our side, David. This needs to happen fast. The longer we wait to pounce, the greater the chance we are caught,” Sebastien said. He turned slightly and nodded to William. “I’m with Mr. Grace.”

Selim drove on in silence with his brows furrowed. He chewed his lower lip and concentrated. “So it shall be, but we need to scout it. We can’t go in like the wind. We need to do some recon.”

William nodded and looked back to David. The old man had set his jaw and looked proud. He didn’t remember what Redmond looked like very well, but he didn’t think he had any resemblance. Vito continued to stare with his mouth slightly open.

“If he didn’t come back to Earth, where did he go?” Vito asked.

David looked at Vito and shrugged. “There’s a statue he left at the elevator, about all we have left of him.”

William adjusted his grip and leaned into the rusty side of the cab. The hills stretched out into the horizon lazily. They seemed to be laying down with less rock poking up. An occasional flock of sheep grazed on the horizon.

* * *

The VTOL first poked over the horizon a dozen kilometers away. In a rapid commotion everyone sat up and stared as it disappeared behind another hill, before popping back up. The sleek shape was hugging the landscape tightly. It looked like the same beast that had bombarded the capsules.

Around them stretched green fields broken by an occasional stone. The low hills offered nothing to hide a man. The worries of the civilians grew louder as the whine of the rotor drifted in.

William looked into the back of the truck. Aleksandr, Leduc, and Crow were strapping themselves into the bulky pattern armor.

“Did the first three have comms?” William asked.

“What?” Sebastien said.

“Radios, communicators,
anything!
”

“No, nothing that I saw.”

“Are you sure?”

“Yes, I think so.”

“Stop the truck!” William yelled.

Selim slowly pressed on the brakes and the truck lurched forward and back like a drunken hippo. “I hope you’ve got an idea.”

“Crow, get in the driver’s seat. Aleksandr, Leduc, pop in too. Everyone else in the back and lay low!” William stepped off the side of the truck and jumped into the back.

The positions were switched rapidly as the Marines and soldiers crawled in and lay beside the civilians. The truck bounced back into motion.

“Crow, when that VTOL comes in, just stop the truck, sling the merc rifle onto your shoulder, and get out.”

“Just like that? And
va-voom,
he goes away?”

“I’m open to ideas,” William said.

Crow shook his head and drove slowly.

The VTOL crept above the next rise and skidded sideways through the air. The blunt autocannon was pointed squarely at the truck as it pivoted around. It wavered up and down as if unsure if it wanted to remain.

Crow brought the truck to a stop and sat in the seat for a second.

“Get out!” William hissed.

Crow turned and grasped the slender rifle. He dropped himself off the cab and slung the rifle onto his shoulder over the bulk of the armor. He took a few steps towards the VTOL.

The craft swung in the wind and hovered at a steady distance.

What the controllers of the VTOL saw must have baffled them. Crow began by waving his arms north. He followed this up with a pantomime of his hands rising like a rocket, followed by a large explosion. He ended it all with a quick exaggerated jog. This ended with a final universal gesture of ‘fuck it’ followed by a steering wheel turning gesture.

The VTOL hovered and didn’t look convinced.

Crow gave one final wave north and dismissed it. He turned his back and hopped into the cab. The truck bounced as he accelerated.

William lay as low as he could get and watched through a slat in the side. The VTOL hovered and slowly banked away before moving north. A rough hand ruffled his hair. He looked up with a smile and was greeted with Sergeant Selim grinning down at him.

“You owe me a new pair of underwear, Midshipman,” Crow called over his shoulder.

The truck continued south until it finally arrived at a modest settlement. The houses were a mix of old concrete and weathered stone. The wounded were offloaded and passed into the hands of the locals.

Sebastien took special care moving Saul indoors.

Before them stretched a dirty agricultural landscape dotted with ragged farms and scraggly trees. An occasional ancient truck could be seen doddering about on the lower plains. Far off on the horizon the slender black form of the elevator rose into the sky. It glowed orange for a brief moment as the reflection of the sun played on it.

The lower line of the elevator was obscured by the horizon and a sooty smoke that seeped above it. William stood and squinted.

“Ready for this, Midshipman?” Sebastien asked.

William looked down to the augment and nodded. “Planets just don’t liberate themselves, now do they?”

Sebastien snorted and leaned his head back as the truck continued south.

CHAPTER TEN

Hostage

The agricultural landscape was verdant fields, lush crops, and crude farmhouses. The only thing as common as rows of crops was rows of graveyards. It seemed that the colonization had not been as easy as had been hoped. Such was a universal truth.

The fields were plump with harvest, ripe, and in some cases going to seed. Faces worn with the endless task of toil watched in silence as they rolled past. What had been one generation’s escape was another's binding.

Night began to drop. The truck bounced across the patchwork horizon of fields before finally coming into view of the capital. What had once been pristine was now coated in grime and grit. The smelters and stamp mills gave the horizon a dim glow.

They stopped the truck. The crew piled out of the still bouncing bed. The smell of fruit tickled their noses as they stood and stared below. It was not as they had pictured.

The very upper reaches of the elevator stretched skyward like a golden thread. The light rose at a steady pace, hiding the thread as the night came on. A giant rectangular building was perched on an empty rise with hills of slag and debris surrounding it. A comm tower poked skywards with scaffolding about the edge.

All around stretched vertical towers with weights dropping below. Near to those was a hellish sputtering as the arc furnaces torched the darkness. Nothing could separate the ores of ill repute quite like the pure white burn of a carbon rod.

The center of the city was dim. The buildings seemed to cower in the shadows of the brutish constructions nearby. A crisp smoke blew in that smelled of burnt wire and pickled steel.

“It wasn’t always like this,” David said. He raised his hands to point at the city but caught himself and stopped. His face was rimed with sadness.

“What’s on the roof of the big building?” Tero asked in the twangy accent of Mars.

“Dat is drone pods,” Von Hess said. He leaned against the truck and favored his good leg.

William scoured the plains below for entry points. Cover everywhere. They could get in and close through the slag piles. “Can we shut them down inside?”

“Yeah, if you can get to the control station.”

“And if we can’t?” Crow asked.

Von Hess shrugged. “Get to the roof then, yes? Drop the comm tower.”

Sebastien pointed to the base of the elevator. A handful of orange sodium lights winked in the thermals. “Looks pretty quiet.”

“Why would anyone go there? We don’t have a ship at the top,” David said.

Sebastien rose his eyes. “Hmm, I bet they do.”

William turned to David. “Where is your son?”

“I can find him, but it may take me some time.”

“We don’t have time,” Sebastien said.

William nodded. “Not much at least.” He pointed to the comm tower on the peak of the refinery. “Xan, can we use that comm array?”

“Maybe, if there’s anything worth talking to.”

Sebastien smiled a warm smile and looked up to the sky.

“We’re going to cut the flank, come in on the side away from the refinery. If they send troops north now, they’ll come right by us here,” Crow said.

“Why not smoke ‘em here?” Avi pointed at the cover.

“Go pick fruit,” Crow ordered. “And think about that.”

“Call me stupid, and I’ll pick fruit too, but why is it a bad idea?” Vito asked.

Crow pointed to the surroundings. “They come in, we engage, they turn and get back into the refinery mess. Now they can use the cover and we can’t get to the objective. If there were a dozen units assaulting the capital, it’d be an option, but we’ve got one chance. Need to make it stick.”

“I see, I’ll help Avi,” Vito added softly as he walked into the orchard.

William kept his mouth shut and listened. This wasn’t the right place to ask questions but he knew enough to listen and learn. It looked formidable, dirty, rough, but how did that compare to the pristine death in the snow? He kicked the dirt and marveled at a warm breeze. He could just lay on his back and be completely content.

* * *

The truck turned a hard right and flanked the edge of the city. An occasional apple core bounced off the road behind them. Avi had done an exceptional job picking while Vito carried the bounty. The apples were an amazing thing to marvel over and savor.

The truck slowly descended the bowl and entered the slums. Rock hovels were roofed with ragged sheets of slate. Survival was the design, meager was the supplier. The truck pulled behind a low group.

“We do shifts of two. Go down the line, everyone stays in the truck,” Crow yelled from the cab.

“David,” William called in the dim light. “How long ‘til you find your boy?”

“Eh? Well, I’ll know in the morning, it all looks so different here.”

William sighed and nodded. Just what he needed, they had to wait another night.

Judging from the light on the horizon they were still about twenty kilometers out of the main city. The slums and stamp mills grew on the perimeter. An occasional arc popped from the shabby lines of an electrical conductor. The lines drooped lazily off of concrete poles.

The temperature dropped quickly as the dampness rose around them. William curled himself up with a filthy sleeping bag. He wondered as he fell asleep if he would ever sleep in a real bed.

William awoke to a hissing sound and a rough hand shaking his shoulder. He sat up and reached for the sidearm tucked into his jacket. He blinked and saw the men around him sliding off the rear of the truck and dropping down onto the ground.

A white searchlight beamed through the hovels and grew steadily closer.

“Shit,” William said.

“Follow me,” Avi said as he grabbed William by the elbow.

The orange industrial light, even at twenty kilometers, still gave a slight sickly glow. William could make out the walls, the general contours, but couldn’t see individual men. The light blinked behind a stamp mill and reappeared on the opposite side.

Avi sighed. “I’d kill someone to get a comms.”

William agreed. Everyone had nanites implanted that would work off of a local comm network. Unfortunately without the proper hardware they simply sat idle. During the day it was easy enough, but now things would become a bit more difficult.

The harsh white beam reappeared and swung back and forth lazily. The back reflection illuminated a small flat bed truck. A single wide headlight provided dim illumination for the driver. The light hadn’t yet found them, but it was heading on the road they sat near.

“Avi! Can you see anyone?” William whispered. He lacked the nano-augmented night vision that the ground troops had.

“Shh, when they come in they’ll be caught in a crossfire. Just wait!” Avi said. He slid the barrel of his weapon onto a pile of rubble and waited.

William watched and dropped the pistol nose lower. The truck was still a hundred meters off. It was going to pass close enough to toss a rock at. He looked at the hovels around him, it wouldn’t take but a single burst to wake up the inhabitants. Then they’d really have a mess.

He shivered slightly. The adrenaline was beginning to flow. The back of his mouth tingled as he squeezed the pistol. The aim was odd, it just didn’t feel the same as aiming a rifle.

How perfect can a firefight be? William knew that ideally they would drop everyone in a single volley, not a single return shot. He didn’t even know if anyone would shoot. Would they wait ‘til sighted or take the initiative?

Avi crunched the rubble as he adjusted his weapon. The truck prowled from view behind a low line of stamped sand. Above them only the brightest stars poked through the thick air.

The truck came into view slowly and ambled down the final approach. The dim headlight bobbed into view as the searchlight swung from side to side. The hovels looked even worse wilting under the precise beam of the searchlight.

The slight whine of the electric motor was only broken by the creeping crunch and popping pong of the suspension. The truck must have shared the same designer as the cattle truck that the survivors rode in.

A single muzzle blast exploded from the other side of the road. The rapid burp of the rounds impacting the truck was followed by that terrible symphony erupting all around. The flash at the end of each barrel was a hint of orange surrounded by a blue plasma layer. The beauty was evident if one had the ability to admire it in a firefight.

At the first shot William pointed the pistol and pulled the trigger. The weapon leapt in his grasp like an angry animal.

The shots went wild, his night vision was gone.  He’d been watching the truck approach.

He cursed his stupidity. The first barrage that went out had popped the headlight and searchlight. The enemy would be as night blind as he was. He leveled the pistol once more and prepared to fire at the first muzzle blast he saw.

A voice cried out in pain. The hovels were awakening with voices calling into the darkness. A horrible wailing began as if an animal was wounded.

William turned his head and tried to pinpoint the sound. His night vision was slowly coming back. The voice before him was pleading in a language he didn’t know.

A rapid popping sound came from the truck. William slid his head down and fired a round into the direction it came. He realized he wasted a precious, irreplaceable round and waited for a better shot. The mournful wailing continued.

“What do you see?” William asked.

Avi poked his head up. He wore a slender pair of nightvision glasses. “There’s a man on the ground, rolling around. Someone set something off.” He strained forward and pushed some of the rubble pile.

William watched as Avi popped off a single round into the darkness. The wailing stopped.

A second later a scream belted out into the darkness. William sat up higher and scanned into the areas that had enough light to see. A man was on the ground twenty meters away from him and rolling about madly. “Avi! Cover me,” William said, as he crouched and sprinted to the body.

William reached Kerry, who was rolling around grasping at something on his back like it was on fire. William slapped at Kerry’s back and recoiled when he felt a hard metallic shape.

“Get it off! Get the fuckin’ thing off!” Kerry cried.

The thing was about the size of a large apple, firmly latched to his flesh.

William grasped its bitter edges and reefed. Kerry howled. The metallic thing was bored right into his flesh. William cracked at it with the barrel of his pistol, but it did nothing.

“Shoot it, shoot it off!” Kerry cried, as he writhed on the ground.

A loud blast echoed from the truck as a grenade was detonated. The night sky turned titanium white for a split second. William felt a deep shift in his gut as the concussion wave hit.

He focused his attention on the monstrosity bored onto Kerry’s back. He turned the pistol sideways and laid it against the curve of Kerry’s back. William slid his finger onto the crisp trigger and turned his head.

The thing dropped away in a hollow clatter and sat idle at his feet. He released his breath and stepped back, keeping the pistol leveled at it.

Kerry scrambled forward and rubbed the hole on his back. "What'd you do?"

"Nothing, it just fell off."

"Clear! Vito, c'mon up!" Crow yelled from the hostile truck.

William grabbed the drone. It was like a hollow can in his hands. He walked up to the truck, cautiously holding the item like an egg. The dim light wasn't enough to show details.

Crow was hunched next to a man in gray coveralls with combat webbing on his chest. His hands worked quickly as he patted and emptied the pockets. The man was dead.

Near to him, Vito was bent over another man. Avi stood above him with the barrel of his weapon pointed at his chest. This one was alive. A light flickered and Crow tossed a small penlight over. The man wore red slices on his arms, evidence of the wire grenades.

More screams came from the surrounding hovels.

Selim shouted, "Find out what's going on!"

Eduardo came and squatted next to the truck and ran his hands over the edge of the bed where the drones emerged. A dim glow came from the tattoos on his arms as the grubby uniform stretched back. "Oh, what are you?"

"I've got one here," William said as he held the thing before him. He looked at the wounded man. Foamy spit hung onto his lips as he formed words with no sound.

"Oh! Jesus!" Eduardo cried out. "Drop it!"

William dropped the empty metal thing and stepped away, as if burned. "What? What is it?"

"Oh shit," Vito said as he scrambled back.

"Do I shoot it?" William asked, pointing the pistol at the dark spot on the ground.

"No, no, is it empty? Did it already go off?" Eduardo said.

"It was on Kerry, on his back. What is it?" William said.

"Is it empty!" Eduardo shouted.