24
The airlock was inoperable, and they discovered the SCEV’s tailgate was also not available for use—the big loading door had been jammed shut in its frame when the rig rolled onto its back. That meant everyone would have to disembark via one of the side viewports in the cockpit, which could be used as an emergency exit. Loaded down with respiration gear and weapons—as well as one immobile crewmember and one walking wounded, exiting via the cockpit was no small chore. It took Andrews almost a minute to clear the vehicle and emerge into the wind-torn day. He conducted a brief security scan—there wasn’t much to see, especially with all the loose dust blowing around—then turned back and assisted Leona in exiting the dead SCEV. Rachel and Choi came next, then Mulligan, and they all helped him pull Kelly Jordello’s still form through the opening, handling her as gently as they could. Andrews saw her eyes were open but glassy behind her visor. Either she had slipped deep into shock, or the codeine was strong enough to dope her up. Laird was the last to emerge, and it took him quite some time to fumble his way out of the vehicle. Once he did, the crew looked toward the eastern horizon.
Through the blowing dust, Andrews saw the brewing storm squatting on the horizon, a dark mound illuminated by brief bursts of internal pyrotechnics. A malignant mass, pregnant with the promise of death.
“Look at the size of that front,” Leona said, awe clear in her voice when she spoke over her mask’s transceiver.
“I see it,” Andrews said. He turned in a half-circle, trying to get an idea of the terrain. He recognized the general area, but it wasn’t until the wind ebbed for a moment and the dust began to settle that he saw a low-lying ridge several hundred meters to their left. He pointed it out to Laird. “Jim, get everyone to that ridge over there. Hide in the rocks. Choi and I will hang back and give you some cover for as long as we can.” He turned to Mulligan. “Sarmajor, you go on ahead. Try to make it to Harmony’s perimeter. Someone’s got to be watching for us.”
Mulligan scowled behind his visor. “What? I can’t leave now.”
“The odds are what they are, Sergeant Major.” Andrews felt suddenly weary, and he wished he could rub his burning eyes, but the full facemask of his respirator prevented it. “They won’t change very much if you stay. And you’ve got the skills—if anyone can survive in this shit, it’s you.”
Mulligan stood where he was, looking directly at Andrews. His scowl was gone now, replaced by an odd look Andrews hadn’t seen before. Was it respect, or something else?
“Hit the road, Sergeant Major,” he said finally, when Mulligan made no move to obey. “That’s what we call an order, just in case that flew over your head the first time.”
The two men looked at each other for another moment, then Mulligan shifted his rifle and reached into the knapsack that hung from his side. He pulled out three forty-millimeter grenades and handed them to Andrews.
“Here, take these. They’re old, but they’ll still work. Standard M441 rounds, nothing fancy and nothing that’ll be likely to take out an SCEV. But if you can get a shot at the radome, take it. Otherwise, they’ll be about as effective as a frying pan.”
“Hey, better than nothing,” Andrews said. He had two of the SCEV’s original loadout of forty-millimeter grenades, and Choi had the last one. He handed two to Choi and kept one for himself.
“Good luck, sir. I’ll be back,” Mulligan said. Without further ado, he ran off, keeping to a crouch and heading due east.
“Jim, get the others to the ridge,” Andrews said.
Rachel took one of his gloved hands in her own. “Mike, I’d really like to stay with you.”
Andrews shook his head. “No way, hon. There’s nothing more you can do down here. Get to the ridge and hunker down. Help will come, believe me.” He smiled at her, even though she couldn’t see the lower half of his face. “No heroics here, I promise.”
She looked at him keenly for a long moment. “I hope not.” She reached out and touched his mask. “I can’t even kiss you good-bye.”
“Then kiss me hello later,” he said.
“Andrews, I’m going to need help with Lieutenant Jordello,” Laird said to Rachel.
“Get going,” Andrews told Rachel. He nodded to where Laird and Leona stood over Kelly’s supine form. She wore a vacuum splint on her injured leg, which had in turn been bound to her uninjured limb by several cravats.
“On it, Captain,” she said to Laird, slowly turning away from Andrews. She helped Laird haul Kelly into a fireman’s carry, despite the fact the splinted leg made the action awkward. Laird didn’t seem to notice, and he set off toward the rock-strewn ridge hovering in the distance. Leona followed, hobbling on her injured leg, an assault rifle in her hands. Rachel looked back at Andrews for a moment, then turned to join them. The wind began to blow again, and the billowing dust swallowed them from view.
“Choi, ready?” Andrews asked.
“You know it, sir,” Choi responded immediately.
“All right. About three hundred meters to the south, there’s that region of rocky outcrops. You know which one I’m talking about?”
“Yes, sir.”
“That’s where we’re headed. Follow me, and keep low.” Andrews headed off in the opposite direction from Laird and the others, keeping low and moving as quickly as he could through the flying dust. He glanced back occasionally to ensure Choi was still with him, but he kept moving. They were out in the open and, for the life of him, he couldn’t understand why they weren’t already dead.
***
Law had laughed aloud when he saw his second missile strike the ground near the SCEV and the resulting explosion that lifted its right tires high into the air. The rig seemed to hang there for a moment, like a stunt driver doing a trick in one of the mindless adventure films he had watched as a youth, and for an instant he thought it would slam back to the ground and continue on. But slowly, inexorably, the rig leaned further to the left until the chance of recovery died. The SCEV grounded on its left side, tearing a huge gash in the dry earth as it slid along for several meters before turning turtle, crashing onto its back in an explosion of dust. Bits and pieces of the vehicle flew through the air as panels and antennae and even the forward-looking infrared scanner and one tire were shorn off by the force of the impact. The vehicle ground to an abrupt halt, and columns of steam and smoke erupted from its undercarriage.
Law had to confess, it had been quite some time since he’d seen anything so beautiful.
He moved to fire a final missile, which would surely strike true and blast the vehicle into flaming wreckage. Right before his fingertip touched the button on the LED display, he stopped, pulling his hand back to his side.
I want to see them. I want to see them die with my own eyes, if I can.
In order to do that, he would have to reverse course and navigate around the ridges. The upthrust he was parked on had far too sheer a face to safely maneuver the vehicle across, and he had no intention of dying out here with Andrews and the others. So, he cautiously reversed the rig in the direction he had come.
***
Andrews and Choi set up in the rocky abutments several hundred meters from the overturned SCEV. The wind continued to mount, and dust swirled through the air. Andrews made sure the dust cover on his assault rifle was closed, then checked to ensure the grenade launcher was ready to go. He hadn’t heard anything from Laird or the others, nor did he expect to; they were to observe radio silence unless something untoward occurred. Even though their channels were encrypted, Law had military experience, and it was conceivable he could use the signal-hopping radios in SCEV Four to find the channels reserved for their use. Not very likely, of course—while Leona had been very informative in describing to Law how to use the vehicle, he had only had access to her for a few hours, and something such as spoofing an encrypted communications channel likely hadn’t been one of his priorities.
In the distance, through the billowing clouds of dust, Andrews caught a glimpse of movement.
SCEV Four appeared, bouncing out of the ridgeline. Once it made it down to the flat plain, it accelerated toward the overturned hulk of SCEV Five. Andrews looked to his left, where Choi was positioned about fifty meters downrange. Choi met his gaze and he nodded, pointing at his grenade launcher. Andrews motioned for him to hold his fire. There was no sense in alerting Law to their presence if he already thought they might be dead.
He turned his attention back to the SCEV as it advanced through the dimming light of the day. It stopped two hundred meters from the wrecked vehicle and sat there, its turbine engines whining, missile pod extended, miniguns oriented toward SCEV Five. The FLIR turret on the rig’s nose slewed left and right, as Law used the optics to surveil the area. After thirty seconds or so, the rig began to trundle forward, slowly bumping its way across the plain, drawing closer to SCEV Five’s shattered form. It circled the dead rig, slowing every now and then, the FLIR turret turned toward it, as if Law thought he could use the device to peer through the armored hulk and see what lay inside. The rig circled around the wreckage twice before it accelerated back toward the ridge. Two hundred meters away, it turned back until its snout was pointing more or less at the destroyed SCEV.
Come on, guy … Get it over with.
Andrews didn’t have to wait for long. Seconds later, another Hellfire missile leapt out of the extended pod on SCEV Four’s back and roared across the darkening plain on a pillar of fire. Andrews had only an instant to crouch down behind the rocks he was using as cover before the projectile climbed up, gained altitude, and nosed down. It slammed into the overturned rig’s belly and exploded. Even several hundred meters away, Andrews was shocked by the ferocity of the explosion. One moment, the wrecked SCEV was there, the next, most of it vanished in a gout of flame and smoke and thunder that sent a shockwave racing across the wasteland. The missile managed to decimate the rig’s self-sealing fuel tanks and ignite the propellant that remained inside. The remains of the SCEV began to burn, bright and furious, the flames dancing in the gale that carried the black smoke to the west. A moment later, pieces of debris began raining down on him. Something clanged against one of the rocks beside him, and Andrews saw it was an access plate to one of the MEP electronics racks, twisted and burned. Just like the remainder of SCEV Five.
Andrews peeked around the rock, exposing half of his face. He knew the suits the team wore would help mask their thermal image, but the FLIR on SCEV Four was extremely sensitive; if Law knew what to look for, he might see a small sliver of heat through the gloom. That would be bad news for all of them. He watched as the SCEV sat unmoving, while SCEV Five continued to burn. A sudden series of pops erupted from the flaming vehicle as the 7.62 millimeter rounds in its magazines cooked off in firecracker-like detonations, which were made tinny and insignificant by the howling wind. Andrews studied the idling rig for a full minute, watching the vehicle’s FLIR slew from side to side.
What the hell is he waiting for?
***
Law sat in the cool, climate-controlled environment of SCEV Four’s cockpit, his right hand on the FLIR control yoke. The immense heat given off by the burning rig distorted a good portion of the infrared picture, and the mounting wind began to drive flying dust even harder, which made visual inspection of the conflagration even more problematic. The vehicle’s millimeter-wave radar returned nothing suspicious; there was no sudden movement in the wasteland other than that driven by the winds, and the only sizeable metallic signature was on its back before him, burning away.
Still, Law wasn’t convinced. Andrews and the others had had ample time to evacuate the overturned SCEV, unless they had a procedure in place to sit tight and wait for rescue. But would they do such a thing when they were under attack? Would they follow the usual SOP when they knew an armed aggressor was closing on them? Had they all been killed, or so severely injured during the rollover that they had been unable to exit the vehicle?
Judging by the sturdy straps that kept him anchored to the pilot’s seat of SCEV Four, and the numerous straps and handholds spread throughout the rig, he rather thought death and injury, while possible, was unlikely. At least for the entire crew.
He began tracking the FLIR to the left, away from the burning remains of SCEV Five. To the left, the landscape rose slowly into a series of small, low-lying ridges. Law panned the sensitive infrared device across them, zooming in occasionally when a feature caught his interest, but for the most part, the landmarks were rather unremarkable and, like the rest of the plain, exhibited a definite lack of life.
Something moved among the rocky ridgeline. Law zoomed in on it immediately, and he caught a quick glimpse of a head peering over the rock, a head that was hidden beneath a white hood and a gas mask of some sort. Definitely a person, and whatever he or she wore very closely resembled the same suits Andrews and the others had been wearing in San Jose. The heat signature was barely above the ambient temperature of the ridge itself. If he hadn’t been paying close attention, he would have missed it. As he watched, the head dipped down behind the rock, disappearing from view.
Law slewed the miniguns in that direction and ripped off a burst, watching as the 7.62 millimeter rounds pulverized rock and earth, sending great gouts of dried soil exploding into the air. He walked the turrets from side to side, strafing the entire area until it disappeared beneath a cloud of dust and fragments of shattered rock. He ceased fire. He was down to just over seven hundred rounds of ammunition in the SCEV’s magazines. He would have to be less indulgent in the future. Zooming in with the FLIR, he surveyed the target site, looking for any sign of life. As the dust cleared, he saw no movement, nothing that resembled a human being. That could mean they were either dead, or the attack had been ineffective—there was a good amount of rock sticking out of the ridge, and if the survivors from SCEV Five had managed to dig in or find a depression in which to lie, the minigun attack might have been useless.
A missile should take care of that.
***
When SCEV Four suddenly opened fire on the ridgeline he had directed the others to, Andrews knew the gig was up. Law had seen something up there that had attracted his attention, and the target area was too close to where he believed Laird had led the others. He gauged Four’s position to be just inside the max range of a forty-millimeter grenade, but figured the wind might give an attack a little more reach. When he saw the Hellfire missile turret rotate to the left, Andrews figured he had no time to sweat it. He had to act.
He raised his rifle, flipped up the grenade launcher’s windage sight, aimed for the missile pod, and fired.
And prayed.
***
Law jumped back in his seat as something exploded against the copilot’s viewport, filling the cockpit with a thunderclap of sound and fury that left him with ringing ears and a headache. The viewport itself didn’t buckle, but the explosion gouged several deep chips out of it and ripped the wiper blade from its mount and sent it hurtling through the dirty air. The LED displays on the copilot’s side of the cockpit flickered for a moment, then resumed their normal operation. No alarms sounded, but several caution lights came on—one for the FLIR, which was now apparently stuck in a fixed position, glaring up at the ridgeline Law had just attacked.
Another explosion erupted right in front of the SCEV, causing it to rock on its suspension. A beeping alarm sounded, and the FLIR display went dark, fatally damaged. Law pulled back on the control column and sent the SCEV hurtling in reverse for a hundred meters until he braked to a shuddering halt. Without the FLIR, he was now dependent on the millimeter-wave radar and his own eyes. He had already noticed the effectiveness of both systems was being slowly compromised by the approaching storm; the tempest’s electromagnetic discharges were sufficient to degrade the radar’s performance, and the blowing dust was most certainly reducing his visibility.
But Law had another tool at his disposal.
“All right, Andrews,” he said aloud. “All right. My turn, now …”
He learned back in his seat and relaxed as much as he could. Reaching into himself, he clicked on the switch in his mind that allowed him to extend himself, to let his mind detach itself from his body and float into the distance, connected to his body by only a small thread of consciousness. He became hyper-aware of his surroundings: the susurration of air moving across him from the cockpit vents, the smell of sweat and metal and oil, the light but steady vibration of two turboshaft engines running at low idle power. Then more, from outside the vehicle: the surprising dry heat of the air, the pressure of the wind as it continued to build, the vague sensation of dust whispering across his phantom hand as it reached out across the wasteland with probing fingers, reaching for something—anything—that might indicate life outside of his own. It took a great physical toll upon him, extending his consciousness in such a way; his body began to break down fat reserves to provide fuel for the action, and his heartbeat and breathing elevated, as if he were in the middle of a hotly contested marathon. Law was only peripherally aware of these things; the vast majority of his attention was focused on that great hand of his, reaching out from the SCEV as it explored the environment outside. One of those phantom digits brushed against something that possessed a restrained bioelectric field, something he had been altered and then trained to detect, even if it lay outside his field of view. Law focused on the signature, bringing all his talents and decades-old training to bear. As he did so, he caught spectral glimpses of other bio-signatures in the area—four on the ridgeline he had attacked, and another closer to the first. All diminished by the suits they wore, he knew, but still detectable, despite everything.
Law fixed on the first signal and redoubled his efforts, sending a suggestion along the ethereal connection he had established, even as his body screamed for him to stop, to disconnect, to stop himself from pushing past his limits. He ignored the warnings for as long as he could, hoping he could maintain contact long enough to do what was needed.
***
Andrews felt a queer sensation in his gut, and he had the disconcerting notion he was being watched. A wave of panic crested in his breast as he realized he had felt that sensation before—when he had first met Law, only moments before that horrible, terrifying pain had taken hold of his body and threatened to decimate his mind. Andrews felt the bolt of wild-eyed fear begin to take hold, and he might have actually cried out, but mysteriously, Law’s presence retreated, fading but not disappearing, growing dimmer with each passing second until it was barely a glimmer of memory. Andrews gasped for breath, surprised at the fear and loathing he had felt, but thankful that unendurable agony had not come.
How did he do that?
“Skipper …” Choi’s voice was soft and somewhat slurred over Andrews’s radio earphones as he broke radio silence. “I feel really funny …” There was a peculiar lilt to the younger man’s voice, as if he were drugged, swept up in some sort of narcotic dream.
It’s Law. He’s got a fix on Tony!
“Choi, I’m headed for your position now!” Andrews pushed himself to his feet. Keeping to a crouch, he ran toward Choi’s position, but found he couldn’t see him any longer—the wind had picked up to at least sixty miles per hour, and the thick dust was flying hard and fast. Andrews stumbled as the gale tore at him, like a living thing trying to grab him and throw him to the ground. He pressed on against it, fighting his way through the maelstrom, his crouched position not helping, given the heavy environmental gear and body armor he wore. He concentrated on putting one foot in front of the other, moving as quickly as he could and stumbling over grapefruit-sized rocks and loose earth. Through the deepening murk, he saw Choi kneeling behind his cover. He was facing Andrews, but he gave no indication he saw him. He trembled and shook, as if deep in the grips of a seizure. As Andrews drew nearer, he saw Choi’s eyes were wide and panicked behind the visor of his facemask. Inexplicably, he slowly pulled his rifle against him, the collapsible stock fully retracted. Andrews slowed, and a worrying thought wormed its way through his mind.
Is Choi going to shoot me?
“I can’t stop myself,” Choi mumbled. “Help me, I can’t stop …”
He watched as Choi placed the barrel of the rifle under his masked chin. Andrew lunged forward, stumbling over a large stone as he reached out to knock the rifle away. His gloved fingertips barely grazed the weapon’s upper receiver as he lost his balance, collapsing to the hard ground right in front of Choi. He grabbed Choi’s boot and pulled with all his might, trying to jar his aim. The rifle barked, and he knew he was too late. Horrified, he watched as the 5.56 millimeter round punched a hole through the top of Choi’s skull, blasting his mask askew and ripping apart the protective hood. Choi shivered once, then slowly listed to the right until he collapsed to the parched earth. Dark blood pumped from the horrible wound in his skull for a moment before it stilled as his heart beat its last. Andrews cried out and scrambled toward Choi’s corpse on his hands and knees, but it was far too late for him to do anything. Choi’s eyes were still visible through the crooked visor, and they were wide and staring, one looking to the left while the other stared straight on behind a half-closed lid.
“Choi. Oh, Tony …”
Another voice came over his earphones. “Mike, are you all right?” Rachel asked.
Andrews squeezed his eyes shut, both to shut out the grim visage before him and to bite back the scathing response that came to him automatically when she broke radio silence. But it didn’t matter—if Law could somehow exert enough influence over someone to force them to commit suicide, then a little something like chatter on an encrypted radio channel wasn’t going to weigh heavily against them.
“I’m all right,” he responded. “Choi’s dead … I don’t know how, but that f*cker in my rig made him kill himself.”
Rachel started to respond, but Laird stomped on her transmission. “Four’s on the move again—you’d better break off and get up here,” he said. “We can hide out until the storm’s pulse effect craps out the rig’s radar. He’s not going to be able to find us when the shit really starts to fly.”
Andrews pushed away from Choi’s cooling body and peered around the rocky outcrop he had been hiding behind. True enough, SCEV Four was slowly rolling forward. As he watched, the vehicle disappeared behind a filthy halo of light as its floodlight array snapped on, cutting a brilliant swath through the dust-filled air. It turned toward the ridgeline and Andrews lost sight of it momentarily as it disappeared behind the smoldering ruins of SCEV Five. It emerged on the other side of the smoking conflagration and deviated again, resuming its slow progress toward Andrews’s general position.
“Roger that,” Andrews said. He turned back to Choi’s body and pulled the rifle off the corpse, then fussed with the tactical carry rig strapped to Choi’s body armor. He figured he would need every magazine and grenade he could get his hands on. He pulled the body into a sitting position, trying not to watch as Choi’s ravaged head tilted toward him, exposing the hole the round had made as it passed through his crewmember’s skull. He unfastened the rig’s Velcro tabs and pulled it off the body and hooked it over his left arm. He slowly lowered Choi’s body back to the bloodstained ground as gently as he could and bowed his head for a moment.
Looks like I’m going to have to leave you here, buddy. I hope you won’t hold it against me, okay?
Laird spoke again, this time with greater urgency. “Come on, Andrews—move it! He’s closing in on you!”
Andrews raised his head and looked toward SCEV Four. It was still coming, though very slowly. Andrews wondered if Law might have lost the FLIR. That would explain why he had switched on the lights. If he was relying on those to see with, then Andrews saw no reason to let him keep the advantage. While the SCEV and its various components had been built tough, the floodlights weren’t especially immune to physical damage.
“Laird, you have an angle on the rig?” he asked.
“Roger. What do you need?”
“I think he’s lost the FLIR. He’s half-blind, and when the storm gets closer, he’s going to lose a lot of MMR capability.”
“Roger that, but is there something you need us to do?”
“Take out his f*cking lights,” Andrews said. “Let’s leave that f*cker blind, so I can make a run for the rig.”
“Ah, roger on the lights, but what’s this about running down the rig? You figure you’re just going to walk up, pop the airlock, climb inside, and bitch slap the guy?”
“Pretty much.” Andrews opened his M320 grenade launcher and pulled out the expended cartridge and loaded a fresh one. Then he pulled the M320 off the rail on the underside of Choi’s rifle barrel. He removed the magazine from the M416 itself, ejected the round in the chamber, and leaned the rifle against the rock next to him. He didn’t need it any longer, and he didn’t want to lug around its weight.
But the grenade launcher … that, he decided to keep. He ensured the weapon was loaded, then clicked on the safety and shoved it inside his knapsack. It might be handy to have it nearby.
Just in case.