Son of Sedonia

31

Warnings


IN THE SQUAD leader’s shotgun seat of the IG-6 dropship, Shima began to regret giving up his medical leave. The patched bullet-wound underneath his leg Augmentors was, for all intents and purposes, healed. But the phantom ache left behind by the nano-fuse stitches got worse in the dropship’s rigid bucket seats. His eyes compulsively focused on the medication timer in his head’s-up display. “-30:09 minutes until next dose.” He winced, then leaned forward to look out the cockpit windshield. The Border drifted underneath them as they entered Slum airspace. The heaped landscape of tangled hovels, bridges, and rooflines seemed asleep below them in gentle, corroded twilight. Shima knew better.

“I could walk faster than this,” he muttered. The pilot ignored the remark and maintained regulation speed. Shima dug his palm into the side of his Augmentors. A walk would probably work out some of the stiffness. And the idea of taking a stroll in a war zone was strangely sweet to him. He gnashed his teeth.

This recon op was a milk run. All that HQ would give him until his leg was a hundred percent. Better than being laid up on his shitty couch at home, but still “‘on the bench,’” so to speak. Confined to the cockpit for the duration of the mission. Better make myself useful. He swept his gloved hand in front of him, pulling the mission details into center focus. Not much to it. He played the audio from the initial civilian report.

“Uhh...Randyll Jackson,” said the recorded voice, “Class B Operator for FTL Shipping & Freight LLC. I wanna report a near miss—naw, reckless ‘dangerment and criminal negligence on the part of them Junker boys. A whole fleet of the bastards nearly knocked me outta my lane on their way down to them Pits! No warning lights, no approach communique, nothin’! I know these fellas got quotas for this garbage, but they don’t have to junk me in the process! Y’all better hit ‘em with more than just a p-ssy-ass fine this time, too. I want ‘em arreste—”

Shima scrubbed back in the audio.

“No warning lights, no approach communique, nothin’!” the recording repeated. The official wrecker logs showed only two deliveries made during the day. Two tankers. Nothing out of the ordinary. Shima sucked his teeth.

“Whaddya think, sir?” asked the Pilot. “Another Dust Swap?” No doubt. City thugs couldn’t get enough of the stuff, and Rasalla chefs cooked the best. Millions of credits-worth of Sway traded for a few hundred-worth of seeds. Too good for some to pass up. SCPD had been breathing down the department’s neck for months to keep the shit on the right side of the Border. Something about Sway addiction making implanted citizens feel invincible. Even homicidal. Just like the SCPD to bitch about real work.

“Sir?” the pilot prodded.

“Sorry, son, I was ignoring you,” Shima said, staring off in the opposite direction. In the following quiet, the pilot’s bruised pride throbbed in Shima’s ear. He rolled his eyes.

“Yeah, probably a Dust Swap,” Shima sat up and squinted at the live satellite feed streaming in his Neural. A few random thermal readings showed up across the Pits, but nothing out of the ordinary.

“Long done now, though. Looks like another rousing night of lifting serial numbers and pushing pixels for me. Hell yeah,” Shima drew a circle in the air with his index finger. The white heat from their afterburners appeared on the sat-feed. Shima touched a section of the terrain next to the beached ships, dropping a digital waypoint.

“Bring us down there,” Shima said.

“Yes, sir.” The braking thrusters kicked on and the IG-6 banked into its descent. Shima hissed at the shooting pain in his leg as he stood up.

“You okay, sir?”

“F*ck off, son.” Shima swung from the ceiling rails to the rest of his squad, “Alright boys and girls, let’s go see if we can find a serial number that hasn’t been filed off.” The IG-6 lurched as its heavy legs pressed down into the packed dirt.

“Mount up!” Shima shouted. Buckles clicked and straps retracted as the team stood. The IG-6 ramp yawned open, spilling the pale blue light of the cabin out onto the dirt. Shima and the others stormed down the ramp with submachine guns drawn. All quiet. Shima touched his throat mic.

“Delta-Three is on the ground. Button up and climb to observation altitude.”

“Roger,” said the Pilot over comms. The ramp hummed shut and the IG-6 engines belched blue fire. Soon the ship was nothing more than a pair of glowing specs against the night sky. Shima turned to his squad.

“Eyes on, legs off,” he said. Each EXO touched his temple and blinked three times. Shima watched the Pits flash to pale gray-green daylight. A few bright blooms of sparks burst out of the distant haze, showering down at intervals. Dumbasses. Cutting during the day was bad enough, but doing it at night was usually a death sentence. Only the most desperate ever dared, but there were always a few. None worked on the so-called ‘fleet’ from the esteemed Mr. Jackson’s incident report.

“Let’s hit that fat f*cker over there first,” said Shima, nodding toward the over-sized, fish-shaped personnel carrier. “And stay sharp, dammit! We may have clipped the T99 hierarchy, but that doesn’t make this a casual stroll.”

The five of them started walking. Shima pushed out in front to hide his grimacing from the others, but there was little he could do about the limp. He focused on the small, blurry lettering on the side of the ship’s nose. Too hard to make out at 1-X view. Tracing a light circle on his temple, the image jumped to 10-X. ‘Virton Energy.’

Walking in 10-X, his left foot tagged a bent chunk of rebar on the ground, sending him into a painful stumble. He winced, dialed back to 1-X, and limped onward.

“Virton,” said Ackley, one of the smarter rookies in the squad, “Not like them to dump gear off the books...is it?”

“With a greaseball like Finley running it, who knows,” said Shima. It didn’t help him shake the same feeling. An itch up and down his spine. They came to the base of the ship and fanned out. Ackley came through moments later.

“Got one! ‘Alpha-Tango-Alpha 37859-8842,’” said Ackley over the comms.

“Run it,” said Shima. He sauntered up to the door and wrapped a gloved hand around the latch. Locked. He grumbled, looking over his shoulder at the glowing green Pits behind him. A small light flashed on a few klicks East, bobbing toward them at a gentle pace. A lantern. Shima pressed his throat mic.

“Hold fast, we’ve got a local headed our way. I’m moving to intercept.” Shima crouched and flanked wide around the bobbing light like a stalking cat. It was just a kid. Looked to be a Cutter with his torch and blanket-covered wagon in tow. Six feet behind the boy, Shima’s thigh decided to bind up, dragging his feet through the dirt in the process. The kid whirled, greeted by a limping EXO with machine-gun drawn. Not the most badass ambush, but the kid still looked like he would shit himself at any moment.

“Shhhhhh,” Shima said, “Over there. Nice and easy. Bring your gear.”

The kid obeyed, one hand raised and the other pulling the wagon. They greeted Ackley at the carrier’s main personnel hatch.

“Sir, the ship’s last stated destination was the Themis Facility. Logs for that serial stop there. I sent a query to Themis, but haven’t heard anything back yet. Want me to try and hail Virton corporate?”

“No...not just yet,” Shima said, “Hey kid, what do you know about all this new merch, huh?” The Cutter boy stood rock still, eyes fixed on his toes.

“Nothin’, huh? Not a damn thing? No fancy dressed guys waiting to take a few kilos of the Red Stuff off your friends?” No answer. Shima looked down at the kid’s cutting gear. Grinned.

“Well, you’re here to cut, so cut! Get that door open for me and I’ll give your skinny ass half a protein bar.”

The kid looked at his torch and wagon, then back at Shima.

“Fine,” said Shima, “I’ll just borrow this.” He snatched the torch from the wagon. The boy lunged for it, but an Augmentor boot caught him in the chest. Kicked him into the dirt.

“Let’s take a look,” Shima tapped his temple to cut off IR mode, then dropped his visor. The glass went solid black as he sparked the torch, adjusted the flame, and focused it on the latch. The metal started to glow.

“Boy, I tell you, this thing is a piece of shi—” The hatch door swung open, cold-cocking Shima in the shoulder and face, knocking him to the side. Orange-jumpsuited figures stepped into the doorway. Opened fire. Ackley and two of the others, blinded by the sudden flood of light, were cut down, taking high-velocity rounds through their armor plates. Explosions of blood and twisted metal sprayed over the red-orange soil. The cutter boy yanked the cloth off his wagon and took a pistol from the heap of Slum guns piled there. Shot Shima’s remaining squad member through the neck, and put a bullet through Shima’s bad thigh.

The Sergeant crawled through the bloody dirt to cover behind the manatee’s landing gear. His weapon sat eight feet away, harmless in the stark white light coming from inside the ship. Swallowing hard, Shima bit his lower lip and pressed his throat node.

“Call Headqua—AAAHH!” A hail of metal punched into the landing gear, flinging a chunk of shrapnel into his back.

“Calling John Kabbard,” said the status window in his Neural. Footsteps and clicking weapons approached from behind him. He waited. ‘Beeeeep. Beeeeep. Beeeeep. Beeeeep. Click!’

“You have reached the voicemail of Johnathan Kabbard, please leave your message after the tone.”

“F*ck! John! They’re hiding in the Pits! Something big, John, you gotta—ULLLGHHH!”