Be sure to read Part 1 here
And when finished here, read Part 3 here
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I glance at the hand that stops me in the hallway to the agent bunkroom, then move my eyes up the arm attached to it and to the face of its owner. A sheen of sweat glistens under long, black hair. Frey examines my face. I place my red fingers over her clean ones and hold them there for a few moments before dropping my arm back to my side.
“How are you doing?” she asks.
“Please don’t ask me that,” I say.
“Of course. Do you want to talk about it?”
I stare at my feet for a while. “It shouldn’t have happened. Our intel on him was incomplete. We should have stopped it.”
“You can’t blame yourself for it. Intel wasn’t your job.”
“But I should have seen it. It should have been obvious by the way he moved. I should have been ready.”
“Stop it. You did everything you could and you know it. You’re just hurting because you lost a teammate.”
“Yeah, that’s what you husband said.”
“That’s because it’s the truth.”
“Maybe.”
The door at the end of the hallway opens. A short man in training clothes steps through. “Frey, Jonathan is calling for a rematch- oh, sorry. Elian.” The agent looks down at his feet.
“Peter,” I say.
“Tell him I can’t,” Frey says.
“Go,” I say.
“I can stay with you.”
“I’m just going to get cleaned up and go to sleep. Go.”
“Are you sure?”
“Go kick his ass.”
“Again,” Peter says.
Frey gives a half-smile and nods.
“Let’s go,” Peter says and spins around.
“You heard him, let’s go. Stop fooling around,” I say to Tharn, pushing his arm away with my gloved hand. He walks around the turret without a word. I stride to the top of a small mound of dirt that gives me a clear line of sight in all directions. Drex moves to complete the triangle.
“Turrets secure, Jordan, Michael, you’re up,” Drex says.
“On our way,” Jordan says.
In the moments it takes the Mechanics to reach us, I sweep the sights of my rifle across the dilapidated buildings. Jordan orders Michael to rig the first turret and walks to ours. He carries a small bag in one arm, his weapon hangs at his side. From the bag, he pulls out a small metal disc and presses the top of it. It beeps once and he throws it at the turret, where it sticks with a clang. I focus back on the potential hiding places ahead of me, but listen for the sound of the other three discs.
Once they come, Jordan says, “Charges placed. Let’s get you Jumpers ready to go.”
He jogs to my side and kneels down. The armor on my knees retracts as he pushes on it. He does the same to my elbows and deposits the armor in his bag. Then he detaches the track from my back and replaces it with a pistol on my right shoulder and an extra magazine on my left. “You’re good to go,” he says and runs to Tharn.
Once the other five Jumpers have their restricting protective pieces removed, the Mechanics head back to the VTOL. I don’t move until I hear George’s voice say, “We’re lifting off. Go assist the UDS team at the gate. We’ll blow the turrets once you clear out.”
“Copy that. Stay on me. Heads on a swivel, we’ll move quick, but we don’t want to be shot in the back,” Drex says. He passes by me, his ONYX focused on the buildings between us and the sounds of gunfire.
“We are falling back to regroup and attack in a more organized matter,” Will says over the comms. “Expect more resistance now.”
“We copy that. We’ll keep them behind their cover from the air until you can begin your assault again,” George says. “Divers, we’ll ping as many enemies as we can, but keep an eye out for those we miss.”
“Don’t rely on you. Got it,” Tharn says.
“Yeah, now go finish this.”
“Nice to walk into a fight for once. How exciting.”
“Off the comms. Stay focused,” Drex says.
Everyone goes quiet. The VTOL whines as it lifts from the ground. The three men standing in the back watch us until the doors slide shut. The craft stops its ascent two hundred feet in the air and the minigun lowers from beneath the cockpit. It whirs to life. Orange outlines of men begin filling my vision. The pinged figures dive for hidden cover as the minigun sprays the area. A few of the outlines vanish after being thrust sideways.
“You’ve got some headed your way,” George tells us. Three more orange outlines appear, sneaking toward our flanks.
“Tharn, Phil, Martin, eyes on them,” Drex says.
We keep a steady pace down the main avenue. My eyes bounce between the two sides of the street, always keeping the three orange figures in the corner of my mind. More outlines blink to life, most hunkered down near the gate. A couple of them hide in the buildings lining our path.
We make it a hundred yards before one of the three men flanking us stops. I watch him out of the corner of my eye. The outline of his head turns scarlet as it appears from behind a wall. A single shot from Tharn’s ONYX makes the outline vanish. The rest of the man slumps out from behind the wall.
The other two rebels stop behind broken cover of their own. Phil doesn’t wait for his man to show his face, putting three bullets through the wall instead. The false color around the man disappears. Martin does the same to his target.
“Split off. Alpha, we’ll take left side, Bravo take right. We’ll get around behind the line of buildings and hit the gate from the sides,” Drex says.
Tharn pushes off to the left, his weapon pointing at the broken doorway leading into a building a few yards ahead of us. A single orange outline kneels inside the structure, it’s head turning and nodding. My vision darkens and two more figures become apparent, one of which is speaking with his hands. The light returns and a new pair of outlines joins the lone first.
Tharn situates himself on one side of the door, his ONYX raised and sweeping the far side of the room. I take the same stance opposite him, my eyes locking with the barrel of my rifle and scanning the blank wall. Light from the windows opposite it stripe the concrete. The air glows with dust that hangs onto the sunlight, at peace in the battle waging around it. On the ground beneath it, cots stand unkempt and empty, their owners seeking a permanent sleep.
“Go,” Drex says.
I drop my aim to the floor just long enough for Tharn to pass through the door. I cross through behind him.
Stopping just inside the door, I take a deep breath and rub my crusted hands together. A low light fills the bunkroom, originating from thin strips running up the walls. Cots line the floor, over a hundred yards squared of space. Aside from a few that have been pulled together for card games or other social activities, they form a perfect grid. Every one of the beds has a small light mounted on it and a plain box at one end.
A pair of voices race between the cots, the openness of the room amplifying the hushed tones. A figure rolls over in one of the nearest cots, grumbling, and pulls a pillow over its head.
“You’re getting a fresh batch today?” One of the voices says.
I scan the room for their source, pausing on each of the illuminated cots. I find the pair of men standing next to a lit bed on the ceiling.
“Yep. They said they got me a whole jar. Hopefully I can keep them alive this time,” the other man says.
“Hopefully you can keep them contained this time.”
“That wasn’t my fault. Entirely. And I could have caught them again, there was no reason to kill them all.”
“Weren’t they wreaking havoc on your ship? Like, disrupted everything for two days?”
“Well . . . yeah. But I still don’t think they had to kill them all. Bugs aren’t that hard to catch and it’s not like they could go anywhere.”
“Except anywhere in the how many square miles of ship?”
“Alright, so maybe I couldn’t have caught them all, but I could have caught some if they had let me.”
I shuffle down the wall away from the speakers. My footsteps bounce over the bunks. A few eyes turn toward me, glowing with the light of the strips. I ignore them, focusing instead on the corner my feet carry me toward.
Once making sure the shadows at the base of the two walls are clear, I swing my ONYX around to the doorway in the opposite corner. I run my gloved finger down the trigger, tracking the trio of orange outlines in my peripherals. None of them move toward the door.
Drex pushes straight forward through the room, not stopping until he is between a pair of bunks against the far wall. He taps the concrete between him and one of the outlines with his rifle and waves toward the door.
My aim never leaves the opening as I creep to its edge. Careful that my weapon doesn’t stick out past the wall, I press my shoulder against the barrier. All three outlines have their arms raised, pointing invisible guns at me.
I look back at Drex. He plants the barrel of his ONYX on the concrete, opposite the glowing orange head. He casts a quick glance at Tharn, who weaves through bunks toward the door, and at me.
My head shoots back to the doorway. Breaths come steady as my body tenses. My ears wait for the near silence in the building to be shattered with the concrete. The dust swirls around me, coming to rest on my arms and rifle. My fingers tighten on the grip. One last long breath passes through my lips.
My breath inward is no quicker as the dust is thrown into a frenzy by a blast from Drex’s ONYX. The second shot sends a piece of splintered concrete bouncing off the back of my legs. With the third, I move. As the tip of my rifle’s barrel passes into the doorway, I lean and turn.
The kneeling figure’s outline is already gone, what’s left of his head littered with shards of concrete. Both standing men, now highlighted in red, turn their heads and lower their aim. The nearest to the door drops his arm, exposing his chest. I put two bullets in it. I pause just long enough to watch his torso cave and release a red cloud.
The last of our opponents reacts as fast as I do after the death of his comrade. His head snaps back to my doorway, his rifle to his shoulder. His bullet flies past my head, thrown off by one of my own shattering the bone in his forearm. The pain in his face is cut through the middle by another bullet.
I push through the room, scanning all four corners. Tables with broken concrete chairs fill most of the floor space. Half-eaten plates of food dot the tables. Windows identical to those in the last room line the wall, the dust in the light now joined by bloody mist. On the far side of the room, another open doorway draws my aim.
Blood splashes over my boots as I tread over the crumpled corpses. Each squelching step carries me toward the next, unidentified target.
I pause as I reach the door. Just as my head begins to turn toward my allies, it is snatched back by the barrel of a rifle. The weapon’s wielder cries out as he stops just short of running into my ONYX. I push my aim toward him, only to have it kicked back around. I throw my armored shoulder into his chest. As he stumbles back through the opening, I swing the butt of my rifle into his face.
The blood erupting from his nose floats in place for a second before falling after him and splattering across his chest. I tuck my rifle to my shoulder. After three squeezes of the trigger, his head is spread across the concrete.
“Careful Elle, don’t want to be surprised by too many. What if he’d had an Exo? Our armor can only do so much,” Tharn says.
“I don’t think even the Phantom would give them Exos. They’re too valuable,” I say.
“Quiet. We don’t have time to chat,” Drex says. He brushes shards of concrete off his armor.
“Rocket! Right next to you Alpha team,” George says. An orange outline pops up through the wall, climbing invisible stairs in the next building.
Tharn pushes past me through the door. Drex darts after him.
I step through the door, into a small and empty room, and pause, my eyes following the outline. It rounds a corner in the stairs before levelling off and dropping to one knee.
“He’s locking on,” George says.
I bolt back into the dining room. Picking a window, I vault over a table under it. The dust flows away from me as I drop to my knee and pull my ONYX up to my shoulder.
The portal in the wall offers a wide enough frame to see the edge of the next building. Two inches of sky are visible above the sheer concrete filling most of my vision. In the middle of the blue ribbon, the tip of a metal tube and mop of brown hair lined in red focus on the VTOL circling out of view.
My sights line up with the head and I squeeze the trigger. Red explodes across the blue sky.
“Clear,” I say. The magazine drops just out of my rifle and into my pinkie. I push the ammunition back into place and watch the number on the side count back up.
“No it isn’t, we’ve got more,” George says and another four outlines blink into existence, two on either side of the street.
Cursing my decision to stay inside, I bound to an open door in the back. Two of the outlines have vanished by the time the sun’s rays hit my armor.
The third and fourth have both dropped to their knees. One of them keels over and disappears before it can shoot. The last gets its rocket off. The projectile careens toward the hovering VTOL.
The craft lurches to the side. The rocket arcs after it. Finn drops the ship out of the air. The missile dives. It passes the tip of the wing and hits a crumpled concrete structure.
The VTOL stops falling just before hitting the ground. A small force of orange outlines appear on the street ahead of it, every one slinging bullets at it.
“We’re out of here,” Finn says and the engines roar.
“Clear this out, we’ll be back when you’ve rendezvoused with the UDS,” George says.
Another rocket is thrown off trajectory by the backblast from the VTOL’s engines. The craft is gone in an instant.
“That’s fantastic. Leave us to deal with these guys,” Tharn says as he and Drex reappear around the edge of the building.
“You’re not scared are you?” I ask.
“Of a few trappers? Never.”
“Then quit stalling and let’s go,” Drex says. He pushes past us and raises his ONYX toward the sea of orange.
I fall in line offset from his right shoulder, Tharn takes his left. My sights come to rest on every doorway we pass.
The ocean of outlines leaks out of the main street, through the buildings and out on our side. With each one that fades to red, one of our three rifles lets off two bullets and the outline disappears. This easy pattern of watch and kill continues until the main reservoir is a building ahead of us.
We split without a word. I stop at the nearest alley between concrete buildings. Drex hurries to the next one and drops to one knee. Tharn disappears into the building between us.
I plant my knee on a patch of matted grass. The butt of my rifle presses my armored shoulder and cheek. I run my finger down the trigger and take a deep breath.
The first of the orange outlines, crouched and cautious, fades to red in front of me.
An explosion sends dust flying. The shockwave forces me to move my foot with my center of gravity.
“UDS has restarted their assault,” George says.
The force siphons back down the road. The cackle of gunfire flies up to meet them.
“Go now,” Drex orders.
I rise to my feet and press through the settling dust. My hands clench around my rifle.
I relax my fists and check for new blood mixed with the dry. I place my hands on the thin padding over my cot. The light next it it is off and the box is sealed.
Another agent snores in the cot on the other side of mine. The man, Rez, hangs one tattooed arm from the sheets pulled to his close cut hair.
Sighing, I plant three fingers on the outside of each leg. A low whine and clanking drops from my hip to my ankles. The pieces of armor detach from the exo clamped on my legs. They crash to the ground. Rez coughs and shoots into a seated position.
“What the hell!” He says, rubbing his eyes. When he lowers his hands, he stops and stares. “Oh, sorry Elian.”
Without responding, I press the thin metal running down my thighs. The pressure on my legs retracts with the clamps. The small cages fall away and my hands move up to my shoulders. I push the same three fingers against the armor. The thick sleeves split apart and pile on the rest of my gear. I wrap my fingers around my neck and remove its covering and what is left of my helmet.
With my head free, I turn it back toward Rez. He looks away and lowers himself back down to his pillow, pulling the covers back over his head.
I step over the pile of gear around my feet and to the box at the foot of my cot. As soon as my fingers touch the raw metal, a seam forms around the top edge. The lid splits down the middle and slides back into the sides. Inside is a single change of clothes — which I remove and set on the cot — and a small assortment of personal items. On the inside of one of the walls is a small screen with the words “Object Retrieval.”
Voices and laughter echo down the hall and disperse into the quiet room. Rez groans as the noise hits him.
Mimicking his sound, I turn to see what team has returned from their own mission. Six figures barge their way into the dim room.
I put a bullet through one of the men’s heads. His body jerks sideways into one of his allies, toppling them both to the ground. The trigger relaxes against my glove as I continue down the alley to catch the end of the fleshy current. I turn onto the main avenue and drop my aim to the ground.
Tharn hurries across the dirt ahead of me and pauses until I reach his side. Together, we pass by the building to our left and stop next to Drex, who is crouched at the end of his alley.
Across the street, the other three Jumpers mirror our line. All six of us raise our ONYX’s.
“Fire away,” Drex says.
Soft tremors flow through my armor as my rifle slings bullets down the avenue. Casings pop out of the side of the weapon and bounce against my boot.
Blood paints the backs of the men marching toward the gate. Their bodies carpet the street. Scarlet mists through the air. Dozens fall before they begin to take notice. Those that can escape our sweeping fire clear the open road, jamming themselves into doorways and between walls. No more than twenty make it.
We stop firing. The path to the gate is clear of anyone standing. Silence flows through the outpost.
“I don’t know what you guys did in there, but it seems to have pulled them away from the gate,” Will says over the mic. “Want to let us in, or should we blow it ourselves?”
“Elian, Martin, get to the gate. Everyone else clear out the buildings. Make sure we don’t miss any of the rebels,” Drex says.
I nod at Martin and we march up the road. My ONYX stays fixed to my shoulder, sweeping back and forth. I pause to check every movement — a spurt of blood finishing its eruption or a rebel crawling across his last lengths of life.
None of the residents of this post rise to stop us from reaching our destination. The only evidence that any survived to reach the buildings is the occasional gunshot ringing out behind us as the other Jumpers finish scrubbing the rebels.
I step over armorless corpses and splash their blood over my toes. The weapons I kick out of my way are top of the line.
The distinctive pop of a DMOTER Marksman Rifle fills the air. I lurch sideways as a bullet strikes my shoulder and bounces up into my head. An agonizing tremor runs through my body.
I drop to one knee as Martin swings around and puts three bullets over my head.
“I lost him. He’s behind the buildings,” he says.
I grind my teeth through the pounding in my head. With a few deep breaths, I raise my ONYX and stand. “Keep moving, I’ll keep an eye on him.”
“You sure you’re good?”
“Yeah. Let’s get to the gate.” I take a long stride over a fallen rebel clawing at the bloody mud.
“What happened?” Drex asks through the mic.
“Elian got nailed by a DMOTER,” Martin says.
“The Phantom saw fit to give these trappers one of our marksman rifles?” Tharn asks.
“So it seems.”
“Damn. Whoever kills him, make sure you get the rifle back.”
“You can hand it off to us when we meet up,” George says. “Damian will check who it belongs to and we’ll see it is returned to them if they are still alive.”
“Good, then back to the mission,” Drex says.
Every few steps, I shoot a look back at the buildings on my left. We make it over halfway to the gate before the sniper makes a second appearance.
With another pop, my head his thrown toward my right shoulder before it strikes the armor around my neck.
“Shit!” I say as pain shoots down my spine. My display wavers.
“He’s gone,” Martin says.
“Got ya again?” Tharn asks. “But hey, on the bright side he hasn’t figured out where your weak spots are, right Elle? Hate to see you take a bullet to the flesh. That’d be a first.”
“Shut up Tharn,” Drex says. “Elian, take a detour, kill that sniper.”
“With pleasure.” I swing my ONYX around and stride toward the buildings. When I reach a closed door, I kick it off its hinges, the metal clinging to the side of my legs tightening with the motion.
The inside of the structure is bare. All four corners are clear of even a chair. On the opposite side, another door swings shut. I bolt to it and push it open with my shoulder, keeping my rifle parallel to it so I can scan where I’m exposing myself to.
When the door is open, I face the next building. The heel of a boot disappears inside. I hurry after it. Just as I reach the alley between structures, a rebel steps out in front of me. I swing the butt of my rifle into him, throwing him to the ground. One bullet in his head and I take the last steps to the door.
Before I breach it, a third pop fills the air.
“Ow! dammit!” Martin says. “I managed to ping him this time.”
An orange outline turns to face the door I’m standing behind. It slides to the side and crouches before raising its arms.
I take a step back and point my rifle at its head. When I squeeze the trigger, it ducks down and flinches. With him no longer watching me, I kick my way through the door.
The sniper peeks up over the mound of broken concrete he’s hiding behind and puts a bullet in my chest. I stumble backward, fire exploding behind my ribs. I yank the trigger and let my rifle bounce in my hands. The number on the side of my magazine counts down to zero before I stop firing.
After checking that the sniper’s outline has vanished, I double over and try to breathe. Every wheezing gasp of air is coughed out again. I brush the flattened bullet from where it has imbedded itself in the frayed fabric on the outside of my armor.
“Did you get him?” Tharn asks.
I take a few more coughing breaths before straightening up and clutching my chest. “Yes. He’s dead. I’m not. Barely.”
“Good, then grab the DMOTER and get to the gate,” Drex says.
“You don’t sound good,” George says, “and your vitals jumped. Are you alright?”
“He hit me. In the chest. I’ll be fine,” I say.
“Alright, we can pull you out when we land if you need us to.”
“No. I can complete the mission.” I round the rubble and pull the marksman rifle off the nearly headless body of the sniper. I wipe blood and brains off of it, then place it against my back, where it sticks.
I hold my ONYX against my chest and move to the front door of the building. I kick my way through it and turn back up the road toward the gate.
Outside, Martin is rubbing the side of his helmet. He nods at me and grabs his rifle with both hands.
I swing my weapon up to aim at the gate. Long, quick strides carry me over the field of corpses. My eyes never stop sweeping the alleys and windows for any sign of survivors. By the time we reach the gate, the shooting behind us has stopped.
Then a series of explosions break the silence; a chain of low pops erupt from off to our left. A line of bright flashes shoots along the bottom of the tower next to the gate. The sound is replaced by a creaking and cracking; the tower begins to lean toward us.
“Shit! Move,” I say to Martin. We turn in unison and sprint away from the gate. I dive to the ground beside a bloody body just as the ground shakes with a deafening crash. Dust shoots across the ground and fills the air.
My helmet display fades green and I look toward the base of the tower. A single orange figure runs away from it.
I prop myself up on my left shoulder and pull my ONYX to my right. Placing the side of my rifle on the corpse next to me, I squeeze off two shots. The glowing figure falls.
“Everyone alright in there?” Will asks.
“I’m good,” I say. “Martin?”
“Yeah, I’m good,” the man says.
“Going to open the gate for us now?” Will asks.
I push myself up from the ground and wipe off what dust isn’t stuck in the blood coating my body. With the cloud beginning to settle, I switch my display back to normal and look at the toppled tower. The concrete structure fractured on contact with the ground; the once square formation is now broken and collapsed inward on itself in a shapeless mound. It was tall enough to fall across the gate, the tip ending just beyond the giant door.
“That’s going to be a problem,” I say. “The gate’s blocked now.”
“Do you have to come in? We could just get airlifted out of here and all of us can be on our way,” Martin says.
“Martin’s right. The fight is over, we can move on,” George says. “We’re on our way back.”
“There’s a problem with your plan. We don’t know exactly where the rebel leader is. We need to search for him and your VTOL will be vulnerable while we do. Searching by ground would be the better option. And we only have one truck,” Will says.
“There are a couple over here,” Tharn says. “We can take them, but we’ll have to get the gate open.”
“Then we’re back where we started,” I say.
“It’s just a bit of concrete, you can pull the gate open.”
I shake my head and look at Martin. He shrugs and sticks his ONYX to his back. I reach back with my own and find an angle for it to sit next to the DMOTER.
We pick our way through the shards of tower to the edge of the gate. The door moves a foot before hitting the rubble. I position myself in the gap we’ve created and begin to push. Martin situates himself as best he can on the other side to pull. The metal on my legs tightens. I throw my weight into the gate and drive my feet into the ground. As we both let out grunts, the door shifts.
“This isn’t happening,” I say.
Will jogs up to the gate and places his shoulder against the door beside me. As soon as he starts pushing, the door slides inward.
When the gap is wide enough for a truck, we all stumble backward, our chests heaving.
“You’ve got some serious muscles under that uniform,” Martin says to Will.
“You guys didn’t need much help. I assume you’ve got exo’s under that armor?” Will says.
“Oh yeah, no chance we did that without.”
The roar of an engine interrupts the exchange. The UDS team’s truck rolls up behind us and the men pour out of the bed.
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Read Part 3 here