Fort Liberty, Volume Two (10 page)

The colors around her go black.

And Logan is in the pool, grabbing her roughly by the waist and dragging her out. She feels the violence of it, the terrible noise it causes in the song, and frenetic splash, his hands biting, lifting her back into the warm air.

“Niri!” he’s calling. “You’re okay. We’re getting you out.”

Out? Out of where?

“It’s over,” he says. “It’s over.”

No, she thinks, though the realization of it is somehow distant, as if she is no longer there to think it, no longer physically there at all.

It is beginning.

Voss watches the last panels slide back, focused on the valley he can’t see through the haze, threats spinning in the dry howl of air. The watchtowers appear as shadows, the crimson flare and ebb of warning beacons.

Behind him, the security chief is talking. “---can’t be responsible for this. Have you considered, I mean really considered, your liability? I have the utmost respect for Assaulters. You’re our heroes too. I mean, everyone here respects what you do. As a kid, I had a holo image of a team of Assaulters, I think one of them might have even been you, though that was a long time ago. It’s one where you’re in the water with the hats, and the guns, and there’s water dripping off the hats? I don’t know if you know this, but I did a tour above Earth. What a wasteland, right? I can only imagine what’s in that water.”

Voss ignores him.

“I can see your boot, Fulson!” Wyatt calls to the recruits, a kid now proned out behind the SAW on the catwalk, his position covered by the layers of steel plate they’ve welded to the metal, a crude opening cut for the gun. “That boot is looking for a bullet.”

“Yes, first sergeant.”

Voss’s holo comm buzzes for Gojo, and the tech sergeant’s voice follows, talking on the open channel. “Colonel, we have radar contact, one large aircraft inbound, transport size. It came up over the canyon wall alone, and it’s descending fast. It’ll be within missile range in three minutes, within auto-gunner range in eight, though I’m getting some errors in the systems, like there’s a hack in progress. Petra’s locator came back up though, and she’s on that aircraft. There’s a read of vitals from the locator, with warnings indicated.”

“Buzz the locator,” Voss says. “Patch me through to her.”

“Roger that.”

The security chief wets his lips, glancing nervously toward the elevators. “Maybe I should go.”

Voss glares at him.

The comms unit on his wrist buzzes, and activates its small holo screen. The window glows with an animated connect graphic depicting signals spreading outward in concentric arcs.

He waits, urging her to appear, to answer, anything.

“C’mon Petra,” he murmurs. “C’mon.”

 

“That’s it,” Kazak says beside her. “Come on, wake up. Wake up.”

She blinks, turning her head to catch him pulling a syringe out of her arm. Another dose of… something. He grimaces, not noticing---in his hurry---that her hand’s loose in the restraint.

His gaze darts to the men in the hold, then back to her face. He’s in full armor now, hair pulled loose like he’s rushed to put everything on, and he’s fighting to slow the adrenaline, teeth bared, eyes glittering.

“Showtime,” he says, lifting her helmet from the deck. “We’re approaching BIOSTAT airspace, and we’ll be within manual rocket range any minute. Time for you do some convincing.”

Voss.

She presses her lips together, and nods.

Kazak holds the helmet above her and switches the visor to an external view. It boots up and projects an image of a holo window.

He turns on the external camera and she can see herself in the holo screen, her body laid out on the bench, bandages on her stomach soaked through with blood, and leg still wet under the tourniquet.

Indicators flash, sounding a connection alert. “Secure Connect, Voss.”

So he’s calling her.

“Connect, Voss,” she says, allowing for the verification of her voice.

The computer opens another luminous window, showing Voss staring down at the camera, looking pissed, of course. His gaze narrows through the bright ether. “Petra.”

“Fucked up.”

His expression darkens. “I’m here.”

“They want to talk trade.”

“Tell them to land, and we’ll talk.”

She shuts her eyes, wishing he’d have made it easy, made the decision he was supposed to make, which was to shoot them out of the sky.

“Petra,” he says, steady, cool.

She looks at him, and he is perfect. Tears come without permission. She hisses through her teeth. “Three aircraft total. Two hanging back for extract. Sixty men in this ship, and all of them are Earthbounders planning on outright killing you and nothing else. Got explosives to blow you to hell, so don’t draw this out. No choices here.”

Kazak growls, and grabs onto her wounded leg, digging his fingers into the skin. Pain eclipses thought, exploding in a hoarse, reflexive scream. Her body jolts to one side, trying to close in, protect itself.

She rasps for breath.

“Land,” Voss says, talking to Kazak, even though he can’t see him, has no idea of the kind of monster heading his way. “Now.”

Kazak lets her go and shatters the plastic helmet into the metal above her head. “Stupid bitch, you think it makes any difference? Think you’ve saved anyone?” He draws his pistol and presses it against her temple, forcing it against the bone and turning her head with it. “As soon as we get in there, Pretty Petra, and you’re no longer needed, you’re head’s going to be sprayed across a wall, same as his.”

He turns away from her, now growling at his men. “Three minutes!”

The transport drops in a sharper descent, the surge of engines drowned out by the rustling of men in suits, the slip of straps, and the click of weapons.

 

“Target has entered our airspace,” Gojo says.

“Allow it to land,” Voss replies. “Do not fire on that transport.”

“Copy that.”

“I should go,” the security chief says. “I’ll take the elevator down, and then we’ll cut the power to it, like you said… while you negotiate.”

“Go,” Voss tells him.

The man purses his lips, looking lost. “I hope it goes well.”

“Might, might not.”

“What?”

“Prepare your people.”

“But… ”

“You don’t have much time.”

The man backs away, his face creasing in horror, as though reality has finally hit, even though Voss has warned him a dozen times about what is coming their way, and what he needs to do about it.

Then man turns and runs for the elevator.

Voss signals to Wyatt. “Enemy aircraft inbound.”

Wyatt yells it to his recruits. “Attack is imminent, gents. Ball the fuck up, and get ready to hit the bang switch. Keep those assholes off the elevator. Do not shoot me. Do not shoot the colonel. Do not shoot the hostage. You let us worry about her. Do you understand?”

“Yes, first sergeant!”

Voss ducks under the skimmers, which have been parked to one side of the hangar entrance, and surrounded by metal cargo containers to create firing positions. He lifts Logan’s medical ruck from the deck, shrugging the straps over his shoulders. He grabs his weapon and fishes an EMP grenade from his belt. Wyatt appears next to him in full armor, holding a suppressed assault rifle with a grenade launcher attached under the barrel.

An alarm sounds as the transport passes the gun towers.

“Here she comes,” Wyatt says.

Voss locks in his helmet, signals they’re moving forward.

He leads Wyatt to the hangar entrance, and the transport appears from the dust, a floating delta-wing with a blunted nose, its bulk looming black. It skates left with the crosswind, tilting, red silt streaming over its fuselage.

Its gun lights up, punching a barrage of heavy rounds through the atmosphere shielding. The bullets sparkle through the field and shatter the check station, exploding rock and crackling rage through the hangar.

The transport shoots a rocket, then another, each hissing into the bay on a trail of smoke. Too quick to track. The pounding is instant, skull cracking. The stone wall at the far end of the hangar bursts into shards and dust, hurtling chunks of basalt into the air. One of the parked skimmers takes a block to the flight shield. Metal clangs as another big rock pounds off its wing.

Wyatt shields his helmet but doesn’t get hit.

The transport’s gun is still going, chewing the air inside the hanger as the ship sears its way through the force shielding. The cockpit comes through first, then the rest of it, a bloated metal machine trying to land.

Kill it.

Voss signals that he’s moving. He sprints across the deck and ducks under the transport. He pulls the pin on an EMP grenade then tosses it up to the ship’s hull. It clicks, latching onto metal skin.

He’s got five seconds to get out from under the aircraft, and he charges forward, sliding the last few feet on the shin plates of his armor. The vessel thrums overhead. The EMP grenade bursts with a flash of a warning light, its pulse detonation silent.

Electronics snap dead.

The hanger goes black.

The transport drops to the tarmac, all systems fried. It slams into the wreckage of the check station, and sways back from the impact, rocking wing to wing, the thin metal of its fuselage grinding against the rock.

Voss waits, holding his breath. Assaulter gear is shielded, though he’s seen it fail during an EMP burst before.

This time it doesn’t glitch.

The hangar’s atmosphere shielding doesn’t drop either. The life support system is protected but the hangar lighting is gone.

His view cuts to thermal, and the wrecked ship glows ahead, massive and broken, with a frothing plume of coolant gas spilling from a crack in the fuselage. He can hear the muffled sound of men yelling to each other inside.

The cargo ramp’s dead without power, so no use to them. They’ll move to the front of the aircraft and blow the front hatches to escape.

He signals to Wyatt.

The sniper comes up behind him, taps his shoulder, and so he moves, leading the way to the transport hull, then around to the aft cargo ramp. The ramp is sealed tight by a latch at the top, and two air pistons on either side, all of which are vulnerable to breacher charges.

From the nose of the aircraft, the forward hatches blow out, a echoing bang followed by the clatter of metal on the deck.

The Bounders inside the transport are busting out, yelling as they push into the hangar, moving on the rattle of gunfire.

Tracers streak toward the skimmers and get answered by the SAW chewing air back, forcing heads down.

The air crackles with live fire, rounds sparking off rock and steel plate.

Wyatt activates the two shielded skeetos, which rise like tiny helos in the air, flashing once for readiness. Then he strips the packaging off a smart breacher and hands it to Voss, who turns it on and allows it to scan for its own attach point along the ramp.

Hold on, Petra. We’re coming.