Time Siege (2 page)

Roman fell onto a knee and held his right arm with his left to steady his trembling body. His nerves screamed as he forced his arm up to aim with the wrist beam. He hit an old-looking savage in the chest and took out another who didn't even look old enough to shave. That last one came perilously close to sticking him with another spear. He watched, dismayed, as the young savage fell at his feet.

An involuntary shudder coursed through his body. He had almost become dinner just now. At least that was the rumor among the monitors; these wasteland tribes were cannibals, and civilized people were a delicacy. He couldn't think of a worse way to go than roasting over a fire. He bet he tasted awful.

Gouti screamed at them from the collie's hatch, “Get your asses inside!”

Renee picked Roman up again and the two desperately tried to sprint to the collie. To his right, Baeth shot a charging savage point-blank in the stomach, then fell to a vicious club to the side of his face. Roman watched in horror as a savage woman towered over his squadmate, ready to strike the killing blow. It never came.
They must like their food alive when they cook them. Those bastards.
It was too late to help Baeth now. The rest of the squad converged on the collie. Chaki was limping badly while Gouti desperately tried to provide covering fire.

Mong was still flying through the air, acting as a battering ram and launching his body at groups of savages, trying to keep them at bay to buy time for the rest of the squad. Roman, himself a failed initiate at the Academy, had often seen chronmen and auditors in battle. Mong wasn't one of the more skilled exo-wielders, but he was getting the job done. Roman and Renee had almost fought their way to the waiting collie when it began to take off, jerking unsteadily into the air.

“We're not in yet!” Renee screamed, dropping Roman and sprinting toward the ship. It was too late. By the time she reached it, the collie was already five meters off the ground. Before it could speed away, something slammed into it, knocking it out of the air. It crashed to the ground on its side, almost crushing Renee and Roman as it slid down the slope. The two were just able to dive out of the way at the very last moment.

“Black abyss, no.” Roman stared at a new figure floating in the air above him. It was the traitor, James Griffin-Mars. Before Roman could react, a coil wrapped around his feet, lifted him off the ground, and tossed him into the mud. Renee tried to flee down the hill but was pulled back and flung into the embankment next to him.

“Chronman.” The traitor's voice echoed through the ruins. “Leave the Elfreth alone and face me.”

When Mong, who was still busy tearing through scores of savages, didn't respond, the traitor shot forward in a streak of yellow and collided with the chronman. The two of them, exos flaring, slammed into the side of the hill, spewing mud and rocks into the air. A second later, they exploded out and crashed down at the bottom of the riverbank.

The men's coils were interlocked, but it wasn't difficult to tell who was winning. The traitor had the chronman wrapped in what looked like ten coils. Somehow, Mong was able to slip away and launch up into sky. Just as quickly, the traitor shot half a dozen coils after him. The chronman created four of his own coils to fend them off, but it was obvious the former Tier-1 was much more skilled than the Tier-5. The traitor's coils tied up Mong's coils, and then the remaining ones sunk into his shield and dragged him back down to earth. As much as Mong tried, he couldn't get away a second time.

“Go ahead, you abyss-plagued traitor,” Mong spat. “Finish the job.”

By this time, the rest of the savages—and they numbered in the dozens—had the monitors surrounded. Most of his squad were beaten up pretty badly. Baeth had suffered a concussion and was awake but woozy. Blood poured down Chaki's leg, and Roman still had this stinking spear sticking through his shoulder. Two of the savages were carrying an unconscious Renee up the embankment. The remaining monitors—Gouti and Pau—were being rounded up. A few second later, the pilot of the crashed collie was pulled out of the wreck and also joined the prisoners. Roman squeezed his eyes shut. This was when the savages would decide which one of them looked the most delicious.

Roman had been with ChronoCom for almost fifteen years, and nothing made the hair on the back of his neck stand up more than savagery, either from the pirates along the Ship Graveyard or the commies in Venus or these primitives here on Earth.

The traitor suspended Mong in the air. “Release your bands to me and I will spare you and your people.”

“How about you go fuck yourself,” Mong replied.

“Actually,” Pau said, “that's not a bad trade.”

The chronman shot him a glare. “Be quiet.”

“Give him the stupid bands,” Gouti said.

“Shut up, monitors,” Mong snapped.

“Just give him the fucking bands!” Roman screamed.

The rest of the squad joined in with their pleas. Mong looked furious, but Roman didn't care. It was better to give up the stupid bands than become dinner. Chronman or not, this kid was risking their lives for no reason.

“Fine,” Mong snarled. “You want the bands? Here you go.”

He held his hands out, and with a snap, all his bands broke in two.

Roman's legs gave way and he collapsed to the ground. That fool. Now they were all going to be dinner. He felt his pants grow warm as he wet himself. This time, his body shook from fear instead of pain. He couldn't decide what was worse, being boiled alive or roasted over a fire.

He flirted with the idea of pulling the spear out of his body so he could bleed out. Roman gripped the shaft with his working arm and took a couple of deep breaths. He gritted his teeth and willed his arm to pull the spear through his body. The stupid thing wouldn't budge; his arms felt like noodles. He tried once more, and again, his hands felt so weak, he could barely hold the shaft, let alone budge the damn thing.

Roman just couldn't do it. He was too frightened to kill himself. That was why he had failed to tier at the Academy. He was good enough, everyone said so. He had surprised his teachers by failing. And now his stupid cowardice was going to get him killed in the worst way possible. His frustration and the tension in his body built up, begging for a release. Roman's arms shook as he stared at his own blood sliding down the shaft and dripping onto the ground. He did the only thing he could think of at this very moment. He began to bawl. All eyes turned to him as his sobs grew louder.

Pau leaned in to him. “Pull yourself together.”

“Please … please don't eat me.” Roman sniffed loudly. “I'll taste terrible.”

A buzz spread through the crowd of savages. A few of them seemed to understand what he said and translated to those who didn't. A chorus of laughter erupted. Several of the savages began rubbing their bellies. An apple bounced off his head. Even the traitor was masking a smile.

The traitor floated Mong to the rest of the squad and picked up the broken bands, examining them one by one. He sighed and tossed them to the ground. “You're making my life a lot harder than it has to be.”

Mong stuck his chin out defiantly. “Just get it over with and kill us.”

“Speak for yourself,” Gouti grumbled.

“If we had wanted you dead, you'd be dead,” said James.

Roman looked over at the rest of his squad. He hadn't realized this at first, but it was true. All of them were alive, and it probably wasn't a coincidence. In fact, these savages took extra precautions, at the risk of their own lives, not to kill any of them. Why?

The traitor motioned to a group of savages standing nearby. “You have seven minutes. Get to work.”

Roman watched open-mouthed as two dozen savages swarmed the collie, like burn ants over a corpse, and began to strip it bare. To his shock, they moved efficiently, as if they knew what they were doing. These were primitive savages. How could this be possible? However, within minutes, many of the collie's modules were dismantled. All that remained was its frame, engine, and structural components.

“Wrap it up,” James said. “Co-op forces will be here any minute.”

Just as quickly as they appeared, the savages disappeared back into the ruined city. The only one left was the traitor. He surveyed the sky and then the squad. “Your people will be here soon.”

Mong looked confused. “Why not just kill us and be done with it?”

“Shut up before he changes his mind,” Roman hissed.

The traitor studied Mong's face. “How many years out of the Academy, chronman?”

Mong hesitated before answering. “Five months.”

The traitor nodded. “You use the exo well for a Tier-5. You'll make a fine chronman one day. Just make sure you live long enough to make a difference.”

“Why are you letting us go?” asked Mong.

James sighed. “Because at the end of the day, you're just trying to do the right thing, and so am I.” Then he shot into the air in a streak of yellow and was gone.

Five minutes later, a Valta Valkyrie appeared, followed by three collies. The area was soon flooded by monitors. Roman looked in the direction he had last seen the traitor as he and the rest of his squad were led to safety. This was the first time he had seen the traitor, this James Griffin-Mars. He had to admit he was surprised. All the intel had described the man as an unstable, greedy, self-serving lunatic. This man seemed anything but that. He glanced over at Mong, whose troubled face spoke volumes as well.

Roman crawled into the medical collie and was soon in the air. His last thought before he passed out was that now that he was injured, did he still have to wait two days to shower?

 

TWO

T
HE
S
ITUATION

James watched from the mid-level of a nearby building as a small fleet of collies and Valta ships swarmed the battlefield where the Elfreth had just ambushed a squad of monitors. He took a quick inventory of the number of ships and personnel, the time it had taken them to arrive after the first shots were fired, and how large of a perimeter they maintained while executing the retrieval. The Co-op's response times were improving, though still not quick enough to catch the tribe during a raid.

Once he had finished gathering the necessary data, James headed to their temporary home, choosing to go on foot instead of risking being seen flying through New London at this hour. There was already a lot of heat in this region, and his exo would shine like a beacon in the black of night. With few tall buildings in this area still standing to provide cover, the less he used his exo, the better.

The Co-op was not proficient at guerrilla warfare, not like the wasteland tribes who had had centuries of experience executing hit-and-run raids. They had other overwhelming advantages, though, possessing vastly superior firepower and nearly infinite resources, while the Elfreth's already meager stock was fast withering away. Without Smitt's access to the chron database to calculate jumps, James was unable to jump to the past to resupply the tribe as he had done previously.

Not that he could jump right now anyway, even if they did have access. Grace Priestly, the Mother of Time, was adamant that his next one or two jumps would kill him. He had made too many jaunts to the past without taking the miasma regimens, the medical treatments necessary to combat lag sickness, the long-term degenerative illness caused by time travel. His body was too permanently damaged to risk another jump. This was a serious problem, because the Elfreth had depended on his salvaging for food, medicine, and equipment, especially now while on the run with the tribe unable to farm.

James stayed moving on foot, sipping the energy levels of his bands sparingly to avoid detection, using his exo in short bursts to leap through the streets and between the buildings. He circled west in a roundabout path in case he was being followed, until he eventually reached the ruins of Groton Space Port.

The space port, already half-submerged in the encroaching brown ocean, had been a major hub in the early days of interplanetary freight. When the Core Conflicts broke out at the turn of the twenty-fourth century, Groton Space Port was converted to a military installation and was one of the last surviving ports when the megacorporations from the Outer Rim planets arrived and laid siege to the planet. All that remained now were blown-out buildings and skeletons of ships from previous centuries. It was also the perfect hiding spot for the Elfreth's current project and their last hope for survival.

James landed on the wing of an old Publicae drone ship and hopped over onto the back of a Venetian heat absorber, then onto an old Earthbound civilian carrier. The history of humanity's aviation continued to unfold as he crisscrossed the watery graveyard. The brown ocean currents had invaded the airstrip long ago, and now some of the crafts were uprooted from their final resting places and being carried away by the dense, heavy waves of the polluted ocean. They banged against other crafts, rocking back and forth as the slow-moving tide flooded and ebbed.

He reached one of the few still-intact construction hangars built on a hill and entered, promptly coming face-to-face with three guardians wielding high-powered blaster rifles. He nodded as the lead lookout, Mhairi, waved him through. He was getting better at remembering their names; it was something Elise had stressed he should do, claiming it made him a more integral part of the tribe.

At first, he resisted. A short memory was useful for a chronman. After all, while salvaging, he interacted with thousands of people who were already dead. Remembering their names meant they would linger with him even after the salvage was completed. Even while at the agency, he rarely bothered remembering names outside of auditors and administrators. Chronmen and monitors came and went. What was the point of getting to know anyone?

In many ways, it was the same with the Elfreth. There were so many in the tribe, and he had little confidence that any of them would survive this war with the Co-op, so why remember names? Why give them this power over him?