Berserker (Messenger Book 2) Page 21

  Pierson and Larc still had not returned after landing to capture the Unknown. Aksinya had every confidence in the famed Pierson Cutter's success, but the appearance of this Spacy squadron constituted a grave threat as long as half their manned firepower remained on the ground. The instant they had noticed the interlopers, she and Nhean had taken the Revenants and set an intercept course.

  “You heard him,” Aksinya said to Nhean. “Shall we give them our response?”

  “Don't mind if I take the first helping,” Nhean responded.

  A volley of searing red guided plasma rounds burst from Nhean's exosuit and blazed toward the oncoming Spacy squadron. The enemy craft immediately dispersed and deployed dummy flares, causing Nhean's missiles to scatter and detonate in an effervescent garden of fire that filled the sky with smoke and flames.

  The next instant, the lead Spacy craft performed a midair transformation from a fighter into an exosuit and fired an azure beam from its particle cannon. The beam took a second to cross the distance between the two forces before lancing through the leg of Nhean's exosuit, blasting it clean off. Nhean's suit went into a momentary spiral before he regained control and leveled off, narrowly avoiding two more shots from the enemy's particle cannon.

  “Fuck,” Nhean screamed. “That kind of accuracy is impossible at this distance!”

  “His call sign,” Aksinya replied. “They're augments.”

  Still, even for an augment, landing a shot from a particle cannon on a fast moving target so many kilometers away was an incredible feat. Realizing that they were in for a tough fight, Aksinya gunned her thrusters and headed straight for the transforming exosuit, struggling to acquire a lock with her plasma launcher. Two of the Revenants took position on her flanks to join in the attack.

  A fusillade of particle beams cut across Aksinya's bow, forcing her to dive and putting her off her intercept course. She turned to address the new threat and saw a floriform exosuit eject a swarm of flying wedges from its shoulders. The wedges surrounded Aksinya and began firing energy blasts at her.

  Under attack from all sides, the only possible defense was extreme jinking maneuvers. Aksinya's fingers danced furiously on her flight controls, activating verniers all over her suit at full thrust, flinging herself in all directions in a desperate effort to evade the omnidirectional attack. Her gravity gauge spiked from the force of the constant velocity changes, showing five gs... eight... twelve... fifteen... nineteen... twenty. Even with the inertial compensation abilities of her pilot suit and cockpit, she nearly blacked out from the g forces interfering with her blood flow.

  The Revenants also got caught in the fusillade. Although the unmanned vehicles could withstand greater g forces, their defensive algorithms proved inadequate as one of them was consumed in a fireball and the other suffered heavy damage.

  A trilling alarm warned Aksinya of a bogey on her six. She was already turning at the limit of her endurance and knew that she could not execute another abrupt course change without losing consciousness. Straining against the inertia, she detached her left hand from the weapon control pad and conjured a holographic keyboard to issue orders to her remaining wingman.

  The drone broke off from its preprogrammed route and flung itself into Aksinya's path. She executed a barrel roll to catch the drone, then turned to interpose it between her and the detachable cannon on her six. The drone took several shots for her, then she kicked away its smoldering carcass for fear that it might explode and take her with it.

  She turned a little more, acquired a target lock on the cannon, and fired a burst from her plasma launcher in spread mode. Burning energy pellets engulfed the space around the cannon until one of the shots found its mark, consuming the cannon in a gout of flame.

  At last, the nightmarish assault came to an end. Aksinya tracked the other cannons returning to their master and realized that the docking procedure would create a moment of vulnerability which she could exploit. She blazed toward her target, trying to acquire a lock, when an azure beam lanced across her viewscreen.

  She turned into another hard bank as the transforming exosuit bore down on her from starboard, firing its particle cannon and rotary gun in tandem. Aksinya activated the deflector shields on her arms, repelling most of the rotary gun's rounds, while simultaneously executing another series of wild maneuvers as particle beams flashed all around her. A few of the rotary gun shells grazed her, but failed to cause any serious damage.

  “Lieutenant, where the hell are you?” she shouted into her comm. “Are you going to make me fight two augments by myself?”

  “I'm engaged,” came the frantic reply. “Take care of your own damn problems.”

  Aksinya glanced at her sensors and saw that Nhean, together with the remaining Revenants, was engaging all of the enemy squadron's Shinigami drones. Nhean seemed to be gaining the upper hand—he had lost just one drone while the enemy was down two—but he still had his hands full finishing off his remaining opponents.

  “Dammit,” Aksinya cursed. Even for one of the First Knights, fighting two top grade augments in experimental exosuits did not promise good prospects for survival.

  The transformable exosuit drew a plasma blade and moved to intercept Aksinya while continuing to fire its particle cannon in its other hand. The floriform exosuit contributed fire from its hull mounted cannons, catching Aksinya in a crossfire. Their coordinated shot pattern forced her into a series of dodges that soon drained her kinetic energy, leaving a defensive spiral as her only remaining option. She flipped her exosuit upside-down and gunned her leg jets, using the combination of thrust and gravity to pick up speed while azure beams continued lancing around her.

  The transformable exosuit took the bait and followed her down. As she dropped, Aksinya cut her power and extended her airbrakes to slow her descent, hoping that her enemy would overshoot her and open up its six or even slam into the ground.

  Her hope was in vain: the enemy pilot was wise to her trick and matched her deceleration, continuing to fire sporadic shots that came frightening close to finding their mark. As the ground rose ever closer, Aksinya was forced to pull up and gun all of her thrusters at maximum output, leveling out just a few dozen meters before she kissed the ground.

  Another warning trill blared through her speakers, alerting her to an impending collision. She rolled her suit onto its back and saw the transformable exosuit descending on her with its plasma sword raised to strike. Even with Aksinya's spiraling descent, the enemy pilot had plotted a perfect intercept course for when she pulled out of her dive.

  Aksinya drew her suit's energy lance and raised it to block the enemy's falling slash. The Spacy suit fell upon her in a fury, slashing and thrusting so quickly that she could barely defend, let alone counterattack; then her foe spun around her and she pulled out of the way so narrowly that its slash severed the tip on one of her airfoils.

  Aksinya suddenly realized that she was hovering in the center of a converging circle of detachable cannons. That one instant of horrifying comprehension telescoped into an eternity. Not only had her foe forced her completely on the defensive, he had coordinated with his ally to maneuver her into position for a sure kill. There was not one single maneuver that would enable her to dodge the ensuing fusillade.

  As an elite exosuit pilot, Aksinya had never been so thoroughly outclassed by an opponent. Even more than the fear at her impending demise, she felt the humiliation of total defeat, and hated the taste of it.

  Just as she felt resignation setting in, a rain of plasma rounds flew across her screen and flashed through the oncoming cannons, destroying two of them. The remaining cannons fired, one of them striking the arm of Aksinya's suit and knocking her off course. This caused the remaining shots to miss, and Aksinya recovered in time to parry a follow-up swing from the transformable exosuit, then push it back as the remaining cannons dispersed in a widening circle. The enemy exosuit transformed back into a fighter, fired two decoy flares, and accelerated away in a sharp bank just as a volle
y of guided plasma rounds zoomed after it.

  “Are you all right, Aksinya?” a commanding voice crackled over the comm.

  Aksinya's fear collapsed into relief. “Captain!”

  *

  Pierson took up position near Aksinya together with Nhean and the squadron's lone remaining Revenant drone. He kept the other two craft, the damaged Black Fly carrying the Unknown and Larc's exosuit, now slaved to Pierson's command and carrying its pilot's corpse, well back from the action.

  Despite having gained numerical superiority, Pierson did not find the situation favorable. He had fought augments before—in fact he was one of the few normals alive who could hold his own against the engineered killers—but these Spacy pilots, especially the one in the transformable fighter, were in a class of their own. He gauged the First Knights' odds of victory at 50-50, and that was much too risky to justify further engagement.

  “I've got the target,” he announced. “Further battle is meaningless. I'll send the Revenant forward to keep the enemy busy while we break off.”

  “To hell with that,” Nhean snarled. “To turn tail and run here would be a stain on the honor of the First Knights. I'll finish these upstart freaks, with my cowardly captain's help or without it.”

  “Lieutenant, stop,” Pierson shouted.

  Nhean blazed ahead of the rest of the squadron, although his acceleration was hampered by the destruction of one of his legs, and fired another volley of plasma rounds. Pierson hesitated for just a moment, then sent the Revenant after Nhean and opened a line to Aksinya.

  “Lieutenant Nhean has bravely volunteered to cover our retreat,” he said. “Let's not waste his sacrifice.”

  “Captain,” Aksinya replied, a hint of alarm creeping into her quiet voice, “you aren't really abandoning—”

  “I've got no use for subordinates who can't obey orders,” Pierson interrupted her. “I always took you for a more reliable wingman than the lieutenant, Dame Aksinya. Now is your chance to prove me right.”

  Pierson spun his exosuit around and withdrew from the local airspace at maximum acceleration, guiding the Black Fly and Larc's Asura along behind him. After a moment's hesitation, Aksinya turned and followed him.

  *

  For a moment, Omega was taken aback by two craft from the enemy squadron charging ahead of their comrades. Then the others began a rapid withdrawal from the local airspace, and Omega realized that the two in front had been sacrificed to cover their allies' retreat.

  “I've got the Asura,” he said to Alpha. “You take the drone.”

  “Roger.”

  Omega brought his suit into a dive and flew underneath the oncoming Asura, then pulled up sharply and flew over its head. The Asura fired a volley of plasma rounds in spread mode, but Omega's unorthodox maneuver threw off the enemy pilot's aim, and the shots fell well behind their target.

  Omega's fighter hovered for an instant over his opponent's head, then he transformed into exosuit mode and dropped on the Asura with his sword raised to attack. The Asura drew an energy lance and lashed out, but Omega easily twisted out of the way and slashed his plasma blade through the enemy suit's arm. As the Asura began to drop, Omega spun around with his particle rifle at the ready and blew off his target's remaining limbs and primary airfoils, leaving only a smoking torso tumbling through the air.

  A quick check of his sensors revealed that Alpha had already taken care of her target using her remaining DOTS. Omega stowed his weapons, dove after the falling suit, and grabbed its remains in a tight embrace. He descended all the way to the ground, effected a graceful landing, and set the wrecked exosuit torso down at his feet. The canopy opened and a sputtering pilot tumbled out of the cockpit, only to raise his hands at the sight of Omega's particle rifle leveled at his face.

  “The rest of the enemy squadron is escaping,” Alpha reported. “Should we pursue?”

  “My Tsubasa might be able to overtake them in fighter mode,” Omega replied. “But I don't see the point. We've already got a prisoner, and I'm more interested in what these unknowns were poking around here for.”

  Alpha put down her suit next to Omega's and was soon joined by the transport helicopter, which had maintained a safe distance from the dogfight. “Well then,” she said, “shall we investigate?”

  Omega retrieved his sidearm and opened his canopy. “Yes, let's.”

  Eighteenth Escalation

  The shapes of deceptions

  Vic stirred in a pile of leaves and squinted against the harsh, pale light of the sky casting the leaves and branches overhead into black relief. The blow from the drone had not quite knocked him unconscious, but it had left him stunned for a long while. After an indeterminate amount of time, his senses began to return and he tried to push himself to his feet. A severe stab of pain in his arm caused him to collapse onto his stomach.

  With that much pain, it was probably broken. Vic used his good arm to push himself into a sitting position and tried to shrug off his backpack while moving his injured arm as little as possible. He pulled out his knife and cut away his sleeve to inspect his arm. It was badly swollen, but there was no sign of bone sticking out of the skin. Not a compound fracture, then. That was lucky.

  He dug a roll of tape out of his pack, then found a sturdy stick and formed a makeshift splint by taping the stick to his arm. The awkwardness of working with one arm made the process slow and difficult. Then he extracted a roll of gauze from his pack, measured it out, and cut it with his knife. He held one end in his teeth while he wrapped it around his arm in a sling and tied it off with a strong knot.

  Not the greatest first aid job in the world, he judged, but considering he had applied it himself, it wasn't bad. He concluded the treatment by digging out some pain medication and swallowing a heavy dose to dull the throbbing in his arm.

  Having dealt with his most immediate problem, Vic slung his backpack over his good shoulder, got to his feet, and inspected the ground nearby until he found his pistol lying several meters away. it only had three rounds left, but he picked it up, flipped the safety on, and stuffed it into his left pocket anyway.

  The whole time he had administered his self-treatment, Vic had heard nothing but the breeze rustling the foliage. It seemed that the battle was over. Even so, he remained alert for threats as he began searching his surroundings for survivors.

  His gut was tight. Cena and Tinubu were two of the closest friends he had ever known. If either of them had been killed... He tried to steel himself for the worst.

  After a few minutes, a sound caught his attention. He dropped to a crouch and tried to advance quietly in the direction of the noise, although he could not completely silence his footfalls on the crunchy ground. As he drew closer to the source, he realized that the noise was that of quiet sobbing.

  Vic emerged from behind a patch of shrubbery and saw the scruffy face of Sergeant Regalado a few steps away. He was sitting on the ground, cradling a body in his arms. The body was Private Katar's, his chest sporting several large holes that had pulverized his internal organs. Vic did not need to meet the glassy stare to know that Katar was dead.

  Regalado looked up and met Vic's gaze through tear-stained eyes. “It happened again,” he sobbed. “My men die, but I... I survive.” He pulled Katar's lifeless body tight against his chest. “I'm sorry. I'm sorry.”

  Vic had no words for the grieving sergeant. He let several moments pass in silence, then said quietly, “I'm sorry, Sergeant. Have you seen any of the others?”

  Regalado shook his head. “They're probably dead,” he said. “What could any of them do against that damned drone? I tried to destroy it. I landed a couple of hits, but then one of its shots struck the grenade launcher. I'm lucky it didn't blow up in my face, but it was wrecked. That's when I tried to pull back with Katar, but...” He shook his head. “I was too late.”

  Again, Vic could find no words to console him. Finally, he said, “I'm going to look for the others.” When Regalado didn't respond, he turned away and cont
inued wandering down the hill. He took a calculated risk and removed the safety whistle from his pack, blowing on it periodically and piercing the silence with its obnoxious screech.

  Soon, an answering cry responded to his whistle, followed shortly by the appearance of Young. She still had that dead look in her eyes, but otherwise she was still hale.

  “I'm glad to see somebody besides me is still alive,” she said. “However temporary that might be, in my case.”

  “We don't know that for sure,” Vic replied. “Never give up until it's over.”

  “Easy for you to say. You're not the one with a terminal infection.” Young cast her gaze aside and added in a softer voice, “I'm sorry, Vic. There was nothing I could do to stop them from taking Janice. Why would they attack us just so they could capture her, anyway?”

  Vic could think of only one reason, and he didn't like it. Instead of voicing his concerns, he said, “Let's keep looking for the others.”

  As Young followed him down the hill, he said, “I found Regalado a short ways back. He seems OK, but his partner was killed and he's taking it really hard. I haven't found any of the others yet.”

  “They were probably killed,” Young said in despair.

  Vic exploded, “Dammit, people need to stop jumping to conclusions. They're...” He was going to say, “They're still alive,” but of course he was not sure of that. He said, “Let's just keep looking.”

  After another minute, Vic blew his safety whistle again. This time, another whistle answered him. Driven by a surge of hope, he ran toward the sound, blew his whistle again, then corrected his course to run more precisely toward the answering call.

  A moment later, he found Cena and Tinubu standing inside a circle of trees. Cena's face was bruised and bloodied and Tinubu had a bloody bandage wrapped around his arm. The old friends embraced in relief, but Tinubu's face soon became grave.