No Man's Land Read online

  Jillie looked sheepish and fiddled with her wrist unit until she could nod and say, “Yes,” just like everyone else had.

  I tested communications, made sure we could all hear and speak to each other. “Use voice when you can,” I reminded them. “Security.”

  Lightning fell again, far away now, a thin streak that forked in three places and was gone. I waited for the thunder to die down and then I said, “All right. Go.”

  We skirted the dead, going so wide we missed the ravine. Better to add ten minutes than pick up some windblown death. On the smooth ground, the dogs had pretty even gaits, about like a horse walking. Over hills or rocks, they rocked and lurched, irritating my still-sharp head and scraping my inner thighs. There were reasons we don’t usually ride the damned things. Plenty of bots had been designed to carry soldiers, but the pack dogs like these had it as a second priority. Or maybe a third or fourth.

  It hurt.

  I had ridden the dogs in the wild, but Jillie and Scott had only mounted in training exercises. They managed, but only because I paired them each up with a trainer. Behind them, Kris and I rode together. Simon protected Alissa, the pair of them a bit in front of us and off to the side.

  For the first hour, we followed the storm. Dusk yellowed the lagging edge of the clouds, and Alissa pointed out a fresh storm behind us, maybe five miles away. “Backup?” she screamed the question to me over the wind and the rain and the space between us.

  I shrugged. Sometimes weathering made more weather, as if sun or wind or rain called to its own kind. If it was NorAM storm, they hadn’t told me. But then maybe they wouldn’t. Maybe we’d wake up in the morning to August snow. If we made it to morning.

  As we neared the top of a long, low hill two huge figures rose up. Bipedal, metal, too thin to be manned. Legs like tree trunks and torsos like limbs, thin and wiry and fast. Six arms, or maybe more. They held rocks in each hand.

  I ducked.

  Hunter feinted right under me, then left.

  Rocks landed on either side of us.

  Voices screeched in my ear. Too many to make sense of.

  Alissa gripped her dog’s ears, which held its head down.

  “Let go!” I screamed at her. “Hold its neck. Handholds.”

  Just as she let go, a rock the size of her head pounded into the ground at her dog’s feet and the robot dog rose up on just its hind feet, striking the ground with its tail to help balance. Alissa threw her weight backward instead of forward and landed with a hard thump on her butt. Immediately twisting away from the dog.

  A rock fell between the scientist and the robot dog.

  It stepped back, avoiding the rock, programmed to stay with its handler.

  I charged her attacker, drawing two of its rocks toward me. It was agile enough to pick another rock up as it threw two at me. So a brain for each hand? My immediate reaction was to go eye for an eye. Sometimes old- fashioned weapons are just fine, and since I’d never even seen a rumor of a six-armed rock-throwing robot, this couldn’t be far out of beta. By the time I’d pulled the pin, the bot had hit Alissa’s dog in the torso, leaving a dent. It stood over her small form, which lay curled under its broad belly in a fetal position.

  Well, I’d probably have gone fetal, too.

  I threw the grenade and watched it arc up toward the robot. I turned away, hoping Alissa was smart enough to cover her face.

  Hunter shied, if that’s what you call evasive actions in a robotic dog the size of the small horse.

  After the initial explosion I heard metal screech and turned to look. A leg complete with a long string of cables that must have pulled loose from inside the robot lay behind us, evidence there had been something for Hunter to avoid.

  A rock slammed into us, hitting a glancing blow to my thigh. Hunter took the blow, moving with it, taking three fast steps like those daisy steps from aerobics. I managed to hold on. My thigh hurt like hell. I tested and my leg bent normally if I forced it. No telling if I could put weight on it.

  Wind had blown the wet ash clear enough for me to make out the robot, no longer standing, but with at least two working arms.

  No time to look around and see what else was happening. I raced to Alissa’s side and barked at her, “Stand up!”

  She looked up at me with a face streaked with tears and ash, but she nodded and pushed herself to standing. She reached for the holds to mount.

  “No. Use it as a shield and run.”

  Alissa stood blinking at me with shocky eyes for just a second before she understood what I meant and started heading away from the now- stationary rock-thrower, keeping the robot dog between her and the damaged enemy. She started off in retreat and I herded her forward and around, paying close attention until we appeared to be out of range.

  I looked for the other robot. Simon or Kris had done a better job than I had, and it lay inert.

  I called for everyone to come here, counting as they appeared. John and Jillie, John with one arm hanging and a bruised cheek. Jillie looking like hell but smiling. I hoped it was happiness at being alive and not something more manic.

  Kris and Simon rode in from the left, Simon looking ecstatic. I knew where his happiness came from. He must have been the one to bring the bot down. If this had been the middle ages and the six-armed bot a dragon, Simon is the guy who would have raced toward it on a black charger, whirling his sword above his head. His voice blossomed in my ear. “If that’s all they have, we’re okay.”

  I suspected we wouldn’t be that lucky. “Paulette? Scott?”

  No answer. Everyone else had the discipline to keep silent while I called for them.

  Finally, Scott’s voice. “She’s hurt. My dog died.”

  “Are you okay?” I asked, grateful he didn’t seem as shaken as he had the day before.

  “Yes.”

  “How badly hurt is Paulette?”

  “I think her leg’s broken.”

  Thank God. I’d been afraid of something worse. “Do you remember field medicine.”

  “I think so.”

  “Is Paulette conscious?”

  “Yes.”

  “She can talk you through.”

  He sounded shaky as he said, “Okay.”

  Simon broke in. “Hurry up. There’s another storm coming.”

  I’d almost forgotten that. The sky was darker, but it was also later in the day. The wind came up again, only this time at our backs. The lab was close.

  “Scott,” I said. “Good luck.” And then to the others. “Group around me.”

  I still had no clear idea how six of us were going to get into a secret GenGreen lab. There had to be better defenses than what we’d seen so far. I took time to report in. NorAM was quick to respond. “Keep going. There are reinforcements on the ground.”

  I glanced up over my shoulder. “Is that our storm?”

  “Get Alissa to the lab.”

  “I’ll do my best.” I closed my communit. Aye, aye, sir. Thanks for doing the impossible so far, and keep on going. Of course, I’d signed up for it. On purpose.

  Lightning split the sky behind us, followed a few seconds later by thunder. Maybe they sent the storm just to drive us. Hopefully Paulette and Scott would be okay. “Let’s go!”

  The dogs had the GPS data, and this close, there wasn’t much routing I had to do. The last bit of the journey was mostly a balancing act trying to stick to Hunter in spite of my head and my thigh. Rain made the broad backs of the dogs slippery as hell.

  Kris did fall off once.

  We got close enough I started watching for the fence.

  NorAM messaged us all to turn around and look the other way. Them talking in our ears was a security risk of the first order and so I turned my head even before telling Hunter to turn. Looking up and down the small line of us left, I was pleased to note everyone had understood the order.

  Light pinned us bright and blind. Then again. Flash. Wind, or maybe the electricity of what must be simultaneous lightning bolts, lifted
and twisted the stray hairs around my face. Flash. Thunder boomed, a deep cracking sound as if the sky had been hit with the hammer of the gods. More noise poured through right above us, enveloping us, making it impossible to talk.

  We stood, still looking away. I hadn’t known they could do that. We could do that. Another ratchet up in the weather wars.

  It scared me as much as the lab.

  NorAM’s voice again. “The fences are all fried. The building’s main security is probably off, but there may be generator power. Go, now. Copters will be along. Ground troops are arriving now.”

  Another scary thing. “Did you catch the traitor?”

  “Yes.”

  Hopefully there was only one. “Wait for orders,” the NorAM dispatcher said, enough happiness in her voice that I guessed whatever the lightning and the new troops were supposed to do was getting done.

  I glanced over at Alissa. “Are you okay?”

  “I will be.” She still looked fierce. Like the scientist in a television show I used to love that chased down Japanese whale boats. Something to be said for fierce scientists. Our back was still to the lab and the conflict, and we watched a sliver of black cloudless sky slowly grow as the storm above us blew further east. From time to time we heard thunder in the distance.

  It had stopped raining by the time they called for us. I smiled at the look on some of the NorAM shock troop faces as I brought Alissa Freitag into the compound on top of a wet, banged-up robot that barely resembled a dog. I had no mirror, but I’m sure we looked like wild women, drenched in rain and sun and wind and thunder.

  I kind of liked the picture that drew for me.

  Two scientists had come in via the road, and been protected in the back until the lab defenses were neutralized. NorAM replacing what we’d lost, and probably unhappy about it. But then they’d wanted us to be entirely stealth. Which is probably why so many died. Not that I got to make high-level battle plans or even hear what data went into them. It felt good to have done my part, and that all of the soldiers who had escaped with me were alive. And I liked seeing Alissa run up to the others and start organizing immediately, no question, as if she were the field commander among the scientists.

  Maybe she was.

  John and Jillie and I attended to the robots and set them charging. After about twenty minutes, a small crew returned with Scott and Paulette. I complimented Scott on a decent job of field-bandaging, and he blushed.

  Just as we were about to leave, Alissa came up to me, almost bouncy. No—more than that. Electric with excitement. Her eyes were shining as she said, “Thank you. You have no idea how important it was that you got me here.”

  “What did you find?”

  “Bees.”

  I must have looked stupid. I had been expecting a breeding farm for human organs or something else scary. “Bees?”

  “Genetically changed to kill the few remaining regular bees, and then they would have died out. Would have killed off the whole honeybee line of pollinators. At least that’s what they were trying to do.”

  “Bees were worth all that?” I meant the people dying, the scientists dying, the robots with the rocks, all of it.

  She was more direct than me. “The deaths? Yes. GenGreen wants to destroy enough life that we have to depend on their products.”

  I swallowed and watched her, hoping I’d see her again somewhere besides on television. I could get into helping scrappy scientists save bees. Even if I wasn’t quite sure of our methods either. But thunder and lightning and bad weather were the slow way to kill the bees. If I understood what Alissa was saying, we had helped stop a fast way. And even I knew that had become the game. Fight the cancers day by day and hope the body finds remission.

  “Are you supposed to tell me this?”

  Her sharp brown eyes shone with mischief as she said, “I believe in the power of information.”

  “And I believe in the power of science.”

  She shook her head. “Don’t. Science is on both sides of this.”

  I winced. “You’re right. Maybe that’s why I’m a soldier and you’re a scientist.”

  “And maybe you just saved a lot of the heirloom food left.”

  We napped in a pile of soldiers and robots until dawn. Alissa said nothing else to me, and NorAM gave no more comment than, “Well done. Come home.” As I led my severely reduced crew out of the lab and headed us home, I realized that I felt more sure of our side than I had before we got into the lab. I remembered the power of calling down the lightning and splitting open the sky just for us to continue a war, and I hoped I wouldn’t have to do that again. I let us stay mounted until we were out of sight, and then I gave the order to stand down and walk. Our backsides would get home in better shape that way, and besides, the sun had already warmed the air and a light breeze plucked at my uniform.

  Gambit

  Nancy Jane Moore

  The comm squawked in Cassie Ramirez’s ear. It startled her, though she had been lying awake for the last hour, worrying. “Yeah?”

  “Transport moving out there, Lieutenant. About a hundred klicks out.”

  Not again. They’d only been running this check point for three Earth-standard days, and already they’d been challenged by four bands of rebels. So far everybody’d backed down. Would this be the group that didn’t? She shivered, and not just from the cold that never went away on Titan.

  “Lieutenant?”

  “Acknowledged. On my way. Got any coffee made?”

  “Yes, ma’am. Good and strong.”

  At least Titan grew good, cheap coffee. The bioformers had installed genemodded coffee plants on every planet, asteroid, and moon they’d transformed. On Titan the plants had done particularly well.

  Cassie pulled her exoskeleton on over her fatigues and set its heat at high. Both skel and fatigues were patterned in the dark green camo that marked the Combined Forces Peacekeeping Corps, and both had her name and rank displayed over her left breast. But it was the skel—made from silicon merged with one of the Ceresian metals—that allowed humans without Titan-specific gene tweaks to survive outdoors. She buckled on the weapons vest, locked its circuitry plug into the skel, and checked to see that the weapons were fully charged.

  She ran her fingers through her short, bleached blonde hair, then pulled the skel’s headpiece up. She’d need the light source outside. Saturn still shone orange in the sky, but Titan at its brightest resembled Earth at full moon. And the bright peak had passed.

  Bobby Rowan had tried to convince her that the glow from Saturn was the same as sunlight. “It’s caused by the sun, right?”

  She had laughed. “You just want it to be sunlight, so you don’t feel so far from home.”

  He’d laughed, too. “Maybe I do. It’s summer now in Vancouver. The sun comes up before five, doesn’t set ’til after ten.”

  Typical Earther. Tied to a particular city in a particular country. And homesick for it.

  It hurt, to think of Bobby laughing. They’d fought four days ago, fought badly, maybe irrevocably. And over what? Politics. Fucking politics.

  The bareness of the clearing where they’d set up the check point emphasized the density of the trees surrounding it. Their leaves gave off an acidic smell, overpowering other odors. Tall, wide-leafed, most of them a genemodded evergreen with foliage that tended to turn yellow, they’d been planted in the twenty-second century to give Titan a breathable atmosphere. The solar collectors orbiting the moon brought them just enough sunlight for photosynthesis.

  The checkpoint consisted of a cluster of instabuild cabins, one set right at the road to block traffic, three others forming a mini compound. She stepped inside the one that housed scan and comm, and helped herself to the coffee. “Anything else show up?”

  Gavin, the scan tech, shook his head. “No, ma’am. Transport still headed our way.”

  “Only one?”

  “That’s what’s showing up, ma’am.”

  “Funny. They usually have several. Wak
e the rest of the crew when they get within fifty klicks or so. I want a full staffing out there.”

  He looked at her. “You got a bad feeling about this one, Lieutenant?”

  “Just want to be cautious. The political situation’s gotten pretty tense.” She tried to keep her voice off-hand, calm.

  He nodded.

  Cassie added more coffee to her cup, and went outside. Even with the skel on high she could feel the cold. Earthers had it worse; they’d never been genemodded at all. But even those like her who had grown up in the other settled parts of the solar system didn’t have the heavy gene tweaks the Titanians had needed.

  Still, the chill in her bones didn’t come from the cold. Ten years experience—more than half of it in combat—was causing it.

  She sat on the stoop of one of the buildings—she wanted to pace, but it would look bad—sipped more coffee, and realized she was scared. A very bad sign.

  You’re just being paranoid, she told herself. That’s what Bobby would tell you.

  That’s what she’d fought with Bobby about the day before the platoon moved from guarding diplomats to running the point.

  They’d started—and ended—the evening in one of the coffee houses that dotted the once-popular resort city of Revelations. The city had changed hands a dozen times during the war; now it was certified neutral territory, site of the peace negotiations, headquarters of the PK troops.

  Cassie had gotten there first. She was sitting where she could watch the door, so she saw Bobby before he saw her. He stopped in the doorway and pushed back the headpiece of his skel. In the interior light—the café catered to the peacekeeping forces and kept both heat and light at higher levels than Titanians preferred—his red hair shone like a beacon.

  Seeing Bobby always made Cassie feel ridiculously good. She tamped the feeling down.

  He spotted her, and began navigating her way, stumbling as he tried to avoid bumping into the closely packed tables and chairs. Earthers struggled with Titan’s light gravity—one of many reasons why the PK force was largely stocked with people like Cassie who’d been born off-Earth.