Venusian Uprising Read online

  Shadowing the figures wasn’t difficult, given the clutter strewn about. He dodged faux columns of plascrete—tumbled by vandalism or strong winds, he neither knew nor cared. His quarry kept to the shadows cast by the Colosseum, edging around to its north side before darting across paved walkways to disappear into the trees beyond.

  Williams pulled up short when he saw them stop, and ducked behind a large tree trunk just before one of the figures turned. It was a mech frame. The NSAI node in its hands.

  When did she hook up with an AI? Unless she’s remote piloting it….

  The mech frame’s weaponized arm swept the darkness around Williams, but he knew the AI wouldn’t see anything. Nothing showed on scan; the signal in this area was distorted, bouncing back on itself in a seemingly endless loop of error messages.

  He waited the AI out, trusting his own armor to mask the things he couldn’t—heartbeat, breaths, involuntary movement.

  Another sound had the AI turning back around, and then a voice cut through the silence.

  “Good call on the mech frame.”

  The comment was met by an answering laugh, light and feminine.

  Williams chanced a look. It was Katelyn.

  Beside her, a man’s head appeared, the rest of him still in stealth camouflage. As he watched, the man shimmered into existence, the suit reverting to the standard mottled greens of combat fatigues. He’d bet next month’s liberty that this was the SWSF soldier who’d tenderized his kidneys a few hours earlier.

  “We got lucky,” Katelyn was saying in a low voice. “The shuttle we borrowed had it stashed in the back.”

  The mech frame shifted, snagging the attention of both humans. Williams could tell the person inside was communicating with them via some kind of point-to-point net.

  As he waited, he considered what Katelyn had just said. Suddenly, Tippin’s inability to crack the node made a lot more sense. There’d been an AI inside, guarding it.

  The camo-clad soldier seemed to be agreeing with something the AI said.

  “Should be a pretty simple exfil, yeah.” The man tilted his head toward the north. “This rat trap of a maze runs right into territory controlled by friendlies. But we need to step on it. That node needs to be delivered to Tarja’s control uplink tower before the admiral arrives at sunup.”

  Williams sat back, one hand resting against the bark of the tree, his mind racing as he mulled over the significance of that news. He suspected the admiral Clarke mentioned was Urdon. None of the other SWSF admirals had the balls to stage an op this far into Sol Fed territory.

  He pulled up the data dump Bruno had given him at the onset of the drive for Tarja, and flipped through it until the information on the control uplink tower flashed up on his HUD.

  The muscles in his jaw bunched as he realized what Urdon intended. That uplink tower held the backup controls for Venus’s two artificial suns. The control tower was allegedly unbreachable, the uplink itself unhackable.

  Unless that node held something capable of breaching it….

  Williams rocked back on his heels as the vision of two fusion suns shooting like missiles toward the surface of Venus seared itself into his brain.

  Shit. If he decides to auger those things into the ground, Urdon will take out half the planet’s populace!

  The Marine’s attention returned to the soldier as the man’s head began to swivel, eyes sweeping their surroundings.

  “You’re probably right,” the soldier acknowledged the AI’s unspoken concern. “I haven’t seen anything to indicate I was followed, but once they realize that shuttle of yours is AWOL, they’re sure as hell going to track it down.”

  He reached into a pack slung over his shoulder and retrieved a device William’s HUD IDed as a proximity mine. The soldier hefted it in his hand then jerked his head northward. “You two go on ahead. I’ll backtrack and set up a few surprises for anyone who comes this way.”

  Williams wasn’t about to let anyone following after run afoul of the enemy’s traps.

  His mouth lifted in a thin smile. The hell you will. I have a few surprises myself. His hands curled into fists. And a few scores to settle while we’re at it.

  COLOSSEUM STANDOFF

  STELLAR DATE: 3227475 / 06.05.4124 (Adjusted Gregorian)

  LOCATION: Seven Wonders Theme Park, Hadrian, Tarja suburb

  REGION: Venus, InnerSol, Sol Space Federation

  Williams trailed behind the SWSF soldier until he emerged into a circle of ruins that he assumed was intended to represent the infamous arena of ancient Rome. The Disker crouched beside a column, proximity mine in his right hand.

  Williams holstered his pulse pistol, aware there was a real possibility he might set off the device if the pressure wave from his weapon grazed it. He moved forward on silent feet, gliding with a lightness that seemed to belie his massive build.

  At the one-meter mark, he crouched, then sprang. CNT-reinforced legs pressed hard against the faux travertine as Williams drove his armored shoulder into the man’s midsection. His opponent rocketed sideways, his head plowing into a nearby column.

  Williams heard a satisfying crunch as the man’s nose took the brunt of the hit, and a snap as the Disker’s orbital bone fractured. With a roar, the soldier beneath him bucked, driving his elbow back into the chest plate of Williams’ light armor.

  The blow shot Williams off balance, but he quickly recovered. He snaked an arm around the top of the soldier’s throat while the other gripped the man’s close-cropped hair at the crown of his head and yanked viciously back.

  The soldier tried to headbutt him, but could gain no real traction. Williams tightened his grip on the man’s hair and lifted, forcing the man’s back to arch if he wanted to breathe.

  “Now,” Williams rasped, sucking in great gulps of air, “When does Urdon arrive, and how does he plan to get into the uplink tower with that node?”

  His opponent twisted and got his feet under him. In the next instant, Williams found himself airborne. He recovered just in time for the soldier to turn, both fists crashing down over his shoulders in a brutal haymaker.

  Williams buckled, but swiped an arm out, tripping his opponent and causing him to stumble back. As the two broke apart, he heard the sound of a weapon firing. Next thing he knew, flechettes were slicing into the soldier in front of him. The man’s body jerked as multiple pointed steel projectiles riddled his torso.

  * * * * *

  Katelyn froze as the sound of muted thuds reached her ears.

  she asked Aaron.

 

  She wheeled and began to retrace her steps, but Aaron’s words brought her to a halt.

  Still, she hesitated.

 

  She reluctantly turned to follow Aaron, but stopped as a flash of movement caught her attention.

  Katelyn remained frozen, her eyes tracking left and right from the spot where she’d seen the agent. She cycled through her optics’ EM bands, hoping to catch another glimpse of the Mickey that would indicate the direction she was headed.

  There. As she suspected, the agent was headed toward the fight—and Clarke.

  Katelyn spun to face Aaron.

  Aaron’s avatar shot her a skeptical look.

  Katelyn returned his look with a smirk of her own, patting the Coastie-issued pulse weapon holstered at her side.

  Aaron made an annoyed sound over the Link, but resumed his trek toward the north wall of the park.

>  

  She crept back the way they’d come, careful to tread softly over the spongy woodland floor, stepping carefully around dried twigs. Her path intersected one of the once-groomed trails that fed from the Colosseum ride into Stonehenge, and she paused at the edge as she caught sight once more of the MICI agent, creeping toward the line of trees that edged the space between the Colosseum proper and the span of open ground strewn with reproduction bricks of rough-hewn volcanic tuff.

  Katelyn sprinted across the trail, tucking herself behind a tree and unholstering her weapon. She made a study of the obstacles between them, mentally picking a path that would intersect with the MICI before she made it to the clearing.

  Katelyn timed her next moves with those of the agent, slipping from tree to tree.

  The sounds of fighting intensified. Whoever Clarke battled, the two must be fairly well matched for the combat to last this long.

  Her next move brought the MICI into her sights, but she’d miscalculated. The two men fighting were now between her and the agent. She would have to maneuver around to get a clean shot.

  She forgot all about that for the moment when she saw who Clarke was battling. She blinked in disbelief, quickly followed by a shaft of guilt.

  Shit. It’s that gunnery sergeant, Williams. He must’ve tracked me here.

  She saw Williams grab Clarke in a grapple hold, but Clarke broke free, bringing his clasped hands down hard onto the man’s shoulders. Her attention snapped back to the MICI when the female agent began to pick her way through a pile of rubble toward the two, her weapon drawn. Neither Clarke nor the Marine he fought seemed aware of her presence.

 

  Katelyn shouted the warning, and Clarke stumbled, his left hook going wild. Williams neatly sidestepped, and in the opening, she saw the female agent take aim.

  Before she could call out, the woman fired, and Katelyn gasped as a stream of flechettes tore into Clarke’s body. His stealth armor bloomed with red, gouts of blood coating the columns behind him as he went crashing to the ground.

  An agonized sound came from the man, accompanied by a roar from Williams.

  “Stand down!” the Marine yelled, kneeling beside Clarke and feeling for a pulse.

  Katelyn knew it was too late. How could anyone survive such a weapon, shot at close range like that? It was Makemake all over again, this cruelty just at a much smaller scale.

  Her hand went to her mouth, and she flipped back around, pressing her back to the trunk of the tree, her gut churning.

  She took in a huge burning gulp of air and turned, chancing another glance at the rubble-strewn row of columns. Her breath stopped as Williams’ head snapped up, eyes arrowing directly to her.

  Get it together, Evans, she thought half-hysterically. You’re too far away. Surely he doesn’t see you.

  * * * * *

  Williams couldn’t recall the last time he’d been so angry.

  He was sure the sound he’d heard over the Disker’s dying moan was Katelyn’s shocked exclamation.

  It was an understandable reaction. No one deserved to die like this soldier had.

  Jones’ actions were unnecessary and way out of line. His gut was telling him the MICI agent was being driven by something greater than her mission. Her behavior reeked of something personal.

  Joe’s sister wasn’t nearly as covert as she thought; her Disker camo couldn’t stand up against the kind of optics the 242 gave its Marines. The bad news was that if Williams could see her, Jones sure as hell could as well.

  His guess was proven correct when the Mickey agent turned and leveled her weapon at Katelyn’s swiftly departing form.

  “Enough!” he thundered. “I said stand down!”

  “Bitch is responsible for the only blemish on my career. She’s not getting the chance to do it again.”

  Jones’ words confirmed what Williams suspected; she was acting on some sort of vendetta. He could tell she was seconds away from ending Katelyn’s life. That was something Williams could not allow, not if they were to find out what the Diskers planned.

  He didn’t examine his motivations, just did what he’d been trained to do through decades of action—he acted on instinct. As Jones’ finger caressed the trigger of her flechette pistol, Williams’ arm whipped up, his interface with his pulse pistol automatically targeting her, center-mass. He shifted a hair, aiming for her shoulder, and fired a pulse.

  The concussive waveform hit her, and the MICI agent’s aim went wide. She grunted in annoyance, but her eyes never left Katelyn’s retreating form, and she took aim once more.

  Williams was already on his feet, firing again, and again knocking Jones’ arm wide.

  “Stop,” he thundered.

  To his amazement, the agent turned the weapon on him, her lips twisted in a snarl as she let loose another stream of flechettes.

  Two ricocheted off his armor, and one lodged in a gap in the plate, stopping in the kinetic underlayer. He dodged to the side, avoiding the rest of the high-velocity darts, and fired again with his pulse pistol, knocking her back.

  “I have to get her!” Jones shouted as she stumbled into a tree. “She’s a terrorist.”

  “We need answers, not bodies,” Williams shouted in response, shocked that he, a Marine, was saying those words to a MICI.

  She muttered something unintelligible and swapped out her weapon’s magazine, pushing off the tree to go after Katelyn.

  Woman’s snapped!

  He shook his head and took aim at the back of her skull, firing a pulse that resulted in a resounding crack coming from the woman’s neck. She fell, limbs sprawled wide, and head at an unnatural angle.

  His HUD reported that she was still alive, though suffering a clean break of her spine. As a MICI, Jones would have auxiliary systems that would keep her body alive until medical help arrived, but the paralysis would keep her from following after and ruining things more than she already had.

  he tried to call out, hoping that there was enough of a connection, but there was no response.

  The storm and damage to the network towers from the fighting still rendered the amusement park a dark zone.

  Holstering his weapon, he bolted after Katelyn, taking a hard left and parkouring his way through the Great Wall of China ride to cut her off before she reached the park’s north wall.

  She was fifteen meters from the twin arches that marked the season ticket holder’s access when he barreled into her, the two of them falling hard against the rough plascrete pathway, his armored and heavily modded body smashing her against the ground.

  Katelyn moaned as he rolled off her, eyes staring up at the canopy of trees above her. She sucked in a huge lungful of air that ended in a fit of wheezing as she fought to sit up.

  Belatedly, Williams realized he should have thought to scan her for injuries. He relaxed as the readings came back with little more than superficial bruising and contusions—likely thanks to her own pilot’s mods.

  “What the hell do you think you’re doing, Katelyn Evans?” he demanded, grasping her arm in a rough hold and resisting the temptation to shake her in frustration.

  She inhaled again, suppressing another cough while eyeing him suspiciously. “Back off, Sergeant Asshat. I don’t talk to fed Marines who shoot innocent people.”

  “Look, kid. I wasn’t the one who shot your friend back there, but even if I had, I can guaran-fucking-tee you that he’s not innocent in all this,” Williams growled. “He was a damn Disker.”

  “I’m a ‘damn Disker’, you meathead,” she shot back, pulling her arm free and scrambling to her feet. “So’s my sister. And you did shoot her.”

  Williams stepped toward her, his head tilting dangerously as his eyes slitted. “I don’t make it a practice to shoot innocent civilians,” he ground out. “So you can’t blame that on—”

  He stopped abruptly, and ran a palm down his face.

  Dammit. The woman on th
e ramp.

  Katelyn crossed her arms and speared him with a knowing look as he lowered the hand he’d cupped over his mouth.

  “Shit,” he said, at a loss for words.

  He had no trouble tearing into laggardly corporals, or ripping idiot privates a new one. But making nice with the sister of a former TSF pilot, a man he considered a friend? He hadn’t a fucking clue.

  “Look, your brother wouldn’t want you messed up in this,” he tried again. “Joe’d kick my ass if anything happened to you.”

  “You know him?”

  “Saved my life once. And now I’m paying it forward.” He jerked his head back the way they’d come. “Go home. Get out of here, kid, and I’ll forget I ever saw you. You’re out of your league, going up against the TSF. You can’t win.”

  “If you knew Joe at all, you’d know he left the TSF. And you know why? Because he couldn’t handle the corruption,” she countered. “He knew the Sol Federation was rotted from within, but he couldn’t—”

  She stopped abruptly, and Williams nodded.

  “Didn’t have the heart to turn on his brothers in arms, in order to stand by his brothers in blood?”

  He knew he’d guessed right when Katelyn winced.

  “Look, kid. I know the Federation ain’t perfect, but it’s a fair sight better than anarchy,” he started, but she stepped away from him, a sneer creasing her face.

  “Quit calling me ‘kid’, old man. At least I’m standing up for what I believe is right.”

  He opened his mouth to argue once more, but stopped as a flash of movement caught his eye, right before the mech stepped into view and fired a pulse cannon’s focused beam right at him.

  The pressure wave slamming into him was the last thing Williams remembered before the world went dark.

  JUST A SIMPLE BUSINESSMAN

  STELLAR DATE: 3227475 / 06.05.4124 (Adjusted Gregorian)

  LOCATION: Ruby Monarch

  REGION: Venus, InnerSol, Sol Space Federation

  A voice came across the transport liner’s pubnet.