The God Mars Book Six: Valhalla I Am Coming (16 page)

“Stop! Stop, Colonel. Please…”

It’s Lyra. She’s wearing an issue L-A uniform, mask,
goggles and sun-veil cap, but I know her voice.

“You can’t be here!” she pleads in urgent whisper.
“They can
detect
you! I helped make the gear they’re using.”
She holds up a handheld piece of gear that sports a small parabolic
dish. “I was able to pick up your signature incoming.”

That explains why she’s out here: Who better to debug
the gear in the field than one of the team that created it,
especially if she’s expendable?

Another L-A uniform steps up behind her and raises an
ICW at me. Her ID tag says “Sharp, L” and she’s wearing Spec-4
chevrons. I don’t know her, which means she’s new-drop. She’s as
jumpy as I expect, but doesn’t just shoot me.

“Lynn… It’s okay…” Lyra tries. I see she’s also
wearing Specialist insignias. She’s either borrowing the L-As, or
they’ve pressured her into enlisting, maybe in hopes of controlling
her, containing what she knows.

“I’m here to help,” I offer insistently. “This is a
trap. You need to pull everyone out now. Right now.”

“What’s this?” I hear a more authoritative voice.
Another uniform steps up and raises a gun at me. (They have to know
how useless a gesture that is, like the dumb criminals in the old
movies trying to shoot Superman.)

“Major Corso,” I greet sourly, recognizing her by the
perpetual scowl of disapproval on her face. “How did you earn
yourself such a shit field mission?”

She winces involuntarily at my “vulgar” language.
Even saving her sorry life hasn’t seemed to have earned me any
acceptance. But last time I saw her, she was assigned as Richard’s
“aid”, and very likely his watcher. Why is she out here? Unless
babysitting Lyra and whatever she’s made for them is a UNCORT
priority.

“Colonel Ram…” She sounds like she’s found shit on
her boots. At least she calls me by my old rank, but probably only
because “Lord Ragnarok” wouldn’t come out of her mouth for anything
(and for that, I can’t blame her).

She’s joined by two other guns: A Spec-3 named Sung
and a First Sergeant Horton, R.

“Is that you, Randal?” I greet more civilly.

“It is, sir,” he answers, trying not to sound too
pleased to see me in front of his fellows.

“I didn’t think Sleeper Vets were allowed out,” I
toss at Corso.

“Rehab,” Lyra answers impulsively when all I get from
Corso is more scowl-face.

“Took a Silverman spearhead through the shoulder at
Nike,” Horton tells me with a mix of pride and self-deprecation,
shrugging his left shoulder as if to prove it still works.

“
Forge
,” I correct, levering the conversation
with trivial intel. “The Cast call them Silvermen. The Katar call
them Steel. They call themselves The Children of the Forge, the
Disciples of Wayland Smith.”

Something about the topic seems to particularly
unsettle Sharp, but I’m not sure what.

“And who’s Wayland Smith?” Corso plays, like she’s
deciding what to do. “Someone from the colonies?”

“Wayland
The
Smith. A figure from Norse and
old English mythologies. Famous for his legendary swords, armor and
magic rings.”

The mention of such pagan things seems to embitter
her even more than my presence. I suppose I’ve just done the Forge
a disservice, labeling them as apparent idolaters. I really must
learn to filter better around these self-righteously petty
fucks.

“Now you really need to get out of here,” I repeat my
priority. “Fast.”

“You realize anything you say is suspect,” Corso
regurgitates Jackson’s paranoia, “but asking us to quit a priority
search for the enemy leader Asmodeus or his networked nanotech
agent?”

“
Trap
,” I insist urgently, using few and small
words. “
Harvesters
. Everyone out.
Now
.”

“The EMP would have fried their modules,” Lyra
argues, though I can hear her start to doubt. “We tested it
thoroughly.”

“Even if they’re buried under two meters of
regolith,” Corso reinforces. “That pulse killed every drone for
five klicks in any direction.”

“I’m assuming you know what a Faraday Cage is,” I
risk bigger words.

Lyra instantly looks sick. She reaches out and pushes
down Sharp’s weapon.

“Asmodeus has his drones buried inside metal tubes,”
I finish my explanation. “You may have seen a few lying around
after you blew the mountain away. I’m betting they provide
insulation against EMP.”

I hear Horton sigh. He turns to look in the direction
of the advancing search force.

“We need to call a retreat,” Lyra eagerly agrees,
turning to sway Corso, but I can see the situation is starting to
sink in. They
have
seen the tubes.

“Major, I may be trying to con my way into your
confidence,” I play into the paranoid game, “but if I’m doing it by
saving hundreds of lives, take it and doubt me later.”

“Is he telling the truth about the tubes?” Corso
wants Lyra to say it. Lyra nods imperatively.

“Corso to Mission!” she barks into her link, forgoing
code. “Corso to…”

Gunfire interrupts us. First a few bursts. Then,
within seconds, it’s all around us, echoing across the blasted
landscape.

“
I’ve got signals!
” Lyra announces, just this
side of panic. She sweeps her device. “
Everywhere!
They’re
all around us!”

And here I am running again.

I sprint across the relatively clear field
approaching the canyon mouth, figuring the remaining bowl of the
canyon or the craters themselves will be the likely killing
grounds: catch the targets in the low ground. I know I’m putting
myself right in the sights of Earthside’s turret guns, but I’m
hoping they’ll grow some sense and realize friend from foe when
their lives are on the block. I think I’m wrong for an instant when
those turrets start firing, but it turns out they’re not firing at
me—they’re sending bursts down into the canyon and craters,
probably covering their vulnerable troops. I hear retreat orders
across the link channels, and panicked shouting as they break comm
protocols.

“
They’re all over! They’re coming up out of the
ground!
”

“Targets in the rocks! We’re in a crossfire! Need
covering fire!”

“…
hit! I’m hit! Oh God
…”

“…darts! And AP ammo, we’re…”

“
Look out!
Flight Five, on your six!”

I look up at the high ground in time to see one of
the ASVs explode, bay blowing apart, splitting the ship in half and
sending the cockpit section sliding down-slope. I can see shapes up
on the high ground, doing the telltale staggering of corpse drones,
shooting opportunistically; oblivious to the return fire aimed
their way. But they’ve got more than small arms. I see rocket
launchers.

“Spin up!” I hack into their channels. “Get your
flights in the air! Evasive action now! Set up evac points and
secure your LZs!”

“
Colonel Ram!
Get off this channel
now!
” Jackson shouts at me.

“You have eyes on this?” I challenge him. “They’ve
got you from all sides! Heavy ordnance! Surface to air…”

“Get off this channel or I’ll tear you apart!” Making
his threat convincing, he orders one of the ASVs to strafe a few
rounds at my feet as I run.

“
Friendly fire!
” I hear Lyra yelling on the
channel. And behind me. I turn to see she’s running after me,
following me. Into the valley of the shadow…

“Get back to the AAVs!” I order her. “Coordinate
evac! Everybody…”

Another ASV explodes, this time as it’s lifting off.
The smoking wreckage lists and tumbles into one of the craters.

I draw my pistol and take aim, start popping the
heads of the drones I can see, but soon there are too many, spread
out all over the blasted mountain, stumbling sloppily—almost
comically—toward what they must scan as the highest-value targets.
And the Earth Force troops prove just as sloppy as they panic,
break and run for their drop points across the treacherous blast
talus. I see several go down and scramble back up again, having
simply tripped or slipped, but I see others go down with
permanence, their bulky H-A shells holed by armor-piercing rounds.
When they try to shoot back at the drones, it’s painful to watch:
They waste precious ammo, even with their AI-assisted weapons
taking most of the burden of aiming, and completely fail to thin
the disarrayed force coming steadily down on them because they’re
not managing the necessary surgical shots. They’re tearing up the
animated corpses, but entirely missing the control modules.

And that doesn’t make any sense. Even the aircraft
turrets won’t drop one effectively. From what I’m seeing, the
targeting algorithms look like they’re still set to aim for
center-of-mass instead of the brain stem. They can’t possibly have
been stupid enough to send troops into Harvester-occupied territory
with their weapons set to…

Oh.

“You’ve been hacked!” I dare Jackson by getting back
on the link to warn as I figure it out. “Your targeting algorithms
have been reset to default!” Then I start shouting at the troopers:
“Switch to manual! Head shots only! Brain stem! Base of the skull!
Conserve your ammo! No auto-fire!”

I have to appreciate the brilliance of the move: If
Asmodeus just disabled the UN smart weapons, the hack would have
been detected as soon as the safety locks engaged. This way, they
spent precious time and ammo shooting non-critical meat, and with
the added demoralizing effect of watching those rounds have very
little effect on the recently-human enemy. And now they have to aim
manually, managing pinpoint accuracy on a moving target as they
collectively panic. But that hope that they have a chance at
shooting back slows their retreat, and that’s both a blessing and a
curse.

“Shoot for the nose! If you can’t hit a target that
small, run!” I order. “Those that can, provide covering fire!”

Jackson doesn’t have a turret shoot at me again for
usurping his command, but most of the fleeing troops aren’t
listening to me anyway. Worse: no one else is giving orders,
including
Jackson, and that hesitation proves
devastating.

The retreat devolves into a stampede. Only a few of
the troopers try to hold ground, and fewer still can manage the
accuracy needed to do anything other than piss away ammo. I doubt
many of these new-drops had ever held a firearm before whatever
rushed training they got before launching. Most of them look like
they’re trying to hang on to blazing porcupines. Several of them
just drop their weapons and run (and they don’t run well either,
between the armor and the gravity they’re not accustomed to moving
in). Unfortunately, the drones are smart enough to target the ones
that can shoot first. This quickly crushes what little fight this
“army” has left.

Even more demoralizing than the difficulty scoring a
module-killing shot is the complete lack of reaction in the drones’
expressions and body language. It’s a chilling effect: The drones
still appear human, but they display no fear whatsoever, no sense
of self-preservation, no hesitation under any kind of fire. They
just keep coming. And watching a human body torn apart by bullets
and still keep advancing and shooting as long as it has enough of
its limbs intact to do so (or takes a bullet in the right spot—even
blowing off the top of the head doesn’t stop a drone unless the
module itself is hit) turns this from a battle into a waking
nightmare. I expect Asmodeus is laughing his fucking head off,
wherever he is, watching the whole thing through more than a
hundred drone eyes.

I finally hear Jackson on the link, coordinating
evacuation, identifying exfil points, moving his aircraft back far
enough that they stand a chance at defending themselves from
ground-fire, even though that reduces their effectiveness at
covering their ground forces. (But if he loses those remaining
ships, the survivors will be running all the way home, probably
with drones on their tails the whole way.)

There’s at least one more skilled gun left in this
fight besides mine: Lyra has joined me in surgically picking off
the Harvesters, smartly using me as a partial shield in the
otherwise open ground. She’s an exceptional shot, taught by the
security officers of her parents’ UNCORT mission. When her ICW runs
dry, she proves she can pop a module with her sidearm at fifty
meters while she dashes for a fresh discarded weapon. But we’re two
guns against what seems like an endless staggering tide, and
they’re coming from all sides over the cratered landscape. Asmodeus
must have had hundreds of infected bodies buried in the forest
around the mountain, shielded from indirect rail-gun blasts and the
EMP he expected they’d try, waiting for this, knowing they’d target
the Keep and then move in to make sure it was clear.

(I’m sure he probably counted on me to tell Earthside
he’d occupied the Keep so they’d strike it. He never meant to
occupy and hold it as a base. Attacking the Pax was just a means to
instigate
this
, and to provide more bodies for his
drones.)

The Harvesters I can see are wearing a mix of Pax
green and Chang black—probably the last of Chang’s PK and Zodangan
army. (What will the next generation be wearing? UNMAC armor? Katar
lamellar? Forge steel?) All are covered in dirt from digging out of
whatever shallow grave they were in. Some are missing parts of arms
or staggering on shredded legs because of the misguided turret fire
they’ve taken. A few are missing parts of their skulls, shot away.
I see one obliviously trailing its own insides.

With my neural processing accelerated up to
bullet-speed, it’s all happening in sickening slow motion. And with
Lyra relying on me for a shield, I can’t afford to dodge the rounds
I see incoming. I swat a few with my armor and take a few more. My
plate has adapted to defeat the penetrator cores of the ammo
Asmodeus is using, but I’m still taking an infuriating beating as I
barely whittle down the Harvester numbers.