Ben Chaney - Son of Sedonia

THE TRAIL WENT cold at the apartment. Without the kid’s RFID signal, it was a miracle they’d even tracked them this far. Especially true given the state of the nightclub manager’s staff records and his ‘not without a court order’ attitude toward sharing them with a ‘Fed.’ It had taken till morning to wake up a judge to sign off on it.

The background check on the girl was another kick in Kabbard’s nuts. Liani Ray. Ex-reporter for Globometro. The possibility of fulfilling his quick and quiet mandate was getting more screwed by the minute. He surveyed the craphole one-bedroom studio with exhausted eyes. Coffee left to cool in the pot. Tousled sheets and laundry scattered around the floor. Dishes crusted with red-orange food matter and glasses with cheap pink wine dried to the bottom. Amazing that a woman lives here . The thought made him feel old. Older.

Andreas crouched next to a sticky blue puddle on the carpet, gathering a sample with a metal pipette. The attached machine beeped.

“Got a match,” Andreas said. More great news. Here and gone again. Kabbard was beyond tired. Like a reanimated corpse begging to go back to the void. Chasing some kid all over the City… for what? So Sato could suddenly grow a conscience? An old, familiar thought floated back to the surface. ‘ None of it means a damn thing.’ Six years down the drain.

“Any ideas about the third guy?” Kabbard asked as Nicks came out of the bedroom.

“Third guy?” Nicks asked. Kabbard wondered if these two clowns had any kind of conventional training whatsoever. Beyond online searches or friend posts on Neu.

“Ms. Ray does not own a vehicle, correct?”

“According to her file, no she doesn’t,” answered Andreas, “Meaning she either took the Superway home or someone gave her a ride. Had she scanned her RFID on the superway, we would have picked up the trace, so there has to be at least a third accomplice. If not more.”

Smart ass .

“Contact Globometro,” Kabbard said, “See if anyone quit or was fired the same time as her termination. Kirnden’s a lap dog, he’ll be more than happy to help.”

BOOOOM! The unmistakable sound of a distant explosion cut the air. Plates and glasses throughout the apartment clinked softly together from the vibration as Kabbard felt the building sway around him. He bolted for the door.

Throughout the cramped halls, people emerged from their doors with confused looks. They started rifling through their Neural feeds, searching for any late-breaking explanation. Kabbard sprinted past them to the nearest landing deck access. Outside on the platform, several residents stood motionless, recording the images on the horizon and gabbing amongst themselves. The pale stripe of the Border wall, barely visible from this deep in the City, had been split. Divided now by a column of burning smoke. A chorus of sirens rose from the eerie, whispering quiet, echoing throughout every sector in every direction.

Kabbard scanned the deck for the Zeus. His body flushed with long-forgotten purpose as he took off running for it.

BOOOOM! BOOOOM! B-BOOOOOOM!

“Everyone back inside! BACK INSIDE!” He shouted at the top of his lungs. The people around him flinched at the voice and scurried away. With three lunging strides, he arrived at the Zeus, leaped onto the landing gear steps, and yanked the canopy release open. Andreas and Nicks caught up to him, panting with their hands on their knees.

“You guys comin’?” asked Kabbard. He dropped himself in the cockpit, strapped in, and ran through the start-up procedure, flicking switches and pulling levers in a speeding blur.

“No, sir, we can’t!” shouted Andreas, “ You can’t! Sato needs us to—”

“Didn’t think so! Now I have absolute faith in you Andreas, vicious little cunt that you are, to do everything Mr. Sato requires! In fact, for your first act as the new Chief of Security, pass the man a message for me!” Kabbard extended his middle finger as hard as he could as the hatch door closed and sealed. He fired the engines, grinning as he saw the blast of hot air blow Andreas and Nicks back on the deck.

The grin faded. Through the windshield, he saw tracer rounds and anti-aircraft fire streak through the sky against a backdrop of solid smoke. He couldn’t believe it. He always knew it. As he squeezed the throttle to maximum, his teeth clenched. The War… My War… A very real pang of fear struck him, then soaked in. He had almost forgotten the taste of it. But this was different. This is it.

THE AIR WAS on fire, full of hot ash and dust. In his dulled ears, Jogun heard his choked, ragged breaths in between the thumps of cannon fire and artillery. Gun shots and whizzing near-misses sounded soft against the fuzz. The vibration of his EXO rig fell into a super-human rhythm as he leaped over concrete and twisted rebar. It was hard to trust the gear, especially since it was launching him deeper into Hell.

The flagship ‘Matteo’ had taken an EXO stunner blast from one of the IG-8s, sending it fishtailing into the side of a warehouse when half the crew went unconscious. The whole thing had crashed like the fist of God. They lost nineteen soldiers to the crash. Eight wounded or stunned. Eleven killed. Beaten and bloody, Jogun and the forty-three survivors had crawled out of the wreck and joined in the ground assault. He felt better with his feet on solid ground. But not much.

Kolpa, who had kept pace with Jogun’s EXO rig since the crash, took a round in the face. It blew the man’s skull in half. Jogun felt warm drops skitter across his arm as he planted a crushing boot on a concrete slab, pushed off, and fired three bursts from his Themis security-issue assault rifle into a pack of shooters covered behind a truck. They popped in plumes of red mist. Fighting with the Augs at full tilt felt like being trapped in a machine with a mind of its own. Good thing the machine knew what the hell it was doing..

They fought against a mix of Border Patrol, EXO first responders, and several others he didn’t recognize. Crazy men in hardhats firing rivet guns, throwing explosives, and even swinging wrenches. But the T99s and Healed were organized. The top fleet pushed up into the skyline to spot and take down any party crashers, forming a perimeter in the air. The mid fleet protected the boots on the ground with its smaller carriers and Scouts making firing runs, bombing runs, and evac. And then there were the Soldiers. They had filled every fleet ship to the brim, and still thousands more streamed through the burning canyons carved through the Border. Some wore full Themis loader rigs, spraying chemical jets of fire. Others armored themselves in t-shirts, shorts, and rotten sneakers. Their roar gripped Jogun by the bones.

With the EXO Gunships locked in dogfights above, their BASE stunners wouldn’t be a problem. Jogun and his battalion pressed through the streets at break-neck pace, washing over the shocked, disorganized enemy. The loader troops helped with that. Jogun saw a squad of five EXO’s melt in a blast of a loader’s liquid fire. A few T99s passed, laughing like stray dogs.

Jogun paused, Augmented knees suddenly weak. There were civilians everywhere, too. Cowering in alleys. Defending small shops with broom-handles and pistols. Running toward the City with their children. Jogun saw a young Nine dragging a pretty girl through a broken store window. Cut, bleeding, and screaming, she clawed at the Soldier. Jogun clenched his teeth and took two bounding strides toward them. Stumbled when a hand grabbed his shoulder.

“JO!” a voice screamed, “Get DOWN!” Rusaam pulled him into cover behind a truck, then pointed up at the sky. The ‘Alati’ cruised to a stop over the Outer Ring and swung its cannon around. As its rear engines heated for the counter-push, the cannon fired, burying a Scorcher round in a domed, metal hangar. The shockwave blew away what wasn’t vaporized, leaving a white-hot mushroom cloud in its wake. As the rolling thunder faded to echoes, cheers filled the streets, buildings, and rooftops. Rusaam stood up, raised his rifle, let out a whoop, and ran on.