SL Huang - Up and Coming - Stories by the 2016 Campbell-Eligible Authors

They are better equipped than I expected. Each carries an adaptive combat railgun with under-slung grenade-launchers—smaller, modular versions of my own weapons—as well as bandoliers of grenades. I wonder for a while how they came to be in possession of military hardware, then push those thoughts from my mind.

I have forced myself not to consider the truth as told to me by my interrogator. I cannot say it does not matter to me, because of course it does, but it is not essential to the task ahead. Memories of my past life have always eluded me, and I was always glad they did because they could only serve to take away my focus. The same can be said now of the truth of the war I am fighting—the future of humanity. What is happening on other colonies is irrelevant, I tell myself. There is only one battle at this moment—the one I face right now.

They have five minutes in the compound. My interrogator set the time. If they haven’t found what they need by then, they leave. I don’t know what it is; I don’t want to know.

I reach my own insertion point, ahead of them reaching theirs by around ten minutes. I hunker down and scan the compound from a high ridge. My low-light optical systems give me vision as good as daylight, and magnify the images I’m seeing. A high fence is charged with electricity. Inside, a dozen low buildings, some bigger than others. At one end sits a phalanx of what look like tanks—sleek, dark armoured monsters, resting silently, each with a single long turret from which a host of gun barrels extend. A small dome sits on top, probably housing communications and scanning equipment. Vents project from either side of that wide, black hull. These beasts are an obvious objective. As soon as I enter the compound and start shooting, they’ll wake up and take me down. I might as well hit them first.

A clutch of red motes eventually appear on the periphery of my vision and I know the time has come. The swell of emotional energy in my consciousness is overwhelming. It is a jarring experience—a human reaction to combat which is, for want of any other way to explain it, alien to me. I am afraid, yet charged. I know if I die here then there will be no awakening. My life, such as it was, is over. If I die here, the men and women behind me, readying themselves across the ridge for the most important battle of their lives, will almost certainly lose their lives with me. I have died a thousand times and fought more battles than I can remember. Each of them, the sum of all those experiences, will subconsciously drive every move I make.

I will not fail.

I launch ten grenades high into the night sky on a looping trajectory which, compensating for the wind, will take them right into the tanks and heavy artillery.

Then I run.

The first grenade hits as I reach the perimeter of the compound and break through the fence. The explosion floods the compound with an incandescent white brilliance for a half-second, then vanishes. The armour on the tank it strikes buckles, but it takes a second grenade in the same place to breach it.

At that moment, the other tanks begin to stir. An energy field ripples across them and, as the rest of the grenades come down and the explosions rock the ground beneath my feet, they lift. There is an electromagnetic disturbance beneath them which appears on my retinal imaging as a shimmering, pulsing haze. The turrets on these smooth, armoured beasts whine as they rotate, searching for their enemy. On the other side of the compound, there are twenty men and women who fit that description.

My purpose is to give the tanks just one.

I sprint towards them, the last of the explosions still unfurling as I channel everything I have into the Widow’s legs and jump. I land on the turret of one of the tanks and slam one great fist into the armour, down by the edge of the curvature of the unit.

It yields with the force of the blow, contorting into a twisted dent. I hammer my fist down again and again until the curve of the turret is so warped it stops turning. I jam a grenade into the gap between the turret and the hull.

A proximity alarm screams in my ears and rushes across my field of vision. I jump away as a super-heated torrent of plasma strikes the turret. I am in mid-air when that first tank explodes. Its armour was weakened by the grenades, maybe even my blow; the plasma just finished the job. The force of the detonation punches me violently upwards, and my Widow spins and convulses in the air as it is tossed away like a rag doll. I ignore the cascade of pain that floods my senses as much as I can, but still it stuns me.

I land heavily, not ready for the hit.

In the second-and-a-half it takes me to recover, the other tanks are already gliding like sharks through the compound, kicking up a violent storm of dirt beneath them. The air around the vents shimmers as excess heat is expelled into the night. I have no doubt they have picked up the signals cast by the human fighters. I open fire on one to drag its attention back towards me. The first quarter-second sees a dozen railgun rounds punch into the armour and ricochet away; the next sees the armour contort slightly beneath the onslaught, but hold firm.

The turret turns first, followed by the tank itself as it slowly pivots in place to bring more of its weapons to bear.

I am up and running, keeping the Widow’s automated targeting reticles locked onto the tank’s hull. All I need to do is weaken the armour enough for a grenade to be effective when it hits that weak point.

I don’t stop firing. Steam hisses from the railguns as their cooling systems fight to dissipate the searing heat.

It takes a full second for the turret to find its prey. Me.

Again, the sensors scream and I know I am about to get hit.

I launch two grenades in that half-second before I have to move.

The jet of plasma burns the air as it surges past me. I’ve left it too late; I’m too slow. It clips my shoulder, fusing armour and alien componentry together. The force of it spins me away and I struggle to remain on my feet, but fail.

I hit the ground hard and force myself to roll. Again I have to block out the pain and I know the time will soon come to engage the Terminal Emergency Mode.

The grenades explode behind me.

I come up and spin, guns firing again, but the tank is shuddering. There is a tear in the armour—not much, but it’s enough. The haze beneath it is flickering as though it isn’t functioning smoothly. A pearl of electricity crackles inside.

I concentrate everything I have on the dark space within the tear. Through the swarming smoke, I can see the other tanks slipping away like ghosts. I have to get to them. There is a short cut.

I turn to the nearest building and kick down the door. It buckles under my weight and I charge through it. Truth is, I’m not interested in what’s inside, except to find an exit and cut off the tanks. I have my mission, and all I care about is occupying the enemy’s machines. It doesn’t matter what they are doing in here. That’s someone else’s priority.

Only, it does matter. It matters a great deal.

Inside the building, there are rows and rows of computerised terminals that I do not recognise or understand. Huge mechanical arms hang from the ceiling, interwoven with pistons and hoses. They end in a variety of claws and pincers. There are walls lined with what I think must be tools, although they are unknown to me. Against one wall are a series of chambers with wires and hoses leading away and disappearing into the ceiling.

Inside each is a Widow.

My sensors scream an alert and I don’t have time to consider the ramifications of what I have seen. On the other side of that wall is a tank. If I’ve located it, I have to assume the sensors in that dome on top of the turret have picked me up too. The wall between us won’t protect me.