John Birmingham: Final impact

Walking very unsteadily back into the lounge area of her huge open living space, Julia studied the sad collection of personal effects that lay on the tabletop. Rosanna’s flexipad and a dozen data sticks, a traditional leather-bound diary, some jewelry, an Hermиs scarf, her imitation Bordigoni handbag, a wristwatch, a small piece of notepaper, and some cosmetics.

Julia stared at the pile of detritus for a long time while her stomach threatened to rebel again. She tried to think, but it was as though her mind could gain no traction. It kept slipping over the sight in front of her, refusing to latch on to anything in particular. After a few minutes, with a shaking hand, she picked up the piece of paper.

Rosanna’s great auntie Tula had written on it in her large, looping style.

Dearest Julia.

A very kind Captain Schapelli from the army came by today with a large carton of little Rosie’s belongings recovered from Hawaii. She had made out a will and hidden it in her apartment. The Japanese killed everyone there, I hear, but they never found Rosie’s last testament or the things she had hidden away. Captain Schapelli, a lovely boy, but Jewish, insisted that we send them to you. He’s quite a fan. There is a larger box, which we could not afford to send because of the postage being what it is these days, and Captain Schapelli says there are some things in there for you, too. We would love to have you around for dinner again, and you could collect the things little Rosie wanted you to have. Please do call or write.

Love and best wishes,

Tula

Eight months later Julia sat braced against the forward bulkhead of the lead chopper. It was the Seventh Cav’s first charge since they’d gone tearing around after Pancho Villa.

She adjusted a shoulder pad as Corporal Gadsden yelled something into her ear about a couple of London barmaids he’d screwed a couple of weeks earlier. What a dick, she thought, but she just smiled and nodded.

Her titanium weave armor was way past its expiration date. It’d been repaired time and again with reactive matrix panels and patches bought, borrowed, and occasionally stolen from other twenty-first-century reporters who didn’t share her enthusiasm for front-line action. So it had taken on the appearance of a camouflage quilt. The ballistic plating was brand new, though, thanks to Rosanna, who had left all her own mostly unused equipment to her friend.

A brief, sad smile died at the edge of Julia’s mouth.

Still lookin’ out for me, babe.

The copilot’s voice crackled inside her powered helmet. “Ten minutes to insertion.”

Amundson repeated the call and held up both hands. Everyone nodded.

Julia could see that the young officer was trying to control his nerves. She guessed it had less to do with fear of being killed than with fear of fucking up and letting everyone down. He was a sweet kid, really. They’d had some good times in London, even if he was a little clingy. In fact, thinking about it, she’d spent more time with Gil than any man she’d been with after Dan had died.

And now the poor kid was shitting himself.

“You and your boys, you’ll be fine, Lieutenant,” she yelled over the uproar. “Don’t sweat it. You’re gonna eat those fuckers alive. Garry fuckin’ Owen.”

She punched the air between them.

The men grinned fiercely and called out the Seventh Cav’s war cry.

As the troopers began yet another round of equipment checks, Julia performed her own precombat routine. A software aid scanned all her built-in combat systems, most of which were useless now anyway for want of tac-net coverage. She unsheathed her knife. The monobonded carbon blade was a dull gray, but more than razor sharp. Her Sonycam was powered up and loaded with four blank data sticks-again thanks to Rosanna-enough for two days’ continuous filming. Her medikit was an eccentric mix of original 21C supplies, some AT stuff, and some plain old-fashioned ’temp gear-assorted twentieth-century items she’d scavenged here and there.

Apart from a gene shear contraceptive, which of course she couldn’t switch off now-and hadn’t that been a fucked-up decision-her bio-inserts were tapped out. If she took a round in the guts, there’d be no warm flush of anesthetic from her thoracic pips. She’d be screaming for a medic and a shot of morphine, just like the best of them.

“Five minutes.”

Amundson repeated the gesture he’d made before, except this time he held only one hand up. A harsh burning smell reached them, and one of the cavalry troopers, Private Steve Murphy, asked her what the hell was going on.

“Be cool,” she called back. “And learn to love the smell of napalm in the morning.”

When nobody got the reference, she rolled her eyes.

“It’s the air force. They would have come through here and bombed the shit out of the place. That’s what you smell. Toasted Nazis. Mmmmmh. Crispy.”

Gadsden sniggered. Murphy seemed to ponder the point before nodding his approval.

The chopper banked to the right and began to lose altitude as it put on speed.

“Just passed over the release point,” reported the copilot.

In the cabin, the pilots were now free to ditch their maps and fly by dead reckoning. They were close. The door gunner primed his.30 cal. Amundson glanced around quickly to catch a look at the whole squadron as it formed up for the assault. Like the others, Julia tugged at her chinstrap and cinched her pack just a little tighter.

Cobra gunships roared past them on both sides as she waited for the familiar snarl of miniguns and the whoosh of rockets leaving their pods.

“Lock and load,” Amundson cried at two minutes out as a dense black canopy of trees sped beneath the skids.

The cav troopers tapped their mags against their steel pots before slapping them into place. Julia did the same, pulling the charging handle back along with everyone else. The bolt carrier slapped the first round into place. After Hawaii she’d switched over to using the same ’temp weapons as the units she covered.

Other than a small stock of ammunition kept for research purposes, none of the original loads that had come through the Transition remained. All the marines coming out of the Zone, and a few of the ’temp forces like the cav here, now loaded out with AT gear like the M4 assault rifle, a workmanlike copy of Colt’s venerable old martyr-maker.

Indeed, fitting her goggles and sweeping her eyes over Amundson’s chalk, it was hard to separate them from some of the units she’d covered as a young pool reporter in Yemen. Swap their olive drab battle dress for Desert MARPAT, and you were almost there. The knee and elbow pads, camel backs, combat goggles, webbing, and weaponry were all uptime variants, manufactured decades ahead of their time.

The Seventh Cavalry Regiment, along with all the other regiments in the First Air Cavalry Division, were still ’temp units, however, which meant that some things were very different. There were no African American cavalry troopers riding in this or any other helicopter. And no women. Other than Julia.

“Thirty seconds!” Amundson yelled.

“Clear left,” the crew chief called.

“Clear right,” the door gunner added.

The world turned opal green inside Julia’s Oakleys when she powered up the low-light-amplification system. They were descending rapidly onto a large field, where dozens of black-and-white-or rather, dark-jade-and-lime-green-dairy cows scattered in fear. A wire-guided rocket, a stubby little SS-11, swished overhead and detonated behind a copse of oak trees. Secondary explosions followed, and the night erupted. The chopper flared over their LZ, and Julia stood up.

“Let’s go!” Amundson yelled.

D-DAY + 2. 5 MAY 1944.