Marko Kloos - Terms of Enlistment

We move out into the streets of the PRC. The authorities have finally gotten around to shutting off the power grid to the rebellious welfare clusters, so the street lights are all out. There are, however, plenty of burning vehicles and trash containers all over the place. Our helmet imaging sensors automatically provide us with optimal visuals—low light magnification, thermal imaging, and about three dozen other filters. The people we’re up against don’t have the luxury of military-grade sensors, but for some reason, they have a pretty good idea of where we are. We see small groups of rioters dashing across streets and into alleyways up ahead. They keep well away from us, and nobody’s pointing weapons, but for some reason I feel like I’m back at the Urban Warfare center in Basic, and we’re walking into a staged exercise.

PRC Detroit is a complete shithole. The area around the civic center was a showcase neighborhood compared to the dilapidation of the streets beyond. Back home in Boston, our buildings were ugly, but mostly intact. Here in Detroit, the welfare tenements are twice as ugly, and half of them are in various states of ruin. One or two lots out of every block are just foundations, or demolished buildings that have a floor and a half of crumbling structure remaining, like broken teeth in an already unhealthy jawline. There’s nobody in those empty lots as we trot by, weapons at the ready, but the burning trash cans and scatterings of food boxes are evidence that the residents of those ruins aren’t far away.

“Bravo One-One, Valkyrie Six-Four. We’re circling overhead, and we have you guys on Tactical. Be advised, you have a group of IPs shadowing you on the street parallel to yours, on your four o’clock.”

Our TacNet displays update with dozens of red carets, clustered in the street to our right, and keeping pace with our squad.

“Copy,” Sergeant Fallon responds. “How’s the crash site look, Six-Four?”

“It’s clear right now, but there’s a bunch of the local rabble converging on the site, from the looks of it. I suggest you don’t take your time down there.”

“You can bet your ass on that, Six-Four.”

“What the hell are they doing?” Paterson asks. “First they run into our rifles to get a piece of us, and now they’re backing off.”

“They’re not backing off, dummy,” Corporal Jackson says. “They’re waiting until we’re all the way in the bag. They know where we’re going.”

“Stop the chit-chat, and keep formation,” Sergeant Fallon says. “We’re half a klick out. Double-time, people. Let’s hoof it before the welfare rats get a hold of the armory on that boat.”

The drop ship is right in the middle of a major intersection, which is bad news, because it’s out in the open and vulnerable from all four sides. The starboard engine is still smoking, its armored nacelle showing multiple holes from armor-piercing rounds. The port engine is running on idle, emitting a low droning sound. A half dozen locals have beaten us to the site, and they’re banging on the side hatch and jumping up and down on the cockpit roof, oblivious of our approach in the darkness.

Sergeant Fallon makes our presence known by aiming her rifle, and firing a single round without breaking stride. The rioter on top of the drop ship falls off the cockpit roof, and then hits the pavement below without any attempt to catch his fall. The others hear the rifle shot and scatter like roaches at the sound of a light switch. We let them run off, and then rush up to the wounded drop ship.

“Six-One, we’re right outside. Open the side hatch, if you can.”

“Stand by,” the pilot says. “I have a few broken bones here.”

I walk up to the right side of the cockpit and look inside. The right-seater is slumped over in his armored chair, and the untidy hole in the side of his flight helmet leaves no doubt about his condition. The right cockpit side has taken a beating from the large-caliber machine gun rounds, and one of them finally weakened the polycarbonate enough to let a round or two into the cockpit. Valkyrie Six-One’s copilot had the misfortune to sit right in the trajectory.

I watch as the pilot undoes her harness latches, and then tries to get out of her seat. The scream that follows is loud enough to reach my ears through the armored canopy.

“Sarge, her legs are broken. Hang on.” I tap on the side of the cockpit.

“Six-One, can you blow the emergency jettison on the canopy?”

The pilot gives me a weak nod and an even weaker thumbs-up, and then reaches for the red-and-yellow handle on her side of the cockpit.

“You folks may want to stand back,” she says. “Like, way back.”

We retreat to the side of the street, well away from the canopy panels.

“Go ahead, Six-One. We’re clear.”

The panels of the drop ship’s canopy detach with a muffled crack. We rush up to the cockpit, and Jackson hands her rifle to Paterson before climbing over the side and into the now-open pilot station.

“Someone come in here and give me a hand,” Jackson says. I hand my rifle off to the rear, and climb up to help.

The pilot is in bad shape. Both her legs are broken, and her right arm is bloody, the flight suit sleeve in shreds. The cockpit stinks of blood, fried electronics, and chemical propellant. She looks up at us through the clear shield of her helmet visor. I smile at her as I try to maneuver into position to heave her out of the chair with Jackson.

“Hang on there. We’ll have you out of this thing in a flash.”

“Watch out,” somebody shouts outside, and there’s a sudden fusillade of gunshots coming from the other side of the intersection.

“First squad, you have lots of IPs converging on your position,” Valkyrie Six-Four announces with sudden urgency.

“Yeah, no shit,” someone replies.

“Jackson and Grayson, get the pilot in the back and open that fucking hatch for us,” Sergeant Fallon orders. The squad is firing back now, and the loud reports of the rioters’ guns mix with the hoarse chattering of the TA rifles.

Jackson and I haul the pilot out of her seat with renewed urgency. She cries out as we drag her to the cockpit door, a small armored hatch three feet behind the pilot seats. The cockpit is too small for three people and a corpse, and anyone firing into the now unprotected space is bound to hit one of us. Jackson and I are wearing full combat armor, but the pilot only has a chest plate over her flight suit, and we shield her with our bodies as much as we can while Jackson yanks on the latch for the cockpit door. It slides open, and we stumble through the narrow hatch, the pilot between us. Outside, the rifle fire increases in volume. I can hear rounds smacking into the bulkhead to my right as I squeeze my armored bulk into the passageway beyond the cockpit door. My instincts tell me to duck and run, make for the safety of the cargo bay, but I stop and turn around to pull the latch on the inside of the door. The armored hatch slides out once more and seals the opening with an inch and a half of laminate armor plating.

We stumble through the narrow passage that leads from the drop ship’s cockpit to the cargo hold. The pilot is half pulled by Jackson, half pushed by me. Finally, we reach the cargo space, and we put the pilot down on the rubberized floor, well away from the side entry hatch. The crew chief is splayed out on the floor by the tail ramp, face down and motionless.

Jackson rushes over to the side hatch and pulls the emergency latch. Unlike the cockpit door, the side hatch is mounted on a hinge that opens to the inside of the craft. As soon as the door starts swinging into the ship, First Platoon’s grunts start piling into the opening. Outside, the rifle fire is a steady cacophony. The hull of the drop ship is getting peppered with small arms fire. It sounds like rocks against a polycarb window.