David Gunn - Death's head

“Belt-feds,” I suggest as the first landing craft comes into sight.

Ion nods. My suggestions are allowed. Control rests with Ion-that’s been agreed in advance. He expects an argument and is initially suspicious that I agree to his demands. So I explain the obvious. My job is not controlling mercenaries, who already have their own command.

We’re here to kill enemy officers. It’s that simple.

“Fire,” shouts Ion.

A dozen mortars lob their loads toward the river.

“Again.”

Water explodes around the first five landers in steady thuds, but nothing we throw at them makes a difference, and the Hex-Seven has been specially adapted for river work.

One side on each is preparing to drop.

A junior officer will be first ashore and die within seconds. Somewhere in the craft behind will be an officer the Enlightened are reluctant to lose. And somewhere in the craft behind that will be a collection of majors and colonels and maybe even a general…killing or capturing them is our first duty.

“Rifles,” I say.

Midbarreled and easy to carry, but not so lightweight they can’t be steadied, the Ursula 12e fires a single pulse that can melt combat armor and kill a trooper five back from the original victim. The pulse doesn’t spread; it barely dissipates.

Each weapon costs more than a legion sergeant earns in a year, and we have four of them: one for Franc, Shil, Haze, and Neen. I’ve seen the way those around us look at the guns and have no doubt there’ll be a fight over who gets the weapon if one of us drops.

I could stop this by tying the guns to our individual DNA, but a dead gun next to a dead soldier is a criminal waste, so I’ve left the codes open. Ion knows this, but only Ion. Genuine friendly-fire incidents are common enough without adding temptation to the mix…

We slaughter a hundred Silver Fist in a handful of seconds as a landing craft drops its side. Their second lieutenant goes down, his skull half gone. The burn through his heart is Neen, my own shot cuts his brain stem, and he’s technically dead before a mercenary even lobs a mortar, but no one’s arguing.

We’re all too busy killing.

As ramps fall from another four craft, a wave of uniformed elite rolls over the wooden quayside like silver smoke, hiding what was there before. As their front row goes down, the troopers behind march straight over the top, boots crushing their own wounded.

“Fuck,” says Franc, sounding impressed.

They’re less than a hundred paces away now, and every single step has got to cost. “Take the officers,” I tell my crew.

A lieutenant twists as Shil hits his shoulder, then goes down when her next shot explodes vertebrae from his neck.

“Good shot.”

She shrugs.

I put a hole through a knot of braid and see the major behind sink to his knees, then become one with the mud as three men clamber over him. One of them is a corporal with a rocket launcher on his hip. It’s a near-impossible weight to carry, but he’s doing it anyway.

Shooting him is like shooting myself.

The soldier behind grabs the launcher and swears as red-hot steel burns his hands, but he still has time to fire off a rocket before shrapnel opens his stomach and he stumbles, torn between reloading and the need to repack his own guts.

As the five landing craft empty, another five take their place. The ramp releases are better coordinated this time, steel sides hitting the riverbank in unison.

I take a major; at least I think he’s a major. The man behind him dies, and the man behind that, and my next shot rips open the face of a corporal who steps into the gap. She goes down, ground to pulp as those behind her scrabble to reach solid ground.

Vals 9 and 11 have their rocket launcher cranked as low as it will go, which is still not low enough. In desperation they spin the handle in the other direction, raising the barrels until it points almost vertically. Eight rockets hit the sky together, arc high, and fall toward the next wave of Hex-Sevens. Unfortunately the ramps go down seconds before the rockets can hit.

And most of the rockets miss anyway.

Mortars are being lobbed from inside the city. And the Silver Fist are retaliating with rockets from batteries on the far side of the river. There’s a whole other battle going on above our heads, but one thing I know for sure: Both sides are extracting a heavy cost in enemy lives.

“Fall back,” orders Ion.

“Not yet…” My words are drowned under gunfire, and it’s too late anyway: The mercenaries are abandoning their foxholes and moving toward the trench behind us. Crouched over their weapons, they walk backward, never once taking their eyes off Silver Fist.

Both Vals die, and a woman darts forward, drops to a crouch behind them, and slices into the backs of their necks with her dagger. The implants are still twitching as she stuffs wires, broken nerves, and core into her pocket. At least their memories will be going home.

“We need to hold,” I scream at Neen.

“Zero minus ten,” says my gun. “Timing’s okay.”

Seventy minutes have gone, ten longer than we needed to hold. It seems impossible, but then I realize fifteen Hex-Sevens have disgorged their troops, the floodplain in front of us is slick with blood, and I’m almost out of ammunition. I have to retreat, if only because the trench is where my next arms cache is waiting.

“Sir,” says Neen. “Please.” He looks worried that I might want the Aux to stick it out on their own.

“Fall back,” I tell him.

The next few hours take our numbers below a hundred. Anyone who makes it through to the end of the battle is guaranteed a way out of here. Apart from us, obviously…

It shows in a change of tactics. Driven by his determination not to be overrun, Ion sets up a row of belt-fed machine guns and fills the gaps with snipers, half a dozen marksmen he’s been holding in reserve. Most are female, which is interesting. I’m not sure I knew women made the best shots. At my suggestion, the Aux join them.

Occasionally suicide squads set out from the Silver Fist side, and that’s when we really come into our own, picking off the teams one by one and leaving the last out in the mud, badly wounded and usually screaming.

We’ve hit them hard, certainly hard enough to ensure that the final run of Hex-Sevens begins to unload its cargo on the far side of the river where Silver Fist sappers are busy constructing a camp.

Night is creeping across this world, and a cold wind is rising from the marshes around us. An alligator booms its challenge, unless it’s something else. I used to know the sound of every animal in the desert. Where I am now, its animals and plants are strange, its winds unexpected, and its weather patterns unclear.

We can fight in the dark, of course, and so can they. Night goggles are piled in boxes behind me. Ion wears a helmet with a visor that achieves daylight clarity with minimal weight. My own helmet does much the same. At this point I’m wishing I insisted on similar helmets for the Aux.

“You okay?” Ion asks.

Turning, I find him beside me. “Yeah.”

He nods. “Good. I’m pulling back to the gates. You guys intend to stay?”

Neen is watching me, his glance nervous, then resigned. A couple of seconds and he’s already adjusted to the idea-pretty impressive, if unnecessary.

“No,” I say. “We’ll be coming with you.”

Sixty-eight people out of 505 make it back to the city. When you knock me, Neen, Haze, Shil, and Franc out of that figure, you get sixty-three and that’s not even going to fill the available seats on the last ship out of here.

But the colonel’s rules are clear. If you weren’t beyond the gate when the Silver Fist attacked you’re not eligible for one of those places. They’ll go begging and the ship will take off with thirty-seven seats still empty.