Майк Резник - SNAFU - Future Warfare

“Christ,” Gardner said into the stream. “The kid's a computer genius.”

“What do we do, LT? If he tells the Iranians—”

“We have to kill him.”

“In cold blood?” Liz said.

“It's the only way.” He raised his gun. “I'm sorry,” he said through his speaker. The boy cowered.

Gardner hesitated. The kid's lower lip trembled. He looked like a lost little boy, a good five years younger than Joel. Mothers cry here, too.

He lowered his gun. “Just give me the weapon.”

A shot rang out and the boy crumpled in the corner. Smoke rose from Liz's gun.

“What the hell?”

“Had to be done, LT.”

Gardner picked up the weapon with his manipulator arm and unplugged the cable from its base. His treads kicked up dirt from the floor and he was out the door.

“You said so, right?”

The uncertainty in her voice would haunt him forever. He rolled toward the rendezvous point in the village square. A quick scan of the squad's feeds showed that Josè and Kyle were already there.

“Base, mission accomplished,” he said. “Now get some trainees to drive these goddamned drones home.”

“Roger, recon. Prepare for extraction.”

The world went dark. Gardner sat limp in his chair, in no hurry to get the helmet off. The tech lifted the helmet and he faced the glare of the Active Combat Room with open eyes.

A hand closed on his shoulder. “I'm so glad you made it out of there okay,” Maria said. “I'm sorry I bailed on you like that. He had it aimed—”

“You did what you had to do.”

The tech said, “Colonel wants to debrief you immediately, sir.”

Gardner blew out a breath and nodded. He lifted himself from the EMEG chair. Liz sat next to him, her dreads emerging from her helmet. She blinked away the brightness and looked directly at him with haunted eyes.

“I did the right thing, LT. Didn't I?”

He stared at her, seeing his guilt reflected in her eyes. “How the hell should I know?”

“...ten years since the first Stalker ships appeared in our skies. Again, our top story tonight, more invading aliens in the sky, distracting United Earth forces from an all-out assault against the Flying City, which touched down in Columbia two months ago. Scientists believe the Flying City to be a base of operations. As the Stalker language cannot be interpreted, and the Stalkers themselves refuse any form of communication, the motive behind humanity's ongoing war of survival remains unclear. From NORAD, this is CNN.”

Ten years. I checked my gun again, remembering the day First Contact had become The Last War. The battlesuit chafed; it wasn't mine, but a spare from storage, unused for years.

“Today's my birthday,” I said to Rico.

“Old lady,” he said. His battlesuit was painted with jagged yellow stripes; he claimed it disoriented the Stalkers, and nobody wanted to argue.

“Hope it won't be your last,” Boss said. As the leader, he wore a battlesuit twice the size of ours. He also carried the Pulse, the only weapon that could take down a Berserker – I'd seen only one in seven years of battle.

Rico handed me a piece of gum. “Happy day,” he said.

Most of the squad sat in silence. There were no fixed units anymore; fewer soldiers every day, going wherever the United Earth sent us. We formed, fought, died, and reformed so many times that it was unusual for even two soldiers to know each other. The only thing we all had in common was our training.

We did the best we could. Every day more of them appeared in the sky. They never tried to talk, just landed and killed.

The chopper rattled. Boss stood and spoke with the pilot, then came back and addressed us.

“This is not a normal mission,” he said. “We are not going out against the Coast ships per our initial orders.”

“We going on vacation?” Rico said.

“The Coast ships are sapping our ability to fight effectively. Too many units are being destroyed while the aliens gain ground. This unit was handpicked. Every soldier in this chopper has more than fifty drops. Between us, we have over seventy million confirmed kills. You individuals don't think of yourselves as special, but believe me, you are all the best in our force.”

I jabbed Rico with my elbow. “Could fool me,” I said. Boss was right, though – this was my fifty-first drop.

“We are taking the Flying City,” Boss said. “Not simply attacking. Today is the day we take control back. All previous missions failed. We no longer have that luxury. If the City is truly their base of operations, we must control or destroy it. UE forces are massed by the Coast, but we have secret forces arrayed around the City. While they keep it occupied, we will go in and take whatever steps are necessary to stay in.”

“Is this a suicide mission?” someone asked.

Boss stared at all of us. “Not if we can help it. Each of your suits has been modified with a data connector, built from wrecked Stalker ships...”

I fired into the mass. Rico had my back, and two others were killing waves of the tiny Stalkers from the left. Boss was at the right, Pulse ready.

“Think that was the last Berserker?” Rico shouted.

“Fuckin' better be,” I said, and fired a grenade to the front. The advancing pile of aliens exploded in a yellow shockwave.

To the left, the Stalkers piled again and had taken one of the guards down. That was how they killed us, as small as they were. Using their own bodies as shields and support, they swarmed and overwhelmed, and they were surprisingly strong.

Boss flicked his lights, and we pushed ahead. The halls of the Flying City vibrated, sometimes from explosions, mostly from whatever ungodly energy kept it alive. A hatch fell and they swarmed Rico; I thrust in, switching gun to knives, and we slashed them apart. Behind us, Boss fired the Pulse.

“Another?” I said.

“Too many little ones,” Boss yelled. “We lost Jensen and Ackles. I collapsed the corridor.”

Rico breathed obscenities as he smeared the Stalkers across the walls, slamming his body against them. Boss joined us and the corridor grew grey with their blood.

The last one had my leg in its teeth. As Rico checked his suit, I pulled it off and held it up. It screamed at me, flailing and ripping at my hand. Singles can't hurt a battlesuit, but they could bring back their friends.

“Lost contact with the unit,” Boss said. “We have to assume we're the last ones.”

“Do we even know where we're going?” Rico said.

“Radar scans show a central area, and electromagnetic scans show a massive power source. Whatever they're doing, it comes from that center.”

“So we find it and blow it up?”

“Command wants us to gather data,” Boss said. “If we can't use it against them....”

The alien latched its teeth into my wrist. I couldn't feel it through the armor.

“Somebody found a little pet,” Rico said.

I squeezed it until its head popped off.

There were more corridors ahead. With Boss on point, I held the rear. Outside, battles were horrifying, the aliens unconstrained and destroying everything in sight. Still, every time they swarmed from the ceiling or floor I had a shock of terror, quickly clamped down by my instincts.

Their skin was blue, rocky, not entirely biological. Scientists suspected they were grown rather than born. Each one transmitted a rough feeling through the sensors in my palms. I'd never seen one without my suit on. I never wanted to.

Another wave, and this time from a side corridor; they filled it with their screaming bodies, swarming over each other as if a single being. Boss raised the Pulse, lowered it; the backwave would kill us.