Light Bringer: A Red Rising Novel, page 15
part #6 of The Red Rising Saga Series
“Ow.”
“Not in the Republic.”
“No, not au. Ow. Harsh critique.”
“Oh.”
“Right. My turn.”
“I didn’t agree to a game,” I say.
“After seeing that ‘duel,’ you have a problem. One, you’ve used your body like a mallet for a decade and a half. It’s twenty years older than it should be. Two. Diomedes and young Rim bucks will be coming for you. Trust me when I say, he’d eat the Minotaur alive.”
I turn on him. “Really?”
“Really. Three. People are wise to the Willow Way, and personally I don’t think it maximizes your potential. Four. You need your killing confidence back. You need a top-tier razormaster. You need me. After all, steel sharpens steel.” I lean back. “Don’t give me that face.”
“What face?”
“That constipated wargod face. Minotaur messed you up. But I think we can make you even better than you were at your prime. If you let us.” He puts his hand over my mouth. “You say one word about the gala, I will turn this ship around.” He takes his hand back, wary. I cross my arms, tight with pride. I wince from two cuts Apollonius gave me.
“If you wish to be repaired, you must first be broken,” I mutter.
“What?”
“The eleventh understanding.”
He rolls his eyes. “When did everyone turn into a gorydamn philosopher?”
“When we started losing.”
“Then that’s a yes.”
“That’s a yes.”
“Good. We start tomorrow.”
I look down at my bandages and wince.
PART II
RAMPART
The alarm was soon carried to the city, and when they heard the war cry, the people came out at daybreak till the plain was filled with horsemen and foot soldiers and with the gleam of armor.
—Homer
12
LYRIA
Truffle Pig
The Republic long-ranger loads his multiRifle and readies his suit for space. I shadow his movements, lagging behind him less by the day. This will be the sixty-ninth asteroid we’ve searched, and though this is today’s first reconnaissance it already feels we’re searching in vain for the laboratory that created the tech that infests my head. The parasite, the compass that brought us to this sector of the Rim, has gone silent.
When Pax sent me off from Mars, he told me his theory that the parasite tech in my head was damaged and attempting to guide me back to the place of its creation to seek repairs. He talked about a lot of things he said he’d learned from inconclusive intelligence reports: a secret laboratory. Fringe scientists. Links to Sun Industries. For good or ill, I believed him. I believed the urge in my gut that brought me to sector 3401 of the asteroid belt. But with the parasite four months silent—save for the mind-melting headaches—I’m beginning to realize trusting someone too young to even have pimples yet might have been a mistake.
Idiot, me. I was so desperate to repair the parasite and tap in to its power to help Volga that I believed him. Not that I’d know how to even find her. She might be with the pirates three sectors over. She might be on Pluto. She might be dead.
Only the routine of the search, the sharpening of my skills day by day, keeps me from eating holes in myself over thoughts of my failure. It’s been six days since the last battle we saw between Republic and Rim ships. The Republic didn’t win, and the long-ranger squad’s resentment—like my anxiety—is only getting worse.
I’m no heavyMetal Red like Fel, the ranger team leader—who is half-bionic. Nor am I an Orange like our crusty mechanic, Oxis. Nor a Blue like sweet-hearted, air-brained Xaria, our pilot—a fawn-like woman of middle age. They want to be on Mars when it’s attacked, not here following a truffle pig whose nose is clearly broken. But it’s my duty to my dead ones to learn all I can from the rangers, even if I annoy the living shit out of them. What I learn here will help someone who needs it later.
So when I feel doubt tugging me down into the churning grief in my gut and the guilt that the rangers are wasting their time snooping asteroids out here with me, I think of the mud in Camp 121. Of my sister’s corpse, wearing her new shoes. I think of snow. The cold I felt seeing Ulysses nailed to a tree. I think of Volga surrendering herself to Fa, out there somewhere imprisoned by the mad warlord who sacked Olympia and killed Sefi the Quiet. I think of all my bloody uselessness, how I couldn’t stop any of the bad shit from happening. That makes me angry. And anger’s all the fuel a Red lass needs to keep going.
“Airflow, check,” Fel rumbles.
“Airflow, check,” I reply.
“Seals, check.”
“Seals, check.”
“Gustpack, check.”
“Gustpack, check.”
“Ranger One ready.” He waits for me. “Truffle Pig?”
“Ready.”
“Pilot, piss the presh.”
The airlock vents its air to create a vacuum. Fel’s hard crimson eyes are hidden behind his green visor.
As an elite Republic long-ranger—a pirate hunter, peacekeeper, investigator, instigator, and sometime scout for the Ecliptic Guard—the Belt is Fel’s natural habitat. He was born here in an asteroid carbon mine, hard and rough as uncut diamonds. When I wonder how the Republic ever fought Golds, I look at Fel.
“Still feel like you’ve got a screwdriver in your eyehole?” His accent isn’t Martian. Belt Reds stretch their vowels like taffy.
“More like a pencil now,” I say of the headache that lances from my right eyeball, through my brain, to the base of my skull. “Won’t slow me down.”
“Best not. Need you fit, Piggy. We got six more ’roids to hit before bunk. Gotta pick up the tempo if we can’t narrow the search, elsewise we’ll be here till me balls hang past me knees.” His voice quiets. “Are you sure this is the sector?”
“No, I’m not sure. I told you that. I’m not sure of anything. The machine stopped guiding me months ago.”
Under the depressurization lights, the faded symbol on his durosteel shoulder—a white arm holding a white torch—is stained a muddy red. Unlike my EVO suit—a pressurized personal space apparatus—which covers me toes to cowlick, Fel’s suit leaves his limbs free. He can afford the vacuum exposure since his arms are metal, and his legs too from the knees down. Eight digits on each foot and hand would be the envy of any Helldiver.
“You give it any thought?” I ask.
“Hm?”
“My callsign. What we talked about last night in the lounge.”
“Aw. Naw. Yer stuck with it.”
“Ain’t exactly flattering, is it? Truffle Pig.”
“Ain’t that all you’re good for? Sniff, sniff, looking for treasure in mounds of the Solar System’s shit,” our Orange mechanic, Oxis, says over the com from the machine room.
“Right. My fault for not turning the monster machine that crawled into my head without my bloody volition into a perfect compass for you on command. I’m done answering to Truffle Pig.”
“Lock it up, Oxis,” Fel says to the Orange. His voice carries no pity for me but no malice either. “Lyria, you’re raw as a baby’s throat. No wings on your shoulders. No wolf on your chest. Skipped the schools, and we don’t care if yer the Sovereign’s stool pigeon, ya don’t get to skip the shit test. Least, not until you start picking up a scent, hear? We all done our jobs. You need you to do yours.”
“I’m trying.”
“Trying won’t keep the Golds from the gates of Mars.”
“Are all rangers such slaggers?” I mutter.
“Lass, I’m a dove compared to the hyenas out there. Me friends are dying back home, and I’m out here with you, sniffing. Any other would toss ya out the airlock, call the hunt closed, and get back to real soldiering before the war’s lost.”
The airlock opens in silence between us.
“Go on then. None would know,” I say.
“Tempting. But Republic Intelligence says you’re the link to a weapons lab. Ain’t seen a thing that’d make me agree, but it ain’t my duty to agree, savvy? Now let’s work. And by the way, no one gets to choose their own callsign.”
“What was yours?”
“Badassmotherfucker.”
With a short burst from his gustpack, Fel backflips into the void. I follow, a foot shorter, twenty kilos lighter, and nine years less veteran in the realm of unforgiving cold, rock, and shadow that is the asteroid belt.
Using one burst from my pack to clear the airlock, and a second to angle up, and a third to coast parallel to the asteroid’s terrain, I match Fel’s velocity. “Clean your lines,” he says. “You’re drifting.” I course correct. “Reduce your velocity.” I reduce a half percent, growing annoyed.
His metal feet greet the surface of the asteroid, and he rebounds into a loping gait. I mimic with less grace. “Your trajectory’s filthy, Piggy. Dampen your kin imp by three per.”
He’s right, of course. My gait was taking me higher and higher, out of sync with his route, which would expose me to sniper fire if the asteroid wasn’t abandoned like all the others we’ve searched these last months. I adjust. “Better. The anomaly is three clicks out. Shadow me, and train your sensors six to twelve.”
“Check.”
“Pilot, what’s your read?”
Xaria’s voice is smooth and one note. “Skies clear. Omega scan inconclusive. Anomaly is metallic. Material unknown.”
“Begin orbital dep recon. One eye on ground, one on sky. Just because we don’t see the Moonies on scanners don’t mean they aren’t in the neighborhood.”
Sightings of Rim hunting squadrons are growing more common even as sightings of Republic squadrons grow rarer. Flying dark, we don’t get reports from Mars. Even without them, if the war in the Core is going like the war in this sector of the Rim, we know we’re on borrowed time. Rumor has it even the Obsidians are joining in on picking the Republic’s corpse. I wonder if the raids three sectors over are from Fá, if Volga is only a few million clicks away.
Fel moves with appropriate urgency and I struggle to keep up.
To the sound of our own breath, we lope over the dead landscape. Nothing but cratered rock and shadows move beneath.
I follow Fel’s line and land lightly on the edge of a huge crater where our scans picked up the anomaly. I search for a reaction from the parasite. Nothing.
“Drones out,” Fel orders. The four drones detach from his left shoulder and disappear into a crater. Mine join. Within thirty seconds, my third drone finds a human design, flags it, and begins analysis. A gun turret, depowered with a hardline running into the stone. “Ancient model,” Fel says as we inspect it. “Power source. Won’t be far.”
“This ain’t it,” I say.
“Parasite talking to you again?”
“No.”
“Less talking and more sniffing then. Drones detect durosteel below.”
I follow Fel down into the crater where we find a metal plate thirty meters by twenty embedded in the rock. Searching around the perimeter of the metal plate, Fel finds a manual control panel. His metal hands peel its lock away like it’s tissue. I clear off the door as it retracts.
“Pilot, we’ve found an aperture. Likely a pirate nest. Deserted by the age of it. Continue orbital survey.”
Fel swivels forward his Rim-style rifle from its back holster, and drops into the darkness. I pull my smaller rifle and follow, down, down into the depths.
“Yut. Pirates,” Fel mutters in defeat before I land in what once was a mid-sized hangar, judging by what our helmet lights can illuminate. An old corvette larger than the Snowball lies abandoned in the center of the room. “Pilot, looks like this is a dead end. But since we’re here, we’ll stick to protocol. Full search. Piggy, you’re east. I’m west.”
It’s not the first pirate refuge we’ve found, but it is the oldest. Its halls are pitch black. My helm provides the only light. Rifle up, I turn a corner and a shape lunges at me. I slam down to a knee and fire three times like Fel taught me. I report contact and search the hallway for more. None appear, and with my heart in my throat I inspect my kill.
It’s just bones. A skeleton, now shattered. I laugh at myself. “Cancel contact,” I say, embarrassed. “Just a skeleton.” No one replies. “Fel?”
Static hisses.
“Fel? Copy? Shit.” I glance behind me. Our coms are military grade. Shouldn’t be enough interference from the walls to block the signal. I hail the ship. Nothing. Knowing I’ll get bitched apart and stuck on latrine duty if I don’t complete my recon, I press on despite the hammering of my heart. I find sleeping quarters filled with floating personal effects, a storage room with medical equipment, and a mess hall with skeletons. I sweep my rifle counter-clockwise through the room. Nothing moves except the skeletons. There must be nearly fifty clothed in tattered jumpsuits. They float in a tangled dance over tables bolted to the floor. I creep toward one and shine my light into his eyeholes.
A hand grips my shoulder from behind. I jump and wheel only to have my rifle muzzle knocked upward. It’s Fel. I breathe easier. “Sonofawhore, you scared the piss out of me.”
He gives me a coms dead signal then motions to join helmets so we can hear. His voice is muffled. “Coms are down to the Snowball. Probably interference from their reactor. Just bodies back my way.”
“How’d they die?”
Careful, he pulls one of the skeletons closer with his rifle and points to a green tinge on the bones. “Green Death,” he says. “Antique bioweapon. Vacuum resistant. Wiped out dozens of colonies and mines two hundred years back. Just a drop of the virus is grounds for instant quarantine. Yawning is less contagious, literally. Let’s get the Hades out of here.”
No argument from me. He tries hailing the Snowball a few more times before deciding we’ll have to do it on the surface. We make our way back to the hangar and together float upward, out the way we came. I feel better on the solid ground of the surface, and our short-range coms start to work again. Still, we can’t contact the Snowball. “This ’roid’s a sponge for electromagnetism. Must be dense with metals.” He pauses, and I sense the concern in his voice. “Strange. Should have shown up on scans. If a Silver found this place, he’d be a mining king in three years.”
“Except for the Green Death.”
“Good point.”
He reaches the lip of the crater first and stops, staring at something. I hurry and join him. Then I see what he’s looking at.
The Snowball spins on the horizon, lights flickering. “Pilot, do you read me? Pilot, do we have enemy—”
“Oh…” I murmur as black warships curl around the asteroid. Light lances from one and the Snowball simply divides in half. Her two pieces spin in opposite directions and crash soundlessly into the asteroid. The aft rebounds off, disappears into a crater, rebounds again to hit the lip of the crater, and then twirls lazily away toward space. The fore impacts and sticks into the rock a few hundred paces from us. Fel pushes me down.
“Stay,” he says and then springs away. I thought he was moving so fast during our recons just to show off. But it turns out he was moving like a toddler compared to his true top speed. Faster than a Cimmerian hare he races toward the ship’s front section and disappears inside. The warships do not advance.
Instead, they shed black motes. I magnify with my visor and see the motes are shaped like men. Tall ones.
I balance my rifle on the lip of the crater. “Fel, meat contacts are dropping from the ships. I count ten. They’re big, Fel. Fel?”
He emerges from the Snowball carrying our pilot, Xaria, over his shoulder. The Blue woman is unconscious in her emergency suit. He glances over his shoulder and races back toward me. His voice crackles in my ear. “Pi…corv…iggy…prep…”
The enemy have already landed. I link my rifle’s scope to my helmet and scan the terrain. I barely sight one. A man-shaped shadow skims over the surface of the asteroid and I experience a dread like none I’ve ever felt. I wondered what enemy could make Fel nervous. Now I know. The shadow does not come in a straight line. It jitters, like lightning. I fire six shots and hit nothing, and I’m not a bad shot. Even Fel said so.
Something blurs past me to the right and I tumble back, suit screaming puncture alerts. Arresting myself, I see a long gash along the right side of my suit’s torso. I’m shot, but not wounded. I didn’t even see anyone fire. I deploy a seal before my oxygen vents. As the seal closes, I grab my rifle and rush back to my position just as Fel vaults over the lip, hurls down Xaria, and fires six shots back the way he came with his multiRifle.
“Dustwalkers,” he says. “Get Xaria to the pirate corvette. It’s our only—” Then his left arm comes off as something gleaming passes through just over the biceps. Fel spins, gathering himself just as a shadow blurs past overhead. A tongue of metal sweeps down and cuts Fel’s rifle in half. I fire at the shadow, and must hit it, because its trajectory alters, and it retreats to the west.
I grab Xaria’s foot and boost toward the pirate refuge as Fel covers our retreat. He lands behind us with a clang. His voice is tight, scared. “It’s the same frigate pack we spotted five days ago. We’ll never outrun them.” The door above closes and seals us off from the surface. “You can let that go,” he says.
I look back to Xaria. Her foot is still in my hands, but her body is gone. Her leg was severed at the hip by something with the precision of a medical laser. I let go in horror and the leg drifts away. “Get the corvette’s reactor on. I’ll cover you,” Fel says, his pistol pointed up at the sealed entry. I don’t move.
A shadow crouches atop the corvette. Taking a breath, I drop to a knee, raise my rifle, and pull the trigger. Only…I don’t. Pressure builds in my hand. I look down. My hand still clutches the rifle, but it’s begun to drift away. I move my arm and the hand separates from the wrist. White bone surrounded by bright meat stares back at me. The pain is delayed and indescribable. I’m too horrified to scream. I just pant as my suit seals over the wound.
