Echoes of the Fallen, page 33
“The enemy’s going to make a mistake,” Stathis said with confidence he didn’t feel. “They hold the cards and have the initiative. A bum rush with knives may be a last resort, and isn’t off the table, but it is a last resort.”
“We need a plan,” Hakala said, popping out, but she didn’t fire. She was conserving ammunition and didn’t have a target. Stathis glanced behind them. They had no cover from that direction.
“I have a plan,” Stathis lied. The others were listening, and he didn’t want them to lose morale. Troops with high morale took risks, fought hard, and never gave up. Troops that lost morale minimized their risk and fled. He’d learned that in some book somewhere. He wanted to ask Shrek which one, but Shrek was on a coffee break. It was up to Stathis.
“What?” Hakala asked.
“I always have a plan,” Stathis said. Another lie. If they didn’t survive, it wouldn’t matter.
“I am all ears,” Hakala said. She sounded stressed, not obviously stressed, her HKT training was there. Stathis knew her well enough to hear it in her voice; to the others, she probably sounded calm.
“We wait for them to make a mistake, and we exploit that mistake,” Stathis said.
“And plan B?”
“We make a mistake and wait for them to try and exploit it,” Stathis said. “Then we turn the tables.”
“We have made a couple of mistakes,” Hakala said.
“Have I ever let you down?” Stathis asked. “We’ll get out of this.”
“Zen,” Hakala said. The muzzle of her weapon locked onto the area where the cyborgs would appear.
Something metal slammed into the tram, but Hakala didn’t flinch. The cyborgs were blind firing with their projectiles.
“When we get back to Valhöll, I call the first cup of coffee,” Stathis said. “Rank hath its privileges.”
“You can have the whole pasukan pot,” Hakala said.
“Nah. I can share. I just need that first sip.”
“Hear that?” Hakala asked a second later.
Stathis did. It was blazer fire, and the cyborgs weren’t using blazers. Their weapons made a kind of pop-hiss, and Hakala knew that.
“See?” Stathis said. “A rescue.”
“Unless it is other vanhat,” Hakala said.
“Major Stathis, can you hear me?” a voice said on the link.
Stathis couldn’t contain his smile. The voice sounded familiar, though he couldn’t quite place it, but there was no reason for anyone to call him unless they were coming to rescue him. It had been a few seconds since the cyborgs had thrown something at them.
“Major Stathis here,” Stathis said. It was on a command link opened by someone at Skögul.
“This is Jaeger Halverson,” the voice said. “Are you on the other side of these cyborgs?”
“Yes,” Stathis said. “We’re attacking from this direction. Where are you?”
“Coming from the other direction. We caught them by surprise, I think. Norrman and I are advancing. We’re close. Check your fire. Your Lieutenant McCarthy and Doctor Nilsen have requested we come and provide assistance. We’re advancing behind a line of warbots, but there are only two of us.”
“Neato,” Stathis said and patted Mikhailov on the shoulder. “We appreciate it. We have two wounded, and we’re a little low on ammo. How’s McCarthy doing?”
“Hard pressed.”
Which was why he wasn’t talking with Stathis.
“Well,” Stathis said, “let’s get back to Valhöll, and we will figure out something to do.”
“Zen,” Halverson said, and there was no mistaking the increasing intensity of blazer fire.
“See?” Stathis said to Hakala. “Told you I have a plan.”
“That was not a plan,” she said. “You did nothing.”
“Doing nothing is always doing something,” Stathis replied.
“That is not how it works,” Hakala said, but Stathis heard the smile in her voice.
* * * * *
Chapter 62: Return to Valhöll
Major Zale Stathis, USMC
The massive blast doors of Valhöll closed behind him, and Stathis let out the breath he didn’t realize he’d been holding.
“Welcome home,” Lochoki said, meeting them in the muster room.
“It really is good to see you, Major,” Sergeant Zhao said. Zhao was a sight for sore eyes, too. Zhao still had a working SCBI, and Stathis felt guilty as he looked at him.
Hakala took off her helmet before Stathis. Her face was streaked with sweat, dirt, and tears. In the bright lights, she looked like she’d low-crawled through a grinder.
Stathis still thought she was beautiful. He wanted to hug her and celebrate, but when he took off his own helmet, he realized if he came near anyone, they’d likely gag and vomit. A shower would be a good start.
With his helmet off, he slipped on the earpiece, since his cybernetics weren’t fully operational. He hadn’t felt this clueless in a very long time.
“Major?” McCarthy said the second the earpiece was seated. “The vanhat are withdrawing.”
Another weight lifted off Stathis’ shoulders, and he smiled at Hakala as a robotic stretcher took Mikhailov and Chen away.
“See?” Stathis said. “Things are working out.”
But he remembered Lebedev, Kai, and the others.
Removing his helmet, Halverson’s nose twitched, and Stathis realized he was catching a whiff of his patrol scent.
“You should get your people cleaned up, Major,” Halverson said, which was a polite way of telling Stathis he stank.
“Thank you,” Stathis said. It was so nice of Halverson to state the obvious.
Stathis looked around, expecting Shrek to show him an arrow to the nearest shower, and the heaviness settled back onto his shoulders.
“We need to get cleaned up, then a trip to the med lab to get our cybernetics fixed,” Stathis said. He didn’t want to tell Halverson or anyone about the SCBIs. They might already know, but until he knew Shrek was actually dead, he didn’t want to bring it up. It was best they not get any ideas. Sergeant Zhao couldn’t hold the line alone.
“Moore and Quinn should be able to teleoperate the systems,” McCarthy said. “The sooner you can get to the med lab and pumped full of repair nanites, the sooner we can do an analysis. Mikhailov and Chen are arriving now.”
“You make sure Skögul is secure first,” Stathis said. He wanted to believe Shrek was still alive, but the fear chewed up his insides. He didn’t want to find out Shrek was gone. He could believe Shrek was alive for just a little longer. But what if Shrek was trapped in darkness? Alone? Afraid?
Shrek wouldn’t be afraid. Would he?
“We’ll clean up and then head to the med lab,” Stathis told everyone. “I don’t want to smell your skanky asses when you get there, so clean up good.”
“Wilco,” Kuznetsov said for the others. They began to look around, and Stathis realized another problem. They hadn’t come in the main entrance, and nobody knew where they were. Without cybernetics or SCBIs to guide them, they were lost. Without Shrek, Stathis felt like a fish out of water. He’d forgotten just how much Shrek did for him, from directions to making sure he had enough sleep and could prioritize.
“Jaeger Halverson?” Stathis said as he was clearing his weapon. “Could I ask you to show the men to their quarters and then to the med lab?”
Halverson raised an eyebrow. Stathis wished Zhao was here.
“Our cybernetics were damaged in the blast when we skull-stomped Frogbath with a d-bomb. We need to get them back online if possible.”
“Zen,” Halverson said. “What about you and the kapten?” he asked, with a glance at Hakala.
Stathis looked at Hakala.
“I know the way,” she said. Stathis and Hakala’s quarters were right next to each other. He wanted their quarters to be the same, but he had to maintain appearances for others. Besides, if they were to share a shower now, they might end up puking on each other. With his suit’s plumbing not working right, Stathis was afraid of what he would find when he peeled it off. He’d stopped walking funny a while ago. Nobody had said anything, and Stathis was pretty sure everyone had the same problem. He didn’t want to think about Hakala having the same sort of problem.
Damn. He thought about it.
He was pretty sure there were multiple infected blisters, and he had no desire to see the damage inflicted on Hakala by her suit and the last couple of days.
Halverson nodded, his eyes turning to Kuznetsov, who somehow managed to look sheepish at the mercy of the Jaeger.
“Git,” Stathis said to his men. “Man, I stink, but you probably need a shower more than me.”
Hakala wasted no more time and headed toward a hatch. Stathis followed her, now feeling every squishy, unpleasant feeling his suit could manage. With the promise of relief, he could feel the blisters and waste sloshing around in his suit. Maybe he should use a different room to get cleaned up in? It would take a major decontamination effort to clean up after him when he peeled his suit off. He suspected some alarms might be triggered and wondered what the alarm for sewer pipe explosion and flood sounded like.
“I didn’t think we were going to make it,” Hakala said as they walked out of earshot.
“Me, either,” Stathis said. “And not all of us did.”
She paused and turned to look at him. Stathis almost bumped into her.
“You did a good job of convincing us otherwise,” Hakala said.
“Fake it until you make it,” Stathis said. “I’m good at faking it.”
“Really?” Hakala said with a half-smile.
“Except in bed,” Stathis said, backtracking. “I don’t fake it in bed. No need for me to fake it there. You, uh—”
Hakala laughed and resumed walking. Stathis had to move quickly to catch up with her.
“We will discuss that later,” she said without looking at him, “when I do not smell like a sewer main in the hog farms.”
She did, or he did. He wanted to ask Shrek which of them smelled worse, but maybe he didn’t.
“The sooner we can get cleaned up, the sooner we can get to the med lab and get our SCBIs fixed,” Stathis said.
“What if they are not fixable?” Hakala asked somberly.
“They are fixable, dammit,” Stathis said. He didn’t want to think otherwise, and for the first time, he felt angry at Hakala for suggesting that it was even a possibility.
“I hope so,” Hakala said, and he heard the pain there, which made Stathis feel like shit, erasing his anger.
“You’re almost as good as an HKT without your SCBI,” Hakala said.
Stathis didn’t want to call her a liar, so he remained silent.
It took several minutes to get to their quarters, and Stathis almost slammed into the door.
Hakala disappeared into her quarters before Stathis could say anything. Then he remembered the palm reader. He’d never had to use it before and didn’t know if it worked.
He was relieved when it did, and he entered his quarters.
Minutes later, he screwed up the temperature settings and almost burned himself with hot water.
“Damn you, Shrek,” Stathis said out loud to the water, which was now too cold. “You programmed this on purpose.”
He hoped Shrek was laughing.
Please let Shrek be laughing.
* * * * *
Chapter 63: Never Quit
Lieutenant Aod McCarthy, Wolf Legion
McCarthy was tired, physically and mentally. The cyborg attack had been devastating, and when they’d breached the blast doors, it had shattered the warbots nearby, preparing to defend it. It probably hadn’t been a small nuke, but the only reason he was sure of that was because there was no radiation.
Attacks in other areas hadn’t made it near the blast doors—the drop-down turrets had stopped them—but the cyborgs were something different. Their assault down the tunnel had been methodical, unstoppable, and effective.
Several cyborgs had made it into Skögul, and Quinn’s team was hunting them down.
“That was damned close, sir,” Moore said.
“Too close,” McCarthy said.
“The other vanhat were decoys,” Moore said. “You think they’ll try again?”
“What does your SCBI tell you?” McCarthy asked. Enigma was sure they weren’t done, and McCarthy regretted making himself a target. The defenders of Skögul had done well, but not as well as he’d hoped. Had the enemy been SOG, they’d have been decimated. The defenses had never been designed to stop vanhat, though he would’ve thought they’d have done better.
“Saoirse says yes,” Moore said.
“Enigma says they don’t know the meaning of quit,” McCarthy said.
“Neither does the Legion,” Moore said. “We’ll have to teach it to them, but it’ll be costly. I’m going to enjoy that.”
“We need to get some of those pop-down turrets fixed,” McCarthy said. “Get some drones out, make sure they don’t make another push.”
“Wilco,” Moore said. “Saoirse says the turrets are scrap and will need to be completely replaced. The manufactories are going to overheat.”
“We’re going to run out of raw materials, too,” McCarthy said, guessing.
“That, too.”
“I’d hate to be a SCBI,” Moore said, and McCarthy looked over at him to see if he was going loopy. “They never sleep. Can you imagine? Never sleeping, always working, never getting laid, getting a good pint, or—”
“No,” McCarthy said.
“Sending off drones,” Walsh said. He was the squad drone operator, and as he watched the two drones zip through the shattered doors, McCarthy relaxed slightly when nothing shot them down. He got a link for them so he could see their screens, but he trusted Walsh to let him know if there were problems.
“Wilson isn’t going to be running for a while,” Moore said, and McCarthy looked over to see Johnston working on Wilson’s leg. As Moore’s machine gunner, he hadn’t given up his SAW and had kept it trained on the hatch. A shard of metal had sliced through his leg, something the cyborgs had thrown at them.
“That slacker better be a fast crawler!” Moore yelled out loud enough so Walsh could hear. “Do you need to pass off your SAW to Brou?”
“I can limp fast,” Walsh said. “Brou isn’t nearly as good with a SAW as I am. You can’t do that to me, Sergeant. Brou will break Bertha.”
“You can’t stand to have my hands on your little girlfriend,” Brou said.
“Shut up, you gobshite,” Walsh said. “Last time you shot her, she jammed.”
“You didn’t clean the bitch and—”
“Don’t call my Bertha a bitch!”
“Shut it, you numpties,” Moore said.
“Status on the major?” McCarthy asked before the conversation could devolve further.
“That jaeger met up with them, and according to the drones, they made it back,” Moore said. “They’re getting cleaned up and then will head to the med lab to see about their SCBIs.”
That was a relief. One more shit sandwich he didn’t have to deal with.
“What do we do if their SCBIs are permanently offline?” Moore asked. “Our SCBIs are overworked as it is.”
“We adapt and overcome,” McCarthy said. “What we always do, as ODTs and as legionnaires?”
“Never quit,” Moore said, the old ODT motto.
“Never quit,” McCarthy said.
* * * * *
Chapter 64: Med Lab
Major Zale Stathis, USMC
Stathis couldn’t clean up fast enough, and then he encountered another problem. He couldn’t put his battle dress back on. It needed a very serious cleaning, and there was only so much Stathis could do. Also, his blisters were open wounds, and putting his armor back on would be like rolling around in broken glass, but every minute he waited was a minute that Shrek waited in darkness.
He needed a new dose of repair nanites. They should’ve healed by now and never gotten that bad to begin with. There was no way he was going to put on his armor. Looking in the closet, he saw that the previous owner had clothes that hadn’t been removed. He looked like a big guy, and Stathis didn’t recognize the rank on the uniform. Amirali? Or as a Marine would call it, an admiral? Putting it on, he felt like he was wearing a tent. It felt like stolen valor to wear another man’s uniform, especially when it was a higher rank and a different branch of a different military.
Bigger clothes might be ideal, with all the blisters around his body, a small blessing, Stathis supposed. The uniform was light blue with gold highlights. Stathis thought it didn’t look very manly to be wearing that color of light blue. Hakala looked good in it. Would she read him the riot act for putting on an admiral’s uniform? It wasn’t like he had any other choice.
There was a manual communication link on the desk, but he didn’t know if it even worked, or who would answer. The Valhöll computer systems might not even be online.
Stathis swore. He was stalling, afraid to find out that Shrek couldn’t be brought back. Until he found out for sure, he could believe Shrek was alive.
Knocking on his hatch preempted him, and he knew there’d be no more stalling.
Answering the door, he saw that Hakala stood there. She looked good in the uniform, more natural. She must have found one that was appropriate.
She smiled when she saw him, and he noticed a bloodstain on her hip where the sidearm holster must have rubbed her raw. She was carrying her sidearm but wasn’t wearing it properly. Not that Stathis would dare correct her on it, but he was sure she was trying to give the blister on her hip a break. Maybe it was bleeding because she’d tried to do things properly?
“You look beautiful,” Stathis said.
“You are a liar,” Hakala said. “I appreciate the effort, though. You ready?”
“Yes,” Stathis said, taking a deep breath, realizing he probably wouldn’t have been able to find the med lab without her. Valhöll was a big place.
