Song of Redemption Read online

  And right then, the paladin seemed to falter. Rev wasn’t sure why, but he knew that the paladin had finally figured out that the infantry on the ground wasn’t the threat. It lifted itself out a little farther from the wall, looking even more like a giant spider, as Rev started to swing back.

  A wonderful green light lit, and without thinking, Rev fired, even if he knew it was probably out of range. But three of the paladin’s leg slipped, jerking the big chunk of armor. Then as it tried to recover, a few more legs slipped. That was enough, and the paladin fell. It crashed to the ground, hitting with a whump and a shower of dirt and dust.

  A moment later, it detonated, not with the little one that the riever had used, but the full-fledged detonation that he’d seen on Preacher Rolls. The blast wave flung Rev into the wall, knocking the breath out of him. Shrapnel pinged around him, scoring his exposed skin. He dropped another few meters and jerked to a stop.

  The wall had absorbed most of his momentum, and still dazed, he slowly swung back out, now only twenty meters above the ground. There wasn’t much left of the riever, but even less of the paladin. He raised his head to look at where it had been hiding, seemingly invisible. He still couldn’t believe that it had been able to cling there. And more than that, why, when Rev had shot it, had it fallen all the way to the ground? The damn things could fly.

  But he wasn’t going to complain. The Centaurs had picked a good spot, perfect for a trap. Because it was obvious now that it was a trap. The riever was the bait, the paladin the deal closer.

  But who was the trap for? The riever had killed the tank, not the paladin. Were they waiting for more tanks? For mech? Or were they possibly waiting for something else, a new threat, like an IBHU Marine?

  He sure didn’t know the answer to that, especially dangling like a pinata, waiting for someone to take the stick to him.

  “Rev, are you OK?” Tomiko shouted from above.

  He looked up and saw her worried face peeking over the boulder.

  “What the hell happened?”

  “I’ll tell you later. But for right now, can you just pull me up?”

  2

  “There’s your fellow android,” Tomiko said.

  Rev rolled his eyes. He didn’t like it when she called him an android even in jest—too close to home. At least she wasn’t calling him a Genesian, though. There were evidently lines that even she wouldn’t cross. He looked over his shoulder from where he was sitting and downing a D-rat Chili Mac. Corporal McAnt, along with some of his team, was coming in, dirty from six days in combat.

  “Hey, Backstop, come on over and get something to eat. Got some Rotted Dicks left,” Rev shouted.

  “I’m not that hungry.”

  Rev rooted around in the box, pulled out a turkey tetrazzini, and tossed it at him. McAnt caught it, checked the label, and shrugged his acceptance. Strap picked up the box and took it to the other Raiders, who started grabbing what they could.

  McAnt held out his IBHU and clinked with Rev’s. It had become second nature to Rev by now, as automatic as a handshake.

  “How was it?” Rev asked. Without comms, things had been sketchy as to what had been going on, and this was McAnt’s first combat with his IBHU.

  “Lost one. Sergeant Aland. No recovery.”

  “Respect for the fallen,” Rev and Tomiko said.

  Then Rev added, “How did you do?”

  McAnt sat down and popped the heat tab on his meal. He waited the required ten seconds, then opened it. He watched the steam rise into the air for a long moment before he finally said, “You’ll have to ask Lieutenant Harisa.”

  “Hey, I’m asking you,” he said, nudging the younger Marine with the toe of his boot.

  “I took out three. The second was too close, though. That’s where Aland bought it, keeping the tin-ass off my butt until I could recharge.”

  Crap. I forgot that this wasn’t just your first combat as an IBHU—this is your first in where you were actively fighting, closing with the enemy.

  Rev sighed and lowered his voice to a whisper, which was more than enough for augmented ears to pick up. “And you’re blaming yourself for Aland, right?”

  McAnt shrugged and took the first bite of his turkey. The corporal used his IBHU hand much better than Rev could, which Rev thought was an odd thing for him to notice at a moment like this. He shook his head and continued.

  “Look, our teams are here as security. Our security. Back—” He’d almost said “Back in the day,” something only a few years ago he’d sworn to himself that he’d never say. “Before our little playthings,” he said, raising Pashu, “If a Raider team took out three Centaurs and enough had survived to still be combat-ready, hell, that would be celebrated.”

  “Yeah, I know.” He pulled another spoonful of turkey out, then twisted it, staring as if the noodles held the secret of the universe.

  “Being a Marine is a dangerous profession. You are going to lose more friends if you survive. That’s all there is to it.”

  McAnt shook his head as if to clear it. “Yeah, you’re right. I know. And we did nail three of the bastards. I was closing in on another when they bugged out. How about you?”

  “Got two on the first day. One more yesterday.”

  “Righteous. Totally righteous.”

  By now, the two teams were mixing as they ate, telling stories of the last six days with varying degrees of truth. It was all part of the bonding process. Rev just sat back and watched, drinking it in. Marines were Marines, and he’d give his life for anyone in uniform, but there was a special bond within the Raiders, a similarity among their augments, if nothing else. The other specialties had it, too—Recon, snipers, combat engineers, tankers, infantry. Mech took it to another level as well. For all he knew, the Combat Support and even the Ninety-nines, the poor bastards, had the same type of thing.

  But Rev had another level, too. Something that as much as Tomiko was his best friend, she didn’t share with him. But McAnt, with his IBHU, and Top Thapa, Mr. Oliva, even Colonel Destafney did. The Brotherhood of Steel. He held out Pashu, twisting her as she seemed to drink in the bright sunlight. Someday, if he managed to stay alive, they’d take her from him, and he didn’t know how he would feel then.

  “Hey, do you feel attached to Pashu?” he asked Punch.

 

  “I mean, do you feel something more about her than, say, an M-49?”

 

  Am I detecting a bit of judgment there?

  Rev decided to leave that line of questioning. He still didn’t know how much Punch might be reporting about him. He was sure it was something, but he knew if he dwelt on it, he’d go paranoid.

  “Earth to Rev.”

  “What?” Rev asked, looking at Tomiko.

  “I said, the skipper’s calling for you.”

  Rev looked around. McAnt was already heading to the captain, along with the two team leaders present. He’d completely missed the captain calling while he was contemplating life. He jumped up and jogged to catch up with McAnt.

  “We got new orders, Skipper?” Lieutenant Harisa asked.

  “In a way, yes, if you accept stand by to stand by as orders,” Captain Omestori said. “We won’t be patrolling. We’re still the reaction force. We’ve got the Navy scanning every square centimeter of this planet, but from all indications, the surviving tin-asses have boogied. Still, you never know when they’ve left something behind.”

  The captain gave Rev a quick look, and Rev could almost hear him say, “Like a tin-ass body.”

  “Any idea how many got away?” Lieutenant Harisa asked.

  “They’re working on that. The buggers are hard to track when they’re flying. Lots of decoys and shielding. But in excess of two-twenty, at least off the planet.”

  Rev looked at him in shock. Two hundred and twenty? There were only supposed to be two hundred on the planet when the Marines landed. Both he and McAnt had taken out three apiece. Then there were the tanks, mech, air, and Navy gunships.

  “Why so many, sir?”

  Intel thinks that they weren’t really in the fight from the beginning. They were resisting, but after you two and PFC Randigold started kicking ass . . . uh, you in the teams, too,” he hurriedly added.

  “Don’t worry about us, sir,” Staff Sergeant Delacrie said. “We may have gotten one, but we know who the triggermen are here.”

  “Well, yeah. I guess. But what I was saying, once you three IBHUs started tallying kills, the fight seemed to go out of them. They were maneuvering in some of their deep-space vessels for a rendezvous with those fleeing the planet.”

  “And the Navy let them?” Lieutenant Harisa asked, sounding surprised.

  It was a good question. While their ships ruled deep and bubble space, they were not as effective in-system, and they tended to avoid the human navies within them.

  “The Navy isn’t saying much to us, but I think they got taken by surprise. I hope we find out more.”

  “You said PFC Randigold kicked ass. Is she OK?” Corporal McAnt asked.

  “You can ask her yourself. She’s being brought in before going back with Fifth Marines. That’s another thing I’m passing. A Sieben tech is coming down to check the three of you out here. Should be landing in about an hour.

  “And for the rest of the teams, I want everyone fed and cleaned up. First and Fourth are inbound and should be here shortly. Fifty percent on alert, then switch over. Capisce?”

  “Aye-aye, sir,” both Delacrie and Harisa said in unison.

  It was only forty minutes later that Rev was hooked up to a portable test unit, Daryll looking intently at the feeds. Daryll Begay hadn’t come alone. A Sieben management-type had accompanied him, and th
e man kept looking around wide-eyed as if expecting a Centaur to jump out of the trees and attack them. Finally, after being tested for well over ten minutes, Daryll nodded and unjacked him.

  “So, is she all in one piece?” Rev asked, slapping Pashu with his right hand.

  “You’re good to go, Rev.”

  Which he knew. Rev had Punch run the diagnostics twice now, and everything was running green. He stood from the folding stool Daryll had brought, swept an arm like a high-dining maître d, and told McAnt, “If you would be seated, monsieur, your tech will be with you with our specials of the day.”

  “Oh, yes, why thank you, good sir. I’m looking forward ever-so-much to this.”

  Daryll rolled his eyes and said, “Just get on the stool, Thesbian.”

  The other Sieben guy looked at the two Marines as if they were crazy. Rev winked at him and said, “It’s just so hard to get a reservation at Che Sieben, and they cost an arm and a leg . . . well, at least an arm!”

  McAnt and Daryll laughed while the other guy shook his head and turned away.

 

  “I wasn’t giving you another humor lesson.”

 

  “Great, I can make crystal laugh.” Still, he felt good about that.

  Rev stood by McAnt as he was jacked when a Buzzard flared in for a landing a hundred meters off. About a dozen Marines deplaned.

  “There she is,” Rev said, while McAnt twisted in the stool to see.

  It was hard to miss her. Her IBHU would be enough, but they’d already heard that her situation was somewhat different than theirs. Ethereal Randigold had been caught in a fire at a local bar. Three Marines and four civilians had been killed, and Randigold had been badly burnt. She would have died, too, had it not been for her augments which protected her head and torso. She lost an arm and a leg in the fire, and the other leg had been so badly damaged that she’d had it taken off to enable her to use two prosthetic legs instead of one.

  She’d actually been IBHU Marine 1 for a short time until Sieben and Navy Prosthetics realized the extent of her injuries and the time she would need to recover. That was when they had switched to Rev as the official IBHU 1.

  She spotted them and started jogging over, followed by her team. All hands stopped what they were doing to watch her.

  “And they call us androids?” McAnt muttered as Randigold lumbered up.

  Rev wouldn’t know where to start in describing her. Both legs were prostheses, but they were purely mechanical without any attempt to look like an organic leg, something that was obvious as she was in shorts and not any type of uniform legs. Half of her face was a twist of scar tissue, and part of the rest was covered like Colonel Destafney’s Phantom of the Opera mask. Two vividly blue eyes bore into first Rev, then McAnt, and bright red hair, cut short, grew out of the small, undamaged section of her head.

  As she ran up, Rev raised his arm for the Steel Greeting, but instead of a light tap, she gave him a hard shot that sent him back a step.

  “Hey, Ether! What did I tell you about that?” Daryll said. “Easy with that thing. You break it, and you’re not getting another!”

  “I love you, too, Daryll,” she said to him, then turned to the others. “PFC Ethereal Randigold, and I am so damn happy to finally meet you.”

  3

  Much to the Marines’ welcome surprise, they’d stayed on Mistake for only another two weeks, running patrols in response to anomalies from the Navy eyes in the sky. All of them proved to be negative. The Centaurs had truly bugged out.

  The evening after their return to Safe Harbor, Rev headed out to the VGW to check in with Mr. Oliva. The old man played it down, but Rev could see he appreciated the attention and the opportunity to tell his war stories. But Rev’s visits weren’t altruistic. He found he enjoyed the old man’s company, stories and all.

  “Hey, Sergeant,” Maude said as he stepped into the dark bar. “How’s it hanging?”

  “Same old, same old, you know.”

  “Yeah, I guess I do know at that,” she said with a gruff laugh.

  Maude Timmerkin looked like she could have been running a criminal gang, hard as nails and salty as seawater. Rev had been surprised, though, to find out she was a retired sailor, a captain, no less. She’d commanded three ships in her career, and now she was tending bar at the VGW. He’d asked her about that once, and she told him she’d rather hang out here with “her tribe,” as she put it, instead of at her retirement home.

  “You just get off the ship?”

  Marines were not supposed to talk about their comings and goings with civilians, but of course, Maude had her ear to the ground, and she was hardly a Children of Angels agent. Rev nodded, then she brought out a glass and poured a Pyron Rum, a traditional welcome home drink for the Navy.

  Rev wasn’t a huge fan, but some things can’t be refused, and he downed it in one swallow, feeling the liquid gold roll down his throat. And it felt good. Maybe he was getting used to it. He started to wave his chip over the reader to pay, but she pushed his hand away.

  “You insult me, Sergeant. You think I’m going to let you pay?”

  Rev sheepishly nodded, then looked to the back, but his friend wasn’t there. “Where’s Mr. Oliva? I can’t believe he’d miss an evening at the canteen.”

  Maude’s eyes clouded over, and she said, “Yeah, I guess you wouldn’t have heard. Some young punks roughed him up two nights ago. He’s in the hospital.”

  Anger surged through him. “What? Which hospital? I need to go see him.”

  “No visitors for a couple of days. They won’t let you in.”

  Rev’s mind was whirling. Who’d jump an old vet? He was no threat.

  “What happened? Why did they do it?”

  “Who the hell knows? They were outside when he left, a few sheets to the wind. You know him. Maybe they gave him some shit, and he gave it back. You know Regis, right? He saw the same kids when he left a few minutes earlier, and they didn’t bother him.”

  Mr. Oliva could be a smart-ass Rev admitted. But to get jumped for that? He could feel his blood boil.

  “And you’re sure I can’t go see him?”

  “I’m sure. A couple of the cooties tried to see him today and were told no. Not until Friday at the earliest.”

  The Military Order of the Cootie was an ancient organization out of the Veterans of Galactic Wars, going all the way back to old Earth. It was somewhat secretive and had lots of rituals, but Rev knew that they spent a lot of time visiting infirmed or hospitalized veterans.

  Maude poured him a beer and put it on the bar. “Sit down and cool off. It sucks, but there’s not much you can do about it now. Oliva’s a tough egg. He’ll be back soon enough, ornery as ever.”

  Rev wanted to go try and see if he could get in to see the old man, but he knew she was right. He pulled up a stool and drained the beer. More than a few. He spent the next hour with Maude and a couple of the guys before he decided to head back to the base. He’d come back on Friday and get an update.

  Rev paid his bill and stepped out the door once again, wishing his augments could neutralize the effects of alcohol. He took out his quantphone and called up an autocab, then started to walk to the corner.

  “Told you there’d be another one,” a voice said from across the street.

  Rev looked up where four men in their thirties or forties started across the street to him. “Excuse me?”

  “Fucking Genny,” the lead man said, using the common slang for the Genesians.

  Rev didn’t need his augments to know these guys were trouble, and it had to be them, not young kids, who’d assaulted Mr. Oliva. It was a pat coincidence, but that didn’t mean it couldn’t be true. He could feel the adrenaline start to flow, competing with the alcohol for dominance.

  The four spread out, making a diamond around him. Rev widened his feet slightly, weight on the balls of his feet. Flashes of lectures they’d gotten when first augmented zipped through his mind. An augmented Marine was never to use their advantages against citizens. But if these were the guys who’d jumped Mr. Oliva, then he wasn’t going to pay attention to that restriction. But he wasn’t drunk enough not to realize that he couldn’t just act on his suspicion. He had to confirm these were the same guys.