Soldier of Fortune

Back in the Day

Nasa Territory

Treicember 21, 1442 After Landing

The suns were setting in the west when a restless Gideon headed for the edge of the escarpment.

“Who goes there?” Eitan’s voice called softly.

“Quinn, Colonel of the twelfth,” Gideon responded.

“Advance and be recognized. Have a care, sir,” Eitan added as he stepped away from the tree he’d chosen for cover. “That last step is very final.”

Gideon stepped closer, carefully, and peered over the side of the cliff.

It was, indeed, quite a drop.

It was also quite a sight, as the setting suns rendered the valley below into a sea of shadows, with only faint golden flickers from the river catching Tyche’s last rays as she followed her sister, Nemesis, to sleep beneath the horizon.

“It is a beautiful place,” Eitan observed as Gideon retreated to a safer viewing distance. “Temperate, fertile, plenty of room for wind farms, and water from the river.” He indicated the Ares River, running quickly along the base of the cliff. “The keepers haven’t prohibited the zone to human habitation,” he added, “so how is it that none of the Coalition states have settled here?”

“No crystal?” Gideon guessed.

Eitan looked at him. “There is more to Fortune than crystal.”

“Pretty sure there was more to Earth than oil,” Gideon said, then paused, tilted his head. “Do you hear that?”

“Hear . . . ah,” Eitan said as he too heard the telltale thrum of an approaching airship.

Gideon drew out his telescope and quickly found the ’ship, then angled to find its colors, flying high on the crow’s nest. “She’s one of ours,” he said, then searched out the airship’s designation. “The Kodiak.” He handed the telescope to Eitan, then strode back toward the clearing. “Estelle,” he called softly and was rewarded by the sight of a head popping up from a clump of abal shrubs. “Any incoming messages?”

“Not a ping, sir,” she replied, tapping the headset she wore.

“She is a fine ’ship,” Eitan observed, edging closer to the precipice to view the incoming vessel which, because of the depth of the escarpment, appeared to be coming straight at them.

“Careful,” Gideon echoed the lieutenant’s earlier warning.

Eitan lowered the telescope and took a step back before raising the eyepiece again while asking, “Who commands her?”

Gideon searched his memory, found the name. “Captain Pitte,” he said. “John Pitte.”

“You’ve met?” Eitan asked.

“Not in person,” Gideon said. “But the Kodiak provided air cover on one of our ops a few months before you joined us. Pitte was solid, maintained support under heavy ground-to-air fire. Still,” he added, staring at the incoming vessel, “I can’t help but wonder what he’s doing here with his very fine airship.”

“Her cannon are moving into fire position,” Fehr, still looking through the telescope, reported. “Should I call the company to arms?”

“We are not going to fire on one of our own vessels,” Gideon said, though he had to admit that, if one of their own vessels believed enemy forces were lurking in this grove, it’d be a bad day all around. “Radio, hail the Kodiak with my compliments. Let’s say hello.”

“Yes, sir,” Estelle replied, sliding her headphones back in place.

At that point, Nbo jogged into the clearing, her own telescope in hand. “Any reason the Kodiak’s cannon are live?” she asked.

“. . . hailing UCAS Kodiak under Captain Pitte, this is Corpsman Carver, 12th Company, 96th Infantry, please respond . . .” Estelle’s voice drifted through the clearing.

“Technically, we are close to enemy territory,” Eitan pointed out from his position, still studying the Kodiak.

“Technically, so are they,” Gideon said. “Radio? Any response?”

“Nothing, sir,” Estelle replied, holding the headset close. “Repeat, UCAS Kodiak this is Corpsman Carver, Twelfth Company, do you read? Over.” She flipped channels, tried again. “United Colonial Airship—”

“Smogging toxic Earth,” Gideon muttered, joining Estelle. “Give me that,” he gestured at the headset. “Hey, Kodiak,” he began as soon as he had the mic in place, “this is Colonel Gideon Quinn, 12th Company. Do you read? Over.”

Static.

“Repeat, repeat, Captain Pitte . . .”

“They are taking aim,” Eitan said.

“At what?” Nbo asked.

The lieutenant let the telescope drop to his side. “At us.”

Gideon was already calling for the company to take cover when the first shot struck the escarpment, just below where Eitan stood.

Then Eitan was falling and Gideon was rushing to grab him, but the shock wave from the blast knocked him on his ass.

Cursing, he scrambled to his feet and ordered the rest of the company to find cover, then grabbed Estelle’s kit and ran with her as she continued to hail the Kodiak.

All the while, all around them, plasma scored trees and earth.

Smoke stung Gideon’s eyes and filled his lungs. His skin was blackened with soot, and the whine of cannon warred with the crack of exploding trees and the rustle and rumble of wildlife seeking safety.

Gideon spun Estelle away from a charging boar, then pulled the radio from her shoulder even as she coughed out another hail to the Kodiak. “Leave it.”

“But, sir—”

“If Pitte was going to respond, he’d have done it by now,” he yelled. “Run. That’s an order, Corpsman!”

She looked as if she wanted to protest, but whatever she saw in Gideon’s face had her swallowing, nodding, and turning to where Nbo was waving Walsie and Hamish through the conflagration.

As she darted away, Gideon turned and raised his rifle.

It was ridiculous and he knew it, but he still took aim at one of the Kodiak’s cannon, hoping to at least cause the murdering airship some distress.

But before he could pull the trigger, the cannon fired, striking a nearby baobab tree; the concussion of that explosion knocked Gideon several meters before he landed hard.

Rolling onto his back, he lay blinking away ash and smoke and saw the Kodiak soaring overhead, and the dancing pattern of its searchlights were the last thing Gideon saw before the dark rose to drag him under.

Gideon, waking, realized that every part of him hurt.

He took a breath to see if he could and tasted smoke, the tang of blood, and the ozone-heavy stench of crystal plasma.

Through the ringing in his ears, he heard the distant thrum of bees on the swarm, the distinctive creak of an airship’s tie ropes, the harsh rasp of his own breath, and . . . a voice?

Yes, Gideon decided, someone was talking, but he couldn’t understand what they were saying.

A little because of the aforementioned ringing ears, but mostly, he decided, because he was lying on his side facing Corpsman Estelle Carver, also on her side.

Her eyes were open wide, as if in surprise.

He figured she must have been at least a little shocked to find that big-ass splinter of a baobab tree spitting from her chest.

The staring contest, such as it was, might have continued indefinitely, had not the sensation of someone pulling Gideon’s rifle from under him pulled his gaze away from the very young, very dead, radio operator.

“What?” he asked, then coughed. “What?” he asked again, blinking up to find himself on the muzzle end of a rifle.

A rifle held by another young, but in this case very not dead, Air Corps provost tossing Gideon’s sword out of reach.

“What?” he said a third time before, out of sheer stubbornness, rolling to his knees and forcing himself to stand.

“Colonel Quinn you will stand down,” the voice of the prov pierced the remaining fog even as the youth hopped back, rifle to shoulder, Adam’s apple bobbing with nerves.

“It’s okay,” Gideon managed, rocking back on his heels. “It’s okay,” he said again. “I’m standing down. See?” He held his hands out at his sides. “This is me, standing down.”

The prov’s trigger finger relaxed enough that Gideon took the chance to look around, hoping against hope that he’d already seen the worst, with Estelle.

He hadn’t.

The grove was a mass of blackened stumps, through which a score of torch-bearing airmen moved, likely looking for survivors.

The only sign of his own company was Estelle, dead at his feet, and a pair of boots standing suspiciously empty about a dozen meters away.

“Where is Captain Pitte?” Gideon’s voice was rough with more than smoke when he turned back to the provost. “Why did he fire on my company?”

“Given you were caught in the act of treason,” a voice from the shadows replied, “I’d say you are in no position to be asking questions.”

Gideon turned to his left to find General Jessup Rand stepping into the ruined clearing. “Treason?” he echoed.

“What else could explain your presence here?” Rand asked, coming to a halt beside the provost who became, if possible, more tense at the general’s proximity. “You and your company in Nasa, en route to Coalition territory?”

“We are here on your orders,” Gideon said, wishing the hammer currently pounding on the back of his skull would ease off, already. “I mean, on General Satsuke’s orders because you seconded us to Spec Ops.”

“I think I would remember something like that,” Rand said. “Where are these orders?”

“Burned,” Gideon admitted. “Also as ordered.”

“Which is what I would say, were I discovered committing treason.”

“That,” Gideon said, “is a complete load of draco sh—ow!” He swore and ducked as the provost, in a moment of panic, loosed a burst of plasma fire, singeing Gideon’s shoulder before striking one of the last trees standing.

Gideon straightened and glared at the kid who, to give him credit, looked apologetic. Gideon turned his attention back to Rand. “You have absolutely zero—”

“Proof?” This time it was Rand who interrupted, raising Gideon’s field pack—from which he pulled a scarred document cylinder from the map pocket.

By now more airmen, provosts, and—thank the keepers—Corpsmen Freeman and Patel, were emerging from the smoke.

While the gathering crowd watched, Rand slid a roll of onionskin papers from the cylinder. He gestured, and one of the airmen came forward with a torch as the general unrolled one of the pages.

“I’m no engineer,” Rand said, holding the paper before the column of light, “but this looks a great deal like the specs for one of our plasma cannon. And this?” He pulled out a second sheet, “This is a map,” he looked up, “marking the location of several key Colonial weapons depots. Ah, and here are plans for troop movements, mission specs . . . I’d imagine this is worth quite a lot to the Coalition brass.”

“Sir?” Patel’s voice was as hoarse as Gideon’s and just as rife with disbelief.

Freeman just stood, staring, much as Gideon himself while Rand rolled the papers back into the cylinder then turned to Gideon. “It’s a lucky thing the Kodiak intercepted you before you could meet your contact . . . Odile.”

On hearing the code name Gideon had first read in Fort Molina, Gideon felt sure the ground was giving way beneath him, just as it had beneath Lieutenant Fehr. “No,” he said.

“That can’t be right,” Freeman said, drawing Gideon’s attention to find Hamish Costanza had joined Patel and Freeman, making three survivors, so far.

But where was Nbo? Gideon turned, looking for any sign of the sergeant, but all he saw were those empty boots and Estelle’s unblinking gaze.

Which might be why, even as Rand ordered the young provost to take Gideon into custody, Gideon was already moving.

In the end, it took three aeronauts and the application of several shock sticks to get Gideon off the general, but not before Gideon left Rand with several cracked ribs, a bruised spleen, and a broken kneecap that would continue to ache every time the weather was damp.

His only regret, as the Kodiak’s crew hauled him off of the general, was he’d missed his shot at Captain Pitte.