Indomitable (12 page)

She fell several thousand meters more, knifed into a dense cloud formation. “Twelve thousand meters, ma'am.”

“Acknowledged. Run another diagnostic.”

“Aye, aye, ma'am. Running … stand by.”

Promise fell and fell and fell.

She ticked off the seconds until dark-blue ocean reappeared beneath her thousands of meters below. In the distance and to the left was Mount Bane. Even at this height, Promise could distinguish the thick green canopy that ringed the base of the mountain as well as its snowcapped peak high above. Two small patches of Republican gray floated on the horizon.

As if reading her thoughts, Bond volunteered the class and tonnage of each vessel. “Choong Mo–class destroyers, RNV
Yi Lee
and
Yu Lee.
Each displaces seven thousand two hundred tons.”

It took Promise a moment to remember what the “V” in RNV stood for. Wet Navy. Republican Naval Vessel. She'd never been aboard one before.

“Designate them neutrals, Zulu One and Two. I don't expect them to participate in today's exercise. All the same, monitor their position and alert me if it changes.”

“Aye, aye, ma'am.”

Her mechsuit's AI, Mr. Bond, was a Class-2 Semi-Autonomous Reasoning Grunt, or SARG for short. Bond spoke proper twentieth-century European English because Promise had told it to. Bond also liked to make a fuss about her. She'd first heard the voice in 2D action-and-adventure vids, dating back to Earth (pre-Diaspora). They starred a male spook who worked for a long-deceased organization called MI5.
Or was it MI6?
She couldn't remember which. Promise had immediately fallen for Bond's voice and uploaded his speech patterns to her AI's personality matrix. Bond could read the field manual for the Marine Corps, 3rd Evolution, Extended-Range Pulse Rifle and make it sound almost sensual.

Promise's eyes flicked up to her altimeter reading.
Too fast.
She flared her arms and legs, and raised her head in a classic box-man position. The ailerons along her armor—back, forearms, and legs—bit into the wind to stabilize her fall. Promise raised her right arm, banked right until the diamond-shaped waypoint projected on her HUD was once more centered within her field of view. She fell below eighty-six hundred meters.

“Diagnostic complete. All systems nominal.”

“Confirm weapons systems are in games mode.”

“Games mode confirmed. Governors are green. Your beam strength is set to point-zero-niner of standard.” That was considered flash strength. Not enough to hurt armor at any distance.

“What's the status of my bubble?”

“Intact—no detectable rifts. Radiation bleed is less than one one-thousandth of one percent, well below detection level.”

“Run the diagnostic again and—”

“Your cortisol levels are still elevated,” Bond said. “Would the lieutenant care for something relaxing now?”

Most of the time, Bond referred to her as “ma'am.” Lately Promise had noticed its preference for her rank and the third person when it tried to handle her.

“No, thank you. The lieutenant is fine. Just run another diagnostic.”

She passed six thousand meters.

“Running …
third
diagnostic in progress.” Bond sounded put out. As if it were saying,
I do know how to do this after all. It's part of my programming.
Instead of saying that, it simply replied, “Stand by.”

“I didn't ask you to keep count.”

“I am programmed to record minutiae, such as how many diagnostics I've run on the lieutenant's systems, ma'am.”

“Well, stop it.”

Bond fell silent. When it didn't report about completing the third diagnostic, Promise sighed. “And?”

“And what, ma'am?”

“The diagnostic.”

“Yes, ma'am, I ran it. In fact, I ran three. You ordered me to stop reporting the results.”

“I told you to stop counting.”

“Exactly.”

“Fine, please report your findings.”

“I found the same results as before, ma'am. Nothing. Shall I run a fourth and find nothing again, or play something relaxing?”

This is ridiculous.

“Fine. Play something appropriate to the situation. Um … anything by Heroes of Mass Destruction will do.”

“HMD will do?” Promise's AI nearly choked on its programming.

“Dutifully.”

“Fine, ma'am. My aim was to help you relax. Perhaps the lieutenant would—”

“I
am
relaxed.”

She fell below five thousand meters to the first verse of “Hammer Drops Final.” A dozen bands had covered the cult classic since the twenty-second century. The most recent iteration included a postapocalyptic dedication:

In Memoriam of Earth—The Latest Living World to Bite the Cosmic Dust

A rolling drumbeat set to distant explosions swelled in Promise's mastoid implant. Then the explosions stopped and a single-word mantra barely louder than a pitched whisper began:

“Hammer, hammer, hammer falls, hammer drops final.

Hammer, hammer, hammer culls, hammer drops final.

Whoa-ho, the hammer falls, hammer drops final.

Hell-o, the hammer falls, hammer drops final.”

“Ooh-rah!, ma'am. That was inspiring.”

“Shut up.” Promise shook her head, had to quickly flutter her hands to adjust her fall. It took a moment for her to realize her ailerons hadn't automatically kicked in. That was part of Bond's job. “You're being passive-aggressive.”

“I wouldn't know what the lieutenant means?”

“Very funny.”

“Passing three thousand meters,” her AI said.

Promise smiled. “Ready gravchute. On my mark.” Promise knew that the moment her chute opened her bubble would immediately burst, and she'd be vulnerable to enemy fire. That's why her stealth suite would kick in at exactly the same moment. Stealth wasn't perfect, and it certainly wasn't as good as her mechsuit's cloak, but the cloak wasn't authorized for this op and stealth was more than sufficient for the task at hand.

“Aye, aye, ma'am, gravchute and stealth standing by. Awaiting mark.”

Promise passed twenty-five hundred meters. Then her bubble burst without warning and several Marines broke comm silence. Panic flooded the battlenet.

“What just happened?”
asked a male voice.

“'Ell if I know,”
replied a female.
“I've just—wait—oh 'ell, three o'clock, oh 'ell no, oh 'ell, I'm locked up, repeat I'm locked up—incoming! All points scatter, repeat all points…”

The voice dropped out of the net. An icon on Promise's HUD changed from green to red. Platoon Sergeant Hema Lu, KIA.

“One-Alpha to all points, cut the chatter. Report through your platoon sergeants and—”

“Que demonios?”
There was no mistaking that voice. Private First Class Cervantes was speaking her native tongue again, words that made as much sense to Promise's untrained ears as “blankety-blankety-blank-blank.” Then Cervantes dropped out of the net and her icon turned red too, before it disappeared.

That's not right. We're being jammed.

Promise barked over the battlenet, “One-Alpha to ALCON, dive and crash. Repeat, dive and crash. Deploy gravchutes at minimum ceiling. Repeat, deploy chutes at Mike Charlie, over.”

“I'm hit,”
replied another female.
“My HUD just died. I—”

A Marine zoomed by Promise and sent her cartwheeling through loosely spun cotton. She lost all sense of down as the sea and sky blurred together. And either the horizon was punch-drunk or her gyroscope had malfunctioned. Her mechsuit should have righted her and hadn't. Then a bolt of panic hit her gut because her AI should have warned her about the near-collision, and it hadn't.
I'm dropping blind.

Promise clenched her teeth to keep from biting her tongue. “Bond, my scanners are down. Get them working, now!” She found Mount Bane staring at her upside down, and locked on to it with her eyes as if her life depended upon it. Left, right, over, and down. A half mike later she more or less had her bearings and a throbbing headache.

Another Marine tumbled past her.
I think that was Chang.
Two more streaked into view, arms and legs spread-eagled. Promise winced as three Marines collided and their weapons went flying. The sky was raining boots. Mount Bane was living up to its name.

“Ma'am, I can now confirm you're jammed,” Bond offered. “I can't do any more from this elevation. You need to get down, now.”

 

Fifteen

APRIL 24
TH
, 92 A.E., STANDARD CALENDAR, 0544 HOURS

REPUBLIC OF ALIGNED WORLDS PLANETARY CAPITAL—HOLD

PUGILIST SEA, CORREGIDOR ISLAND WARFARE TRAINING CENTER

HALO DROP

“I'm locked up,”
said
a frightened male voice over the battlenet. Possibly Kartoom's.
“Flight of birds headed down my throat. Diving, diving, diving—”

Promise's HUD should have thrown a ring around Kartoom and displayed a window of data on her HUD. Name, rank, proximity, health. That sort of thing. Instead her HUD looked like snow, so she shut it off. Now she was leaning on visuals alone. Maybe that was Kartoom diving to her right and maybe it wasn't. Either way she approved of the last-ditch maneuver, was pleased to see the boot thinking with his head. Promise breathed a sigh of relief. He was going to make it. Once she reached terra firma she wouldn't be alone. If she could pull a couple of toons together perhaps there was a chance of completing the operation. But she knew the odds of that happening were about nil.

“They got me. My HUD just blacked out.”
Definitely Kartoom, and he sounded nearly apoplectic.
“I can't raise my visor. Can't see anything. I'm—”
Kartoom's voice fell out of the battlenet.

“Kartoom, calm down,” Promise said over the company-wide channel. “It's just a sim. Your chute
will
deploy.” Because this was a training simulation, Promise knew Kartoom could hear her even if he couldn't respond. She imagined how he felt at the moment, falling through sky in complete darkness. Suddenly her HUD cycled and a claxon sounded in her head. There was no time to worry over Kartoom, because a ground-based launch had just locked her up.

“We've dropped below their jammers, ma'am. But you're target-locked. Impact in seventeen, sixteen…”

“Fire decoys on my mark. Hold the chute.” She tucked into a ball to minimize her signature. Two simulated birds blipped on her HUD and closed the range. When they were almost on top of her, Promise flared her arms and legs to kill her speed. On three she yelled, “Mark!” Her HUD turned white as the missiles detonated below. Another claxon went off. She was way past minimum ceiling.

“Deploy chute, maximum gravity and thrusters, now. Now,
now
, NOW!”

Her gravchute blossomed overhead and unfurled to either side. Maximum gravity soaked up her velocity as her chute went taut. Her vision grayed out. Promise had never deployed her chute at such an extreme speed, or at such a frighteningly low ceiling, even with a grav assist. The experience nearly ripped out her soul. Life stalled out. The sea rolled gently beneath her in a light breeze.

“Assault configuration,” Promise heard her AI say because she couldn't make her brain make her mouth form the words. Current shot through her gravchute and turned it into a fixed wing, which was capable of moderate subsonic speeds. Her mechboots sculled the water and for a moment she thought she was going in. At the last possible moment she leveled out and started gaining altitude. Her comm barked to life.

“… do you read, over?”
The voice broke in midsentence, strained and hoarse.
“Two-Alpha to One-Alpha, do you read, over?”

Kathy,
Promise thought. Her guardian had made it. Thick words formed on Promise's tongue. “One-Alpha … reads you … loud and clear, over.”

“Copy that, One-Alpha. I'm on your six, will overtake, over.”

“Negative, Two-Alpha, maintain position, stay on me, over,” Promise said as her head cleared.

“Roger that, One-Alpha, maintaining position, over.”

Promise queued Victor Company's roster as she flew. Thirty-four red icons burned angrily on her heads-up-display, all KIAs. An additional three boots glowed yellow, MIA. Promise saw Lance Corporal Kathy Prichart out of the corner of her HUD. Prichart's ellipse-shaped gravwing was knifing through the wind. A moment later, a nine-o'clock shadow drew Promise's head around. Staff Sergeant Gail Go-Mi's winged profile was a sight for sore eyes. The staff sergeant nodded as she took the lead position, reached over her shoulder, and drew her pulse rifle, bringing it to bear.

“All points, report.”

“This is Two-Alpha, over.”

That's Kathy,
Promise thought.
One.

“One-Charlie reporting, over.”

That's Staff Sergeant Go-Mi. That's two.

As the seconds ticked by Promise's heart sank into the sea.

I make three. Three left out of forty. What a disaster.
She watched the sea undulate below, the rises and crests of an indeterminate force of nature that had just swallowed her command. Thirty-seven boots in the drink. Of course, her Marines weren't really dead. They were simulated casualties, sitting in seventy meters of water, butt-prints in the sand. When the exercise ended the powers that be would thaw their suits and send the retrieval boats to bring them home. Cervantes's face appeared in her mind's eye, mouth spewing bilingual curses while fish nipped at her faceplate. Promise couldn't help smiling. Her next thought wiped the humor from her face. This op was eerily reminiscent of Montana. Being ambushed, losing most of her Marines, and facing another no-win situation.
Except this time everyone lives to fight another day.