The Drift Wars (7 page)

“I
expect that you’re right,” he said dismissively, easing Amber
from the seat. “Let’s get you home,” he said. She nodded,
giving him her bravest smile.

—   —   —

As
much as he had admired it through the window, Peter was petrified
the first time he faced black space through an open door. His
platoon had shuttled out to the middle of nowhere for its first
space walk, and while the other men had filed out in an orderly
manner, Peter couldn’t even rise from his seat. His hand clamped
so tight that the bench was molded to his glove.

Mickelson
insulted him for a few minutes, then fell silent, standing by the
open hatchway—the door to nothing. Peter worried what came next
and kept his eyes on the floor in the hope that Mickelson would just
give up on him. But the sergeant walked over. Even without air, and
therefore no sound, Peter felt the weight of each approaching step.

“There’s
no going back,” Mickelson said, his voice surprisingly soft. “You
do realize that, don’t you? You enlisted for two years. You will
serve, and I will find some use for you. If you won’t jump out of
ships or shoot at Riels, I’ll toss you out just to draw the fire
away from those who will. A big guy like you will make a fine
decoy.”

Mickelson
tapped his foot. Peter watched the floor.

“But
you know what?” he continued. “I’d rather have a marine. I’d
rather see you go leaping out of that hole shooting, killing as many
of those sons of bitches as you can. Doesn’t that sound better? To
get out there and fight, instead of just floating around getting
shot at?”

Peter
remained frozen. In spite of Mickelson’s reassuring tone, dread
filled his stomach, thick and cold.

“Doesn’t
it?” Mickelson prodded.

“Yes,
sir.”

“Then
I’ll tell you what I’m gonna do for you. I’m gonna toss you
out that hatch and we’ll just see what happens.”

Peter
objected, but his suit moved on its own—Mickelson had taken
control of it by remote. Peter’s own muscles were no match for the
artificial ones. The suit slowly stood up as he flailed inside.
Mickelson hefted him onto his shoulder and walked to the hatch.

“You
might hate me for this,” he said, “but I hope not. You seem
smart enough to see that this is for your own good.” Mickelson
might have said more, but Peter couldn’t hear over his own
screaming.

The
sergeant cocked him like a spear and flung him into the dark.

—   —   —

The
Riel didn’t reappear after their initial attack. The United Forces
sent scoutships into the Drift but found no trace of them. Down on
Genesia, power was restored and the videos were flooded with news of
the attack, which had occurred on all planets simultaneously. The
Council of the Livable Territories voted unanimously to declare war
on the Riel, which seemed a little redundant. Two days later the
Marine Corps set up a recruiting table in front of the general
store.

It
was late morning when Peter walked into town. The sun was bright and
the road dusty, and the line to enlist ran down the street. All of
the upperclassmen from school were there, along with every other man
who considered himself fit to serve.

It
wasn’t uncommon for the town and countryside to gather together on
Election Day or for the Harvest Festival, but this was different.
The war had aligned people as never before. Men moved freely along
the line, talking and laughing with anyone whose name they knew. A
new club had formed, and the only criterion was that you were human.
Even Chad McGuffin got some laughs, making lame cracks about “Riel
sandwiches.” And Peter surprised himself by laughing as hard as
anyone. It felt good just to be standing there, to be part of the
excitement.

Two
Marine Corps recruiters worked the table, interviewing one man at a
time. As each man was accepted, the taller recruiter stood and
called out his name, raising a cheer from the crowd. Men hung around
after they had enlisted, not wanting to miss any of it.

As
intoxicating as it was, Peter grew anxious. The word had spread and
spectators were arriving. It wouldn’t be long before the whole
town was there—including Amber.

It
had taken all night to convince her not only that his enlisting was
a moral obligation but also that his salary could buy them a future.
And then he still had to talk her out of coming along. He’d told
her she would find it upsetting, but the truth was, he just didn’t
want her there. He didn’t want the other guys to think he had to
bring his girlfriend along.

Amber
finally consented, and they made plans to meet for lunch afterward.
But it was nearly lunchtime, and the line had barely moved. He knew
Amber would grow impatient and come find him.

The
crowd broke into laughter. Peter looked up as Charlie Davis’s
father—who was also named Charlie—drove his truck right up to
the line, got out, and dragged his son out of place by his ear.
Young Charlie was only fifteen but had sneaked out of the house to
come down anyway. The two argued, the younger stating that only the
recruiters could decide about his age. “You don’t even shave
yet,” the older Charlie snapped.

Peter
self-consciously stroked at the soft fuzz on his own chin.

—   —   —

“We’ve
been using tachyon technology to drive our spaceships for
centuries,” the armorer said, “but never once did we even
consider using it as a weapon. In fact, we thought it was harmless.”

Peter’s
platoon had been in Basic for a month now. The men were comfortable
enough with their combat suits, Mickelson decided, to begin weapons
training. And so they reported to the armorer, a short, thick man
whose only visible hair was a white gull-wing moustache. He wore a
suit but no helmet, and his bald head looked tiny atop the thick
ceramic shell. Behind him a table was covered with a variety of
impulsors, the tachyon-based weaponry that made up the Marine Corps
arsenal.

The
armorer drew his sidearm and dialed it up to its highest setting;
then he pointed it at his bare hand and fired. It made a faint hum,
but did nothing.

“Doesn’t
even tickle,” he said. “But if I do this…”

The
armorer lobbed a baseball-size rock over his audience and shot it in
midair. The rock exploded, spraying through the room. Peter covered
his face as fragments rattled off his suit.

“Quite
a different effect,” the armorer beamed, pleased by the men’s
reaction to his prank. “The pulse waves of the tachyon beam pass
harmlessly through many elements—especially those with low boiling
points, like what’s in our bodies. I can only imagine the Riel’s
surprise when they discovered that we were impervious to their
tachyon-based guns.

“Unfortunately,
the opposite is also true. The Riel are evolved of harsh conditions
and can live comfortably in freezing space, exposed to intense
radiation and microscopic meteorites that travel fast enough to
drill through steel. As a result, their hides are so tough that our
bullets bounce off and our rockets are nothing but an irritation.

“Of
course, it didn’t take long for both sides to figure out the
score. I find it one of this war’s great ironies that the weapons
used by both sides are the very ones each had developed to use
against their own kind.”

—   —   —

Peter
was abandoned in space for almost twenty-four hours, his combat suit
locked as tight as an iron maiden. Mickelson had led the rest of the
platoon through their maneuvers, loaded them into the shuttle, and
left without a word. Peter’s fear had turned to anger, and as time
wore on, to despair.

“How
do you feel, recruit?” Mickelson said over a closed channel. Peter
felt a flood of relief.

“Better,”
he replied.

“Better?”
the sergeant barked.

“Better,
sir.”

“You
get any shut-eye?”

“No,
sir.”

“Right,”
Mickelson said. Peter’s suit relaxed as his artificial muscles
returned to his control. He stretched, his own muscles bruised and
stiff, and looked around. The sky was empty in all directions; he
was completely alone. “Next time you’ll have muscle relaxers,”
the sergeant continued. “I hadn’t figured you’d be out here so
long.”

“Yes,
sir.”

“But
as long as you
are
out here, you might as well learn how to
use your rocket pack. I’m uploading some coordinates to your
computer. Let’s say…seventeen. You get yourself to each of them,
and then I’ll come pick you up. Sound good?”

“Yes,
sir,” Peter said, though nothing he could think of sounded worse.

“I
don’t expect you’ll use more than half your fuel.”

“Yes,
sir,” Peter repeated, and then added, “Sir?”

“Yes?”
Mickelson snapped.

“I
wanted to…to thank you, sir. For helping me.”

“Carry
on, recruit,” Mickelson said gruffly.

—   —   —

Amber
arrived at the town square just before one in the afternoon. The
line to the recruiting table had grown sedate, the men’s
enthusiasm withered by the harsh sun.

She
walked down the line swinging a small paper bag, pausing to chat
with the boys she knew, who obliged her with smiles and jokes. Then
she saw Peter and stopped. For a second, it seemed like she was
going to cry, but her face grew hard. She tossed the bag at him and
walked away.

Peter
started after her, but she ignored him. He wanted to chase her, but
anything he said now would only make it worse. He watched her go and
returned to his place in line.

The
crowd, which had fallen silent, burst into nervous chatter. Someone
picked the paper bag off the ground, dusted it, and handed it to
Peter. Inside were a sandwich and a note, “For my brave soldier.”

—   —   —

“The
general infantry rifle is, as the name implies, an all-purpose
weapon.” The armorer held a gun that, at a glance, could have been
any rifle ever carried by a marine in the history of warfare. The
basic design hadn’t changed because neither had the men who used
them. What had changed, however, was the technology inside. This gun
fired tachyon rays instead of bullets; a two-inch glass lens capped
its barrel.

“Model
R-14,” the armorer continued, “has an effective range of zero to
seven hundred yards. This slider is the scatter control, used to
focus or widen the beam. You want the beam to be six inches wide
when it strikes the target. Pull the slider back to expand it for
close combat, push it out for long range.

“A
standard battery clip slides in here, providing thirty seconds of
power. Click that off in standard quarter-second bursts or hold the
trigger for continuous fire. You sight by eye, using these two marks
on the barrel, or through the video link to your visor. Use the
video when firing around corners, from behind barriers, or over your
back as you flee from the enemy. You won’t have much luck with
that, though,” the armorer chuckled. “The Riel can run a lot
faster than you.”

The
armorer waited for a laugh, then grunted when none came. He swapped
weapons, picking out the largest on the table. It looked like a boxy
missile with a crystal ball jammed onto the tip.

“This
sweet monster is for you heavy-weaponry types. It’s a tachyon
weapon, same as the R-14, but you might as well compare a bear to a
muskrat.

“You
hold it as such,” he said. He balanced it on his shoulders, his
artificial muscles whining from the effort. “This hinge locks to
your shoulder here, stabilizing it. Aim and scatter is controlled
via your suit’s computer. You don’t move the gun itself; its
internal mirror will focus at whatever you target, up to forty
degrees in any direction. Your main job is to just hold the thing
steady. Believe you me, that’s hard enough.”

The
armorer eased the large gun to the floor, then turned it around.

“On
the back you have the recoil modulator, which vents as much energy
behind you as the gun fires out the front. This keeps you from
falling on your ass every time you fire, and that’s just in normal
gravity. Fire this thing in space without the modulator, and it’ll
be the last anyone sees of you.

He
let that sink in, then continued. “As for power, you need far more
than a standard clip’s worth. There’s a plug here for either a
battery belt or a backpack, and the total firing time is limited
only by how much weight you can carry. By the look of this guy,”
he said, nodding at Saul, “we’re talking months.”

This
time, the armorer got his laugh.

“Last
up is this sneaky thing,” he said, picking out a rifle that was
taller than him. “The MX-311d is the very latest in sniper
technology. It has an effective range of up to twenty-two miles,
though I hear tell of men getting twice that. Scatter control is
here, but there isn’t much. Even at its widest setting, the beam
will pass harmlessly through anything closer than five hundred
yards.

“It’s
aimed through this full-face optical scope. There’s a video
option, but at those distances you’d need a feed off someone
closer to the target. This gun takes the same battery clips as the
R-14, but you’ll only get seven shots per.

“And,
as a note to the rest of you, the MX-311d is the most expensive
rifle that the United Forces has ever manufactured. So do us a
favor, gentlemen, and protect your snipers.”

—   —   —

The
rocket pack had seemed straightforward enough when Mickelson
explained it back on the orbital. The main thruster, gas-driven,
moved the operator in whatever direction his head was pointed. To
turn he used the stabilizers at each corner of the pack, which were
small gravity generators that ran off the suit’s batteries. So
Peter understood the concept, but it was only now, stranded in open
space, that he had to put it into practice.

Peter
pulled up the list of coordinates Mickelson had assigned him, and
the first one appeared as a green dot on his visor map. He tried to
compare the map with what he saw outside, but there was nothing
around him to use for reference. The marker was a random point
inside a vast and empty void.