The Drift Wars (8 page)

Peter
rotated himself back and forth with his stabilizers, getting his aim
just right, then fired his rocket. The green dot shot past his
shoulder and disappeared behind him. He spun around and fired the
rocket again, but his angle was wrong and, between that and his
existing momentum, he curved off in a whole new direction. Peter
panicked, flipped himself over, and tapped his thruster again. But
he was only making it worse. The green dot had started thirty yards
away and was now over a thousand yards back.

“In
space,” Mickelson had told them, “even the slightest bit of
thrust will propel you indefinitely.” The only cure was to use to
point yourself in the exact opposite direction and then burn the
exact right amount of fuel to counter your momentum. “You’ll
never figure it out yourself,” the sergeant had said, “so don’t
even try.”

Peter
queried his suit’s computer and was rewarded with two lines—a
red one that indicated the direction he was moving and a white one
that indicated which way he was facing. He rotated himself until the
two lines were parallel and tapped his thruster. The red line
shortened as he slowed. He tapped it two more times, coming to a
standstill.

It
took some fiddling, but Peter got the computer to draw a line
between himself and the green dot. He rotated himself until his
white line overlapped the other—both up and down, and left and
right—then hit the thruster.

“Bull’s-eye,”
he called as he shot through the marker, but the computer didn’t
agree. Apparently he had to not only reach his target but also hold
the position for a full five seconds. Deflated, Peter stopped
himself and again lined up with the dot. This time he flipped around
as soon as he started to move, ready to fire a counter-thrust when
he reached the marker.

He
was too slow on that try and used too much thrust on the next. He
pressed on, his frustration mounting, while the green dot slipped
around as if greased. Finally, he lost his temper. He swung his
fists in the air, cursing Mickelson, the marines, and the empty
space around him. But his tantrum didn’t get him any closer to his
target, so he gathered his strength and started again. All said, it
took five hours before he logged the first marker.

The
next marker came no faster; his teeth ached from clenching his jaw.
But Peter grew more adept, aiming with no more than a glance at his
compass. By the end he whizzed from point to point, nailing each of
the last three markers on his first try.

His
elation was short-lived. His low-fuel indicator blinked; his tank
was nearly empty. Mickelson expected him to use only half of his
gas, and Peter worried that he might be forced to do it all over
again. But he had nothing to fear.

The
moment he radioed in, light blasted him in the face. A white line
cut through the dark, expanded up to a full doorway, which was
suspended in empty space. Mickelson stood a foot in front of him,
amused.

“Gotcha,
huh?” he asked. “Good old active camo.” He grabbed Peter’s
air tank and hauled him aboard, where the rest of platoon was
waiting. “You’re head of the class now, Garvey,” he continued.
“These bums haven’t done a thing this whole time but get drunk
and watch you.”

Saul
stumbled forward with a beer can. “Stick this in your feeder
tube,” he said. To Saul there wasn’t a problem in the universe
that a few beers couldn’t solve.

—   —   —

“I
don’t understand why it has to be now,” Amber said. She was
trying to be angry, but her voice was tinged with melancholy.

“There’s
a war on,” Peter replied.

“I
know that,” she snapped.

They
hadn’t seen each other since yesterday, when Peter was enlisting.
It was morning now, and they sat on her porch steps, he in the
middle and she at the far end. Peter just found out he was leaving
tomorrow.

Amber
wouldn’t come to the door last evening, and sleepless, Peter had
looked in on her house several times through the night. Her bedroom
light was always on, her curtains drawn. In the early hours, he
chucked a stone at her window, like when they were kids. The
curtains moved—he was certain that she peeked out—but they
remained closed. Her light was still on at dawn, so Peter knocked on
the front door and persuaded her father to send her down.

It
was another half hour before she appeared. She was clean and fresh,
wearing a dress that hung no lower than a T-shirt and that was thin
to the point of translucency. No doubt she wore it to frustrate him.

I’m
doing this for us
, Peter thought.
So why am I the bad guy?

They
sat quietly on her porch for almost an hour. He couldn’t think
what to say and was terrified of saying the wrong thing. This was
his last day on Genesia; he wouldn’t get another chance.

“Come
with me,” he said, standing. “I want to show you something.”

“What?”
Amber asked, but Peter only motioned her to him. She stood
reluctantly and followed him down the steps.

He
turned down the sidewalk, and Amber fell in step beside him. They
walked past the small, well-tended houses of the neighborhood, then
turned in to the fields, which were deep with shadows from the low
morning sun. Twenty minutes later they reached a thin row of trees
that had been planted as a windbreak. Peter motioned to a trail that
ran through them, offering up his arm. Amber frowned, but laced her
arm through his.

The
dirt path meandered, pushed this way and that by tree roots and
small shrubs. A mile from the road, it ended at a muddy creek bed
that was too wide to hop and too filthy to cross.

Peter
walked back and forth, searching for a bridge that he remembered
from some years back. He saw no sign of it.

“Is
this what you wanted to show me?” Amber asked, forcing irritation
into her voice.

Peter
spun and grabbed her, kissing hard. She responded with anger,
hitting his shoulders and chewing his lips, but then she wavered,
grew still. He held her for as long as he dared and then released.

She
looked struck.

“I
wanted to show you that I love you,” he said.

“What?”
Amber asked, laughing with disbelief.

“I
wanted to show you that I love you,” he repeated firmly.

“Oh,
Peter,” she said. “That’s so…stupid.”

“I
know,” he said. “But I do love you, Amber. I want to marry you.
And with the money from the marines, we can live…” Peter trailed
off, losing momentum.

“Happily
ever after?” Amber asked, dubious.

He
nodded.

“I
love you too,” she said. “And I do want to marry you, but I…
You’re leaving, Peter. Going so far away that I can’t even
imagine it. Do you even know when you’ll be back?”

“After
Basic Training, we get leave every six months,” Peter said.

“Six
months?”

“It’ll
go fast. Everything is going to be fine.”

“No,
it’s not. You’re leaving tomorrow, and we’ve already wasted
too much time. Come here.” Amber grabbed his hand and tugged him
toward a patch of fresh young grass.

“Why?”
Peter asked.

“Because
I want to show you something.”

—   —   —

“If
you attempt hand-to-hand combat with this creature,” Mickelson
said, “you will not live long enough to see yourself die.”

He
stood beside a projection of a Gyrine, the smaller of the two
species of Riel—smaller being a relative term, since despite its
hunched look, the creature was nearly twice as tall as the sergeant
and several times wider.

It
was a lumpy, lopsided beast, as if the work of some half-mad
Frankenstein. Its left arm was shorter than the right, jointed in
two places, and ended in something between a hand and an octopus’s
tentacle. The right arm was jointed in three places, and tapered to
a bony spike. The rest was all chest and torso, which grew wide at
the bottom and split into stumpy, jointless legs.

Its
skin was coal black with tufts of gray hair spread about at random.
Its face was pinched, its eyes squinty, and in spite of the
carnivorous bulldog fangs, its mouth was webbed with a gelatinous
membrane. It was commonly held that the Gyrine had evolved
underwater, though, given their love of the cold, the water was more
likely liquid helium.

“You
can bend a knife on this thing’s skin,” Mickelson continued.
“And you might as well punch a rock. I’m told its blood is some
sort of liquid iron, whatever that means. The damn thing weighs more
than a marble statue, but it’s fast. Don’t be fooled by those
little legs—this thing can haul. And its reaction time is off the
charts. He’ll plant that spike of his in your face before you even
know he’s there.”

The
projection changed to another Gyrine. This one had three-quarters of
its body replaced with robotics.

“God
made the Gyrine a natural killing machine, but these bastards
weren’t satisfied. Most have some form of cybernetic enhancement.
The most common mod is to replace the lower body, to make up for
their small legs, but a close second is a split down the middle,
head to toe. And they love to replace at least one hand with some
sort of weapon.”

Various
Gyrine cyborgs flashed by, each more terrible than the last. The
projection ended back at the original, unenhanced one.

“The
rule seems to be that the fewer robotics, the higher the rank. That
makes this one here your most valuable target.” Mickelson studied
the Gyrine. “Probably a colonel, or even a general. We don’t
know if they choose their officers at birth, sons of generals and
whatnot, or if the restoration of limbs comes with each promotion.

“Hell,”
he said, “for all we know, they just grow new bodies by the vat.
They’re certainly eager to mutilate the ones they’re born with.”

—   —   —

The
ship slapped against the planet’s upper atmosphere and skipped
along the surface. The cabin rattled and creaked as if being torn
apart, and every bounce threw Peter’s guts twice as far as the
rest of him. He pressed his back to the seat, trying to ignore the
tempest in his stomach.

“Cripes,
Garvey,” Mickelson said, strolling up. “You’re white as your
own ghost. You gonna make it, recruit?”

Peter
tried to reply but couldn’t unclench his jaw.

“Anyone
in there?” Mickelson asked, tapping a finger on Peter’s visor.
Peter bent forward and threw up, flooding his helmet with khaki
vomit.

“Son
of a…” Mickelson said, hopping away instinctively. He yanked the
emergency release—disconnecting the marines from their seats—and
threw Peter to the floor. He raised Peter by his legs, upside down,
so that the vomit pooled at the top of his helmet. It puddled over
his eyes, but his mouth was clear. Peter gasped for breath, chunks
of food flying down his throat.

“Someone
get that goddamned helmet off,” Mickelson barked. Saul hopped over
and fumbled with the clasps at Peter’s neck. The helmet dropped to
the floor, leaving a gooey smear. Mickelson threw Peter aside and
slammed his fist into the wall, muffled obscenities spewing from his
helmet.

When
he had calmed, Mickelson linked to Command. “High-altitude jump
aborted,” he said. “Bring us home.”

—   —   —

In
the basement of the barracks, there was a computer room filled with
long rows of terminals for the men to send and receive mail from
home; the Training Orbital was too far away for video.

Peter
plodded in, exhausted, barely able to stand. His face was scrubbed
red, but the smell of vomit lingered on his skin. His stomach was
empty and sore, not only from throwing up but also because
Mickelson, arguing that Peter had nothing left to lose, kept him on
the shuttle for another three hours, doing one planetary entry after
another. When they finally docked, Peter was so shaken that he had
to crawl off the ship.

The
silver lining, if only for one night, was that he was finally out of
his suit while it was getting cleaned and checked for damage. After
being sealed inside for six straight weeks, his skin tingled in the
open air.

Peter
searched the room for a free terminal. He was due for a letter from
Amber.

After
he enlisted, she wanted to help out with the war effort but quickly
found there wasn’t much for her to do. Most of the factories were
automated, and she didn’t have the education to oversee the
machinery. She joined an effort to send care packages to the troops,
but it turned out the distance between the Livable Territories and
the Drift made shipping prohibitive. They couldn’t even send
handwritten letters, but had to scan them to send by computer.

She
finally settled on organizing a local conservation awareness
program. Raw materials—steel and petroliates—were limited by
production, and the less they used domestically, the more was
available for ships, suits, and weapons. The work kept Amber busy,
and she always had plenty to report, which made Peter feel guilty
about his meager replies.

Despite
his hectic schedule, his life just wasn’t that interesting. There
were hours of marching and drills, followed by endless target
practice—Peter had been selected for sniper training. By the end
of the day, when he finally got to the computer room, he was too
tired to think. But Amber didn’t seem to notice that their
conversations were one-sided. And that was good, because she was
Peter’s only link back to normal life.

It
took Peter a moment to recognize Saul without his suit; Mickelson
must have given the whole platoon the night off. Also, Saul only
ever came to the computer room for a quick biweekly letter to his
parents, which he considered an obligation. But there he was, face
glued to a terminal, knee bouncing with excitement. Peter worked
down a crowded aisle and looked over his shoulder.

A
topographic map filled Saul’s screen, the overhead view of
mountainous terrain. Red symbols of various shapes and sizes were
scattered over the highlands, while down on the plains blue dots
were organized in grids. Saul flicked his hand over the screen
frantically, sending the blue dots toward the red symbols, where
they blinked and disappeared.