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A Broader Skillset

Jamie Ibson


September 207, Freehold of Grainne


Cecil Tanaka grounded his aircar on the pad outside his home, and his daughter Keiko raced from around the side of the house. Her brothers, twins Donal and Faolain, toddled after her.

“Daddy!” she shouted, and as he knelt to her level, she wrapped her arms around his neck. In that instant, he knew he’d made the right decision.

“Hiya, sweetheart.” He kissed her forehead and hugged his boys. “How was your day?”

“Was good. Mommy chopped another chicken an’ I gots to help.”

“Is that so?” Tanaka asked with a raised eyebrow. “What did you get to do?”

“I collected feathers,” Keiko said proudly, “And I frew da guts in da compost.”

“Well done,” he said and opened the door for his brood to head inside. His wife, Aoife, stood near the kitchen sink, and indeed she was holding one of their chickens, skinned and dressed, under the running fresh water. He eased behind her, wrapped an arm around her waist, and kissed an ear.

“Can you grill this up?” she asked. “I was going to roast it but lost track of time. We can do veg if you’ll handle the meat.”

“Sure.” He nodded and headed to the bedroom to change out of his utilities. Once back into his civilian clothes, he took the chicken, cutting board and a knife out into the yard, to watch the kids “help” as he made dinner. Aoife and the kids pulled carrots, onions, and peppers from the garden, and washed them as he lit the grill and butchered the chicken into kebab-sized chunks.

“Everything alright?” she asked. “You look deep in thought.”

“Conflicted,” he acknowledged. “Something at work today. They had . . . I dunno, five platoons? Six? Pulled from all over. Legion, Blazers, Support, it was a pretty big mix of troops. We’d been hand-picked for some kind of op. Seemed like intense, hardcore shit, they couldn’t even tell me what it was until I’d committed.”

“When do you go?” Aoife asked. Her tone was conversational; she was utterly calm and knew that a Blazer could be summoned away at any time. That didn’t settle the heart pounding in his own chest, though. He lay the chicken on the wire grill, inhaled the sweet mesquite smoke and just listened to dinner sizzle for a moment.

“I’m not,” Tanaka said. “I turned it down.”

“You what?” his wife asked. This time surprise betrayed her.

“I had no idea how long it would take,” he said. “I couldn’t just disappear. If they could commit to ‘a month,’ then I would have considered it, but when he waffled on it maybe being a year, maybe never, maybe forever? That was too much. The guy calling the shots had me rattled a bit, and if I’m reading between the lines, someone high up thinks there’s a shitstorm coming. If there is, I want to be here.”


December 209


Sergeant Cecil Tanaka’s comm blared an alert, and he glanced at the screen. Around him, every other squad leader’s comm chimed in too. They were perched on the cliffs above an “occupied town,” in reality an urban assault training ground. First Squad had already tied onto their assault ropes and Second stood by, ready to follow them down. For the exercise, Lieutenant Chandra had been KIA, and Senior Sergeant Laughlin was away on leave, leaving Tanaka the senior “live” NCO in charge of the assault.

:: All units 3rd Blazers, ENDEX. Ready all weapons for live use, vertol transport inbound, ETA 17 segs. Rioting in downtown Jefferson, details to follow. ::

He processed the abrupt change in orders, took a deep breath, and bellowed “END EX!” at the top of his lungs. “Two Fox, end ex! Team leaders, verify all troops have removed all exercise gear and weapons are live. Masaro! Get down there and blow us an LZ, we’ve got a wing of Bisons incoming! Donahue! Once you’re down, set up a checkpoint and verify everyone, OPFOR included, has dumped their training adaptors and secured all blank ammunition. Prepare for real-world ops. Move now!”

Sergeant Masaro, Platoon Two Fox’s Third Squad leader, spent half a seg personally verifying that all his troops were ready for real-world ops again. Once satisfied, they bounded down the cliff face headfirst. Company CQ was parked half a klick up the road, and they’d have all the demo Masaro’s squad would need to blow a hole in the surrounding forest big enough to support a full flight of Bison landers.

Lieutenant Chandra had been “recovering” from his “wounds” under a bluemaple, observing his NCO’s performance. Any NCO in the Freehold Military Forces had to be ready to take over one, possibly two rungs up the chain of command. Tanaka offered a hand and hauled his platoon leader back to his feet. “Welcome back to the land of the living, sir.”

“Much as I appreciate being a ‘casualty’ and watching you work, it’s nice to be alive again.” Chandra grinned. “I’m sure your assault would have been beauty in motion. Now let’s get down there and sort the troops out, shall we?”

Five big bounds later, Tanaka rotated in place to land on his feet and Chandra helped him step clear of the lines.

“The Caledonian judge awards a solid eight-point-six,” Corporal Donahue said approvingly. Tanaka and Chandra handed their own training adaptors over, and Donahue stashed them with the rest. “All training equipment accounted for, we are good to go. The 3rd Mob element are going to be joining us, even though they’re in OPFOR uniforms. Any idea what’s going on?”

“Comm said ‘rioting,’” Tanaka replied. “Five gets you ten it’s those fool malcontents the aardvarks foisted on us. Has there ever been a riot in Jefferson? I wish the council had just spaced the lot of them like Naumann wanted to.”

“No bet,” Chandra said. “Doesn’t matter. Confirm just how many vertols they’re sending and how big the LZ needs to be. Once Masaro’s got the LZ blown, organize the troops into chalks and be ready to load the moment the Sixes touch down.”

* * *

The scene below them was chaos. Tanaka’s HUD illuminated friendly Legion units below them, troopers on foot backed by GUVs and MPs, ready to take prisoners. Comms chatter on multiple freqs washed over him, adding to his overall understanding of the battlefield below. He noted which Legion units were holding which streets, and where hotspots had popped up. He spotted one intersection below them where someone was dragging a protestor up a flight of stone steps, face-down, outside the Civic Center, leaving a blood trail in their wake.

“Apartments on fire,” their pilot commed, and highlighted the building in question. 3rd Legion was already in motion, and Tanaka saw a squad of troops escort a fire suppressant truck towards the vulnerable building. He heard a gunshot, the familiar staccato crack of an M-5. Tanaka scanned the crowd, and sure enough, some of the Legion troops were in close contact with rioters who were pelting them with bricks, stones, and other abuse. A few rioters were laid out prone, probably wounded or dead. The Legion troops were holding the line, backstopped by the GUVs and their heavy machine guns. Tanaka saw one Legion troop shoot a man who had been rushing the line armed with a club or pipe. The man collapsed and grabbed at the soldier’s knee once he was down, which earned him a swift boot to his wounded leg. These rioters were motivated.

Tanaka’s comm buzzed, and he checked his updated orders from his Platoon leader.

:: Platoon Two Fox rifle teams, drop on rooftops. Clear top to bottom, ID trespassers, handoff to MPs. Weapons teams three, six and nine, backstop Legion troops on the ground and assist MPs. Once clear, rifle teams will recycle to Bluebird to lift again and repeat as necessary. —Chandra ::

Bluebird was tagged on his comm’s map function as the rooftop of the Civic Center. The “Mobsters” from 3rd Mobile Assault Regiment, who’d been the “enemy” on Tanaka’s field exercise now held it against any hostiles, and it had become the operations command post for the riot. Tanaka’s map populated with areas of responsibility, and he claimed a street as belonging to Platoon Two Foxtrot. The pilot brought the VC-6 in low, low enough that the troops could dismount without ropes, and Donahue led Fox Five’s half-dozen Blazers out the crew door. Turbines screamed, and the vertol lifted again to deposit Tanaka and Fox Two on the next apartment building over.

The Blazers stacked on the roof access door. The residents of the apartment used the roof as a social gathering area, judging from the lounge chairs and garden boxes. The building access was open, and Specialist Davis took point.

On the top floor, they advanced down the hallways, hammering on unit doors. “THIRD BLAZERS, EVERYONE OUT!” they shouted. One door flew open, a naked angry man standing there with a pistol in hand, another naked man cowering behind. Three M-5s pointed directly at his face and chest, and he lowered the gun immediately.

“Downstairs, now,” Private Flores barked.

“What’s going on?” the second man asked, his voice timid. Taking pity on the couple, Flores lowered his rifle and lowered his tone.

“You haven’t noticed the riot outside?” he asked in disbelief, and the man shook his head in the negative.

“We’ve been busy,” he said defensively.

“I can see that. Given the circumstances, put on some pants and shoes and wait in the lobby. You have thirty seconds. If you insist on bringing that piece down with you, please do so in a holster.” Leaving Flores for security, the rest of the team moved on. As they cleared the third floor, their comm buzzed again but it was voice this time.

“Two Fox Five, Two Fox Two, we have a situation, over.”

“Fox Two, go ahead.”

“Fox Five, hostages, second floor, the building opposite yours. Aardvark scum surprised a resident and holed up on the balcony. They’re not going anywhere for now, over.”

“Fox Two, roger. Masaro, can your marksman get eyes on?”

“Fox Six, standby.”

A moment passed as their weapons team leader directed his marksman, below in the street with the MPs, to scan the balconies for the situation. Then Masaro came back over the platoon net.

“Negative, Fox Six doesn’t have a clear shot. Target is facing into the apartment, with the hostage between him and us.”

Tanaka dashed back up one floor to an already cleared unit with Davis and cautiously approached the balcony. He spotted the dogfucker at once—some purple-haired punk with a dual mohawk and sleeveless vest top. Reddish orange, glowing, bioluminescent tattoos covered both arms, poked out at his collar, and covered his scalp. His one visible ear had been clipped several times along the edge, giving it a jagged, sawtoothed appearance. He held his teenage hostage between him and Fox Five, in the other building’s hallway.

“I have a shot,” Tanaka said and placed his scope’s crosshairs over the dead man’s neck. His finger took up the slack in the trigger while he willed his pounding heart to slow down. He took several deep breaths to steady himself and when the man leaned out, shouting something at Fox Five across the street, his head cleared the hostage and Tanaka squeezed the trigger.

The target dropped, limp, as Tanaka’s 4mm round smashed through his brainstem. The hostage screamed and jumped away, but the tango was down and she was unharmed. A second later, Greg waved a hand through his balcony doorway, then stepped out and put an entirely unnecessary insurance shot into the aardvark punk.

“Nice shooting, Fox Two,” Greg said, leading the young woman back inside, away from the rapidly spreading pool of blood on her balcony. “We’ve got her now.”

“Roger,” Tanaka acknowledged. “Resuming clearance.”

On the ground floor, Donahue’s team had already linked up with the rest of the team. The building manager identified three trespassers, and Masaro’s weapons team led them away in shackles. The Legion troops had advanced their line as well and were holding in place until more Blazers could cycle through the buildings ahead.

“Once more, Sarge?” Donahue asked.

“Lead the way, Greg,” Tanaka nodded, and the two rifle teams broke into a fast lope back to the Civic Center, to board another Bison and do it all again. Couldn’t have waited until after year’s end? Tanaka cursed silently to himself. Just three more weeks and I’m done with their bullshit.


February 210


“How long have you been doing this?” Cecil asked the wrecker driver. The driver was . . . distinctive. He wore a homespun linen tunic, heavy leather utilikilt, neo-Norse braids, and a high-vis vest. He moved with the sure ease of a professional as he set up his equipment.

“Bout . . . three, three and a half years,” he replied, and flashed Cecil a grin. He lifted the ruined nose of the Maruto passenger van off the ground and started attaching the secondary safety cables. “Ain’t no shortage of work for crashes and the like. You?”

“Just got out of the Third Blazers a month ago.”

“Nice. I was First Combat Rescue, myself. Fenris Einarssen, of Einarssen Towing.”

“I’d have thought you’d join the City Safety EMTs, with a résumé like that,” Cecil replied. “Combat Rescue’s hardcore.”

“I had my hands in enough guts to know I’d had enough,” he admitted. “If the EMTs need a hand they know I know what I’m doing, but I’d rather just be cleaning up wrecked cars instead of ruined bodies.”

“Fair,” Cecil agreed. This ridgeline was a bitch—it looked out over much of Jefferson, and he could make out the Heilbrun airfac tower from here, several klicks away. The field was buzzing with activity, with whole squadrons of Hatchet, Bison and Hummingbird vertols lifting and winging away.

The steep approach and equally steep descent made it a dangerous, blind ridgeline and they frequently had wrecks as people crested it at speed and collided with oncoming traffic. But, given the Freehold’s utter lack of traffic control and the absence of a grid, you drove your ground car as best you thought for the conditions and took your chances. Locals, sick of having to divert around crash after crash, had erected caution signs and approached the crest with trepidation and care. Anyone not from the area who didn’t realize how treacherous the hill could be ignored the signage at their peril. Tanaka had only been with City Safety for seven weeks but he’d already responded to four collisions on this hill alone.

Einarssen tapped some commands on his pad, and the cables went taut, and the van scraped as it lifted off the ground. While he did that, Cecil sat in his response vehicle, finished his formwork and sent all the details for the wreck to HQ, so City Safety could bill the offending driver (or their insurance) for the labor. He waved farewell to Einarssen and signaled that he was about to pull into traffic, when an FMF GUV “Jeeves” blew past him at high speed.

There goes more business, he thought, and stomped on the brakes again as two armored cars followed the GUV in the direction of Heilbrun. His comm rang. The caller ID registered a name he hadn’t seen in a month and a half; not since his last day with 3rd Mob.

Sergeant Donahue, to what do I owe—”

“Where are you?” Greg interrupted, his voice urgent.

“Panorama Ridge, what’s going on?”

“Seek shelter, do it now. The UN’s hitting us hard. We lost signal to Ceileidh, Green Door and Breakout within a few divs of each other and light-speed lag meant the Fleets barely got word before they started eating shipkillers. Orbital cover is gone. Get home, bunker up, and I’ll come to you if I can.”

“Wait just a—”

Sarge, don’t fucking argue and trust me on this, alright? I wouldn’t have called if this wasn’t a goddess’s honest threat. They’re fucking invading, and I’m still twenty segs out from Heilbrun by air. More people to comm, gotta go.”

And then he cut the link.

Tanaka held his comm in his hands, weighing it as though it held Donahue’s words. Greg had filled Tanaka’s spot when he’d mustered out, and he knew him to be a solid, dependable troop. Could Donahue be wrong? Of course, he could—anyone could be wrong. But what were the odds?

Another flight of Bison vertols ripped by overhead, turbines screaming like the pilots had them redlined.

Oh.

At that very moment, a tearing sound ripped by overhead like the boom of a suborbital ballistic flight. Fiery streaks like Odin’s own tracer fire tore great holes in Grainne’s atmosphere. They were already past him, clearly travelling many times the speed of sound, and the orbital KEWs converged on Heilbrun like a time-on-target artillery salvo. Cecil looked away just before the bright flash of impact.

With spots in front of his eyes, he looked back. A dust cloud obscured the base now, and rapidly transformed itself into a mushroom cloud. More thunderous kinetic rounds impacted, adding their energy to the destruction. Air cars were flung off course, buffeted by the explosion and he saw at least one Bison lifter lose control, smash into a NavAid tower, and explode into a fiery wreck. Incendiary fragments rained down on the streets far below, but then he couldn’t see anything else because the blast front swallowed and obscured everything behind it. A swirling ripple of atmospheric chaos and destruction emanating from the impact site uprooted trees, knocked down fences and structures, overturned cars and smashed everything in its path.

Cecil’s issued ground car was a light, fast response vehicle, with little more than an EMT kit and an auto-doc. Einarssen’s wrecker, on the other hand . . . 

Decision made, Tanaka bailed out of the driver’s seat and raced for the passenger door of the heavy truck. Einarssen saw him coming, and to his credit, realized what was going on. Tanaka vaulted up into the cab and threw on his restraint belt just as the pressure wave hit.

This far from the impact zone, the effect was mitigated, somewhat. The glass on the windshield resisted the blast front, but Cecil opened his mouth and covered his ears nonetheless to minimize the effects. The air pressure was brutal, as if he’d dove too deep too quickly, and the heavy wrecker rocked on its suspension. The machine tipped up on three wheels, then crashed back down onto all six, but at least gravity was still where it was supposed to be. Cecil was knocked around the interior of the cab and despite the belt, slammed against the door next to him, stunning himself.

He wasn’t sure how long he lay there afterward. Long enough for secondary pressure waves to wash over the truck, but none of them rivaled the first. Seconds stretched for what felt like divs until all was quiet. When he sat up, he could see well enough out the badly cracked windshield to know the worst was over. Groaning, he looked over at the driver’s seat. Fenris’s forehead bled from a superficial gash, but he otherwise appeared unharmed.

“What in Goddess’s name . . . ” Fenris cursed. Tanaka summarized his call from Donahue, and the two men stepped down out of the wrecker to better see the damage the orbital strike had wrought. The ringing in his ears left everything muffled, like they’d been after the last Cabhag concert. The circle of devastation surrounding Third Army’s primary base was evident from his vantage. Fires burned and smoke drifted into the sky, only to dissipate as air currents flowed and the wind blew, severely disrupted by the concussive force of the kinetic weapons. Small black dots in the air resolved to be foreign, fixed-wing aircraft. They roared by overhead, low and fast, and Cecil’s blood ran cold when he recognized the distinctive silhouettes of UN Avatars and Sentinels, their interceptors and air-superiority fighters.

He checked his comm to call Aoife, but it had no signal. Whether that was because of an EW attack, the signal towers were down, or the explosion had damaged his comm, he didn’t know. A wing of fat UN Guardian vertols flew by overhead, and he jammed his comm back into a pocket. One flared hard and began descending, far below him, down the ridge. Its tail end was uphill and its nose faced downtown. The tail ramp was already down, and Cecil could make out the pointy white snout of a UN ILAWAV, their Infantry Light Armored Wheeled Assault Vehicle.

Dogfuckers,” Fenris snarled, then pulled a heavy rifle from behind the driver’s seat and slung it over his back. Cecil dismounted, and Fenris threw a jump bag with mag pouches at him, and then he pulled a comm of his own. With one command, the cables connecting the wrecker truck to the van released, and with another, the driver wheeled the massive truck out onto the roadway. Once the Guardian was below ten meters, Fenris gave his wrecker the command to punch the throttle up to one hundred percent, and free of its burden, the heavy truck shot forward. It barreled down the face of the ridge, closing with the unsuspecting Guardian whose pilots were facing the other way. The rear ramp touched down, and Fenris snarled out a triumphant “HAH!” as the wrecker smashed into vulnerable vertol. The heavy truck snapped one of the ramp hydraulics, leaped upwards into the belly of the beast, smashed into and through a stationary ILAWAV, sending both vehicles through the Guardian’s cargo hold like a pair of wrecking balls. The interior frame bent, the additional mass overloaded one side of the carrier, and the whole vertol twisted violently sideways until it tumbled further down the steep hillside.

“Alright, Combat Rescue, I’m impressed,” Tanaka said, and jogged down the hill, following the path of destruction. Einarssen followed, and moments later they were picking their way past armor plates, parts and people spread along a broad trail of carnage. Something had ignited somewhere, and the largest chunks blazed away, spewing acrid smoke. Cecil recognized one twisted heap of metal as having been the door for the cab of the truck with “—RSSEN —OWING” still legible, but the majority of the wreckage was still fifty meters distant.

One soldier in a UN uniform had been thrown clear and struggled to get to his feet. He bled from a gash on his forehead and lacked a sky blue UNPF helmet, having lost it when he was thrown clear. Seeing Tanaka approach, he cast about and dove for his rifle. Cecil slowed, and drew his custom Merrill Peregrine pistol and trained the sights on the invading troop.

“UNPF . . . ” The soldier gasped and coughed. He spat blood, and Cecil suspected a punctured lung. “Stand . . . down.”

“Lower your weapon, soldier,” Tanaka commanded. “Your rifle is unloaded.”

The soldier’s eyes widened in panic and he raised the barrel skyward as his support hand sought a magazine from the pouch on his chest.

“Last warning.” Tanaka’s command voice was loud and clear. “Don’t do this.”

The soldier finally got the magazine free of his chest rig, and as he went to load the rifle, Tanaka shot him once in the head.

“Idiot,” Tanaka spat and scanned in both directions to ensure there weren’t any other survivors trying to flank him. He was pleased to see Einarssen covering his flanks with his heavy battle rifle. His rifle had been in the trunk of the City Safety car, so he needed a replacement. Tanaka stripped the dead UN soldier of his kit, loaded the rifle, chambered a round, and made his way down to the wrecked Guardian where a crowd was forming. As they descended, Einarssen confirmed to Cecil that yes, the tow yard had many damaged-but-functional multiton vehicles they could similarly use as ground-based missiles against UN troops. Tanaka and Einarssen verified that no one had any serious injuries, on-site or at home, and Cecil stepped up on the bent remains of an ILAWAV turret to address the crowd.

“Ladies, men, obviously the UN is invading. You all know what they’ve done over the last year, trying to stir shit up, sending us their criminals, malcontents, and scum. Make no mistake, this is a no-shit invasion and the regular FMF just got pasted. It’s up to us to fight back. If anyone lacks a gun or ammunition at home, scavenge what you can here, but get gone before reinforcements arrive. If any of you wish to join us, bring whatever weapons you can quickly access and meet us at—?”

“Five-four-two Crow Lane,” Fenris supplied. “That’s the city’s wreck yard.”

Another Guardian, supported by a pair of light gunbirds, arrived on station and the crowd hurriedly dispersed.

Isaac Chow, one of the civilians in the crowd, led Einarssen, Tanaka, and another volunteer away from the crash. Chow had classically Mandarin features, a shock of black-and-purple hair shaved on the sides, and when they piled into his ground car, he pulled a load-bearing harness and a 7mm Merrill Gyrfalcon PDW from the trunk. He threw the vest on over his polo and slung the boxy weapon across his chest. The tropically colored kilt he wore was patterned like one of those tacky shirts they sold in the archipelago, complete with Grainnean palm trees. It was completely incongruous with the rest of the look, which seemed more like standard issue Ripple Creek than anything else. Cecil eyed the Gyr with a raised eyebrow—the subguns were standard issue for Special Warfare troops. Chow caught him looking, and grinned.

“A friend of a friend was raving about how great these little beasts are. It’s a tack driver out to two hundred meters and cuts through soft armor like it ain’t even there. You ever shot one?”

“Once or twice,” Tanaka allowed. “A friend of a friend had one on Mtali. We spent a lot of time on the range turning ammo into smoke and noise. Or, just smoke,” he said, gesturing to the suppressor.

They reached Chow’s ride, and Fenris and Cecil piled in the back bench, ready to engage any targets on their flanks. A fourth they didn’t know rode up front, as Chow pulled away heading for the tow yard. Five segs and eight turns later, it was clear the UN already had troops on the ground and were occupying the city with more success than they’d seen at Panorama Ridge. They’d spied one Guardian unloading, and it was evident each of the fat-bodied vertols held a self-contained Vehicle CheckPoint team: one ILAWAV carrier with a basic anti-air rocket packet bolted onto the turret, a mechanized infantry squad riding inside, folding dragontooth barricades, and razorwire. In moments, the infantry had the dragontooth barricades erected and were spiking razorwire into place to prevent all foot traffic from passing by.

Chow detoured around two checkpoints, and then hauled the wheel over to the left.

“Hold on!” he warned and mounted the curb to drive through one of the city’s many well-manicured parks between two VCPs. One soldier noticed them and opened fire; both passengers returned it with enthusiasm. That sent the UN soldiers at the whole VCP scrambling for cover. The suppressed shots were still loud inside the vehicle, but nowhere near as deafening as the blast front had been. Tanaka bumped his head on the ceiling of the car as they erupted from the grassy area, over the curb, bounced once, and caromed around a corner to disappear down an alley.

“Is anyone’s comm working?” the man up front asked, and the rear passengers checked theirs.

“Still nothing!” Cecil confirmed.

“Nope!” Fenris said and pointed out the windshield at the works yard. “Drop us by the northeast corner and stay close.”

“Solid,” Chow agreed, and after passing one more cross-street, he slammed on the brakes. His three passengers bailed out, and they slipped down a parallel alley and jogged towards the yard.

“Name?” Tanaka asked the man who had sat up front as they approached the yard. “Where’d you work?”

“Mikael Gatons,” the man said. He was young, perhaps fourteen Freehold years. He had shaggy ginger hair and a well-manicured beard, a stylish green collared shirt with gold thread and designer jeans. “Second Mobile Legion, signals. Just one hitch, I got out last summer.”

“Any relation to Bjorn?” Tanaka asked.

“He was my uncle.”

“He was a good man, taught me everything I know about climbing. Alright. All the vehicles here in the yard are damaged, but functional. Look for any models that can be remotely operated by comm so that we can use them as thousand-kilo missiles.”

After a few segs of scouring the yard, each of them had wheels that could be written off at a moment’s notice. Einarssen used his comm to open the gate, and all three filed out. Chow’s vehicle emerged from a side street, and they found a quiet spot to park and scheme a few blocks away.

“Suggestion,” Chow said and laid out his plan. It was only a kilometer or so back to the park, and he used his superior knowledge of the area to best effect. Armed with only the fraggiest of frag orders and a hastily set h-hour, Chow, Tanaka and Einarssen parked their vehicles behind an alleyway south of the VCP, while Gatons carried on westward for a few blocks before doubling back. Chow knocked on the rear kitchen door to a Filipino restaurant that faced the park. The proprietor cracked the door open a sliver, a chrome semiauto shotgun leading the way.

“We’re closed,” he growled.

“Friendlies,” Chow replied. “Teman,” he repeated in Indonesian. The owner opened the door a bit wider. He was a short, darkly tanned man with salt-and-pepper hair who looked fierce behind his trench sweeper.

“What do you want?”

“Access to your rooftop,” Chow said. “Then we’ll be on our way.”

“You’re not going to get me killed by one of those . . . tank things, are you?” The owner eyed the guns the men carried dubiously, but that he was carrying a beefy shotgun of his own suggested he at least understood the risk.

“Honest answer, war is a dangerous thing and you can’t know how things are going to go,” Chow replied. “We certainly don’t plan to get killed in the first div of the war, but then again, the enemy gets a vote too.”

The restauranteur gave that some thought, and nodded, opening his door to allow the three men to slip inside. He closed the door behind them and locked it. He guided them up the stairs, and out onto the third-story roof. They stayed low, below the parapet, and watched the segs count down until, on cue, the former signals operator opened fire on the UN’s position.

The response was fast, and dramatic. These troops had clearly drilled in urban operations before their deployment, and the UNPF infantrymen took cover behind the ILAWAV, firing from the prone beneath and between its road wheels. Gatons’s opening shot had struck the troop manning the heavy machine gun in the turret, and the spray left on the turret’s glacis when the gunner dropped out of view suggested he was dead.

“Light these dogfuckers up,” Chow whispered, and the trio rose to their knees and opened fire.

The flanking maneuver caught the UN troops in an enfilade and five of the UN troops suffered hits before the remaining pair identified the new source of fire. Tanaka had been aiming for their torsos, and the UN rifle proved more than adequate to the task. Tanaka noted that Chow was going strictly for headshots, despite the range. As promised, his Gyr subgun proved extremely accurate, able to penetrate the trooper’s sky-blue helmets or even slip beneath them to hit an unprotected throat. The unwounded pair ran for the rear access hatch and disappeared inside. A few moments passed, and then the turret rotated in place to target the trio on the rooftop.

“Shit!” Chow cursed, and the three on the rooftop scattered, throwing themselves prone. Heavy machine-gun rounds chewed through the plascrete railing, sending fragments and dust into the air. On cue, Gatons’s salvaged ground truck barreled out of the street and struck the ILAWAV amidships. Like the wrecker versus the Guardian, the inertia of the heavy truck at high speed was catastrophic. The ILAWAV skidded sideways, struts and tie rods folded under the impact. It crushed the wounded UNPF soldiers behind it.

Shattered plascrete dust on the rooftop settled, and Tanaka cautiously rose to one knee. From his vantage, he watched Gatons emerge from the side alley’s mouth, put insurance shots into several crippled UNPF troops, and retreat back down the alley again. Tanaka heard a wet cough, and turned to see Chow still prone, covered in grey plascrete dust—except for the dark stain in the center of his chest that was spreading all too quickly.

Einarssen muttered something about having his hands in someone else’s insides again and tore open his own kit to get out dressings, coagulagent and a nano. Tanaka put pressure on the wound, and his hands were immediately stained crimson, but the blood was frothy, indicating a lung shot. Fenris checked Chow’s back and confirmed the heavy machine-gun round had punched completely through.

“Fuckin’ aardvarks get a vote too . . . ” Chow gasped. “Figures, Murphy getting me killed . . . in the first div . . . of the war . . . ” he coughed out. Then he lay back and went still.

“Shit.” Fenris shook his head, looking at the medipack which, given the through-and-through wound, would have been wholly inadequate regardless.

Tanaka checked Chow’s pockets for ID, in case he got a chance to notify the Veteran’s Association, but all he found was a single challenge coin that read “Scout Shuttle Door Gunner” and on the reverse, “FMS Zulu.” That clinched it, in Tanaka’s mind. The Zulu was a SpecWar stealth boat, and although little was known about the ships, they did not have door gunners.

A plaster-coated Einarssen and a bloody-handed Tanaka, now carrying Chow’s GyrFalcon subgun as a backup, met Mikael Gatons by the rear door to the restaurant. Nothing needed to be said—they simply remounted their vehicles and moved on.

* * *

Tanaka’s comm buzzed and he was pleased to see signal had been restored. It buzzed for a solid twenty seconds as a dozen messages and updates dumped into the device all at once. Most of the messages were from Aoife or Greg Donahue. He punched in Donahue’s number first, and his former subordinate and friend answered on the first ring.

“Goddess, Ceece, we’ve been worried sick. I told you to head home, but since you’re not here, where the hell are you?”

“I’m trapped on the far side of town with a couple of vets and there are VCPs everywhere. We’ve bloodied their nose a bit, but our luck’s going to run out sooner than later.” He explained what they’d been doing and asked about his family.

“Everyone’s fine, everyone’s safe for now, but obviously I can’t guess how long that’ll last. Let’s meet me at Phill’s at oh-dark-thirty and bring any of the City Safety fellows you trust. The aardvarks’ lifters have been dropping cans down on the coast off Commerce Boulevard. We’re going to kettle them and put the pressure on.”

“Phill’s, after sundown, bring friendlies. Roger, see you there.”

“Oh, and write down any really important numbers on your comm and start scrubbing the history any time you make a call. If the UN gets its grubby paws on our comms, it will compromise us.”

“Good point, will do. My lady there?”

“Here.”

Aoife’s voice came on the line.

“Will you be coming home?”

“Not yet. We’ll see what Greg’s people have in mind, but I’m worried if I come home, I’ll put you guys all in danger.”

“I’ll . . . I’ll get on the nets and speak to a couple of colleagues, see if there’s anything I can do for them.”

“So long as you’re not going to get identified, sweetheart.”

“I know what I’m doing, Cecil Tanaka, just as you know what you’re about. Let me pass the phone around so you can tell your kids you love them.”

One by one, Keiko, Donal, and Faolain shared the comm and wished their father good luck.

“Help your mother out, and I’ll be home once it’s safe for me to come back. Don’t none of you go looking for mischief, as bored as you’ll be,” he commanded. “Love you all.”

* * *

Phill’s Mediterranean Grill specialized in Greek, Italian, and Middle Eastern cooking. Unlike the one by Hawthorne Park, it was a known, favorite spot of many Special Warfare troops. Tanaka, Einarssen, and Gatons made their way in one by one, darting from shadow to shadow until they slipped in the side door, which Phill had kindly left unlocked. Tanaka was relieved to see half a dozen more of his fellow City Safety colleagues, some veterans, some not, and more he didn’t recognize at all. Spying Donahue near the raised stage, Tanaka gave him a quick wave and found a seat. The light was turned way down, leaving everything in shadows.

Once the entire group had met and fed, Donahue took control of the meeting. He spread a tourist’s map of Jefferson out on a table, one that focused on the downtown core.

“For those of you who don’t know me, I’m Sergeant Greg Donahue of Third Blazers. No, it’s not a cover for me being an operative, as my recently retired boss Cecil here can attest.” He gestured to Tanaka, who nodded but didn’t interrupt. “Commander’s intent, buy time for civilians to evacuate the conflict area before this gets completely out of hand—”

One of the others, a young man about Gatons’s age, interrupted. “I’d say it’s already pretty fucking out of hand, Sergeant.”

The woman seated next to him elbowed him in the ribs, and he quieted down.

“Yes, it is, but we have several things going for us. The UN thinks it’s occupying Jefferson but consider how many veterans have made their homes here in the Capital Region District. I have already discussed this matter with retired Senior Sergeant Hamilton and retired Sergeant Tanaka. They are stuck in here with us. We’re going to put the screws to them and make them engage in bloody war for every square meter of ground. I’m going to ask the majority of the City Safety staff to continue what Blazer Tanaka’s team began.” Donahue identified several key intersections on his map and circled the region where the UN had been landing their cargotainers to establish their base. “Start plugging streets and alleys with vehicle wrecks, here, here and here. Use tomorrow to move the vehicles nearby, but just park them innocently for the time being. If the UN is establishing stationary VCPs, we can smash them at will while avoiding them as required. For now, we’re going to let them set up their checkpoints like a baseball on a T-stand. Save a couple of large trucks for bridges, tunnels, and choke points, I especially want Riversedge and the south branch of the Frigid Ditch an uncrossable heap of rubble and shattered crystal carbon.

“Tanaka, I’ve sourced some proper fabbers and material. How quickly can you mock up, say, a thousand bogus anti-vehicle mines?”

Cecil thought for a moment. “Depends on how detailed you want them. For a simple polymer casing, I can have all the basic FMF designs laid out in half a div. After that, the only question is how much raw material I have and the fabber’s limitations.”

“You’ll have them. We have access to . . . caches, caches with weapons, equipment, several different kinds of mines.” Donahue turned to the rest of the group. “Pull all the utility covers and get them to Tanaka, and he’ll have all the raw material he could need. Any live mines, we equip them with anti-lift devices so the UN can’t just bulldoze them out of the way. The UN won’t be using det-cord stringers to blow them all, not inside a city, so their progress in vehicles will grind to a halt, everything will be airborne or on foot. Meghan, I’ll need you and your engineers to come up with a distribution plan around the UN shoreside base.”

Retired Senior Sergeant Meghan Hamilton, who had elbowed Loudmouth, nodded.

“Otherwise, I want ongoing harassment ops, sniper fire, and I want them lost and confused, I want rocks pitched from balconies and I want intel on their leadership. We are now in the very definition of a target-rich environment, but we can’t let them attrit us. Think of every dirty trick you’ve ever read about in any guerilla resistance situation for the entirety of human history and pull out every stop. Death by a thousand cuts, soldiers and veterans.”

“What do you need from me?” a rasping voice asked from the corner. Tanaka hadn’t noticed him at first, so silent and still, he’d remained in the shadows of the darkened restaurant, and Cecil shivered. He’d met Handler Corporal Brad Ministrelli once before, and meeting one of the combat leopard handlers often left an impression not soon forgotten.

“Did Elvis or Betty . . . ?”

“No.”

The hardened expression on Brad’s face, and the laconic answer made it clear that Ministrelli was keeping his emotions locked down in a pressure cooker. After an awkward pause, Donahue continued.

“You and I will be securing our . . . absent friends’ apartments, condos, homes, as many as we can. They might be gone, but anyone single should have space we can use to hide people or kit. Then start working the wider region outside Jefferson itself.”

“There’s a handful of decent, if banged-up air trucks at the yard,” Einarssen offered. “They’re yours if you need them.”

“Works.” Brad nodded. “I know for a fact Team Two was in the field, on exercise. The lieutenant’s team is going to go dark, disappear, and they’ll start working the problem independently. If I can make contact I will, but our primary field gig is recon. There’s a whole heap of equipment they’d want before hunting in an urban environment. They’ll be hard to find.”

“Even if we can make contact, support will be as it happens. For now, start with anyone you know personally, and start building a net. Get a list of needs and wants, capabilities, and skills. Medics, armorers, fabrication specialists like Tanaka. Chemists, doctors, network specialists, hackers, science types, farmers, and farm supply. Beans are just as vital as bullets, maybe moreso. A broader skillset gives us more options.”

“Dante Neumeier had a sister in Third SpecWar. He was outside Tani at Merrill base, but Lorin should be around. I think she’s a reservist now and coaches Olympic biathlon. I’ll look for her first and see who else she knows.” Ministrelli got up from his table and slipped out the back.

* * *

Sixteen sleepless divs later, the UN had a functional, armored base established right on the coast. The headquarters sprung up on a bare patch of coastline adjacent to the East Sea, behind a triple wall of modular cargotainers, dropped tens at a time by massive interface shuttles. The invading UNPF engineers worked in a hurry, moving the modular ’tainers into an armored steel perimeter, while unloading their contents. Each ’tainer’s walls opened to expose tents, preloaded bunks, machine tools, comms equipment, fuel bladders, pallets of lethal and non-lethal ammo, and more. Their new facility was a short distance from Jefferson Starport, along Highway One. The ground troops had quick access to the highway, the starport, and more troops, vehicles, and logistical support was ferried in-system by the div.

That meant Donahue’s team of partisans had a target. They’d wasted no time, checked their maps, identified choke points, highlighted vulnerabilities, and concluded the Thomas McLaren Memorial Bridge had to go.

“Initiating in five!” Tanaka shouted from a second-story apartment balcony and was rewarded with a series of whumps when he hit the ignition. Two hundred meters distant, the grain truck transporting bulk breakfast cereal they’d parked beneath the bridge detonated with a convincing imitation of a fuel-air bomb. The sealed trailer tank made for an excellent pressure vessel, and the first concussive charge served to pulverize and aerosolize the highly flammable contents. The second, incendiary charge followed a bare fraction of a second behind; with the grain dust, oxygen, and spark, the trailer exploded, sending flame and thick black smoke out from beneath the bridge. As impressive as the fireball was, that wasn’t the important part—the important part was that it was burning and would continue to burn for some time. Einarssen and Gatons hit the lights on their borrowed fire-suppressant pumper truck and parked a hundred meters back from the inferno.

A UN patrol headed down the freeway saw the smoke pouring out from beneath the bridge and sensibly halted in place. There was no civilian traffic on the freeway anymore, so after a near seg’s deliberation, they reversed their course, returned to the nearest off-ramp, and followed the south Parallel Road to the underside of the overpass, where they found the pumper truck and two crew watching the blaze. The lead ILAWAV pulled to a halt and a field officer with a nametag that read “Gonsalves” disembarked, with two troops as “bodyguards.”

“What are you doing?” Gonsalves shouted.

“We got word there’d been . . . an industrial accident,” Gatons answered. “So we rolled out to respond, like we always do, but on the drive here it occurred to us you guys are supposed to be the new government or something. We had a contract with the City of Jefferson, but clearly, they aren’t in charge anymore, so before we go involving ourselves in someone else’s business, we need to be sure we’re getting paid. I’ve heard about how you guys do things on Earth and we don’t want to get blamed if UN property gets damaged, you know.”

The O-4 Captain just stared at them for a moment, speechless, before he pointed an accusatory finger at them.

“PUT THE FIRE OUT!”

Einarssen, who was wearing the higher-ranking epaulettes, merely crossed his arms. “I’m afraid I’m going to need to see some kind of proof you can pay for our services, before we’re going to do that, sir.”

One of the bodyguards racked the charging handle on his rifle and raised it to his shoulder.

“Do as the captain orders, now, you capitalist, mercenary scum!”

Einarssen and Gatons raised their hands in response, immediately. Tanaka, watching them through a rifle scope, noticed the guard hadn’t had his weapon readied, and it was still on safe.

“I thought you were supposed to be here as benevolent liberators or something?” the retired Rescue Tech complained. “We’d like to help, but we have bills to pay, pump trucks aren’t cheap, and the UNPF doesn’t have any kind of account or credit established. Without the proper liability waivers and contracts signed, we could end up being liable for the bridge if we try to help without some kind of documentation. And if you shoot me, you ignorant ape, you’re no closer to getting your problem solved and my dashcomm, which is streaming live to the net right now, will be proof you executed me out of hand. Put your gun down, Private.”

Behind them, the fire’s effects started making themselves known, and a tarry, semi-solid chunk of plascrete the size of a car powerpack fell off the bottom of the bridge, crushing the cab of the truck.

“See? That’s a problem.” Gatons pointed to the rubble in the street. “Right now, we’re just a couple guys with a pump truck at the right place at the right time. Sign the tablet, and we can get to work.”

“Fine! Just . . . fine. Hold on.” The officer spoke into his radio for a moment, then handed Einarssen the handset.

“Hello? Yes, this is Loki Mizchiffsen, contractor with City Safety’s Fire Rescue team. Hello, sir, how are you? Not great, to be honest, this looks pretty ugly but we’re going to need liability docs signed and—hold on, sir . . . ” Another chunk of falling plascrete impacted on the roadway beneath the overpass. “Yes, sir, sorry, it’s just I can’t hear you over the bridge disintegrating. That’s right, disint—it’s collapsing, sir. Yes, sir, the McLaren Overpass, we’re about two segs out from your headquarters. Yes, it’s rather urgent, I’d suggest you send someone out to confirm what Captain Gonsalves here is saying, but maybe don’t take the freeway, if you get my meaning? Sure, if you don’t need to come out here yourself, you can send me a payment code to my comm, here’s the number . . . ” After another minute of wrangling with the senior officer on the other end of the radio, Einarssen managed to get three different UN comm codes, a thousand credits down-payment wired to an account, and the names of four senior UN officers, all good intel to pass up the chain. “Yes, sir, that’s a good start, I’ll call back if there are further issues.”

Fenris handed the radio handset back to field officer and whirled a finger in the air to signal the “fire department” to move onto the next phase of their plan. The pair of them mounted up, and they wheeled the truck forward, but halted, and reversed in a hurry.

“What is it now?” Gonsalves demanded.

“Hazmat, sir! Look at the placards on the rear of that truck!”

The captain dialled up the magnification on his visor, and visibly recoiled when the Radioactive placard came into focus.

“If we roll in there and hose that truck down, we’ll either cause an even worse explosion, or the evaporated particulate will get caught on the wind and everyone on your base is going to go down with cancer in another year or two. Your guys should probably get into their radioactive suits, you have those, right? We’ve probably already been here too long and need to go, like, now,” Gatons said, looking worried.

“That doesn’t make any sense,” the UN officer objected. “If it was radioactive, our Geiger counters would be lit up!”

“Unless the fissible material on that truck was getting wholly converted into a less dangerous isotope because of the fire, which would mean slowing the reaction by applying water to it would spike the radiation and cause a runaway chain reaction!” “Loki” smoothly lied. It was entirely bullshit, but they didn’t make nuclear physicists captains in the UNPF. “You might need to just let this one”—another chunk fell from the overpass, and daylight was cutting through the hole the fire had melted in the road surface—“burn itself out if your counters aren’t registering anything. I’ll refund your advance, sir, and call out the hazmat team.” He made a show of checking his comm’s time and brightened. “They should be able to get here in . . . a quarter-div or so.”

“I don’t speak Gray-anne-ian you idiot, how long is that in minutes?”

“Forty? Forty-five?” Einarssen replied. “The backup team is pretty spread out and comms have been spotty.”

“Forty-five minutes for a hazmat team?” the officer cried. “There won’t be a bridge left! Why so long? On Earth they’d be here in ten minutes, maybe less!”

“Well, they’re the secondary, civil team, sir. The primary team operated out of Heilbrun base, but, well . . . ”

That stopped the captain cold, his features frozen.

“Fine, call out the backup team,” Gonsalves spat.

Fenris called Tanaka, who played the part of the backup team. Fenris did a convincing job of explaining just how serious this was, and then he passed the comm to Gonsalves.

“Thank you for respecting Mister Mizchieffsen’s concerns, Captain. The ID numbers on those placards indicate that truck was hauling Lithium-8, a dangerously reactive isotope. As I’m sure you recall from science class in school, Lithium reacts even more violently with water, and attempting to put out the blaze with good old-fashioned dihydrogen monoxide would have only made things worse. Sit tight, my team is on the way, we’re only twenty segs out. My colleague there will refund the deposit and we’ll arrive with the proper documentation ready to go. Can you and your troops secure the scene until we arrive?”

“Yes, fine, he can go.” The officer waved Einarssen away dismissively, and hung up on Tanaka. The fire truck departed without further issue, and the UNPF officer ordered his troops into their BCR suits, to check their Geiger counters, and to guard the underpass where the truck was still choking out thick black smoke.

Ten segs later, Einarssen withdrew the thousand credits in cash, closed the account, pulled the service chip from his comm and tossed the chip in the trash.

Ten segs after that, Gonsalves started to wonder where the hazmat team was. Five more segs passed before he tried to call the comm code Einarssen had given him but got an error. He was still trying to call “City Safety” back when the overpass completely collapsed.

A div later, Gonsalves’s company commander was not impressed to learn that their freeway access had been severed by a truck full of cornflakes.

* * *

Three more days passed, and the Freeholders’ deception, harassment, and delaying operations were in full swing. There had been more losses—Gonsalves recognized Gatons while he was out pulling yet more utility covers, and despite a chase through a suburban neighborhood, the UN team sideswiped his vehicle with an ILAWAV, wrecking it. They took Gatons prisoner, and the young signaller disappeared into the UN’s already over­burdened holding facility.

Gonsalves left the damaged truck in place, since the UN clearly couldn’t trust anyone with a tow rig, and that night Tanaka lead a small team out to recover the stolen covers and retreated back to his shop. It was the first time since they burned the overpass that he’d left his fabrication shop, and it hurt that he was staying put, fighting the delaying action, rather than retreating from the city with Aoife and the kids. They’d fled the city for a friend’s ranch a hundred klicks past Delph’ and wouldn’t return to the city until the UN was gone. A single handwritten note, passed from Aoife to Minstrel, to Donahue, and on to Einarssen finally wound up in his hands.

We’re safe. Do what you must, the Freehold needs you. We’ll be okay.

All our love,

It hadn’t been signed—that way, if somehow the paper was intercepted, it wouldn’t provide the UN with any details on who it was from or to whom it was addressed. And worst of all, she was right. As a combat pioneer, he’d been trained as a fabrication specialist, building tools and equipment on the fly for Blazer assault groups. He carved up the dense polymer access covers and broke them down into all manner of things. Imitation mines of a half dozen designs and colorations. Urban assault prybars. Hollow-tipped caltrops and spike belts for heavy-duty vehicle tires. Disposable polymer knives, hatchets, and tomahawks, which would escape notice with rudimentary metal-detection equipment. He even took some of the access covers, sliced them thin like a butcher would a salami, and had the covers returned, one-eighth as thick as they’d been. The brittle polymer would crumble and shatter as the heavier armored UN vehicles rolled over them, turning into deadfall pit traps. He even had a plan to rig them with explosives once the UN got around to making “checking the covers” an SOP.

As saboteurs trickled into his little fabshop, Senior Sergeant Hamilton issued the equipment, the assignments, and the routes, with sources, feeds, livestreams, and apps sending real-time info to amend plans on the fly. Cecil was flexing his brain, developing more and more devious ways to harass and hurt the people who had invaded his home.

Speaking of flying . . . 

Fenris dropped the last of his most recently stolen utility plates on the stack and came over to see what Tanaka was giggling about. The design itself was simple, the physics were well within structural tolerances, and the results would be devastating. “You’re grinning like Loki is whispering in your ear.”

“You would know, Lord Mizchiffsen,” Cecil replied. “Witness, the ultimate clay pigeon thrower.”

“What . . . wait, how big is—”

“Big enough to throw access covers,” Tanaka cackled, “which I’m hereby renaming Cecil’s Flying Frisbees of Doom. Two passes on the lathe carves the edges into an aerofoil, like a chakram or a discus. The arm spins, and centripetal force slides our ten-kilo pigeons down the length of the arm. Four revolutions later, it lets fly at two hundred meters per second. The whole thing folds down under a cover in the bed of any air truck with landing jacks. You have any idea how many air trucks with landing jacks exist in this city?”

“You mad bastard,” Fenris breathed. “It’s glorious.”

“You damn betcha,” Tanaka replied with a half-crazed grin on his face. “I’ve got one last little upgrade to make to the killer frisbees themselves, and then we need to test them out, somewhere quiet, away from aardvark eyes. I need to tune the aerofoil for maximum lift, minimize wind effects and measure the ballistic arc. A good ways south, along the coast, I think, where I can lob a few out to sea to calibrate the aiming device.”

* * *

Private Darryl Payette was not at all happy with his first week on Grainne. They’d promised him a quiet rotation of mostly guarding the gate to the Jefferson base. It would be straightforward, they’d said. Land with an overwhelming show of force and begin civil-military cooperative ops to restore a proper socially democratic government. One week in, though, he’d already watched a dozen heavy urban patrols roll out, the quick-reaction-force lift off shortly afterwards, and survivors straggle back in. Most of the time. Without the freeway intact, they had to divert through the city, where the streets had live and bogus mines scattered, rooftops concealed snipers, and people dropped rocks, big heavy rocks and boulders, from balconies.

He already despaired how he was going to survive another six months of this. No one had attacked the base itself just yet, but duty squads had quickly been escalated to duty platoons nonetheless. It was nearly midnight, Earth Zulu time, and it was time for his platoon to muster in the yard for their assignments. That the local sun, Io, was rising in the east, was an artifact of the planet’s twenty-eightish-hour day.

He saw it coming first, in the third rank behind his platoon mates. Movement in the corner of his eye caught his attention, and he looked up. At first, it looked like the nose of one of the fat-bodied lifters, ferrying equipment to and from orbit. But the scale was wrong. Whatever it was, it was arcing in towards them, silently, and getting larger in a hurry.

“INCOMING!” he yelled and broke formation to run for cover behind one of the heavy armored cargotainers. Not everyone reacted quickly enough, and the disc, a meter across, cleared the now-double-stacked cargotainer wall, hit the dirt and skipped like a rock on a pond. It took out Sergeant Second Class Northington at the knees; the projectile pulverized his legs, swept them out from under him, and carried on to take out Corporal Higgins next. Higgins went down with a flailed chest, and then it was up on its side and rolling until it hit the ’tainer where Payette had hidden. The troops scattered for cover, and Lieutenant Cho screamed for a gunship to provide overwatch. A second disc crashed through the base, smashed everything in its path and crushed Lieutenant Julie McCoy’s hand below the wrist.

When all was calm, a skywatch was up, and there were no more of the things flying in, a wounded and angry Lt. McCoy ordered Payette to examine the disc. Payette looked curiously at the top, which read “CITY OF JEFFERSON” around the perimeter. Flipping the disc over, he was puzzled by the shallow, perfectly circular dinner-plate-sized dome centered underneath. He rotated it until the text on the dome was upright.

“FRONT TOWARDS U.N.P.F.”

The mine exploded, and Payette’s tour of Grainne came to an abrupt end.

* * *

Cecil knew he could only get away with such an over-the-top overt attack so many times. His Flying Frisbees of Doom had an effect all out of proportion to their actual deadliness, and the UN hunted the airtruck carrying the launcher with vigor. It was clunky, inefficient, and brutal, so of course it immediately went to the top of the UN’s hit list, as though its mere existence somehow threatened their #1 rank in all three categories. Cecil could see their Most-Expendable-Private cringe through the spotting scope, as the kid reached for the “cornered” airtruck’s door latch. He was right to be scared. Fenris had abandoned it on a skyscraper’s rooftop and when the young Aardvark opened the cab door, the truck detonated and his constituent parts were blown out into open space, twenty stories up.

Cecil, a kilometer away on a different rooftop, tucked away his spotting scope into his briefcase. He might resurrect the FFoD launcher someday, just to give the UNPF troops flashbacks once they’d relaxed a smidge. For now, it was time to get home to his wife and kids. He abseiled down the office skyscraper’s unpowered, unused elevator shaft, tucked his harness away, and met Greg Donahue outside in a ground truck. Tanaka slipped into the passenger seat and flashed Donahue a wordless thumbs-up. Donahue threw the truck into drive, and threaded their way through alleys and side streets, avoiding arterial roads and frequently open utility access points.

Donahue asked, “You ready to shift your AO? I promised your lady I’d see you home safe and sound once the initial crush was over. If it’s not now, it’s never, and I am vastly more frightened of Aoife Tanaka’s wrath than I am of the UNPF.”

“Fair,” Cecil conceded. “Put it that way, I’m doing you the favor.”

“Yes, you are,” Donahue said with a wry grin, and pulled the truck over. “You know how to reach me. Keep those fabber designs flowing and stay safe.”

Donahue shifted into park behind an air truck. It bore brackets on the sides to hold branding placards, allowing for quick and easy changes. Cecil admired their graphic designer’s work, for a moment. The side plate read “Business Occupational Health Inspection & Compliance Agency”—BOHICA—and the logo was stylized enough to make one wonder if it was intended to be quite that . . . phallic.

Brad Ministrelli had adopted a form of urban camouflage—a business suit, this time—and leaned against the door, ready to whisk Tanaka away to the anonymous wilds. His face was solemn, emotionless, like a mask. They lifted without a word and were ten minutes out of Jefferson before the handler spoke.

“Serious question—did you actually destroy a freeway overpass with cornflakes?”

Tanaka allowed a smirk to cross his face. “It was a team effort, but, yeah.”


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Framed