He came round to the sound of firing in the streets. Distant, sporadic firing. Engines too, the grinding hum of UN heavy armour.
His eyes fluttered open. He was no longer in the warehouse. He was still in the industrial zone, but he was outside in the street. The sky above was a light shade of grey. Morning had arrived, and the rain had lightened off from torrential to just heavy. It took him a moment to realise that he was no longer wearing his helmet. Instead of his tactical HUD from his Mantix visor, his IHD corneal-implant was providing him with his physiological display. Some burns, and his body would ache a bit from the blast, but nothing a short stint in hospital couldn’t fix. Pain-relieving drugs were suffusing his bloodstream, but his hands were shaking from the aftereffects of Granite.
He sat up. He was lying on a rudimentary stretcher made of tough olive-green fabric, next to a stack of medical crates and a few holo projectors. He checked the mission timer to discover his IHD had kept him unconscious for six hours.
‘Morning sleeping beauty,’ someone said next to him. He turned, sending droplets of rain cascading down from his hair. Captain Milovan was standing next to the stretcher, looking out across the street.
‘Captain,’ Vasco said, and fell to coughing. Even through the rebreather, the boiling air and overpressure had hit his lungs hard. He spat pink on to the floor. ‘What happened?’ he asked eventually.
‘Your boy Kgosi has some serious cojones, that’s what happened,’ Milovan said. A wry smile played across the marine captain’s lips. ‘Good job those DSF-80s are only eighty percent human redundant and not a hundred. Once the request came through to the 1160th for a danger close strike, the VI wanted to put a high-ex down range. Would have had a barbecue on your hands. As it happens the trooper changed it to limited-area antipersonnel. You’re lucky overpressure and a bit of light grilling is all you had to deal with.’
Vasco breathed out. His lungs hurt. He looked around for the rest of VIPER. ‘Where’s my team?’
‘Kgosi, Akiya, Jarle all casevac’d to the rear. They’ll all need some new body parts. Severine is knocking about here somewhere.’
‘And Almeida?’
Milovan squatted down next to the stretcher. ‘He’s a mess, but he’ll live. With a new body. Very nearly had his ticket punched by that arty.’
‘Shit,’ Vasco said eventually.
‘Yeah. Shit,’ Milovan agreed. He stood back up, scanning the buildings nearby. Each bore the hallmarks of battle: railgun slug holes, phase and laser burns. The UN Marines had swept through the industrial zone like a scouring wind, destroying the provar like antibodies destroying a pathogen.
‘The battle is over?’ Vasco asked, tracing a flock of drones through the cloudy sky.
Milovan nodded. ‘As good as.’
Vasco could only nod numbly. They had succeeded. The mission had been a success. Against the odds, they had pulled it off. It had nearly cost the entire team their lives; it had cost Range his life. There would be extensive debriefs and lessons learnt afterwards. But for now, he could relish in their success.
‘What happens next?’ he asked Milovan.
‘Holbourn wants your team offworld, but I expect that was going to happen anyway,’ Milovan said. He paused, going briefly cross-eyed for a moment as he consulted something on his own IHD. ‘You’ll make your own arrangements for transport and debrief?’
Vasco stared at the floor, but he nodded silently. Eventually, he said, ‘thank you, Captain. I dread to think what would have happened without your marines.’
Milovan slapped him on his good shoulder. ‘We were gunning east anyway. Least we could do is help out some fellow humans.’ He spat on the floor. ‘Fucking cobs.’
‘Fucking cobs,’ Vasco agreed.
There was a pause. Vasco watched the marines through the curtains of rain as they idled at the end of the street, their weapons held in the crooks of their elbows. The air above filled with the sporadic buzzing of recon drones. Somewhere in the distance, a railgun rattled, echoing through the empty streets. He wondered how long it would be before the civilians could emerge from their bolt holes and into the light, and whether Iepthae would simply be invaded again once the UN forces here had pulled out.
‘Well, I’d better get going,’ Milovan said, unclipping his helmet from his utility belt. He held out a hand, and Vasco gripped it. ‘Good luck, Captain.’
‘And you,’ Vasco replied, and Milovan turned, took three quick steps, and jumped lightly onto the flatbed of a passing UN troop carrier.
Vasco took a few moments to collect his thoughts. He was going to need a new suit of armour, a new weapon and a serious going-over from some med-techs. He was also going to have to rethink their entire tactical doctrine. As for their mandate, that would be a question for Fiona Tavistock, the head of EFFECT.
‘Hey, Chief,’ sounded a familiar voice. He turned to his right, to see Sev approaching. To his trained eye, he could see that the man’s exoskeleton was preventing the man from walking with a pronounced limp. Like Vasco, he was helmetless and weaponless. Something else for the limited VIPER budget to absorb.
‘Hey, Sev,’ Vasco replied tiredly, and spat more bloody phlegm on the floor. He watched the rain wash it away.
‘We did it,’ Sev said, sitting heavily on the end of the stretcher. He looked even paler than usual. His dark hair was plastered to his scalp by the unending rain. ‘Almeida. He’s alive. Technically.’
Vasco snorted. ‘Yeah. Got a functioning brain stem, does he?’
‘That and some other bits,’ Sev replied with a grin. ‘More than he needs. Xeno Division will grow him a new body.’
Vasco could see Almeida’s face now, clutching Akiya’s pistol, terrified to the point of madness while the world around him exploded. The mental scars would be severe and life-changing. Even with extensive counselling, Vasco doubted the man would return to any kind of diplomatic duty. They’d saved him so that he could become a shell, an automaton.
He shook his head, forced himself to smile. As the CO, such negative thoughts were his burden, not his team’s. As far as they should have been concerned, this was a mission success.
‘Well done, Sev. For this morning. Last night. You and the whole team. That was fucking good work. And ballsy too; taking on that Spider’ll get you a commendation.’
Sev’s face fell. ‘Too fucking bad about Range,’ he said.
‘Yeah,’ Vasco replied. After a while, he stood up, wincing in pain, and summoned their Manticore via his IHD. ‘Come on. Let’s get the hell out of here.’