Master Sergeant Hisaki Shibukawa storms into his commanding
officer's meeting still clad in the light armor used on training runs. Blood,
mostly from the fresh squad he almost lost, coats his arms and chest piece.
Fragrant splashes of the clear bile that serves as the blood in their advanced
combat training drones create visual distortions on the armor.
He slides between two officers who recoil from his approach and slams a fist
full of ghost collars onto the meeting table. The collars are still wet. Blood
oozes through his fingers as his eyes, burning with rage, meet General
Maxwell's across the table.
“Gentlemen,” the General addresses the seated personnel, “if you would excuse
us.”
They hurry to leave. Maxwell adjusts
his uniform and smiles at Hisaki. The General's cold blue eyes, an unnatural
match for his mahogany skin, gleam with smug superiority.
“Master Sergeant. What brings you here on this fine day?” He gestures out the
window to a bright and sunny afternoon.
Hisaki’s dark gaze remains fixed on the
General.
“You know damn well what, sir. That wasn't battle training. There shouldn't
have been any ghosts within a hundred miles of that site. It was a green squad
with pop guns for Christ’s sake.”
Maxwell stands and turns to the window, looking out over the parade ground.
“You know I don't often stand for
insubordination, Master Sergeant,” he says calmly. “Yet you are still here.
Doesn't that strike you as unusual?”
Hisaki's jaw works and he stops himself from clenching his hands into tight
fists. The General has a point. MPs should have escorted him halfway out of the
building by now.
Maxwell reaches back to the table for a glass of water and then returns to the
window as he sips it.
“I suspect you would find it equally
unusual to walk in on a meeting that is solely about you and your recent
accomplishment. You had a squad of untested, scared, sniveling new recruits
with nothing better than rocks to defend them against 40 combat ghosts all
loaded for bear. You were outnumbered two to one yet the ghosts were
annihilated and five of your men didn't even need to be hospitalized. We lost a
lot of good officers to find you, Shibukawa.”
Hisaki freezes. Maxwell eyes him then checks to make sure the door is closed
before he continues.
“Out of fifty training missions that accidentally
encountered a full complement of ghosts, yours was the only one with
survivors.”
Hisaki takes a moment to let the General’s words sink in. More than a thousand
soldiers executed mere weeks after joining a cause they believed in. Kids
trying to prove themselves, to make their families proud…all dead while their
General shows no remorse. If anything, he seems relieved. Hisaki can hardly
conceal his disgust with his commanding officer.
To his credit, Maxwell seems to notice
Hisaki’s obvious inner struggle and softens his expression. When he speaks, his
voice is level and almost sympathetic.
“This project was not undertaken in
vain. There are innumerable lives that will be saved by what has happened and
what you will do.”
Hisaki frowns and growls: “What exactly
will that be, sir?”
“You will be briefed on the ship waiting for you,” Maxwell says as he turns
back to the window. “You are dismissed, Master Sergeant.”
********
This is the second private transport
Hisaki has embarked on in his entire career.
These are the cushy vessels reserved for high end diplomatic missions or
special events. He was a kid travelling
with his ambassador father for his first trip.
His dad thought it would be fun for him to live like royalty for a few
days. It wasn’t. He felt out of place the entire time and not
much has changed. This trip has less
servants, but still has the silk sheets.
He’s
on this trip with three dropships and their pilots. All of them were ordered not to talk to each
other and none of them were to see the crew of the transport. He’s being ordered to put his life in a lot
of strange hands and he’s not sure if he likes it.
His
briefing is pretty straightforward. The
transport will drop them off in the middle of nowhere. They will then follow a path known only to
the dropship pilots to the planet where his package has been imprisoned. There, they will drop him off and wait. He will traverse four miles of jungle
following a pre-approved route that he is not to deviate from until he reaches
the prison where his package is being held.
The package is actually a group of
forty people between 30-40 years of age.
Most of them are not combat trained.
He is not allowed to talk to them past giving them orders and finding
out their first names. He may touch
them with gloved hands, but skin to skin contact will mean automatic court
martial. A greater than 20% casualty rate will also mean automatic court
martial. Once he releases them, they will have approximately ten minutes before
roughly 300 ghosts try to kill him and them without prejudice.
Easy.
He’ll
break them out and have them home in time for dinner.
*******
Hisaki runs as fast as his armor and gear will allow, the forty prisoners
keeping up with him admirably despite how miserable and drenched they
look. They’re all dressed in the clothes
they had been wearing when captured; there’s a lot of business casual. He feels a little guilty wearing climate
controlled armor in this hot, dense jungle, but he really likes staying
alive. At least they have comfortable
shoes.
He spots one of his landmark trees and points left down a barely visible game
trail. He stops one of the de facto leaders: a young woman with sharp brown
eyes and long auburn hair named Aislynn.
“Go straight to the clearing, but do not enter until I tell you. Do you
understand?”
She nods with a barely audible “Yeah” between panting breaths then turns to the
group and repeats the order. They take
off. Hisaki raises his rifle and waits,
counting as they rush by. One man, Ethan, his eyes as wild as his unkempt sandy
beard, has picked up a rifle from a ghost Hisaki killed and brings up the
rear. Hisaki doesn’t object to his being
armed; he moves like a man with military training, but he has no idea how he
had time to stop and grab the weapon.
Ethan is almost to Hisaki when a bolt of superheated plasma catches him in the
lower back. He grunts and spills forward, cradling his rifle to his chest. He
pushes himself over and sits up, taking aim at his attacker. Hisaki and Ethan
open fire simultaneously on the ghost, sending it to the ground with a volley
of armor piercing rounds. Ethan then slumps back down.
Hisaki kneels next to him, but Ethan waves him off. With a labored breath he
says, “Go.”
“I'm not leaving anyone behind.”
Ethan slaps the growing puddle of blood underneath him and says with more
force: “Go!” He points at Hisaki's equipment: “Grenade.”
“I'll do you one better.”
He unslings his pack and digs out his
last antipersonnel mine.
Ethan smiles, his teeth tinted red, and laughs. Hisaki tries to hand him the
mine and it’s pulled from his hand by an unseen force instead and floats over
to land in a spot a few yards away. Slightly,
shaken and surprised, Hisaki wraps Ethan’s hand around the detonator. He turns to Hisaki with a grin and his free
hand raises to his brow.
Freezing up on a field of battle is
a great way to get killed. Hisaki shakes
himself free of the shock and returns the salute and takes off down the trail.
He taps his radio and manages a steady voice.
“Firebird one, copy.”
There’s a burst of static and the pilot of the lead dropship replies in a slow
drawl: “Read you five by five, Sarge."
“I'm going to need some deforestation at waist height in a few minutes. You
think you can do that?”
“Where do you want it?”
“On my beacon. Give me ten seconds after I turn it on, no more. Once they
detect the signal, they’ll be all over us.”
“Still think there’s at least two hundred of them out there?”
“What do your sensors say?”
“Twenty; thirty tops.”
“Ever see a cockroach colony?”
“Can’t say that I have.”
“Once I turn the beacon on, you will.”
“Whatever you say, sir. Firebird one out.”
The radio clicks off as he reaches the group of prisoners crouched at the edge
of the clearing, barely able to see over the tall grass. He pulls up next to
Aislynn.
“Everyone accounted for?”
“All but you and Ethan.” She looks over her shoulder down the trail.
An explosion shakes the trees and spooks most of the group.
“He’s not coming.”
Aislynn swallows and gives a single nod.
Hisaki stands up to address the others. “We have five hundred meters to the
rendezvous. When I say go, you run. When I say stop, you lay down flat on the
ground until I give the word. Understood?”
There is general assent. He scans the edges of the clearing and yells “Go!”
at the top of his lungs.
They break cover and run. Hisaki is out in front, surprised to find Aislynn
keeping up with him. He yells for them to stop and drops to the ground facing
the group, clicking on his beacon once he’s sure they’re all down.
The three dropships are already in the air behind him. When the beacon lights
up, Hisaki hears the ships wheel toward the clearing and Firebird one starts
the countdown.
“Ten.”
Hisaki hears the ghosts rushing through the grass.
“Nine.”
Shrieks, barks, and growls pierce the air.
“Eight.”
A few of the prisoners start to whimper in fear. One man looks around, frantic.
“Seven.”
Hisaki sees the outlines of the ghosts darkening the sea of green.
“Six.”
Aislynn whispers next to him, willing the group to remain calm.
“Five.”
Her whispers become more insistent.
“Four.”
Hisaki sees the frantic man’s arm muscles twitch. Aislynn begins to crawl
toward him.
“Three.”
Aislynn reaches the man as he begins to stand.
“Two.”
Hisaki slides towards Aislynn.
“One.”
The man reaches his full height.
“Fire!”
Hisaki grabs Aislynn’s ankle and drags
her backwards as hard as he can. The dropships open fire and thousands of
bullets tear through the air. The frantic man’s upper half drops to the ground
in front of Aislynn, his bottom half toppling to the side. She watches as his
blood pours over the ground, her brown eyes wide with horror and anger. Hisaki
jumps to his feet the moment the guns go silent.
“Run!”
Everyone stands and sprints toward their
designated dropships—except for Aislynn. Hisaki drops to one knee and leans in
close.
“You need to stand and you need to
run.”
She closes her eyes and takes a breath.
When she opens them, Hisaki sees they are clear and focused. They stand and
sprint for the remaining dropship. With forty meters left, Aislynn hits the
dirt, pulling Hisaki down with her. A bolt of plasma cuts through the air where
his torso had just been and burns out on the gray hull of the dropship.
Hisaki switches his beacon off and leads
Aislynn in a slow combat crawl. He scans the brush behind them and curses under
his breath in Japanese when he sees nothing. He’s aware that Aislynn is moving
towards him but doesn’t pay her much attention until her hands are working off
his helmet. He immediately pulls away,
not wanting a court martial and suspicious of who exactly these people are.
“Trust me,” she says.
“Easy for you to say.”
“You asked me to trust you and I
have. I’ve not regretted that yet. Give me the same consideration. Please.
Whatever awaits us at home—at least we’ll be able to get there.”
Hisaki frowns but lets her remove his
helmet. Then her hands are on either side of his head, the first two fingers of
each hand on his temples.
“Close your eyes.”
He raises an eyebrow. “Close my eyes?
So I can see them?”
“Are you seeing them terribly well with
your eyes open?”
Hisaki concedes and closes his eyes.
“You’re very tense, Master Sergeant.”
“Can’t imagine why.”
“I need you to be calm or this won’t
work.”
Hisaki takes a deep breath and forces
his mind and body into a calmer state. It’s soon replaced by nervous energy and
a strong prey drive. This confuses him until he realizes that he’s feeling the
ghosts that surround them and it dawns on him who these people are and why
they’ve been imprisoned. What he doesn’t
understand is why something so dangerous is being let back out.
Suddenly, momentarily, none of that
matters.
He knows where the ghosts are.
Hisaki turns to his back, unclips a
grenade from his belt, and throws it into the highest concentration of ghosts.
They’re not as far away as he would like and he rolls Aislynn beneath his
armored body and covers his head with his arms. The explosion rattles his teeth
and sends dirt and body parts flying over them.
As soon as it’s clear, her hands are on
him again. He doesn’t balk this time, doesn’t fight her even though everything
he’s been taught tells him not to let a psi within ten miles of his
person. Right now, he needs to use every
tool he can so that his person can get within ten miles of safety and home.
Now that he knows what to look for,
it’s easy to pinpoint the location of the remaining ghosts. They’re alarmed but
determined. He burns their locations into his mind then opens his eyes and
looks down at Aislynn. She gives him a supportive smile and nod and releases
him.
Hisaki replaces his helmet and
activates his camouflage. He takes a deep breath, stands, and opens fire. By
the time his magazine is empty, only wind moves through the grass. Hisaki
quickly reloads, keeping his weapon at the ready. When nothing returns fire, he
yells for Aislynn to run.
Aislynn sprints for the dropship with
Hisaki at her heels, acting as a shield. He’s relieved when she leaps into the
dropship and jumps in behind her. He hits the door controls then taps his comm.
“All clear. Let’s get these people home.”
