A Warrior's Sacrifice (5 page)

That was the land that the Choxen counterattack in 302 AS had taken back. The Republic had been careless and overextended, and it was only through dreng sacrifice, a quick shuffling of Human troops, and twenty million IGA soldiers dropped in from their orbiting ships that stopped the Choxen from sacking New Detroit and Toledo Alpha.

The soldier at the front of the room tapped at his datapad again. The projector zoomed in to the enemy-controlled lands just west of Lake Superior. "From somewhere in this location, a sizable enemy force has been crossing into Republic territory." Red arrows arched out from a central point to land inside the Republic. "They've been raiding, taking everything from livestock to Humans."

Corwin stiffened, held his breath.

"We believe that this is a combined force of Choxen and Quislings. We don't know how or why, but we have some hypotheses." He turned to look at Corwin. "Word has it you have some expertise in this regard."

"Uh, yes," Corwin said.

"Good. Take a look at what we have, requisition what you need, find them, kill them. Understand?"

"Sir," they said as one.

The officer nodded and walked from the room without looking back. It was unlikely that this was his only briefing today; he'd send many more soldiers out to die and to kill.

After a few silent minutes, Corwin stood and walked out. He felt sick. Of all the missions he could get. Hadn't he suffered enough?

He cringed as the thought passed through his mind. The answer was clear and obvious: no, it wasn't about suffering — that was a childish way of viewing events. They were to hunt Quislings. Corwin was a Quisling. He was an expert in their lives and their tactics because he'd been one of them. That was it. That was all.

Despite the logic that he tried to place onto the situation, the boy inside of him, injured and afraid, cried out at the injustice, the immature voice growing with each step. This was just part of his penance. But when would it end? What was the measure of personal suffering needed to balance out killing
his own
family? Maybe someone kept track.

Chahal might know.

It wouldn't help him to know anyway. The scale was tipped far, far in one direction, hitting bottom. Not only his family, but what his family
did
; that was heaped up there with all the rest. Corwin clamped down, stuffed the injured boy head-first back into his box. How Corwin felt about it all didn't matter anyway; he had a job to do, and he didn't need a child's insecurities getting in the way.

Corwin became aware of his Voidmates' presence and glanced at each in turn. They'd caught up and fell into step around him, dyzued his turmoil but stayed silent. He'd do his job and they'd do theirs, and if he planned well enough, thought through all the details, if they had the right skills and if they had just a little bit of luck, they might make it back — and if they made it back, he wouldn't have to stack their bodies atop the scale with the rest.

Their staging room was small, a four by four-meter soundproof box with a holoprojector at one end, a table in the center, and chairs lined against one wall. They sat, each trying to look busy on their coms. An awkward silence stretched, making the room feel both cavernous and oppressive.

Corwin cleared his throat. "Listen, this session will be difficult for us — and that's fine. I'm fine with it. I need you all thinking so we can make it through this mission alive. So go ahead. Ask me whatever it is you need or want to know about how the Quislings work."

Phae jumped at the opportunity. "How is it that you — that the Quislings — travel."

Corwin ignored the dig and answered the question. "Caravan mostly. Even without a Republic-sized pool of requisitionable goods, they make do. They're also masters at stealth and camouflage, so satellite footage is out; same with anything long-range. We'll need to track them on the ground."

"Where do we start?" asked Chahal.

"The most recent attacks will be too old by the time we arrive. We'll have to sit and wait in the area until something happens."

"We travel light then," Kai said. His booming voice was almost painful in the enclosed space. "Hover bikes, sneak suits, and weapons."

Corwin nodded.

"The real question," Phae said, "is why Quislings would be working
with
the Choxen in the first place. They are, if not outright enemies, hostile towards one another."

"Yes, the Quisling-Choxen relationship is tense at the best of times. Duels are frequent and always end in death." Corwin paused, cleared his throat. "As to
why
they're working together…" He shrugged.

"Republic territory," Chahal said, "has almost doubled in size in the last fifty years. The Quislings as a distinct genetic line will die out with the Choxen — they have no place else to go."

"Why's that?" Phae asked, and then jerked her thumb towards Corwin. "This one found a place."

Kai's humorless laugh rolled through the room like a peel of thunder. "You really think Corwin found a place in the Republic? You're a fool."

Phae's eyes narrowed. "Watch what you say to me, Variant."

For a second, Kai looked like he was about to respond then thought better of it. He shrugged the insult away.

"The Choxen at least tolerate the Quislings' existence as a separate social unit," Corwin said. "My people are fighting for survival. They'll do whatever they need to survive against the Republic." Corwin didn't realize what he'd said until it was far too late. It was not smart of him to appear to identify with the Quislings over the Republic — not smart at all. His Voidmates needed to trust him, and they wouldn't, couldn't, if they thought he'd stab them in the back. With just a few words, he had forced the chasm between himself and his Voidmates wider. He let it ride; nothing he said now could change what they'd heard.

The room was silent after that, the fear and hatred and embarrassment combining to create an awkwardness almost too strong to penetrate. They scanned through the mission details on their coms.

Corwin grunted and flipped his closed. "That's really all we can do now. I'll requisition the gear we need." He scanned through a list of upcoming trams and flights to their mission area. "There is a cargo carrier leaving in an hour. Let's be on it."

Phae frowned and crossed her arms. "Where do you get off —"

Corwin chopped his hand through the air and projected Command. "When we are on a mission, I'm in charge. We've been assigned to a mission. Get moving."

Phae's mouth snapped shut. She turned and strode from the room, back stiff with indignation. Corwin remained seated for a few moments as he checked and rechecked his requisition order. With the touch of a button he sent it off to be marked as high priority and slid to the front of the Support Caste's queue.

Chahal stuck her head back through the door. "We shipping our sneak suits or wearing them?"

"We may need to move the moment we land. Wear it."

Chahal smiled and turned, white ribbon and long curls trailing after.

At the tram station, Corwin paused at an equipment kiosk and typed his passcode. Gears and hooks and tracks hidden inside the walls and floors sprang to life, gathering the items he'd requested, shunting them from the storage facility out to where Corwin waited. In minutes, the two cases appeared.

He pulled the first off the belt, waited a moment, then took the next, lugging them over to a far wall. Inside the largest container was his sneak suit, all shiny and living and growing and new; beside it a roll of compression clothes. Corwin paused and checked around the station. There were no restrooms in sight, and the construction of a changing room would be jendr — a waste of space, resources, and time.

Corwin wasn't alone as he stripped down. Men and women from every caste had to use the equipment kiosks, and they too had to change out in the open. He was glad for the partial anonymity. Still, he paused, thumbs hooked onto the waistband of his underwear, and glanced around the room before shedding them as well. He told himself that no one cared about nudity in the Republic — all restrooms and showers were coed — but he couldn't stop himself from caring. He turned so just his bared back would face the crowds disembarking from the trams.

He pulled the compression pants on first, arranging and adjusting for comfort as his body heat caused the material to shrink. Working the material around his feet, Corwin stretched it over and between his toes, and then repeated the process with his torso, rubbing it smooth so it wouldn't bunch in his joints or under his chin.

Corwin removed the suit from the container and placed it face-first against the wall. Without a body inside, the suit was stiff enough to stand upright on its own. Sitting down on the edge of the case, Corwin slid the helmet over his head. Inside was dark, the tinted visor blocking out much of the building's industrial lighting.

After a few seconds, the helmet's cells, sensing heat and bioelectricity, awoke. An orange line traced its way along the edge of the visor, each stage of the booting process marked by a series of concentric circles that broke the line. The last circle flashed green.

The last stage of the boot process was the worst: neural mesh integration. Corwin cringed in preparation. His neural mesh activated and synced with the helmet, and a stab of pain rocketed through his head like someone drove a knife into his temple. Linking a suit to an implanted mesh hurt everyone, every time, but it was necessary for the proper function of advanced armor and weaponry. It was also the most feared step in the testing cycle, because there was a percentage of the population who couldn't handle it, and no amount of training could prepare the soldier for the test. Those who couldn't use one were busted down to the Wei Caste or lower.

The line continued its march across the visor as different aspects of the helmet's capabilities booted and merged with Corwin's senses and consciousness.

Hearing came first. All external sounds disappeared, then floated back in like turning up a volume knob, except now they were clearer, sharper, and audible from farther distances. As the helmet's visor cleared, so did Corwin's vision. He became aware of his
new
abilities of sight: infrared, night vision, zoom. Their sudden addition was disorienting at first, so many new variations of sight all at once. With the help of the neural mesh, his mind integrated the new senses, senses that were there all along but forgotten.

Corwin also gained an awareness of his suit, of its separateness from him and its longing to be made whole. Except for the helmet, the suit was a contiguous exoskeleton, hollow, with no obvious way in or out. Straps or zippers could yield too many weak points in hostile environments. The only way in was by using the implant, the helmet, and thought.

Corwin imagined the suit, imagined himself, opening, like the buds of a tree opening into spring's soft light, unfurling, expanding, stretching towards the sun. The suit responded, the back writhing, cracks forming in the unbroken surface. The armor bent and the rear cracked open like the molted skin of an insect, the gap just wide and malleable enough to squeeze through.

Corwin worked his way into the suit, feet sliding into the boots, hands and fingers sliding into the gauntlets. He pressed himself forward until there was no space between suit and Human. Then he let go of the idea of open leaves, curled them up, and withdrew them back into the tree, back into hibernation and sleep. The cells responded, the suit creaking and compressing until it closed shut behind. Then the living suit went to work, repairing the cracks that had formed, binding the seam together.

It was Corwin that remained — the only sentient mind that controlled the two. Flexing, he worked the suit into his body's understanding of itself, acclimating to his new length, refining his proprioception, and he became
aware
of the suit as it weaved its way into his mental homunculus.

From the second case Corwin pulled his rifle, standard issue for reconnaissance work. He loaded a magazine and stowed the dozen extras onto the magnetic strips along his thighs and torso, then slung the weapon around to his back.

From the same container he pulled his pistol and attached it to his right hip, placing the extra clips into their accustomed places along his waist. His sword he attached to his left, aware of it like he was aware of the suit in an antipresence sort of way; the suit was alive, the sword not — and that absence of life was palpable.

Corwin activated the suit's diagnostic system with a quick mental command. A list appeared on the HUD showing power levels, relative structural damage, projected regeneration rate, stim and painkiller supplies, as well as a hundred other things that he checked off before depositing the empty containers back into the kiosk.

He took a tram westward, skipping past the two intervening stops, one to the Wei barracks and training facility, the second to the warehouse district. It was a quick one-way trip, and Corwin arrived well ahead of the others to impress upon them that that was what he expected every time.

The warehouse district, dubbed "Cargo City," spread out in all directions. It
was
a city in a way, complete with its own ion shielding, garrison of soldiers, and defensive fortifications; in place of the domed rectangles that served as buildings, landing platforms jutted from the ground at regular intervals like giant, flat-capped mushrooms.