Footage begins with an audio track only. There’s a hiss of static as systems come online. The bass drone of engines rumbling over the tremors of atmospheric reentry and snatches of soft conversation.
“—so I said to her, ‘Fem, I didn’t see your name on him, and if you can’t kee—’ ”
“—nly been three weeks since our last rotation, chum. This is bull—”
“—frostbite. Lost both hands and his nose if you—”
“—insurgency my***—”
A flicker of snow rolls across my screens as the feeds fade into view.
We’re in the belly of a BeiTech Locust—a surface-to-orbit shuttle built for heavy lifting during planetside incursions. The surfaces are gunmetal gray, lit by strips of scuffed red fluorescence. A wall of monitors dances with data. The ship’s a military transport, armored and armed for business. On the rear bay doors, beneath the phoenix logo of BeiTech Industries, three words are spray-painted in neat stenciled letters.
The holy trinity of every corp grunt’s life.
COMPANY
COMMANDER
CORPS
The Locust’s belly is filled with soldiers. Orbital infantry, aka “ground pounders,” trained for atmo-to-surface seizure operations. Two dozen men and women, most in their early twenties, each busy encasing themselves in the sleek lines of an Armored Tactical Light Assault Suit’s plasteel and ballistics-grade nanofiber weave, painted in the white and gray of winter camouflage. They look like a cross between praying mantises and knights from the archive vids, except Sir Lancelot never carried a gun big enough to kill a building with.
Every ATLAS is fitted with a shoulder-mounted personal cam. The footage quality from their feeds is good, audio is excellent. I’ll say one thing for BeiTech: When they plan an illegal planetary invasion/genocide, they don’t spare any expense.
One soldier stands out in the crowd. Quiet amid the familiar banter. He’s younger than the rest. Eighteen, maybe nineteen. His ATLAS is showroom new; no dings or scuffs or scars, none of the hand-drawn decorations that distinguish one pounder’s faceless suit from another. He has a square jaw. Sharp gray eyes, just a touch too wide. Sandy blond hair, styled into a quiff that, if it doesn’t violate regulations, damn well should. It sure as **** violates the laws of gravity. One of my fellow vid analysts—who insists on peering over my shoulder as I work—says she would “hit that like it owed her all the ISĦ in the ’verse.”
The name LINDSTROM, RHYS is stenciled on his breastplate.
Pretty as the kid might be, when his fellow soldiers look at him at all, they do it with narrowed eyes.
“****ing cherry…,” one sneers.
“Green as grass.”
“He old enough to have turf on the pitch, you think?”
“Ask your sister.”
“Hey, ****you, Oshiro.”
“Say please, loverboy.”
LINDSTROM, RHYS, stays silent during the exchange. Frowning at the power couplings on his ATLAS. He practically has an I HAVE NEVER WORN ONE OF THESE BEFORE sign flashing over his head, but none of his squaddies offer to help with the rig.
“Ten-hut! Officer on deck!”
Lindstrom and his fellow soldiers snap to attention as an armored figure stalks into the bay, boots thudding on temperfoam floors. He’s built like a tank, not wearing his helmet yet. Dark eyes and short salt-and-pepper hair. Tā-moko tattooed on one half of a grizzled face. The name CHRISTIE is stenciled on the battered breastplate next to his lieutenant’s pips. The words I AM YOUR GOD NOW are neatly handwritten above it.
He surveys his troops, appraising each in turn.
“At ease.”
The soldiers relax slightly, feet apart, hands behind backs.
“Good morning, pounders.”
“Morning, sir!” come two dozen barks.
“I know we had no time for a full briefing before dusting off from the Churchill. Apologies for interrupting your beauty sleep. **** knows Woźniak could use some more.”
A hulking soldier with a face like a dropped pie grins wide as the lieutenant smirks in his direction. The name WOŹNIAK is printed on his breastplate, but he’s scribbled it out and written DUKE above it. His scars are numerous, fresh and, given the nanotech a frontline BeiTech unit is packing, probably left there by request.
“I’m also aware we had four more sols before our next Kerenza rotation was due to commence,” Lieutenant Christie continues. “So skipping the foreplay, here’s the sitrep:
“At 23:47 last night, Kerenza IV time, a malfunction occurred in the internal environment system of the Kerenza town hall, which had been refitted as our officers’ barracks. As a result, the system began pumping pure CO into the hall. By the time the system fault was discovered, thirty-seven of our officers were dead of carbon monoxide poisoning.”
“**** me,” Woźniak whispers.
“Goddamn rebs,” another mutters.
The Locust bucks in the turbulence. Christie raises his voice over the rising murmurs.
“I know what you’re thinking. But it’s possible the fault wasn’t the result of sabotage. Even so, Admiral Sūn is upping planetside presence. Until further notice, all rotations run six weeks surface, two weeks orbit. So I hope you packed your mittens, fems and chums. Because we’re in for a stay and it’s cold down there.”