29ZZOOOO-OOOMMM!!!
“Wooo-hooo!”
The SkyLift whooshes through the treetops like a bat out of hell! Gripping the rails of the sleek metal boat, I throw my head back and let the wind whip across my face as we dart in and out of the vivid foliage, suspended only by a thin cable above us. Creatures of all kinds shriek and scatter at our passage, their cries echoing in concert with the laughs and shrieks of the others as we crouch low over the railing, dodging branches and vines alike. Below us, the jungle reels out in luminous detail, golds and fuchsias and sapphires glowing from the panoply of greens and browns, and I don’t think I’ve ever seen anything more glorious in all my life.
It was a piece of luck, finding this transit system in the canopy. Built in the early days of colonization for transport through town, the system was forgotten after the plague drove most everyone away, leaving the jungle to consume all but the most central settlements. It’s held up surprisingly well through the years—helped, I suspect, by TruCon, though what use they have for a transport system through the treetops when they’re buried a kilometer below the ground is an interesting question. Now it’s ours. Its paths are set, so it can’t take us everywhere we want to go, but it can sure cut out a lot of walking.
We hit the lift station in record time, covering what would’ve taken us hours on foot in mere minutes. Still exuberant with laughter, I lower the lift to the ground, alighting on the forest floor with Xylla, Gavin, and Ri tumbling out right behind me. I pause long enough to allow them to offload our gear before sending the SkyLift back up into the trees for safekeeping. Grabbing our stuff, we head off through the jungle.
For our next assault, I chose a small storage facility at the fringes of the settlements, just inside the shield-line. Under the dim rays of Evelaine’s distant light, the building looks small, insignificant even—certainly not the sort of glamorous target any of us had in mind when we began this war—but the scans Mercury pulled show regular TruCon access. Enough to make it worthwhile, especially considering its out-of-the-way location means it’s seldom haunted by ghouls.
Just outside the enviro-shield, I lift my face to the wind and take a deep breath. The Rainforest has a dank smell this morning, a dark earthiness permeating its usual citrus-and-spice, but I sense no ghouls. Not within range, anyway. Nor do I see any squatters when I zoom in with my lenses and survey the area around the building. As far as I can tell, the place is empty—exactly the way I want it.
I let my eyes fall on the others, one at a time. “Ready?”
At their nods, I key open the shield, and in we go.
The building is just as innocuous-seeming up close as it was from a distance, its duro-steel walls dewy and overgrown with flora on all sides. We don’t go for the entrance but rather slink along the outside walls until we find our target: a vine-encrusted grate bolted into the wall roughly a meter off the ground. While the others keep watch, I pull out my tools and get to work, ripping off the greenery before attacking each bolt in turn.
One, two, three, four—the bolts drop off with military precision, each hitting the grass below with a soft swish. Once the final one is out, I curl my fingers around the bars of the grate on either side, flex my biceps, and give a hard yank.
The grate comes off with a high-pitched screee! I dart my gaze left and then right, instinctively searching for any disturbance the noise might have caused, but the facility remains as it was—a quiet bubble within the awakening din of the forest. Assured that everything is still going to plan, I hand off the grate to Xylla and Gavin, then reach for the sack in Ri’s outstretched hands.
The bag wriggles and squirms in my grasp, pitching back and forth under the frantic scrabbling of its contents. I signal to Ri, and together we maneuver the sack into the shaft, making sure to hold it closed as tightly as possible lest its contents escape too early. Only when the bag is as far back into the duct as we can get it do I pause to exchange a quick glance with the others—Xylla and Gavin standing by with the grate, and then Ri at my side, still holding the squirming bag. He meets my eyes and nods once.
Satisfied that everyone is ready, I nod back and cry, “Now!”
As one, Ri and I let go of the sack and jump back. The cloth convulses, and then the entire bag seems to explode as two dozen Iorats erupt into the shaft. Claws scrape and fur flies as the panicked mob swarms through the conduit in search of escape. Several of them disappear, swallowed up by the darkness almost immediately as they charge pell-mell down the shaft, but a good half dozen make a break for daylight—
Claaanng!
The entire shaft vibrates as Xylla and Gavin slam the grate back across the opening. One lucky Iorat drops to the ground, the lone escapee from a mob of twenty-four, but the rest remain, trapped in the conduit with only one way to go—in. Ignoring their squeals of protest, I grab the first bolt, fit it into place, and start welding, only stopping when the final bolt is finally secured. As a final touch, I gather up the discarded flora, winding it around the bars in a tapestry of vivid colors and muted greens.
Sitting back on my heels, I survey my work. Perfect. It looks exactly like it did when we arrived. Unless somebody tries to remove the grate, the enemy will never know anyone touched it. And with the Iorats’ reputation for getting into everything, chances are they’ll assume this is a natural infestation without ever looking further. Rising to my feet, I exchange high fives with the others, and then, without a word, we disappear into the forest.
Over the next several days, we let Iorats into half a dozen other facilities, digging up nests of rodents and releasing them into air shafts, ducts, and vents across enemy territory. Once in, they do as Iorats do, eating food stores and chewing up supplies, gnawing on cables and scratching up consoles. They piss in the water tanks, leave droppings in clothes and bedding, and generally make a huge nuisance out of themselves, getting underfoot at the most inconvenient of times and scaring the slag out of anyone unfortunate enough to stumble upon one. One batch even causes a short circuit in one of the generators when they chew through some key wiring.
Outwardly, I enjoy the antics of the Iorats as much as the others, laughing as the enemy tosses out yet another batch of dead rats in annoyed disgust, and yet instead of triumph, I find myself being overtaken by a creeping dissatisfaction. I want more. This is a war, not a children’s prank. If we’re going to stop the enemy, we’re going to need more than a handful of rodents causing mischief. Judging by the whispers that have begun arising among the group, I’m not the only one who seems to think so.
I first catch wind of the rumors in the shower late one morning after releasing yet another pile of rats.
“—funny, but c’mon. They’re rats.”
“No kidding. I mean, I thought we were supposed to be fighting a war here.”
Fingers buried palm-deep in my soapy hair, I pause, listening as the voices continue.
“Shouldn’t we be, I don’t know, blowing stuff up or something?”
“I heard Teal’s lost her nerve, that she’s afraid to do anything that might stir up the enemy too much.”
At the patently false assertion, my mouth drops open. Afraid?! Where the hell did they get that from?
“Teal? You think so?”
“Well, Vida said—”
Vida. Figures. Just because the Queen of Mean supports the war doesn’t mean she supports my place in it. Doubtless she, like Jovan, believes she would make a far better general for our fledgling army, never mind that the two of them had us scrambling and starving in the woods for days after the invasion! Spreading sly suppositions and unsubstantiated rumors is just the sort of tactic I would expect from a girl whose power was built on vicious lies, secret conspiracies, and social blackmail. Still, she’s not entirely wrong. We need targets where we can cause some real damage, ones that will hurt the enemy while still being reasonably accessible, and for that, we need intel.
It’s time to take my drone out for a spin.
The survey drone lifts off from the ground, rising with soundless precision through the thick afternoon air. At the apex of its ascent, it stops, hovering high above the camp as though held aloft by the hand of God. Crooking one finger, I watch as the drone instantly disappears, bleeding into the landscape until only the slightest ripple in the air remains to mark its presence. I smile slightly, savoring the awesome power of this sleek machine acting solely under my command. Then, with a quick flick of my hand, I send it arcing away effortlessly through the trees.
I lean back in my chair and watch the holo-feed from the drone—or SD—as it speeds along through the forest. I picked this drone up, along with a dozen others, in a raid we made on the Iolanthe Land Office a few weeks ago. Three I set circling around our camp, guarding our perimeter, six are watching the occupied terraforming bunkers, and the remaining three I set to continually roam around the settlements, spying on our enemies. In stealth mode, they’re basically invisible, allowing me to see without being seen, and their sat-links are powerful enough to transmit from almost anywhere on the planet. I don’t even have to worry about charging them, as they’ve been equipped with top-of-the-line solar converters that allow them to run nonstop for days on end. It was these drones I used to gain much of the intel I used to plan our initial strikes. Now it’s time to suss out our next target.
I send the drone gliding through town, looking for any possible locations to strike that might finally put us on the map. The obvious targets are the spaceport and the hydroelectric dam located several klicks upriver, not that either is a viable option at this point. The spaceport is protected 27/7 by a security shield—similar to the enviro-shield, but far more advanced. Clearly TruCon removed the original system and replaced it with their own—a reasonable move considering the access ports in the platform lead directly to their operations below. The same kind of shielding covers the access points into the hydroelectric dam as well. According to Mercury, our chances of breaking into either are about one in a gazillion. A swift foray around both sites with my drone once again confirms that assessment.
With a regretful sigh, I put any hopes of attacking that dam or the spaceport onto the back burner. Though taking down either target could end the enemy’s operation in a heartbeat, we just don’t have the tech, we don’t have the resources, and we don’t have the numbers. Like mice, we have to start small, slowly gnawing away at our enemy one nibble at a time until there are so many holes in the system, they can’t possibly plug them all.
I spend the next few hours checking out other potential targets. Though my first choices are untenable, I find several smaller targets that appear to be good possibilities. It’s clear that while TruCon spent significant resources protecting their main installations—the bunker, the spaceport, and the dam—they didn’t put the same effort into their secondary and tertiary facilities, relying on their anonymity and Iolanthe’s own security for protection—which isn’t much. Iolanthe is little more than a backward homesteading community at the edge of the Expanse. It has security equivalent to that of a small town. Even the ghouls don’t appear to be much of a threat. The most recent force fence scans show little traffic by our incorporeal friends. I guess without hosts or squatters at most of the facilities, they have nothing to draw them there.
I shake my head, not for the first time wondering how exactly the ghouls think. They’re far more than mindless soul-eaters—their strategies throughout the war have proven that—and yet now that they’ve found what they wanted, their movements on Iolanthe seem devoid of any real tactics. If I were their general, I’d have ghouls and squatters at every facility of even minor significance, as deterrents if nothing else. Is their absence due to a lack of understanding or the lack of a plan? Or perhaps they do have a plan, and it’s just far too complex for me to ever comprehend. Though I hope it’s one of the former, I can’t help fearing it’s the latter.
Then again, I consider after a moment, maybe they just don’t see any of us as a real threat. I snort. Now isn’t that a depressing thought?
No answers forthcoming, I swing the drone around toward home, winging it back out over the jungle. The forest flies by in a blur of vivid greens and jewel-like hues, and I almost run the drone into a tree in my haste to get it back. Chagrinned, I force myself to slow down, and that’s when I see it, glinting through the trees perhaps half a dozen klicks north of us.
A space shuttle.
I gasp. There isn’t a terraforming bunker or landing pad of any sort for kilometers! How in all the shining stars did a shuttle end up out here in the middle of the woods?
Crashed, is the obvious answer, an explanation that’s borne out when I bring the SD in for a closer look. Though the shuttle is largely intact, the damage is still quite extensive, judging from the deep scarring, exposed wiring, and debris littering the area—and those are just the exposed surfaces. Vines slither along the carapace and short grasses wave from its wings, enough to make me think it’s been here a while. Probably came down during the invasion.
I glance at the model number emblazoned on the carapace. It’s a light cargo shuttle, crew complement of six, but with enough cargo capacity that with a bit of jury-rigging, you could easily fit a few dozen more people inside. No weapons, sadly, so any ideas I might have of using her to strafe enemy targets are out, but she’s spaceworthy. Or at least she could be with enough work. Enough to navigate a jump line, maybe, or at least get far enough out into space to call for help.
This could be our way out.
The realization comes, unbidden, to my mind. After the Navy laid the planetary net and left, I gave up all hope of ever getting off this rock again, especially with every ship on the planet locked up tight behind that spaceport shield, but now? Finding this shuttle could change everything.
I glance up through the canopy to the sky above with its electric-blue net. Technically, it shouldn’t matter whether we have a shuttle or not. As long as that net’s there, no one’s going anywhere. At least, that’s how it’s supposed to work, and yet . . .
And yet.
The Specs aren’t deficient. There’s no way they would have come and set up shop underground if they didn’t have a way out again. There would be no point otherwise. Whatever the Navy’s intention, I have absolutely no doubt that when the time comes, the Specs’ll find a way to drop the net, and should we happen to have access to a working shuttle when that happens . . .
My heart skips a beat.
Pausing the drone feed, I slowly lower the tip-pad to my lap and contemplate the prospect. The idea of getting off Iolanthe is tempting—more tempting than I want to admit—and yet to even attempt it would mean giving up on the war for good. We only have thirty-five people, and the shuttle is in terrible shape. Even assuming we could scrounge all the tools and parts needed to fix it, it would take all of us weeks, maybe even months, to repair it, and even then, there’s no guarantee it would be spaceworthy. We could end up doing all that work for nothing. In the meantime, there’s no telling what the enemy might do, especially if they manage to get off the planet with that Sinesensu.
Tapping my stylus on my tip-pad, I consider my next move. I should tell the others, of course, see what they think. Mario would be overjoyed; Divya, too, and Zane, along with several others. They would want to go see the shuttle, to try and fix it on the off chance we might escape one day. Some would want to, maybe even many—but not all. Not Vida, who’s already home, or Kieran, who fights for the family he already lost in the war.
Not me.
I stare at the image on my pad for a long time, considering. The shuttle is a long shot at best and a lethal complication at worst, distracting us from an enemy we can’t afford to take our eyes off of for a single moment. Even just a whiff of its existence could split the camp straight down the middle, as those who are pro-war face off against those in favor of attempting escape. It’s a division I’m not sure we could survive. Not here, not now, stranded on an enemy-held planet with no one but ourselves to rely on.
Besides, the war is going so well. It would be criminal to stop now. And it’s not like the shuttle is going anywhere, after all. There’s no reason we can’t simply let it be. We can always reconsider our options at a later time if things change.
Before I can think too much about what I’m doing, I queue up the drone’s controls and shut down the feed. The image of the shuttle winks out as quickly as it appeared. Accessing the history, I select all the footage of the shuttle and download it to my chit, along with the ship’s coordinates. Then going back to the drone, I access the controls for its memory.
The confirmation prompt comes up over my hand.
*Delete Selected Footage?*
I hesitate for only a moment. Hitting yes, I delete the footage and send the drone on its way.
One hour and several drone sweeps later, I find the perfect target for our next attack.
My head slowly bobs up and down as I peruse the feed. This is it. This is exactly the sort of target I’ve been looking for. Strike this, and we’ll no longer be a group of disgruntled students sneaking about in the shadows, but real players in this war.
A feral smile slinks over my lips. Let Vida say what she wants.
It’s time to show the enemy who we are.