The moment they begin to walk up the slope the North Koreans open fire on them from a sandbagged bunker at the crest of the low hill.
Mai flinches at the chatter and fury. Her instinct to seek cover screams from somewhere deep in her. A round thuds into her midsection, but the armor does its job, sloughing off energy and dissipating mass.
Her stride isn’t even affected.
“Keep the line straight, hold out your arms,” Nguyen mutters to them all via helmet communications. “Show them we’re not armed.”
They’ve been shot at in training. But these rounds are meant to kill them, not get them used to the impact.
This is the real thing. Those people out there are trying to kill Mai.
And all she’s going to do is hold out her hands and walk forward.
The implacable pale blue line keeps moving up the hill.
Mai feels round after round, entire bursts, carom off her armor like birdshot before she’s halfway up the hill. And then, finally, the North Korean gunners break and make a run for it.
“Duc, Mai, disable the bunker,” Nguyen orders.
Mai leaps free of the line with an exultant grunt, clearing fifteen feet of ground in a half restrained hop that has her slamming down in front of the bunker’s still-steaming gun in a second.
Duc’s right by her.
“No one’s inside. No heat signatures,” Duc reports. He rips the bunker apart, pulling the sandbags out and kicking the walls in.
Mai yanks the roof’s timbers free, dropping the sandbags they’d supported down into a warren of cots and radio equipment. The crunching sounds from all this are distant and suppressed to her, like she’s turned the volume down on a Hollywood action movie.
In three full breaths, they’ve reduced the fortified position to sandy rubble.
Mai strips the machine gun down to its individual components, then grabs both ends of the barrel and twists it into uselessness. She repeats that with the spare barrel, then looks over at the ammunition.
“The Ploughshares team can take care of the ammo,” Duc says. “They’ll catch up soon enough.”
Something kicks her in the back, jostling her. Mai spins around and knocks away the gun of a scared soldier that has managed to sneak up on her.
He stands there, stupefied, holding his hand, waiting for whatever comes next.
“Mai!” Duc shouts.
She has her fist in the air, ready to bring it down and crack his skull, but freezes in place. Her heart is hammering, her mouth dry. She can’t escape the adrenaline-pounding certainty that she almost died.
But of course, she hasn’t. The man is no threat.
“Leave,” she shouts into her helmet, and the translation booms out at the soldier.
He rabbits away.
“Mai?” Duc asks.
“I am fine,” she tells him.
Mai glances back. There’s activity in the air: ten heavy lift airships ponderously moving more wall segments in, to be dropped in place to secure the territory they are clearing.
Soon the huge, articulated Ploughshares trucks will be along to gather up everything here for recycling.
Duc tosses down seven mangled AKS-74s. “Then let’s go,” he says, and they’re on the move again, loping in long, impossible strides to catch up to the advancing line.
As they catch up, Mai notices that Nguyen’s entire right side is blackened. She must have absorbed a large explosion of some kind while Mai’d been destroying the bunker. Other soldiers show signs of absorbing more fire, but the rate of it is fading. The North Koreans are mostly retreating into the woods on the west side of the hill.
Mostly.
One enterprising gun crew is trying to bring their huge 152mm cannon to bear on the advancing line.
For the first time Mai sees Nguyen’s calm crack, and she hastily orders another pair of Peacekeepers to disable the cannon.
The two armored soldiers snap into motion, and then calmly shepherd the North Koreans away from the weapon with shooing motions, ignoring the small arms fire. Once the North Koreans are clear, they smash the aiming mechanism, then get to work on the tube itself.
A North Korean officer runs up to the two blue armored soldiers, pistol high, screaming at them. His face is red, and he looks almost ready to cry with frustration and rage.
The distant pop of his pistol as he empties his entire clip into the backplate of the nearest Peacekeeper’s armor is accentuated by Mai’s translation software.
“Stand and fight, cowards! Face me like real soldiers,” the artificial voice keeps murmuring.
Mai feels sympathy for him.
This isn’t a proper war.
None of them have trained for this.
It makes little sense, to either that officer or her, on some deep level.
Part of her craves a fight. A real fight. A test of skill, courage, and arms.
“Here’s the artillery,” Nguyen murmurs to them all. “On me. Destroy it all.”
Mai and Duc move through the firebase with the rest of the team, dismantling the twelve big artillery guns and countless small arms and machine guns.
Most of the machinery is in ill repair. Only five of the twelve look like they are actually firing, and a small bunker off to one side has been stacked with dud rounds. Which Mai figured Ploughshares could deal with. Suit or not, she didn’t want to be playing with
There’s been one casualty, and Nguyen is not pleased with this. The wounded Korean is on a pod-like stretcher, hooked up to emergency life-saving equipment while a medic they brought along treats him.
“This could be a public relations disaster,” Nguyen tells Mai.
“What happened?” Mai asks.
“He threw a grenade, but it bounced back at him,” Nguyen says, shaking her head. She’s removed her helmet and holds it tucked under an arm. “We were too aggressive. I fought against the new timetable, but was overruled. UN headquarters are emboldened by all this success. Now look at this, all people are going to see is this idiot on their late-night television, wounded.”
Mai looks over the wounded man. “He might live.”
Nguyen cocks her head. “You’re smarter than that. You know it’s the image of him right now, wounded, that will play out across the world. Polling is going to show lowered support for the mission. Are
Mai thinks back to the moment where she raised her fist, and opens her mouth to answer, but another soldier runs up. “Captain, you need to come with us.”
The North Koreans have withdrawn from the firebase, and the defense array is fully extended to its new circumference, bringing the area under its anti-ballistic umbrella. The airships are placing the new walls around them. Nonetheless, Mai and Nguyen pull their helmets back on and lope after the messenger.
There’s a trail leading back to the woods, and off to the side is a hastily dug pit. A fresh, earthy scar in the grass.
Lying in it are bodies. Thin. Ribs showing. Hollow-eyed.
“Civilians,” Nguyen’s voice crackles.
They’ve been dragged and stacked in this shallow grave. Just old men, women, children, trying to sneak their way around to a better life.
Mai rips her helmet off to take a deep breath of air, then regrets the decision. The air is ripe with the stench of decay.
“This is our fault. They’re trying to get into our camp,” she says. She does not replace her helmet, just yet. Something about the smell of death grounds her, reminds her of what is at stake, who has the most to lose, the most to fear.
Nguyen raises her visor. “They’re dying trying to escape north to China right now, or slowly in their own
