All around them lights flicker, then go dark. Mai spins around and looks at the tower at the heart of their refugee city. The lights on the outside of the Point Defense Array flicker and go dark.
Satellite communications links to the armor go live, and their helmets kick on automatic recording mode: 60fps video streaming directly back to operations centers in Hanoi, Beijing, and Geneva. All local bandwidth is reserved for encrypted inter-team communications.
That results in everyone having a thumbnail of Captain Nguyen’s face in the upper right corner of their visors, spitting orders and soliciting updates.
Mai and Duc are deployed to the south gate, and they sprint through the streets to get there, leaping over a small one-story refugee processing building in their way.
In the background of it all, emergency sirens wail. Citizens are, no doubt, being ushered away from windows and into the cores of skyscrapers. But if a full-on assault comes, there’s little protection. The camp is vulnerable without the Point Defense Array.
Slightly out of breath, Mai scans the woods and hills beyond the border of the camp. “We should have rerouted all power from the reactor by now,” she says to Duc.
And as if answering her directly, Captain Nguyen speaks up. “I’ve just learned that several of the power cables leading out from the reactor have been sabotaged. We are unable to power up the array fully. As a result it’s in a fuel-cell powered self-defense mode right now, only targeting any rounds that might hit its tower. The engineers report that it will take as long as ten minutes to get power back up. You know your orders. Prevent any North Koreans from getting past the gate. And hold your position. Contact
Mai can see via thermal imaging that bodies are flitting through the trees.
“There hasn’t been any satellite imagery showing that the rest of their army has shown up,” Duc says. “It’s just this battalion. We can handle that, even without the array, right?”
“Of course,” Mai agrees.
Even as she opens her mouth to reassure Duc further, a brief flash flickers from behind the trees, followed by the quiet thump of sound catching up to light.
“Mortar fire,” Mai shouts, broadcasting to the entire open channel. Her helmet projects a path and warning insignia blare at her to MOVE.
Duc spins away, and Mai is leaping clear as the world erupts in orange and black. She sees stars wheel overhead, the world tumbling around her, and she turns her tumble into a roll.
She lands on her feet, legs bent, taking the force of her impact. Her left hand drags, fingertips furrowing the ground as she slides backwards on her boots and comes to a stop.
“Duc!”
He’s facedown. The entire back of his suit is blackened. She rushes over to him.
“Duc!”
There’s a groan over the helmet radio. The status report shows that he’s just been dazed. Duc sits up as Mai scans the tree line, waiting for the next launch or the inevitable rush of bodies.
The next mortar launch arrows well overhead, and Mai frowns as she follows the trajectory over the wall. The refugee-processing building explodes in a mess of compressed fiberboard and electronics.
Mai stands up.
The next mortar round walks further into the camp.
“They’re not going to try a direct attack,” Mai reports to Captain Nguyen, somewhat stunned. “They’re just going after civilians.”
More rounds now slam into the skyscrapers at the center of the camp. Broken glass twinkles as it rains down into the streets.
The open channel fills with medics responding. Ten wounded. No deaths. But another ten minutes of this, and it was going to get bad.
“Captain…”
“Stand your ground Sergeant. It could be a trap to lure some of us out, before the charge. Do not leave your post. Listen to me, there are three million live watchers, this conflict is being streamed everywhere, as it happens, to satisfy mission backers and advertisers. We keep our course.”
But Mai’s already stopped paying attention. “Duc, what is that?”
Her visor has caught the sound of tracks.
“Tank?”
“No.” For a brief moment, two kilometers away and only visible by the helmet’s advanced computational lenses, she’s seen the outline of a self-propelled howitzer, trundling through the brush between Nike and the new Korean firebase.
KOKSAN, her visor identifies it. 170mm of death on wheels.
It must have been driven up to stand in for the artillery Mai and her team already destroyed.
Mai is already moving forward before she really understands it.
“Mai! Hold your position,” Nguyen orders.
“Duc, stay here,” Mai says, and then before he can reply she turns off communications.
She’s across the open ground and into the woods before she’s drawn even two full breaths, kicking through underbrush. It’s like running in sand, and she’s leaving a trail of broken tree limbs and shattered logs behind her.
There are attackers, of course. Gunshots ping off her armor from every direction, and she’s veering this way and that to get around uniforms that pop up in her way.
She’s still broadcasting video live. She can’t turn that off. The whole world is watching this, probably. She can’t afford to harm anyone.
But Mai has to stop that howitzer.
Because it’s going to be so much louder than those little execution pops she’s been hearing in the distance.
It’s going to be a bang. It’s going to wipe out lives in an instant. And it’s going to keep doing it for as long as the Point Defense Array is down.
And she can stop it.
She can rip it apart with her augmented hands.
Gravel crunches and pops under her feet as she bursts out into open terrain, accelerating down a road.
The firepower aimed at her kicks up an order of magnitude. The popping sound has gone from occasional plinks to a hailstorm. There are soldiers taking cover behind small boulders and shooting at her. Mai covers the last kilometer in giant lopes, leaping over heads and vehicles and hastily dug fighting positions.
But she’s too late. She can see the howitzer. It is basically a large tank with an obscenely larger artillery gun bolted on top. It looks unbalanced, like it should tip forward.
The long barrel is raised just slightly, and on target. It will fire like a tank, at this range, the round arcing just over her head, at the very low end of the Point Defense Array’s envelope. If it’s even operational yet.
Six soldiers are scurrying around the platform. Unlike most of the world’s current self-propelled artillery, the operators are not encased in tank armor.
When Mai reaches the unit, she will be able to disable it and move the soldiers away.
But one of them is already shutting the breech and stepping back.
Another is pointing her way and shouting.
She will not make it there before they fire.
Mai slows and rips a three-foot wide boulder up out of the ground and throws it as hard as she can. Two soldiers dive clear of the vehicle, but the two near fire control have nowhere to go.
Blood spatters the railings around the vehicle. Brain matter drips from the barrel of the howitzer.
Seconds later Mai reaches it and slams her fist into the breech, disabling it.
For a long moment she stands on top, too stunned to move.
Then something loops over her head from behind, wrapping around her neck. The armor stops it from choking her, but the loop is strong. Possibly braided cable.
Mai tries to jump free, but the cable yanks her back down. The ground meets her back hard, and despite all
