The basic UDF strategy was to employ a line of prone armored infantry firing 20mm rounds to slow the enemy enough so that artillery and tanks could take them out. In practice, the support never came fast or heavy enough. It fell to us to finish the Mimics on our own.
The weapon of last resort for the old-timers, and one I’d used myself, was the pile driver mounted on the left shoulder. You could punch open a hole and spill a Mimic’s guts with one of those babies. The rocket launcher could come in handy too, but it was hard to a score a hit with, and more often than not you’d be out of rockets when you really needed one. As I grew accustomed to the fighting, I relied more and more on the power of the 57mm pile driver.
But the pile driver had one major drawback: Its magazine only held twenty charges. Unlike our rifles, you couldn’t change magazines, either. Once you fired that twentieth round, you were finished. At best, a soldier was going to punch twenty holes in something. Once the pile driver was out of charges, you couldn’t even use it to drive a stake into the heart of a vampire. The people who’d designed the Jacket just hadn’t considered the possibility that someone would survive long enough in hand-to-hand combat with a Mimic to use more than twenty rounds.
Fuck that.
Running out of charges had killed me plenty of times. Another dead end. The only way to avoid it was to find a melee weapon that didn’t run out of ammo. I’d seen one, once, in the battle that had started this whole loop.
The battle axe. Rita Vrataski, a Valkyrie clad in a crimson Jacket, and her axe. It might have been more appropriate to call it a slab of tungsten carbide in the shape of an axe. A battle axe never ran out of ammo. You could still use it if it got bent. It packed plenty of punch. It was the perfect melee weapon.
But as far as the world was concerned, Keiji Kiriya was a new recruit who had yet to see his first battle. If I asked them to replace my standard-issue pile driver with a different weapon simply because I didn’t like it, they sure as hell weren’t going to listen. Yonabaru had laughed at me, and Ferrell actually threw a punch. When I tried taking it straight to our platoon commander, he ignored me completely. I was going to have to acquire the weapon I needed on my own.
I headed for the barracks of the supply division that had accompanied U.S. Special Forces. Five minutes after crossing into the U.S. side of the base, I came to a spot guarded by only one soldier. She was twirling a monkey wrench in her hand.
The pungent scent of oil drifted in the air, swamping the ocean’s briny tang. The ever present drone of men bustling about the base had receded. In the darkness of the barracks, the steel weapons humanity used to strike down its enemies were enjoying a short nap.
The woman with the wrench was Shasta Raylle, a civilian tech. Her pay was at least on par with a first lieutenant. Way above mine, at any rate. I’d snuck a look at her papers: height, 152 centimeters; weight, 37 kilograms; visual acuity, 20/300; favorite food, passion-fruit cake. She had some American Indian blood in her and wore her black hair pulled back in a ponytail.
If Rita was a lynx on the prowl, Shasta was an unsuspecting rabbit. She belonged at home, curled up in a warm, cozy room watching vids and stuffing her face with bonbons, not smeared with oil and grease on some military base.
I spoke as gently as I could. “Hello.”
Shasta jumped at the sound of my voice. Damn. Not gentle enough.
Her thick glasses fell to the concrete floor. Watching her look for those glasses was like watching a quadriplegic tread water. Instead of putting down the monkey wrench and feeling for them with both hands, she groped in vain with just the one. Not exactly what you’d expect from someone who’d graduated top of her class at MIT, developed some of the most advanced military Jackets at her first defense industry research post, and then, for an encore, leapt into the UDF as the crack technician assigned to a particular gunmetal red Jacket.
I bent over and picked up her glasses-more like a pair of magnifying lenses that had been jury-rigged together.
“You dropped these,” I said, holding them up where I hoped she could see.
“Thank you, whoever you are.”
“Don’t mention it.”
Shasta looked me over. The glass-bottle lenses made fried eggs of her eyes.
“And you are…?”
“Keiji Kiriya.”
“Thank you, Keiji Kiriya. I’m Shasta Raylle.” I had deliberately left out my rank and platoon. Shasta’s head sank. “I realize this might look like a plain, ordinary barracks-well, it is, but that’s beside the point. The point is, it contains highly sensitive military technology. Only people with the appropriate security clearance are allowed in.”
“I know. I don’t want in.”
“Oh. Well! I’m glad we cleared that up.”
“Actually,” I said, taking a step forward, “I came to see you.”
“Me? I-I’m flattered, but I’m afraid I can’t-I mean, you seem very nice and all, it’s just that I don’t think this would be appropriate, and there are still preparations to be made for tomorrow, and-”
“It’s not even noon.”
“It will take the rest of the day!”
“If you’d just listen-”
“I know it looks as though all I’ve been doing is removing and reattaching this one part-and well I have, but I really am busy. Really!” Her ponytail bobbed as she nodded to herself, punctuating her sincerity.
She’s getting the wrong idea. Got to steer this thing back on course-
“So the external memory unit on that suit’s been damaged?”
“It has, but-how did you know that?”
“Hey, you and I both know that an external memory unit doesn’t see a whole lotta use in battle. But since those custom chips contain sensitive military technology by the metric ton, you have to fill out a mountain of paperwork to requisition one of the damn things, am I right? And that bald sonofabitch over at the armory hitting on you no matter how many times you tell him you’re not interested doesn’t make the situation any brighter, I’m guessing. It’s almost enough to make you consider stealing one off one of the Japanese Corps’ Jackets.”
“Stealing one of the-I’d never even think of it!”
“No?”
“Of course not! Well, the thought may have crossed my mind once or twice, but I’d never actually do it! Do I really look like the type to-” Her eyes widened as she saw what was in the sealed plastic bag I pulled from my pocket.
A sly grin spread across my face. “What if someone else stole one for you?”
“Could I have it? Please?”
“How soon we change our song!”
I raised the bag containing the chip high above my head. Shasta hopped as she tried to grab it, but she and her 158 centimeters were out of luck. The oil staining her clothes made my nostrils flare.
“Stop teasing me and just hand it over, would you?”
Hop. Hop.
“You don’t know how much I had to go through to get this.”
“I’m begging you. Please?”
Hop.
“I’ll give it to you, but I need something in exchange.”
“Something… in exchange?”
Gulp.
She clutched the monkey wrench to her chest, flattening the swells of her breasts that lay hidden beneath her overalls. She’d clearly gotten used to playing the victim after a few years with the animals in Special Forces. If it was this easy to get a rise out of her, I can’t say I blamed them.
I waved the plastic bag toward the giant battle axe hanging from a cage at the rear of the barracks and pointed. Shasta didn’t seem to understand what I was looking at. Her eyes darted warily around the room.
