“Oh, yeah,” someone, presumably one of the Sergeants on the ground, said brightly. “We have definitely got their attention.”
“So I’m seeing,” Dickens replied. “Move your asses, Marines. If you get infected, you become part of the problem, not the solution. So, move.”
Despite the Captain’s tone and words, the Marines were already moving. The icons were splitting up as Roslyn watched, the Marines dividing into half-squads to split the Orpheus victims up even further—and continuing to taunt and jeer at the rabid civilians chasing them.
This time, the mob fractured like a dropped glass, and Roslyn exhaled a deep sigh of relief. There were now thousands chasing each Marine section—which could be better, but at least they weren’t continuing to lunge south.
“Keep moving,” Dickens said, his voice grim. “Corporal Laurent, break contact. Break contact now.”
Roslyn’s attention followed the Marine Captain’s and she swallowed. One of the Marine fire teams had discovered the disadvantage of planning based on overhead. An alley they’d assumed was clear from the air was blocked on the ground, and the Marines were trying to physically move the small truck barring their way.
They didn’t have time.
“We are pushing through,” a woman’s voice said, exhaling sharply as she was struck. “Barrier is moving at last, but they are on us. Armor is…holding.”
Roslyn didn’t have access to do more than hear Corporal Laurent’s report. She could get it, but she wasn’t sure she wanted to.
“We are through,” Laurent reported. “They are with us still. Trying to accelerate to break free. Horatio, no, stop! Stop!”
The channel was silent for at least a minute before Corporal Laurent’s voice returned.
“Contact broken. Not sure…what happened. Private First Class Horatio Estevez’s armor seals failed and his left vambraces broke off. He…”
Laurent swallowed audibly.
“Private Estevez is KIA, sir,” she said in a small voice. “I do not believe we can retrieve his body without using lethal force.”
“The suit has tracking, Corporal,” Dickens told her, his voice gentle. “We’ll come back for him. For now, break contact and hunker down. You got too close. We can’t retrieve you.”
“Understood, sir. Will stand by for further orders.”
The entire command net Roslyn was listening to was silent, and then her coms chirped as Dickens switched her to a private channel.
“I read you as still having about eight thousand heading your way,” he told her. “That stunt should work again, but I think the triple whammy was key. Toft is still engaged, and rushing her is likely to result in more Marines sharing Estevez’s fate.”
“What’s your plan, Captain?” she asked.
“I’ve got a free shuttle,” he told her. “We’re dropping from orbit now to rendezvous with Sergeant Day and Sergeant Kaiser. We’ll make one more pass, Commander Chambers…then I’m afraid it’s down to the shuttles.”
“What can the shuttles do?” Roslyn demanded.
“They carry antipersonnel cluster bombs,” Dickens said flatly. “The shuttles can’t distract the infected, Commander Chambers, but they can destroy whatever’s left of that mob.”
“That’s the last option, Captain.”
“I agree. But once we make this pass, Mage-Commander, we are out of other options short of your perimeter.”
“Not entirely, Captain Dickens,” she told him. “Make your pass. Whatever’s left…I’ll deal with.”
She muted the Marine and stepped to the edge of the barricade.
“Oliveira,” she called the Guardia officer. “Do we have any vehicles outside the perimeter?”
Roslyn had used Oliveira’s ID badge to boot up a Guardia power bike and was driving north when the Marines made their final pass. She still had the scan data on the main mob on her HUD as she traveled, making sure she didn’t get lost in an unfamiliar city—but she could also hear the shuttles with their loudspeakers and the Marine exosuit speakers as Dickens led his people into action.
“Report,” she told the Marine, unmuting the channel now that she was moving under her own power.
“We’re on the ground, which I might need your Warrant to protect me from the Captain’s wrath over,” Dickens told her cheerfully. “Same triple whammy as last time; there are a lot of angry mind-controlled people chasing us.
“There’s still some left for you, but I think we’ve managed to pull at least three-quarters of that mob apart and scattered around the city. It’s not a perfect answer, but we bought you some time.”
“Thank you, Captain,” Roslyn said. “How many are left still heading for the perimeter?”
“Scans from my shuttle say two, maybe three thousand,” Dickens told her. “We can break that up with cluster bombs or cannon…potentially even without killing too many of them.”
“One last chance first, Captain,” she told him. “We have a Mage on the ground, even if we’re holding most of the crew in orbit.
“Let’s see what I can do.”
“There are still thousands of them, Mage-Lieutenant Commander,” Dickens said quietly. “You’re just one Mage.”
“I am spectacularly aware of my limits, Captain Dickens, but also of our mission. I have a vehicle and I’m moving to intercept. I want your shuttles ready to drop Nix on my command.”
“We know it won’t do anything,” he objected.
“We know standard dosages won’t do anything. So, I want your shuttles to plaster the target area with every canister of Nix they have.”
The problem with self-neutralizing neural paralyzers, though, was that Nix literally could not get above its target dosage. Still…it was worth a shot.
“Understood. Tactical shuttle command is yours. I’m linking in Lieutenant Herbert as your contact. Nix, missiles, guns, cluster bombs…whatever we’ve got that you need, he’ll drop on your command.”
“Thank you, Captain, Lieutenant Evanson,” Roslyn said as a chirp announced Herbert was on the channel. “Run safely, Captain?”
“Believe me, that’s the plan. Do…what you can and what you have to, Commander Chambers,” Dickens told her. “We’ll see you on the other side.”
45
It was one thing to look at scans, data, even video of a mob.
It was quite another to park a power bike in the middle of
