Garden of Lights

Zero

Mathew's Garden

Darkness, the song of things, the chattering of smaller things. Hu sat and listened and looked up at the sky.

This time did not last long here, perhaps two hours at this stage of the season. Only a short while to see the stars. At the end of those hours the twinkle of the stars washed away as the lamp flowers opened.

What did it say about a people who would settle such a place? Who would see this as beautiful and name it a garden?

There was a slight sound and Hu's head swiveled to point at it. The troupe's scout was named Feng. Feng was sheathed in the flesh of a nocturnal predator. The animal had been cored and the core replace with the machines that were him. Feng had another body for daylight scouting, one of the far more formidable creatures that sunlight and the high tide allowed in shore.

"They have just entered the habitation." said Feng. "They appear to be taking a different route from the one we planned."

"They don't fully trust the locals. They tell them less and less." Hu rose too her feet. "We will reposition, catch them as they leave the target rather than on approach."

"Unfortunate for our allies." Feng slipped back into the foliage.

"Then they should become better spies." Hu said. The wires that linked the trope together detached with a click. In the distance signal was rising, scattered and indistinct. The enemy. Hu shaped to better move through the forest and slipped back towards town.

I

Razor-Six Actual was dreaming. In her dream she was sixteen and aboard a sailboat. Her girlfriend of the time was beside her. She missed that girl. They'd parted amicably enough for a first relationship breakup. She should send her a message some time.

Something broke the water to the side of the boat and her girlfriend pointed. A school of shell sharks gleamed copper as they rose out of the water all around the boat, rocking it. Her girlfriend hung on and . . .

Razor-Six Actual opened her eyes, blinking up at her aid who was shaking her. "Sorry sir, but it's an emergency."

"Ugh." Six Actual said. She walked to the rooms closet, pulling on a uniform body suit. It was hot in the bunker and she was sweaty. There would be no time to shower. "What's the situation?"

"The raid into Saltlick went bad. The Huskies say they have a platoon pinned down in the city, plus the crew of a downed extract bird. The situation on the ground is confused. We've completely lost connection with the surveillance systems in Saltlick. The intelligence cell is saying jamming. Also something shot down the Hampshirite UAV."

Not a typical insurgent attack then. Not that a typical insurgent attack could pin a full platoon of Hampshire's regulars down anyway.

The pair walked out of Six Actual's quarters and into the bunker's command centre. There was no ceremony or salutes, everyone was too busy. Only the duty officer stood too hand command over to Six Actual as she entered.

The big central board defaulted to a satellite view of Saltlick. The town was a oblong mass of compounds and walled gardens on raised platforms, divided by tide channels and pools. Four large roads on causeways bisected the town in a cross pattern. At this time of night they were bone dry and well lit by the lamp flowers that festooned everything.

Tonight the plants had competition. Fire rose from a burning VTOL, its sleek shape destroyed by fire and impact. "The crew survived that?" Six Actual asked.

"The Huskies report they dragged the crew clear before it exploded." The duty officer responded.

Six Actual checked her overlay. She had three QRF elements on hand that could respond immediately. An airborne special rescue team from 21st special purpose group, an air mechanized company from 1st Division's 8th battalion and a pure mechanized company from the 5th Marine independent brigade 2nd battalion. All elite forces. . . but what exactly was loose in that town? The intelligence picture was frustratingly vague. Nothing they had suggested something that had the capacities to do even what had happened so far, yet it had happened despite them.

"Alright. Authorize Phantom to insert." Phantom was the SRT. "Cottonmouth is to mount a feint against the inland part of the city to draw the attackers attention while Shark inserts from the coast and secures the area." She looked up at the board again and frowned. "How long until we get drone coverage back?"

"Four minutes Sir. We're moving a stealth drone in the Isles. It'll be three minutes ahead of the SRT."

II

The strains of early second century revival jazz sounded from the aircraft's sound system. Phantom Two-One-Four flexed her off hand against her gun in time with the music. Her arm was a replacement, like her old one down to the tattoos to help with the adjustment process. It looked like her old arm, it felt like her arm, it even acted like her arm, yet she knew it was not her arm. Her old arm had been hit by a panzerschreck and gone spinning away on a gout of blood. She had looked down and seen the jagged white and red stump before her suit had pumped her full of no shock and closed tight, cutting blood flow.

"If you keep picking at it, it'll fall off again." Two-One-Three, in the next seat, grinned at the bottom of her mask.

One-Four found herself chuckling at her friends irreverence. "It's weird, it doesn't feel any different. I'd almost prefer it if it did."

"What I can't believe is you got a new arm and decided you'd keep those ugly blue tattoos." Two-Two-One, on the other side of the aircraft looked over.

"Yeah well if I was a fashion victim like you Two-One, I might actually be tempted to get rid of my classic ink for whatever glow in the dark pegasus bullshit is popular these days."

"Feet dry in ten seconds." The aircraft said. It was dropping as it approached land, engines still in the forward position. The city was coming up ahead, now brightly lit as the lamp flowers opened, picking out the tall walls of the gardens and high vaulted buildings of the compounds in whites and blues. It looked like a city of churches, or a graveyard.

"God this place is awesome." One-Two looked down. "I am so taking some lamp trees seeds home with me." The team began to run last minute checks on their gear and weapons.

The yellow light came on and the music shut off. "Thirty seconds to drop." the aircraft rushed forward, then it began to flare. The front of the aerodyne rose and its engines pitched to point forward. The back ramp opened. The chalk ran off the ramp, the dyne never quite coming to a stop, slowing only enough so the troops inside weren't scattered across the city.

One-Four was at the edge of the ramp when a bolt of golden light reached up and slammed into the far side of the aerodyne. Instantly the side of the aircraft was wreathed in fire. The active camouflage failed and the craft yawed wildly. The side of the door smacked into One-Four and her armoured body knocked sideways. She hit the ramp and tumbled free, stunned and spinning. Her view rolled, the aircraft coming into sight, distant, its turret rippling out streams of light in several directions, then rolled out of the top of her vision as she continued to spin.

"Stabilize! Stabilize!" her suits insistent voice penetrated One-Four's stunned consciousness. She extended legs and arms fully, found herself going down back first and tucked in her legs. There was a great thump as her flight pack fired at full burn and then she smacked into a wall and bounced off, crashing through a tree and coming to rest.

She pushed to her knees, reaching up and yanked the bottom of her mask away to vomit. There was a cold sting as her suits drug pack hit her with pain killers and enhanced adrenalin. One-Four stumbled to her knees, bringing her payload gun up and sweeping the area.

Nothing.

She was in a walled orchard, pear trees and jasmine in alternate rows, lamp flowers on the walls. There was no movement, no black icons on her minimap either. Of course if that had been accurate then Phantom Two wouldn't have been hit.

They'd come down a short way from the target, a hundred meters to the South. SOP now was to get to the target, get the mission done, don't worry about the rest of your team. Nobody's rescue beacon was active, so either they'd made it down, or there was nothing that One-Four could do about it.

She moved towards the gate, shattered the lock and looked through. Steps down into a flood canal. Another set lay opposite. Down, sprint, up, stop before the top and pull the payload gun up awkwardly over the top. The street was narrow, empty and lined with large flower pots.

"Uniform, this is Two-One-Four, friendly coming in from your South."

"Copy. Holding fire South."

One Four got up and moved forward, moving cautiously up the street. Up ahead another friendly emerged, Two-One moving the same way she was. The pair fell in together without a word, one moving, one covering.

They covered most of the way to the building when a Hampshirite combat armour and a spider legged drone emerged from the side up ahead. "Are you Tempesti? Medics?"

"Yes." Two-Two talked as One-Four covered. "This is One-Four, I'm Two-One."

"Ah, definitely Tempesti. I'm Corporal Parker, come this way." The Hampshirite gestured and half turned. One-Four noticed a blur down the street, perched on steep roof one of the compounds.

"Threat!" The Hampshirite just heard her yell something incomprehensible. Two-One heard a report of distance and bearing. The blur fired before either could react, or One-Four could fire. A micromissile flashed down the street and the drone. Two-One was flung backwards, the front of her armour shatter marking as it took a storm of fragments.

One-Four shot arrived an instant later. The payload gun walked four rounds down the side of the roof, demolishing it. A volley of fire from the Hampshirites in the building followed, collapsing the roof and peppering the spire behind it. One-Four didn't see what happened to her target. Parker was dragging Two-One into the building. "Come on, quick!" He vanished around the corner, then reappeared, aiming his rifle.

One-Four backpedalled in after him. "Is Two-Two dead?" she asked in English after a moment constructing the thought.

He shook his head. "She's really fucked up, but she's alive."

It seemed that Two-Two and One-Four were the first ones to make it into the structure. Most of the others marks were still moving so they were most likely still alive, though the jamming was picking up again.

She walked over to Two-Two, quickly checking her over. She was bleeding from a dozen places where jets of liquid metal had periced her armour. Her suit was doing what she could but Two-Two needed a hospital or at least a doc in the box soon or she'd die. She refilled Two-Two's drug patch then looked up at Parker. "Do you have seriously wounded?"

"Yeah, at least three hurt as bad as she is." Parker said gravely.

"Show me too them."