Cassandra Kresnov 04: 23 Years on Fire Read Free Page A

left, disconcerted that she’d dented a thruster, but otherwise unscathed. Happily, no one else tried to shoot at her as she sailed with her two companions toward a new landing. Watching snipers’ heads explode was not pleasant, and if the only enemies that shot at her from now on were mechanicals like those Armoured Mobile Anti-Personnel Systems, she’d be happy.
    UAVs were now proving a pain in the ass. Pyeongwha’s military was restricted, like all Federation worlds, so they had few assets that qualified as full-blown military. But that left “para military,” which Sandy knew from experience could include pretty much anything if you classified it cunningly. On her leaping trek around Anjula downtown, she counted five types in the air, two of them supersonic, one of them high altitude recon, and two others slow and hovering and hiding behind buildings. She disliked those most of all. She could track and hit high-motion at anything up to Mach one with barely any assistance from armscomp, but while Mach one was very visible, even she couldn’t hit what she couldn’t see.
    She covered her teammates’ blind spots as they moved, as they covered hers, and they leapfrogged forward in the most old-fashioned of infantry manoeuvers, covering about half a K with each jump. Police and para-military were getting more snipers into high buildings now, and some with missile launchers, but those were going to have trouble tracking FSA suits in opti-cam. Even so, armscomp started registering regular near misses, mostly in the air. True to Sandy’s infantry prejudice, grounded meant cover, and cover meant “safe.” In the old days, there’d been something called the “air force.” These days, modern weapons and armscomp turned most aircraft into flying bull’s-eyes.
    They were closing on North Park when Anjula began closing down the advertising frequencies, having realised how the attackers were using it against them. Ari simply transitioned them to one of the emergency services sub-frequencies, and tacnet propagated all over again. They could keep frequency jumping all night until Anjula shut the whole lot down, but then the city would be as blind as the attackers, who could then just switch to their own coms and battle through whatever jamming was thrown at them. Defending took a lot more coordination, and if Anjula’s assets couldn’t talk to each other, they were screwed.
    Sandy paused on a rooftop long enough to track and fire a missile at a high-altitude UAV, then was startled by civvies on a neighbouring balcony peering out to take a look. She refrained from shooting, leaped instead, and scanning nearby air traffic on tacnet found one vehicle loitering suspiciously and warned her second wingman about it. There were no rooftops she liked the look of, ahead, so she grounded on the road instead and pressed herself to a wall. At fifteen thousand meters overhead, the UAV blew up. So did the cruiser she’d warned about, when a door opened to reveal security with a launcher.
    There were displays and advertising everywhere at street level. Sandy realised she was in one of the entertainment strips, wall to wall graphics and dancing images. All deserted now save for several cops huddled by their cruiser, staring fearfully. Sandy ignored them and leaped again, and was immediately shot at by someone down below . . . low caliber, she didn’t bother shooting back.
    Ahead was a big tower, and she crashed through a tenth story window, scattering chairs in an office. Ran out into the corridor in case someone sent a munition through the window after her, fast down a corridor then kicked in a door, activating building security alarms. That brought her to a window with a view. Ahead was North Park. To the right of that, the Domestic Affairs Building. It looked like it was built to withstand a nuke, which wasn’t far from the truth. Around it were gardens, all trip-wired and armed to hell, then high walls. Flames rose from several