The Drift Wars Read Free Page B

Six.
    Peter
instantly felt relieved, then foolish, no longer sure that the pause
hadn’t just been his imagination. He looked back to his target,
but it was gone.
    Five.
    Four.
    The
countdown raced now. Peter panned his rifle side to side, searching
the empty walkway. Where is it? Did it see me? Did it run? The
green, computer-generated crosshair remained where it was, aimed at
nothing.
    Three.
    Salt
stung his eyes. He blinked, trying to clear them.
    Two.
    His
oxygen light pulsed red, the glow filling his visor.
    One.
    The
Gyrine popped back into view—it had been bent over, hidden by the
walkway’s low wall. It stretched lazily, gazed into the distance,
and scratched its chin, oblivious to both Peter’s panic and the
impending assault.
    Peter
swung the rifle toward the Gyrine but overcompensated—the
slightest movement of the gun was yards at the fortress. He eased
the gun back, his muscles tight, working against each other. The
crosshairs found the Gyrine just as the countdown flashed zero.
Peter squeezed the trigger.
    —   —   —
    Peter
had never fired on a live target before. He closed his eyes, unable
to watch the results. When he opened them a second later, the Gyrine
was gone. Did I kill it? , he wondered.
    “Christ-all-fucking-mighty,
Garvey,” Mickelson barked, and Peter knew he had missed.
    —   —   —
    Peter
whipped his gun around, searching for the Gyrine, but it was gone.
The rock face disappeared behind a cloud of dust, pounded by the
giant impulsor cannons carried by heavy weaponry. He shrunk down
behind the rock; all he could do was wait for further orders.
    Distant
machine guns cracked and rockets whistled in close, pounding into
the ground and tossing up columns of dirt. Peter listened to the
bullets rattle against the rock; then they stopped. The ferns around
him vaporized and a nearby tree blackened like a match. The Riel
were sweeping the area with lasers.
    Lasers
weren’t a direct threat. Even if Peter weren’t shielded by the
boulder, his suit’s ceramic coating would easily disperse the
heat. But the beams would burn away his cover, and once they could
see him, the Riel had plenty of other ways to kill him. Peter grew
anxious just sitting there; he queried the battle computer.
    “Negative
targets,” it replied.
    We’re
in the middle of a battle , Peter thought. How can there be
nothing to shoot at?
    He
stood up and aimed his gun at the towering rock, searching. On the
very edge of the left face, he saw the top of a Gyrine’s head
sticking out over a crystal shield. It wasn’t much—not enough
for a kill—but it was something.
    The
Gyrine worked a thick-barreled, turret-mounted gun that recoiled
heavily with each shot. It fired in the opposite direction, which
Peter found reassuring, since it meant there was at least one other
platoon involved in this assault. Peter centered his crosshairs just
over the Gyrine’s head, thinking perhaps to first draw its
attention by shattering the rock.
    His
chest was warm. Not just warm, hot. Searing. He pulled back from the
scope; the boulder he was leaning against was glowing red. Peter
suddenly remembered why he wasn’t supposed to use rocks as cover.
    While
his combat suit was immune to lasers, rocks were not. They would
become superheated and explode. A melon-size rock had the
destructive power of a fragmentary grenade. This boulder was a
hundred times that.
    Peter
felt the rock tremble and crack, expanding from the heat. He might
have even heard the explosion before everything went black.

[14.08.2.14::3948.1938.834.2D]
    A white light clicked on—bright, painful. Peter blinked, his eyelids
scratching over the crust that coated his eyeballs. His head was
fuzzy, and the room’s silence pressed against his ears. He heard
footsteps—soft and light-footed—padding toward him. A pink blur
slid into the light. Peter blinked again and saw a woman in a green
surgical mask. She was leaning over him; he was lying down.
    “There
you