Tombstone Read online

  We snuck into the city sometimes and stole there too. We always targeted the middle classes, never the rich. Going after the upper classes was a fool’s game. The wealthy have power and influence; become too much of a problem for them and your days are numbered. But what is some engineer going to do?

  I was prosperous, at least my own version of it. I set myself up in a big old abandoned house. It must have been a politician or executive who built the place, because it was huge. There was a big double staircase right inside the entry and a high ceiling – at least six meters. It looked like the floors had been marble at one time and the walls covered with paneling, but there were only a few bits and pieces left; the rest had been stripped long ago by some scavenger who got there a few generations before I did.

  I’d traveled a long way to get where I was. My father’s name was Gregory Jax, and I have no idea what possessed him to name me Darius. He was a Cropper, a Cog recruited by a megacorp to work on one of the big agricultural preserves. The work was difficult and dangerous, but no worse than working in one of the factories, and the farming campuses were a little safer than the outer ghettoes of the cities. I think he took the job because he thought it would be better for me; at least I’d grow up away from the Gangs, which were really bad in the Louisville slums where I was born. My mother was gone. She died when I was young; I’m not really sure how. My father couldn’t even talk about her without getting upset, even years later. I know her name was Risa, but that’s about all. I always meant to ask him to tell me more about her, but the days went by and I never did. Then, one day, he was gone too, and I had no one to ask. I was alone.

  He died in an accident on the farm. They never told me exactly how it happened, but the machinery was mostly old and poorly maintained, and accidents were common. It was easier and cheaper to replace workers than it was to inspect and maintain the equipment. The Megacorp was owned by the government, and they established a production quota and a budget. The Corporate Magnates who ran the thing got to keep whatever was left unspent, and they weren’t going to lose sleep over a few dead or crippled Croppers. Not as long as profits were rolling in.

  I was only twelve, but I was already taller and bigger than most of the adults, so they assigned me to take over my father’s workload. Technically, he still owed the corporation for transport and housing, so I had to work off the debt. It was all bullshit; the whole system was a scam run by the megacorp, and no one ever got out of debt. They just kept working on the farm until they were too weak or hurt to continue, and then they were discharged, which probably meant they starved to death.

  I did the work for a while, but I had no intention of spending the rest of my life in those forsaken fields. One of the supervisors rode me constantly – I think he had been in some sort of quarrel with my father, and now he took it out on me. He was a miserable bastard, and he was relentless. I tried my best to put up with it, but I blamed him for my father’s death and one day I’d had enough. He was giving me a hard time about nothing, and I just grabbed him and twisted his head. His neck snapped like a dry twig. I can still remember the feeling of his body jerking around, then going limp while I still held him and the hideous stench as his bowels released in death. It was the first time I’d ever stood up for myself, the first time I’d ever killed anyone.

  After the initial adrenalin rush, I panicked. The other supervisors backed away, but they were all calling frantically for security. I knew I’d be lucky if they gave me the formality of a trial before gassing me…most likely they just shoot me down on sight. So I ran. I ran, and somehow I got away, past the checkpoints and over the perimeter fence.

  I was alone, hiding in the rugged ground east of the farm complex, terrified, frantically trying to think of what to do. I knew I had to get my implant out or it would lead them right to me. I sat for what seemed like a long time, working up my courage. Finally, reaching behind me, I sliced into my back, digging for the implant. I didn’t have a knife, but I’d found a jagged shard of metal when I was running – probably part of a broken farm tool. I had no idea what I was doing, but I knew the chips were implanted in the lower back. I couldn’t see; I couldn’t even get a good grip on the makeshift blade as I dug it into my back. I gritted my teeth against the agony, and I could feel my hands getting slick with my own blood. I got nauseous and almost threw up, but I managed to stay focused. I knew I was as good as dead with the damned implant still in me broadcasting. I can’t remember how long it took – it seemed like hours – but I finally found the thing and got it out.

  I lay there a long time, tears streaming down my face. I’d never been in so much pain. The bottom of my shirt was soaked with blood. I’m going to die here, I thought. But I finally managed to get control of myself and think clearly for a few seconds. I smashed the implant with a rock; it wouldn’t be tracking me anymore. But it would lead them here, to the last known position it had transmitted. So I had to move on.

  I tried to get up, but I was dizzy and it took me a while to steady myself. I took off my shirt and tore it into long strips, wrapping it around me the best I could to bind the wound. I thought about just lying there until it was all over, but again, something inside me drove me to live. I staggered my way over the rocky hills in the fading light until I couldn’t take another step…then I collapsed and passed out.

  I couldn’t have gotten more than a couple klicks at most. I don’t know how they didn’t find me, but they didn’t. I woke up – it must have been hours later because the sun was high in the sky. My back hurt like fire, but I managed to drag myself to my feet and start heading south. I had no idea where I was going; south was an arbitrary decision. I just kept stumbling on my way, putting more kilometers between me and that damned megafarm.

  I knew most water outside filtration plants was polluted, sometimes dangerously so, but I didn’t have much choice, so I drank from the streams I passed. Most of them seemed OK, except for one that smelled so badly of chemicals I passed it by. I did my best to wash the wound every time I reached a body of water, but it got infected anyway. I had a few feverish days when I was too weak to do anything, but finally it broke, and I started to feel better. I’d been eating what I could scavenge, but that wasn’t much. The fear first, and then the fever had blunted my appetite, but now I was ravenous.

  I started looking around, paying attention to my surroundings and trying, for the first time since I ran, to figure out where I was. I found a mag-rail line, and I decided to follow it, figuring it had to lead somewhere. The mag lines were huge plasti-crete structures, suspended about five meters above the ground. As it turned out, I had stumbled onto the freight line serving the megafarms all over the area. It wasn’t long before the rail line led into the next agri-complex. I managed to sneak in after dark, and for the first time in my life I stole something. That first theft wasn’t anything of great value, just three loaves of bread. But to me, alone, terrified, and hungry, they were priceless.

  I made my way south, following the rail line, sometimes even sneaking onto a train and riding it to the next stop. The line terminated in New Houston, and by the time I got to southern Texas I was getting pretty good at stealing. I had found a way to survive.

  Over time I got better at stealing, and I moved past just surviving. I put together a small team so we could hit bigger targets. We did pretty well for a long time by limiting our ambitions. We stole enough to get by comfortably, but not enough to make it worthwhile for the authorities to get too interested. Once in a while a few of the other guys wanted to get more aggressive and go for some more lucrative jobs, but I always managed to keep control.

  The Marine Corps’ main training facility was just a few klicks west of our basecamp, and it was a huge complex. There were transports moving in and out of there constantly carrying all sorts of supplies. We’d avoided targets that made us a problem for powerful people, but that wisdom finally failed me. I think I just gave in to the desire of the crew to ramp up our efforts. Caution gave way to greed, and
we started intercepting their convoys, laying in wait for them a few kilometers outside the camp gates. We’d hit three of them and gotten away with it – it was almost too easy. But the night we hit the fourth they were waiting for us. That was the first time I’d ever seen a soldier in powered armor. They came out of the brush and surrounded us. Despite the fact that they were fully armored, they came streaming out of the forest quickly and quietly. I was amazed that soldiers in such heavy gear could move so gracefully. They worked flawlessly as a unit, each seeming to almost predict the actions of the others. I turned and tried to run, hoping to make it into the heavy brush and somehow sneak away. But the first step I took was the last. All I remember was the blinding flash and then the darkness.

  Chapter 3

  2252 AD

  Kelven Ridge

  Delta Trianguli I

  “OK, everybody keep grabbing some dirt. We’re going to maneuver to the right flank by fire teams, so nobody move a centimeter until your team leaders order it.” The lieutenant sounded rock solid, like he was sitting in base calmly assigning us a duty roster. I was amazed, and that voice, so firm, so assured, reached out to me and drew me back from the fear and despair. It was like a beacon in the darkness, and I clung to it, forcing myself to focus, to remember my training, and the responsibility I had to my fellow Marines. That was my first lesson in command, the way the lieutenant held us together that day with nothing more than his voice. I don’t think I completely understood it until years later, when I was in his shoes, and there were troops on the line waiting for my steady voice, needing it as much as I had that day on Tombstone.

  The gully behind the ridge was slightly deeper to the right. We’d have enough cover there to deploy and return the fire. We didn’t have a lot of time; it was pretty certain the enemy would hit us as soon as they’d picked off everyone they could with their auto-cannons. They’d planned these fields of fire, so knew exactly where they covered. They’d be able to advance in the dead zones, forcing us to keep our heads down until they were almost on us.

  The lieutenant’s voice had been a lifeline. Now that I was focused again, the training started flowing back. While I was waiting I doubled-checked my weapons, just like they told us to do. It wasn’t more than a few minutes before Corporal Clark was on the line.

  “Alright, fire team A, we’re going to turn 90 degrees and work our way east behind this outcropping.” He was definitive and in command, not quite like the lieutenant, but still solid. He spoke slowly and clearly so there was no chance any of us would misunderstand him. “We’re going to go slow, and I want you all to pay attention and stay low. No one gets picked off on this move.” He paused for a few seconds. “That’s an order.”

  My first thought was, you don’t have to remind me to stay low! But then I considered how easy it is to lose focus for a second…and that was enough to get you killed. They pound that into your head in training, over and over again. You can be meticulous for hours, days, weeks…but it only takes one careless second to get yourself scragged.

  I made damned sure I stayed low, though it was difficult to move that way in armor. It felt like forever, but it was really less than ten minutes before we reached our new position, which was only about 200 meters from the original one. But the rocky spur was higher and thicker here…much better cover, and big enough that we could go prone behind it and start returning some of this fire.

  Harden and James were already setting up the SAW, positioning it on a small ledge just below the outcropping. They’d found a spot with a small notch in the stone they could shoot through. Their field of fire would be somewhat restricted, but anything coming up at us would be right in their sights for at least part of the time. The enemy could have come up through our old position to try and flank us – but they’d also have to go right through their own field of fire to get there. So we’d know they were heading that way if the auto-cannon fire stopped.

  I slid over a meter or so to a spot where I had my own break in the rock wall. I’d be able to shoot pretty well from there, so I ground my knee into the loose gravel and braced myself. I peered through the crack and looked out. In front of the rock spur the chopped up, broken ground dropped off gradually, reaching a low point almost a klick from our position. The valley was pockmarked with small craters, about half of them filled with bubbling acid and other nasty-looking liquids. The entire landscape was obscured by slowly moving clouds of greenish gas, which an advancing enemy could try use to cover an advance. The gas interfered with our scanners, making it difficult to either detect or see anything hidden within one of the patchy clouds. Of course anyone moving through would have a hard time keeping their own bearings too.

  “Good position, Jax.” Corporal Clark was double checking the deployment of the team. He was a worrier, very dedicated to the wellbeing of the four troopers he commanded. He was very relaxed and informal when we weren’t on duty, and he’d made me feel at home right away. Oliver Clark wasn’t a convict or other problem case, like most of the rest of us were; his father had been a career sergeant, and he was a second generation Marine. He’d been raised to love and respect the Corps, unlike the rest of us, who generally joined opportunistically, usually to avoid prosecution or worse, and developed loyalty later. “Stay alert. You’re backup on the SAW, so if either Harden or James gets hit I want you to reposition immediately without further orders. Understood?”

  “Acknowledged.” We would need that SAW running full out if the enemy attacked. The Model 5 auto-cannon is one of the most successful infantry weapon designs ever put into the field. It accepts two gauges of ammo and can fire up 3,600 rounds per minute using the smaller projectiles. I’d rated well on the thing during training, but combat conditions were another thing entirely. The SAW put out a huge chunk of the team’s firepower; I wasn’t one to shrink from a challenge, but I was just as happy with it in more experienced hands.

  We actually had a pretty good position to handle whatever was coming at us. The enemy had laid a trap for sure, but if I had to make a guess, someone over there opened up before he was supposed to. If they’d have waited for us to clear the rocky spur we’d have been caught in the open and torn to shreds. As it was, we were probably outnumbered, but we had decent cover and a good chance to hold out until reserves got here.

  It wasn’t more than a few minutes before the attack began. They hit us with grenades – the Caliphate had a first rate grenade launcher that considerably outranged ours. They started hitting all around us. They were taking potshots, hoping to make up for inaccuracy with volume. Still, they scored some hits, and we had about three or four more down from the platoon. Most of the wounds were minor, but on Tombstone, anything that breached your suit was deadly serious. Even if the repair system patched the damage before the planet killed you, the adhesive polymer wasn’t up to handling combat conditions. You might keep fighting with a wounded arm, but if you ripped open the patch on your suit you’d go from WIA to KIA damned quickly.

  “Here they come!” It was Sergeant Lassa, my squad leader. It was a few seconds before anything started to show on my scanner, and another few before I caught sight of enemy troops advancing through the spotty cloud cover. I took a breath and leveled my mag rifle. I had a pretty good shot on a small cluster of advancing troops, and I started firing short bursts on full auto. My first shots fired in combat were way off – I was a good marksman in training, but you just don’t realize what it’s like shooting at targets that are firing back at you until you experience it. It took me a few seconds to settle down, but once I did my fire got a lot more accurate.

  It was hard to tell what we hit until they started coming out of the clouds but, when they did, the SAWs ripped into them. They were trying to advance along the lowest spots, crouching to maximize their cover, but they had to cross some open areas, and they suffered heavily. They’d expected us to be hit harder by the heavy auto-cannons, but they’d fired too soon and ruined their ambush. We had the better cover now, and they had to come a
t us the hard way.

  I was terrified, so scared I could hardly think. I wanted to run, to get away and go somewhere, anywhere that people weren’t shooting at me. I could hear my heart pounding in my ears, feel it in my chest. My hands were sweaty, my legs weak. But I stayed focused and kept squeezing off shots, targeting the enemy troopers as they advanced. It was hard to tell if I hit anyone, but it looked like overall we’d taken out at least a dozen.

  Our fire blunted their advance, and they stopped and took cover. There were cracks and fissures in the rocky ground, and the enemy troops scattered, occupying any crack that offered some protection. Our cover was heavier, but theirs was enough to offer significant protection, and they outgunned us, which compensated for our stronger position. The combat had turned into a protracted firefight, and both sides expended a lot of ordnance for very little return.

  These were the kinds of fights where carelessness gets you killed. When the shooting goes on this long with no break you can lose focus. A Marine raises his head just a touch too far, trying to get a better shot. That’s all it takes to get killed, an instant’s lapse in judgment.

  I was getting exhausted, mentally more than physically, and running low on ammunition. I was taking single shots now, saving the rounds I had left in case the enemy tried to assault our position. The corporal came on the com and told us to cut our ammo expenditures, but I had beaten him to it.

  As a private, I wasn’t on the higher levels of the com line, so I had no idea what was happening outside my squad. I knew we were stuck here – we didn’t have enough strength to assault the enemy, and if we tried to retire we’d give up the cover of the ridgeline, and the enemy would just move up and shoot us to pieces. I figured there were reinforcements heading to support us, but all I could do was guess.