Cold War by Adam Christopher Read Free Book Online

Sergeant was heavy in her combat armor and as the Spider’s body collided with the ground, Grec was thrown into the air. She landed back in the snow, filling her mouth, nose, eyes. She coughed, gasped, tried to get herself upright. She slid again, and managed to roll over and look back.
    The Spider had fallen clear of Furusawa, but the sergeant wasn’t moving. Grec crawled back to her, then saw the snow underneath the sergeant was quickly turning red. Embedded in the sergeant’s chest was a long, curved piece of metal, part of one of the Spider’s pincer claws. Furusawa’s eyes were open, and she stared at the sky, looking for the rescue that had never come.
    *   *   *
    She’d found Palladio’s body lying a few yards away, thrown clear from the falling Spider. She dragged him and the sergeant away from the wrecked Spider, which lay smoking in the slushy snow.
    The sergeant had made the right decision. Grec knew this, even though she wasn’t sure she would have been able to do it herself. Despite being dragged under the snow and injured, Palladio had reached out with his mind to jam the Spider’s AI. The only way to prevent the Spider from burning out his mind and then killing Grec and the sergeant was to kill him. Suddenly breaking the psychic link—a link amplified by the minds of the dead marines the Spider was using as a battery—would send a shockwave back to the Spider, enough to fry its CPU. Furusawa had realized this and took the decision, one that would have saved her had Grec not intervened.
    Had Grec not intervened.
    She’d searched Furusawa’s body, found nothing out of the ordinary. No sealed orders, no secret ID card that revealed her true rank and identity. As far as the official record would go, she was just a First Sergeant in the Fleet Marine Corps. Killed in action, Warworld 3663. The Omega classification could be removed, at least.
    Grec knelt in the snow and activated the transmitter. Now clear of interference from the Spider’s beacon, the transmitter’s signal light shone bright blue, and the device began to softly beep.
    Fleet Marine Private Katarina Grec knelt in the snow. She thought of Alonso and Bowen and Palladio. She thought of Anderson, and of the secrets that had died with Furusawa.
    She thought about the Fleet and how fucked up it was and how maybe she didn’t want to be part of it, not anymore.
    She thought of Maryam Khouri and she looked up into the sky, and she waited for rescue.

    Copyright (C) 2014 by Adam Christopher
    Art copyright (C) 2014 by Victor Mosquera