The tooth popped out and she stowed her trophy in a vest pouch. “They aren’t People’s Liberation Army and they’re definitely not Eight Immortals Group, which means we probably just killed our contacts who were supposed to help us infiltrate the mining camp. Blue on blue,” Tango finished.
“Blue on fucking blue,” cursed Sierra, though she couldn’t bring herself to be disturbed by what they’d done. The pride had defended itself and that was all there was to it. “Something spooked this lot.”
“Care to take a guess?” asked Charlie.
“I’ve a good idea.”
Sergeant Charlie and the rest of the pride crested the ridge right then. Foxy and Juliet passed Sierra and Tango their rucksacks. Vicky sat on a boulder and clasped a hand to her side where she’d taken a glancing blow from the MG. Tango inspected the damage, prodding the torn skin meant to cover the now visible ballistic weave. The move elicited a yelp from her patient. Vicky shoved her aside and slapped a length of duct tape on the wound.
“We don’t have time for all that. I got this from Horus.”
Charlie consulted with Sierra, sharing a video clip on her wrist-screen. Horus hovered dozens of meters over the ridge, showing a clear view of the ravine on the other side. The drone’s optics scanned the topography for several seconds before highlighting patterns the quadrotor’s programming deemed as aberrations. Horus zoomed in, magnifying the anomalies: bodies, five of them.
“Let’s take a closer look,” Sierra said.
“I should properly dress your leg first, Staff Sergeant.” Tango gestured to her wound, concern apparent in her eyes.
Sierra grabbed the roll of adhesive from Vicky, ripped off a strip, and applied it to the lacerations on her calf. “After our little shootout these hills are going to be crawling with hostiles. We have zero time to waste. Juliet, you’re on point. Foxtrot, you bring up the rear. Everyone else, fall in.”
Without further discussion the pride struck off, summiting the ridge then sliding down the scree on the other side. They traversed the ravine in a staggered column while Horus patrolled the sky and sought out potential threats. From the tail Corporal Foxtrot kept her eyes peeled to complement the drone’s electronic vigil. Sierra gave her a grateful nod and waved the rest of the pride on. The day Foxy relied wholly upon plastic and silicon was the day she dug her own grave and placed herself in it.
Juliet located the first body, or at least fragments of it. The pride gathered around a human reduced to bloody ribbons. Shell casings punctuated the red ruin but Sierra could tell this wasn’t the work of a gun or even a knife. The destruction visited on the carcass bore animalistic qualities, gouges from tooth and claw.
“Do you smell that?” Juliet asked.
The kill was fresh and the cold had helped preserve the spoiling meat but the copper tang and voided bowels bouquet of death smothered the senses. Though somewhat masked by the heady perfume Sierra recognized the spoor of another predator. She assessed the scent, connecting it with the sample shared by Memphis during the mission briefing. The sample contained pheromones collected and catalogued so that mods could distinguish friendly mods from others on the battlefield.
Tango beat her to the punch. “The rogue was here.”
Sierra nodded.
Charlie move alongside. “Staff Sergeant, Horus is tracking two scouting parties headed straight for us and they’ve got a drone of their own.”
“Initiate Snipe Hunt Protocol,” Sierra answered.
“Already on it.” Charlie tapped a series of commands on her wrist-screen, activating Horus’s electronic warfare package, designed to shut down enemy drones and jam their sensors.
“Our quarry was careless enough to leave a trail for us to follow. Juliet, lead the way.”
Again the pride set off, loping across and out of the narrow gorge. They passed more evidence of the rogue’s presence along the way — bodies like burst melons, ravaged and discarded. Accustomed as the pride was to death they still found the overkill distasteful. It bespoke a lack of restraint, reinforcing the necessity of terminating the obsolete mod responsible.
Despite the irony of her position Sierra refused to feel shame for their role in hunting down and dispatching older mods. The unstable operators presented a liability to the Apex Program and, by extension, the security of the United States. She felt no kinship with the quarry, they were a breed and multiple generations removed. The rogue was obsolete, nothing more than a prototype. Sierra and her sisters were the future.
‘Patrol deflected. Proceed freely’, Horus transmitted after they’d traipsed along for a quarter of an hour.
Sierra called the column to a halt. “Charlie, send Horus ahead to reconnoiter. I want to know what we’re walking into.”
“Yes, Staff Sergeant.”
“Foxtrot, Tango, you’re on overwatch. Stay frosty.”
“Roger that, Staff Sergeant,” Foxy and Tango said in harmony, hustling off to take up elevated positions.
“Juliet, tend to Vicky’s wound.”
“That’s not necessary. I’m fine,” the solider answered.
“Stow it, Specialist, that’s an order. Might as well let Juliet kiss your boo-boos while we get our bearings and have a few minutes. I’ve got my own to deal with.”
Sierra sat and took a slug of water from her canteen. She removed the medical kit from her ruck before taking another swig of water. Rehydrated, she peeled back the adhesive stuck to her leg, revealing the gouges in her bloody pant leg and the subsequent lacerations in her calf. She pulled off a glove and began extracting the slivers of rock embedded in the skin with her retractable claws. Once finished she sprayed anti-bacterial over the cuts, covered it in gauze, and fastened it all together with a fresh strip of duct tape.
“Check your screens. You’re gonna wanna see this,” Charlie called out.
Sierra tugged her glove back on and viewed the live feed streaming on her forearm display while Horus recorded, the quadrotor suspended above a city in tumult. An inferno raged, engulfing the stacks of shipping containers that had been converted into residences. Figures in riot gear bearing the Eight Immortals Group device battled in the streets against men in drab jumpsuits and hard hats trading fire with automatic weapons.
Sierra watched a rebel wind-up to toss a Molotov cocktail only for it to explode in his hands, intercepted by a lucky bullet. The improvised incendiary consumed the man and those standing nearby. A mass of jumpsuits overwhelmed a detail of riot troopers on the main thoroughfare as the chaos expanded. Those few with guns used them as clubs but the majority, armed with little more than rocks, took turns pummeling the EIG contractors. Sierra snarled at being forced to watch the combat from a distance though she knew she didn’t want to be involved. Her priorities lay elsewhere.
On the screen a bulky armored personnel carrier turned the corner farther up the avenue. Several rebels retreated down back alleys or hid in domiciles but most persisted to assail their victims, oblivious to the approaching threat. The remote weapon system mounted atop the APC rotated to greet the crowd. Fifty-caliber tracer rounds lanced through soft targets, causing the mob to crumble under the pitiless barrage. The weapon system ceased firing a few moments later, the field transformed into an abattoir.
“Recall Horus,” Sierra told Charlie. “I’ve seen enough.”
If the rogue’s trail didn’t take any drastic deviations it would lead the pride right into the rapidly deteriorating situation at Ming Resources’ No. 4 Extraction Site. Memphis explained during the meeting how the escalating tension between the state-sponsored company and its workers in the territory had boiled over. The Eight Immortals Group had already stamped out insurrection at another mining location in the province but the violence was spreading. Trusted informants belonging to Memphis listed No. 4 as the next most likely to revolt, and they’d been right. And as of four hours ago it was the last known location of the rogue mod they’d been sent to eliminate. The two circumstances were not a coincidence.