Trial by Ice (A Star Too Far Book 1) Read online

  Gunfire rang out. It echoed off the low clouds and the sound bounced off the superstructure.

  William scrambled to the top of the rise. His clothes were thoroughly soaked as the light mist gave way to a steady drizzle. He’d have shivered if not for the adrenaline pumping through him.

  The booming of grenades was muffled. William realized that they had been set off inside of the building.

  “Let’s go!” Sebastien yelled as he rose and disappeared over the rise.

  William crawled over the peak and slid down the backside. A service access through the fence was busted open and he followed everyone through and into the grounds of the refinery. Before them lay an open stretch with a blank wall rising into the mist broken only by an occasional door. He kept himself hunched and scurried forward.

  A new noise broke the morning that had never sounded before. The drone alarms howled a terrible noise. Far above in the mist the pods of razor drones cracked open and loosed the horrible cargo.

  “Set those charges,” Sebastien yelled as he pointed to a rust fringed service door.

  Xan slid on his knees to the base of the door and pulled out a gray cube with a simple strip on the side. The strip had one tab with minutes on it, with another tab to set it. He pulled off the one minute tab and ripped off the set tab. He slapped it against the door frame.

  The crew slid back away from the door and peered up into the mist expecting the drones to arrive at any moment. The sporadic gunfire from the front of the refinery still called out but was answered with heavy automatic fire from within. Screams drifted through the mist.

  William turned his head away and counted with the beeps. The final beeps came quicker, faster, until it gave a steady tone. His ears rang like a chipped bell and he realized that the charge had gone off. He pulled out the pistol and followed behind Avi.

  The interior of the building rose in a pillar of industrial equipment. Pipes, stairwells, drums, and silos occupied the entire building. Above was a large squat control booth ringed with tinted windows. Towards the front lie barricades with the Samoans firing out into the daylight beyond.

  William sprinted with Avi and took cover in a section of pipe flanges and manifolds. His heart was beating loudly in his ears. He couldn’t hear anything else but a ringing sound.

  Withering fire raged towards the Samoan defenders as they turned in surprise. Sebastien fired in rapid bursts as the main line of defenders tried to shift. They had set up expecting the gate to be assaulted. A wide area of empty ground separated them from the next safe cover.

  The civilian assault was hammered by the razor drones outside and the heavy gunfire inside. They fled inwards, away from the drones and into the confusion. Men scooped up rifles from the dead and fired at razor drones behind and the defenders in front. The Samoans were pinched, but the civilians were being flayed into the fray.

  The crew slid into positions and moved into better cover. The area around them was a forest of steel and fixtures painted a dim green. Returning fire pinged off the surrounding fixtures but the surprise had taken its toll. The Samoans were breaking and abandoning the position, and the wounded, while they sprinted for cover.

  “Pick ‘em off!” Crow yelled as he held the stubby assault rifle up and sent bursts into the fleeing mercenaries. The rifle was loud and blasted out an angry orange flame from the muzzle.

  William raised the pistol and remembered the futility of driving rounds at such a distance. He instead focused on scouting beyond and watching for new threats. The command area loomed out of the wall and he watched it carefully. The only way to shut off the drones was inside that cube.

  The civilians screamed as the razor drones continued the assault.

  The smoked glass in the center of the control area spidered and shattered. Behind it emerged a stubby rotary cannon that swung towards them.

  “Autocannon behind us!” William yelled as he rose and ran deeper into the machinery.

  The autocannon shattered out a ripping sound as it showered a rain of steel cored rounds and explosive shells. They shifted the fire away from the heavy cover of the machine and towards the wall of civilians fleeing the drones.

  “Anyone see a way up?” Sebastien asked, poking his head quickly around a pipe.

  Aleksandr rose up in his heavy armor and dropped back down. “Da, I see stairwell.”

  “Hit it,” Sebastien said, rising and taking position behind Aleksandr.

  The heavy armor was blocky but oh so precious in an assault. Aleksandr started slow but gained momentum as he approached the stairs. The rest of the crew bounded after. The autocannon took a moment to adjust before it began to fire at them.

  William ducked his head and gritted his teeth as the rounds exploded around him. He caught himself just as he was about to fall and instead rolled up against the cold wall out of the view of the autocannon. His eyes focused on a body laying in the center of the corridor in a pool of red. Xinhu was crumbled like a broken wreck on the gray concrete.

  “Xinhu’s down!” William shouted.

  Crow snapped his head back to look and returned his attention to the stairwell. “He’s dead, keep moving!”

  William looked behind him once more at the unmoving form. How many more would he leave behind? He wanted to dash out, pull him to safety and check, just check, and see if he was alive. The form of the man was so still in the violence surrounding it. He felt a hand tugging on his shirt and he turned to reluctantly follow Avi.

  The assault team hunched near the stairwell leading to the command center. The hulking mass above them provided cover from the relentless autocannon. Behind them the civilians continued to stream in, eyes wide with panic. The razor drones were slicing their way through those outside while the autocannon hit those inside.

  Peter sprinted up and slid next to Sebastien. His cheek was a ragged crimson mess and one arm useless. The razor drones had struck. “You need to get moving! We’re getting torn up above and below. What the fuck?” His eyes were wide with adrenaline and anger.

  Sebastien peered up the stairwell and shook his head. “Not through there we’re not.”

  “We’re dying for you!” Peter pleaded.

  “And if we go up that stairwell, we’ll die for nothing,” Sebastien replied.

  Crow pointed along the edge of the wall. A set of piping and a covered ladder rose skyward. “Can we pop the comms, kill the drones that way?”

  Xan nodded slowly as he clutched a wounded arm. “There’ll be a comms array up top, knock it out and they should power down.”

  “Should?” Crow asked. He turned the stubby weapon slightly and checked the drum.

  “Those boys upstairs are smart. They’re not going to move an inch, they’ll let the drones and the virus do the work,” Sebastien said with a snort. “William, Avi, get upstairs and knock that thing out. We’ll take our chances that it might disable the drones. If anything, it opens up some options.”

  “Let’s go, boss!” Avi stood and raced towards the piping.

  William nodded to Sebastien and followed. He turned to look and saw Crow and Aleksandr in the heavy pattern armor move closer to the stairwell.

  The two men took flanking positions and ducked forward, then back, egging on those above. They advanced a step, then another, then in unison tossed grenades up the stairwell. They sprinted back to the edge and were greeted with a half dozen grenades coming down the stairwell. The explosions rattled off in successive concussions. Crow sprinted in, tossed a pair of grenades, and ducked back.

  “C’mon!” Avi called down to William. He was already climbing the white ladder that was tucked inside of the process piping.

  William turned his gaze from the assault and climbed his way upwards. He had never, surprisingly, had much love of heights. Floating free above a planet never evoked anything, but a wobbly ladder would make him lightheaded. This, he thought, was going to take his mind off all of the people with guns.

  * * *

  Sebastien sprinted up a
nd slid next to Aleksandr. The stairwell before him was filled with smoke and scarred with shrapnel. So far he hadn’t seen anything besides the bounce of a grenade.

  “I’ve got a pair left,” Aleksandr said.

  Crow slid along the opposite edge and peered up the edge of the stairwell. He raised his weapon and let a burst fly into the upper reaches. He was rewarded with a cry and a grenade bouncing down the stairs.

  The detonation was too far up the stairs and didn’t do much except make more smoke.

  “Ideas?” Crow said as he watched up the stairwell with his weapon on his shoulder.

  “Not until they run out of grenades,” Sebastien said.

  “Charge them?” Aleksandr asked.

  Sebastien shook his head. He hoped William was having more luck. Once the drones were out of the sky, the civilians would become a force multiplier. He turned his head and caught a glance of the carnage behind him. “Negative, we wait for the drones to drop.”

  * * *

  Avi and William climbed slowly, methodically up the never ending ladder. After what felt like an eternity of rough rungs, they reached a small platform with another ladder. They took a brief breather and peered below them. The command bunker was spewing out fire onto the civilians who still continued to stream inside. Women and children were huddled behind giant containers of stamped ore.

  “Good god,” Avi said. “The drones are driving everyone inside.”

  “Let’s go,” William said. It was one thing for the drones to repel the attackers, another for them to terrorize the population.

  They reached a second, darker platform. The piping below them spidered out into a lattice only an engineer could appreciate. The sounds of gunfire was eerily muffled. They turned and continued to climb.

  William’s hands throbbed. The arches of his feet felt like they were seared with a rolled iron bar. He scanned to his side as the piping slid away and into various silos and process equipment. An elevator tube was in the middle of the wall one hundred meters away. It dropped down into the top of the command center.

  The open car was rising upward with a pair of men looking out to the carnage below.

  “Avi!” William hissed. “Stop, stay still.”

  Avi, experienced in enough combat situations, locked himself still into the shadows of the ladder and hugged it tight.

  William closed his eyes to the tiniest slit and watched as the men in the elevator reached the roof. Something seemed vaguely familiar about one of the men. The pair continued to climb up to the hooded roof access.

  They reached the raised cupola with a steel lattice floor. A narrow door led outward. Avi checked his weapon and William drew his pistol. Avi leaned forward and slapped William on the shoulder.

  “You ready, Mr. Grace?”

  William nodded with a slight smile. “Yes, I’m ready.”

  “You pop the hatch, I go first and we both get to the nearest cover. If we’re close to the comms, you get that first and I’ll keep you covered—if not, we’ll nail the two guys.”

  “Avi, let’s do it!” William reached out and popped the latch.

  The air from the inside of the building rushed outwards in a whooshing gust blasting the door open. White light streamed inside that was dulled only by the cloud cover above. Avi jumped out of the hatch and burst into a dead run.

  William followed immediately behind, pumping his legs like he’d never run before. He could almost feel the eyes on his back, tickling, teasing, as he expected to get shot. A square box was bolted to the roof with a slender stack rising upwards. Ten more meters. Almost. His knee burned.

  “Hey, hey!” a voice called out to his right, and the gunfire began.

  William ignored the call and slid himself behind the metallic cowling and clutched the pistol to his chest. He trembled slightly with the adrenaline dancing. He peeked around the edge and saw a man in blue coveralls sprint past.

  “Avi, he’s coming at you!” William called. He turned his head in time to see the other man roll onto his side and level his weapon. William tucked himself back behind the cowling just as the thuds of gunfire echoed against the metal. He hoped that whatever it was wouldn’t punch through the supports.

  Gunfire rattled through the forest of pipes and vents. William could hear Avi firing, and someone firing back at Avi. He rolled to the opposite side of the cowling and turned his head just for a moment.

  The man rushed from around the cowling with a stubby rifle at his side. His face was set but his eyes were wide with surprise. If he sprinted a step more and he’d be in position to hide from William and mow down Avi. But only if William missed.

  William turned, raised the pistol with an extended arm, and fired. The pistol recoiled lightly. His nose tickled with the tang of burnt nanites as the wind blew in his face. He crept forward. A rising set of pipes before him masked where the man had fallen. He kept the pistol pointed where he walked and slid forward.

  Around the mass of pipes his target lay sprawled out as he had fallen. The edge of the building was only a meter past. The dizzying height was lost in the mist, though William didn’t venture near enough to tell. The stubby rifle he had hoped to acquire was nowhere to be seen.

  William dropped down into a crouch and peered around. The edges of the roof were lost in a mist. Droplets of water scurried down every vertical surface. The only sound that came was the dim wind and a dull echo of gunfire below. He crouched and started moving.

  The dim silhouette of a communications array loomed into the sky. Around it grew spires of black topped with smaller cups and domes. Water ran freely down the large dish and pooled below it. A mass of painted white wires was tucked into a giant round coupling.

  Avi was nowhere to be seen. William was hesitant to call out. He crept closer and watched with heightened senses as his eyes scanned the vertical white vents. His objective was before him. He decided that cutting just one of the wires wasn’t enough, he was going to slice every single one of them.

  William tugged on a cable and found that it was fixed tightly. He stuffed the pistol back into his jacket, dropped the satchel, and drew out the polymer blade. He hoped that whatever the blade was made out of didn’t conduct electricity. The first cable cut with a slight hiss. He was about to cut the second when a voice halted him.

  “Oh Captain! My Captain!” called out a voice with a southern drawl and an angry tilt.

  William felt his stomach drop.

  That voice…

  He turned his head and saw Corporal Berry charging.

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  Rumble

  Berry drove his body forward and plunged his shoulder into William’s chest. The blow crashed William directly into the conduit and spun him onto the roof deck. The polymer blade skittered away.

  “You’re fucked now!” Berry yelled. His lower lip was caked in wet blood while his right arm was a sticky mess of bloodstained coverall. Wherever Avi was, he had shot well enough to seriously wound the deserter.

  William smiled and slid his hand into his grimy coat. He realized his pistol had dropped out when Berry tackled him. He took his eyes off Berry and scanned for it, but it was gone.

  Berry lunged forward and knocked William backwards. The Midshipman fell in a heap with the well fed Southerner perched on top. A fist smacked William’s forehead with a crunch. Stars danced in his eyes but William landed a roundhouse punch that was forceful enough to stun Berry just for a second, but it was all William needed to wriggle away.

  “I had rather hoped you’d drowned,” William said, as he gave himself some distance. The knife was at a point equidistant to both of the men. Could he handle Berry with a wounded arm? He knew he had an advantage, but Berry had the edge on combat training. William recalled the words from the Academy close combat teacher: only do what your enemy expects you not to. William dropped his shoulder and decided to see what Berry was like without bringing the knife into the mix.

  “Oh hoh!” Berry hollered as he caught the full weight
of William’s drive right on the sternum.

  Berry oofed out a sickening sound. His diaphragm was crushed, knocking him backwards. William took the initiative and stood up, delivering a hearty kick into his stomach. Berry curled up into a tight ball.

  Berry spat out a mouthful of blood and grinned at William with stained teeth. His breath came in wheezes as he tensed in anticipation of another kick.

  William turned and ran to where the polymer blade was dropped. He would have rather shot Berry, but if a slice was what it took, he’d do that too. He stooped down and picked up the cold, wet blade and turned to find Berry staggering away into the piping.

  “C’mon you bastard, you useless son-of-a-bitch! If you’d been dead, then I’d be a running the command. You screwed us all,” Berry said.

  William ran as fast as his aching ribs would allow. The pain from the tackle bloomed in his chest as he realized that his ribs were quite possibly broken. He gritted his teeth down hard and chased after.

  * * *

  The gantry crane rose with a loading bar directly across the top of the elevator. The cargo lift hung limply with a large iron hook near the edge of the ribbon. Tik looked up along the steel body and slung her weapon against her back.

  She gripped her hands onto the electrical conduit and pulled herself up. While her legs didn’t work well, she had enough upper body strength to climb to the top.

  The girder was wet and rusted. She carefully placed one foot in front of the other. Below her was the flat form of the top of the complex. Her goal was the center area where the ribbon passed through the ceiling. She crawled up next to the crane motor and peered down. Grue was hunched out of the rain and looking towards the door.

  Tik patted her jacket and palmed one of the filament grenades. She lobbed it against the elevator. The grenade made a gentle bounce and landed with a metallic thud a meter away from Grue. He turned his head and was slammed aside by the shock.