Why couldn't more days turn out like this one? Cargo traded hands, and no one tried to cheat or shoot anyone. Mal got in, got paid and got out. Just like it's supposed to go. Just like it hardly ever goes. With any luck, his crew would all still be aboard ship, ready to leave. Now that would make for a perfect day. Well, nearly perfect. He was on a Core World, which didn't tickle him none, but he'd soon have that fixed.
"Sergeant Reynolds!" someone said. By the time it registered that someone was calling to him, he realized they'd said it several times. He tried to look casual as he surveyed his surroundings for the source of that call. He locked eyes with an elderly couple dressed in silken finery. They were moving as quickly as their arthritic joints would allow, trying to catch up with him, and the gentleman smiled and waved when they made eye contact.
Mal swore under his breath, stopped and turned toward them. He took a quick measure of his surroundings. There were at least two ways this section of town could lead to an ambush, and he was already anxious to leave. That was two strikes against the couple.
"Haven't been sergeant for some time. People what know me call me captain."
"Yes, we know," the woman said. A hint of accent told Mal that she'd grown up speaking Mandarin, but had learned English sometime in her youth. The outfit said Core-worlder, and well off at that. Chances were Jiangyin or Gonghe. "That's why we need your services."
"Not currently taking passengers, and my crew allotment is past full. I recommend any one of these other fine ships. Excuse me." He turned to leave, but the gentleman caught his arm is a surprisingly firm grip.
"We're not looking for passage, Sergeant Reynolds. It's about our son," the old man said pleadingly.
Mal shook off the man's hand. "Told you once already not to call me sergeant."
The old man bowed humbly. "My apologies captain. But whenever our son spoke of you, he always called you Sarge."
This took Mal aback, and it was a moment before he recovered. "Your son got a name?" he asked.
"Tsu Li Jie," the woman said, and she produced an old photograph of Mal's squad from early in the Unification War.
Memories flooded back as Mal took the photograph from her. There was his younger, more hopeful face, smiling back at him from underneath the dented flak helmet. There was Zoë, just a private at the time, and next to her was Li Jie. He often reflected on the war, but he rarely thought of Li. His shining moment had been eclipsed, minutes later, by the Independent's most crushing loss.
"I… I lost contact with him after his evac. What ever happened to Li Jie?" He handed the photo back to her.
"You can keep it, captain," she said.
"Those days are nothing but baggage now, and I've got more than I can carry already," Mal said, perhaps a bit harshly.
The old man broke the silence while the woman awkwardly took the photo back. "He was barely half a man when they brought him back to Di Yu," he said.
Di Yu! Mal thought. I was close.
"We spent every penny we had on a mechanical arm, but the doctors said he'd never walk again. The government made a big deal of pardoning him after the war was over, and he became a local celebrity. He was always a positive spirit, and he continued to work to make things better for everyone around him. He used his popularity, and rose in office to eventually become an ambassador. The Alliance paid for several spinal surgeries, and in the end, an implant, which got him out of his wheelchair for good."
"Sounds like he's made a nice life for himself as part of the Alliance he once fought against. What does he need me for?"
The woman began digging through her purse as she spoke. "He was on a diplomatic mission to Meadow, negotiating a trade agreement that would have brought our planet greater wealth. The ship never made it. There had been an increasing number of Reaver attacks in the space between Newhope and Murphy, and eventually his ship's transponder was found."
"Mrs. Tsu, no one sympathizes more than I do. Truly. But I can't help the dead."
"We assumed he was dead too! But then, two weeks ago, this video showed up," Mr. Tsu said, motioning toward his wife.
She finally managed to pull a data pad from her purse, and she held it up for Mal to see. "This was taken on Aphrodite." A Reaver ship came to rest in the main street of a farming village during some form of celebration. Reavers dropped on ropes and began slaughtering the people who couldn't run fast enough, mainly women and children. Mrs. Tsu froze the video, and zoomed in on one of the Reavers, in the act of shooting a young boy in the back. The gun arm he held out was mangled, and barely functional, but it was clearly made of metal.
Mal took the data pad and panned back over to the ship, zooming out to get it all in shot.
"That's a Shrike class fighter. Least it was once. Holds a crew of five. They couldn't have squeezed more than seven in there. Why hasn't your Alliance done anything about this?"
"Oh, no, Captain Reynolds! They fry bigger fish. They don't go out that far for one little ship, they only care if it hits a capital world, and even then, they'd shoot it down."
"I don't understand. What are you hoping for?"
The two shared a look before the husband answered. "We want you to rescue our son. Bring him back to us."
"Can't be done," Mal said firmly. "It's not possible."
"'There's one true thing about Sarge,' our son always used to say, 'he never leaves a man behind,'" the wife said.
They were on Aesir. The Independents were flush with recent victories, and were trying for a toehold that would become a base for future attacks against the rest of Himinbjorg space. A previous feint toward Heinlein meant that the bulk of the Alliance fleet was days away, and so the siege against their last fortified installation began.
Mal's squad was hiding out in the cave network by day, and digging lines of trenches by night, getting closer to the fort by fifty yards a day.
The Independents were aware that the clock was ticking, but they were committed to this victory. If they could breach and take the fort, they had the supplies to hold it against all comers, draining significant Alliance resources from the fight elsewhere.
"How you holding up?" Mal asked a young Russian farm boy, recently added to his squad. The man's eyes were wide, and he visibly tensed every time another shell hit the field outside. He'd also cleaned his assault rifle at least three times in the last hour.
"I'm ready to end this, Sarge."
"Aren't we all, soldier," Mal said, putting a reassuring hand on his shoulder. "Okay, listen up, everyone."
He looked around at his squad. Zoë had been napping against one wall of the cave, and she pushed her helmet back with one finger to signal her attentiveness. A conversation between two of them, and a card game between another few came to an abrupt end, and Li Jie, who had been cleaning his mess kit with dirt from the cave floor, stopped what he was doing and turned to listen.
"Tonight's the night. Our trenches are two hundred yards from the fort. Command believes that the enemy will think we've got three days of trench digging before an all out assault. Now, every night so far, they've stopped the shelling to conserve ammunition. Our spy inside the fort says they're almost out, but I conjure they've held some in reserve in case we break through their defenses."
"Our orbital support has jammed all planetary communication, and they've shot down every ship that's broken atmo. That means, the fort has not called in reinforcements. That's a fact. That sword's got two edges though, because we have no communication either. We have no way of knowing if the Alliance has figured it out on their lonesome. Worst-case estimate going into this was that they could be here tonight. That's why we have to push now."
He gave them a few moments to process the situation. Many folks in his position might just give their squad the good news, but Mal believed that people performed their best when they knew the stakes, and he trusted his squad to keep it together. Of course, a little ego stroking didn't hurt.
"Now, Command didn't pick us for our skills at digging. Any squad of greenhorns could have spent the last several nights on trenches. This job was about positioning. And now we're where we can execute what Command knows we're best at, because they know we'll succeed. Hoo-ah!" he said.
"Hoo-ah!" his squad responded enthusiastically.
Good. They were ready. "T minus ten minutes to sundown, we make our move twenty minutes after that. Whittaker, Balzac, Dennis. You see a helmet poke above that wall, you put it down." His snipers signaled their readiness, each in their own way.
"Tsu, Redmane, you're our runners. You stop for nothing until you touch that wall. Petrovich, Ukende, you guard Redmane with your life. Alleyne and I will cover Tsu. Any questions?"
"Just one sir," Zoë said. This took Mal by surprise. She's only ever said maybe two words before.
"What is it, Alleyne?" he asked
"Which team is cooking breakfast in the fort's facilities tomorrow?" she asked.
The squad chuckled, and Mal could see some of the tension go out of them. "That would be the team whose bomb goes off second."
The first ten minutes went by insanely fast, and just like the last several nights, the shelling campaign stopped once light was too low to see targets. The next twenty minutes dragged. Mal loosed the snipers to take up positions as they saw fit. They were only just assigned to the squad, but they were good team players and weren't too good to pick up a shovel when it was time to dig a trench. He hoped at least a couple of them could remain permanently, but Command would put snipers where they were best suited.
He and Ukende picked their spots on the fortress, making sure they were far enough apart that a good enemy sniper wouldn't be able to spot both groups. Then the two shared a drink from Ukende's flask. He never did name the concoction, but it was something he made in his own still, and involved fermented soy, whey and whatever berries he found to take the edge off. It was one of the most disgusting tastes Mal had ever suffered through, but it was strong, and in any case, it's been part of their pre-mission ritual since Hartford Ridge.
They synchronized their watches, and Ukende's group disappeared down the forward trench to wait it out in a spot nearer to their target. Mal let two minutes go by, then it was their turn.
"Zoë, Li, move it out," he said.
Li Jie gave a reflexive, "Sir!", and Zoë fell silently into line.
Li Jie had three standard issue pistols strapped to either leg and across his belly, and a thirty-pound satchel on his back. Zoë had an assault rifle, same as Mal, four extra clips, and an old mare's leg rifle strapped to her right thigh. He thought about questioning her running speed with that in place, but just like the ritual with Ukende's flask, this weapon had worked out for her so far, and Mal wasn't going to jinx that.
Mal stared at his watch while they crouched in the trench. Three seconds left. He held up two fingers and counted down silently. At zero, he thrust his fist forward, and Li Jie and Zoë instantly mounted the wooden planks that served as a ladder out of the trench, and began racing across the field. Mal was right behind them. He chanced a glance to his right, hoping to confirm that Ukende's team was on the run as well, but of course, he could see nothing. This was a good thing. If he could see them, so could the enemy.
There was the crack of a sniper rifle that echoed off the canyon walls, making it impossible to locate its source. Zoë and Li Jie were shadows against the darkness ahead, and neither one faltered. There was no tale-tell 'pfft' of a near-miss striking the nearby dirt, so Mal decided it was one of his team that took the shot.
Thirty yards down, a long ways to go.
The footing was tricky in the dark, navigating the craters left by daytime shelling, but they made good speed. Adrenaline was working overtime to keep fatigue at bay.
Two more rifle cracks meant the enemy was aware something was going on. Still his runners were going full-bore, and by then, the silhouette of the fortress walls was a deeper black against the night sky. Half way there, and the closer they were to the walls, the harder it would be for someone to shoot at them without exposing themselves to Mal's snipers.
Suddenly the night was ripped open as a white-hot flare shot high overhead. Mal swore under his breath. Their spy inside the fort said they were out of flares. Someone must have kept one in reserve.
There was no turning back now. The flip-side was that they could now clearly see the uneven ground ahead, and ran faster still.
Automatic rifle fire spit up the dirt at Zoë's feet, and was immediately silenced by another sniper bullet. They were close now, maybe fifty yards to go. Mal chanced another look off to his right, and could see Ukende's group out there, slightly further from their goal than his team.
That's when the first shell hit. It exploded a half-dozen yards behind Mal, where they'd been just seconds before. He was flung forward with the force of the blast, and landed on hands and knees.
"Scatter!" he yelled. He got quickly to his feet and was running again. Zoë and Li Jie went off at forty-five degree angles from each other, but didn't slow down. The next shell wouldn't likely miss, but there was no way it would get all of them.
Mal looked to the side again, and Ukende's group had done the same. Just then, a shell exploded right in front of Redmane, tearing him to pieces. It wasn't even worth checking for a pulse. Ukende just reached down for Redmane's backpack and pulled it from his severed torso as he ran past. He was the runner now. He dogged right, then left, then right again.
Then everything went south. The scream of a squadron of Alliance jets came echoing up the canyon.
So close to their victory, and the reinforcements arrived. Mal stopped running and scanned the sky for them. Twin trails of exploding dirt snaked their way across the field toward where he stood, and suddenly Zoë was there, tackling him out of the way.
They hit the ground hard, and the line of jets passed overhead. They had less than a minute before they'd be back for another run. Suddenly there was nowhere to hide.
"Fall back!" he yelled, looking at the impossible distance to the nearest trench, and even further to the safety of the cave network. He and Zoë helped each other to a standing position. He turned to see Li Jie still running for the fortress.
"Fall back!" he yelled again, but Li Jie didn't slow or turn.
"I've got this, Sarge!" his voice came across the plane. And he did. He was closer to the fort now than he was to Mal and Zoë. He was going to make it.
But it didn't matter.
Those jets meant the Alliance fleet was in orbit. With that kind of reinforcement, there was no way they could take the fort, even if it was breached. And even that didn't matter, because the real battle was taking place in orbit between the main Alliance fleet, and the Independent's small support squadron.
They'd be lucky if they could escape.
But Li Jie kept going. He was pulling off his backpack now, and activating the clamps. He reached the wall and pressed the bag against it, hard. The clamps fired off, and held the bag to the wall. Li Jie pulled the cord and ran.
Mal could hear the fighters coming back around. "Come on, come on," he said, watching Li Jie barreling toward them. He could see it written across Li Jie's face. Even a symbolic victory is better than total defeat.
The satchel bomb went off, and the ground shook even at this distance. Massive chunks of steel-crete blasted in all directions and a seam tore upward along the height of the wall. Li Jie was pushed to the ground with the blast wave, but he got back up, with a smile on his face. He turned to see the destruction he had wrought.
Mal took a quick account of his people. Petrovich and Ukende were almost to the trenches already, like they should be. Zoë was still with him, and Li Jie was way behind. He had no way of knowing where his snipers were. There was a chance that communications were back online since the Alliance was here anyway, so Mal gave his radio a shot. He tore it from the velcro fixing it to his shoulder. "Abort, abort! Everyone back to the extraction point. Repeat, abort! Dust-off will not wait for you!"
He reaffixed his radio and turned to Zoë, giving her a bit of a push. "Go! Run!" he said. Then he turned back toward Li Jie and yelled, "Run!"
Li Jie was pumping at full speed, but the jets were coming fast. "Mal turned to see Zoë still there and said, much more urgently, "Run, run, run!" The two of them ran for the trenches as fast as they could, stumbling and flailing over the broken terrain, but never slowing.
The ships overhead began carpet bombing. Explosions were going off in a line behind them. Mal and Zoë were lifted from the ground by a close explosion, then ducked and covered, anticipating the next.
A shotgun blast of dirt hit them in every exposed area, and they could hear nothing after the volume of the explosion. Mal checked himself quickly. All his fingers were there, and both legs. He looked to Zoë, and she also escaped without injury. The jets continued the bombing raid over the trenches and back toward the Independent's main line.
Mal turned to see Li Jie, laying half-way out of a crater. One arm was blasted clean off, and there was a large chunk of metal sticking straight up out of his back.
Zoë grabbed Mal and pulled. She was shouting something, but Mal neither heard nor payed attention. He was rooted, staring at Li Jie where he lay, looking for any sign of motion.
Zoë's tugging on his arm became more and more insistent. It finally registered to Mal, but he continued to stare at Li Jie. He lay with his face in the mud, smoke and steam rising around him, no sign of movement.
Tug, tug, tug. Mal took an involuntary step, but continued to stare. Suddenly, as if it were connected to a switch somewhere, his hearing returned.
"Sarge!" Li Jie was calling.
Mal turned and grabbed Zoë by both shoulders, shouting in her face. "We never leave a man behind!"
He turned, and ran back for Li Jie. On his periphery, he could hear the sound of jet engines coming closer again, but his full attention was on Li Jie.
He fell to his knees at Li Jie's side. The arm was blackened, the bleeding cauterized, but his back was a different story. Blood was pouring out of him around the jagged chunk of metal. Zoë got there a moment later. Mal and Zoë's eyes met for a moment, but they didn't need to say anything. Zoë put her hands on Li Jie's back on either side of the shrapnel. Mal nodded.
"Why'd you stop running, Li Jie," Mal said. "This ain't even that bad." He grabbed the chunk of metal and ripped it out. Three inches of the tip were covered in Li Jie's blood.
He tossed it to the side and opened a pouch on his vest. He removed the self adhesive bandage and pressed it onto the wound, putting all his weight on it.
Li Jie screamed and kept on screaming.
Moments later, Ukende and Petrovich were there. They had brought back the wooden planks from their trench ladder. Mal nodded at them, and they laid them down next to Li Jie. Mal rolled him over onto the planks, then everyone took an end and started running with Li Jie riding the makeshift stretcher.
By some miracle, they made it back to the relative safety of the caves, and on from there to the dust-off site. The fighter jets that had first strafed then bombed them were met with anti-aircraft fire once the Independents had rallied.
Mal's squad saw Li Jie aboard the medical transport alongside so many others, then it took off, and he never saw him again.
"Please Captain Reynolds, our son needs your help."
Mal returned to the present and met Mrs. Tsu's eyes. His expression softened. "Li Jie was a good soldier, and I would do for him anything I can, but like I said, this can't be done. You probably never met a Reaver, but you surely know the stories. Now, I can tell you, they're true. Even if by some miracle, we separate him from his crew and capture him alive, what we'd be bringing back wouldn't be your son no more. It's a thing that spends a spell in your son's skin, but it sure ain't him."
"We are under no illusions, captain," Li Jie's mother said. "We know that if our son is in there, he's buried deep in torment. But we have the best Core world doctors and psychiatrists. We've gotten assurances that if we could bring him in, they will do what they can to bring him back."
Li Jie's father put his arms around her shoulder. "Like I said, our son is important to them. He is a success story, a poster-boy. It's bad publicity to have their poster-boy attacking Core worlds. Few know right now, but word will spread, and we can spread that word. If it's possible, even remotely, they will heal him."
"That just makes things worse. Nobody's ever brought a Reaver back alive, and if your doctors are so willing to work on him, I've gotta believe someone's tried before. There's a reason they didn't succeed. Reavers don't look after their own survival. They don't break off from a losing fight. They don't worry about over-cooking grenades, and they don't stop for mercy's sake."
"Now, I don't fly a gunship. I count amongst my small crew a doctor, a companion and a preacher. We ain't up for a fight no one's won before. I conjure the position you've reached in life, you ain't used to people telling you no, so I won't hold it against you. But here it is again: What you are asking for is impossible."
"The governor of Di Yu has dipped into our planet's development fund to offer a reward for Li Jie's safe return. Fifty thousand credits. In addition, we will pay you upfront what our family has scraped together, another ten thousand credits.
Ten thousand credits? Mal thought. That's some good scraping. "And, when I say 'impossible', what I mean is…"
"We know what we're asking of you. We know that no plan is perfect, and it might not work. But we know you're the only one who would try."
"And, Captain Reynolds, if you can't save him, at least bring us his body, so we can bury him properly."