Broken: A Plague Journal Read Online Free Page B

worldline.
     There were scores of black vessels surrounding the lake. One had crashed into an island at its center. From the sky, the stiletto shapes of Judas warships strafed the ground with lances of white laser. Smoke and fire, screams and static snaps. A shattered upload generator struggled to connect to the Enemy mind-essence under a barrage of weapons fire. Judas and Enemy fought hand-to-hand by the thousands. Humans fading into the shift, humans downloading from the mind-essence, a sweep of snow and cutting wind. The lake was frozen. Ice splintered with shadow.
     A squadron of Judas Mujahadin passed over the huddled Judith, dropping dozens of pattern-charges into the midst of the Enemy horde. One vessel slowed, a fan of zeros and ones sprinkling West, Benton, Paul. Landing struts descended, and retro-forces kicked up spatters of mud.
     It landed.
     
     
    I remember the throb of nose and right cheek, splintering into eye socket above and rattling teeth below. I don’t remember writing Judas or Enemy into anything else. It concerned me. More blood. I spit again. Breathing was getting easier, marginally, as my blood slowed and thickened. The cardiac shield was quiet.
    I guess I’d never really seen a spaceship. I knew it wasn’t just that, but the tickle behind my eyes grew into suspicion and fear. A lucky shot from the valley below slammed into the starboard nacelle of the Muj and dissipated harmlessly into phase shielding. Returning fire from the craft ignited two of the disabled Enemy ships. Shards from the blast tore into and through the field of combatants.
    I’d seen it all before... but I’d never seen it before.
    A hull ramp descended from the Muj’s belly. Armed Judas soldiers ran down the plank, surrounded us. At least the weapons were pointing out, not in. That was a good sign. And one Judas—
    “Commander West?”
    The frown and flicker of confusion was unmistakable, but he proceeded to hide it well beneath his mask of coagulating blood and diced cheekbones.
    “Yeah, I’m West.”
    Silver eyes swept forth, back under furrowed brows, sculpted with laser precision, fixed on Adam’s again. “Sir?”
    “Listen...” The firefight below and above intensified. “I’m not your West. Where are we?”
    Realization. “Shit, sorry. Let’s get back to the ship.”
    They ran.
     
     
    That disconcerting joggle in the stomach as inertial dampening systems compensate in an alien atmosphere, butterflies: monarchs? and he felt the suck of the vacuum chair as they rose into a sky shot through with beams of light and plumes of black.
    Beside him, Benton wiped beads of nervous sweat from her upper lip. One eye was developing an unpleasant bruise from their rough entry into the wrong When. She caught him looking and smiled quietly, looked toward the front of the cabin where the battle chamber elevator was falling to the floor. The Muj captain got off.
    “Okay, let’s figure this out. I just checked with our batteries; nav’s taken us to strato, so we’re out of the battle for the moment.” She palmed the release mechanism on her armor, and silver blades retracted across torso, limbs, settled in seams. “You’re not Commander West.”
    He pried himself from his seat, reached to shake her hand. “Not yours. We seem to’ve landed wrong.”
    She shook. “It happens. Captain Mindel Frost, Judas Mujahadin Kate, out of Fort John Wayne.”
    His eyes lit up. “Mindel Frost? You know Breine Frost?”
    “My father.”
    “He served with me in the first Jaguar war.”
    “I know.” She shrugged. “Same here, too.”
    “Is he—”
    “Pattern erased two years ago standard.”
    “Sorry to hear that.”
    “So what’s your business in this When?”
    “Well...” West looked over at Paul. “It’s complicated.”
    Frost turned to the author. “You are..?”
    “Paul.”
    “Right.”
    “We’re here to fix some things, but it might not be exactly here. Can we take a little trip north?”
    “Where