Madame Guillotine

make every last one of them pay before he was dead.

04
“This is bad,” said Oh-Two as he held position over the sudden firefight on the ground, keeping one eye on the scope’s feed. “Command has to be seeing this!”
But if they were, they didn’t have anything to say about it. Both the shotcaller and the point who seemed to be running things had gone silent. Maybe dealing with the situation at the crash site, maybe reacting to any one of a dozen other firefights that had broken out across the sixteen-block operations zone of riot-fevered Detron.
Marine commanders were requesting permission to return fire while hullbusters on the ground were calling in medevacs and doc-drops for wounded troops. It wasn’t clear, at that moment, who exactly was in charge of the disaster unfolding beneath Reaper 66.
Reaper Actual swore from the cargo deck. “Kelhorned nightmare down there. Command needs to be doing something.”
“What the—?!” shrieked the pilot as he yanked the bird above a sensor tower, barely avoiding a collision.
Someone had no doubt illegally attached the tower to the rooftop, as it was devoid of sensory warnings, flashing lights, or any of the other regulated safety protocols. The city was littered with flight hazards for those who flew close to the deck, as the marines liked to call the ground and buildings.
“Damn it!” yelled Reaper Actual as she pitched and swayed from her shooting platform.
But Oh-Two could tell it wasn’t because of his flying that she swore. That was just part of staying alive and aloft, and Amanda knew that. “What just happened? I missed it!”
“Last two leejes are down. They dusted a bunch of hostiles, but they’re definitely down. Request permission to engage again. Wait! One’s still moving.”
Oh-Two opened the comm channel to make the request, and then heard her fire from the back of the ship.
“Engaging…” she muttered over comm. Her voice low and businesslike as she began to put bolts into targets on the ground.
The point came back over the comm. “Reaper Team… are you engaging ground targets at this time? Over.”
Oh-Two opened his mouth to reply and then closed it again. Unsure how to handle the situation.
“Reaper Team, you are in direct violation of mission parameters. Confirm: are you engaging ground targets? Over.”
Oh-Two didn’t bother to confirm and decided to move on to explanations, hoping clarification would provide some sort of retroactive permission for what was already happening. All the while he tried to give his shooter a good sight picture of the alley to assist the legionnaire they saw moving from the SLIC. She was trying to help him. He needed to help her.
“Command, we have a Legion team down. Confirming two wounded and engaging to assist…”
“Negative on assist at this time. Stand down and return to base immediately.” The point’s voice held little emotion beyond a strident passive-aggressive rage that seemed barely contained.
“Sir…” tried Oh-Two.
She fired again.
Oh-Two checked the scope feed and saw a dead rioter who’d been carrying some type of military-grade assault blaster. He lay sprawled on the street, hardly anything left of his head. A second later the wounded legionnaire crawled into view, dragging the body of another legionnaire—not clear if he was dead or alive—out of the courtyard despite the ongoing chaos.
Oh-Two swore, rage and fear becoming one.
The rage won out.
“Dammit, sir! You’re seeing what I’m seeing. Positive ID on at least one wounded legionnaire, probably two. They’re trying to get out of there and Reaper Actual’s keepin’ ’em off. We’ll leave when you have a rescue organized and on site!”
“You have your orders, Reaper 66. Return to—”
Oh-Two cut the comm.
“I got most of ’em,” Amanda reported. “No one’s moving in the alley who isn’t a leej.”
Oh-Two checked the ground radar and scanned the streets below. There were lots of figures down there moving in toward the courtyard. Friendly or hostile… it was hard to say.
“Listen, Amanda, we have a decision to make. Stay and watch—or get out of here. We’ve been ordered out, by the Legion OIC. In fact… I think I may have just gotten myself masted real good!”
There was a pause he didn’t like. It meant she was up to something. They’d been flying together long enough for Oh-Two to know he wasn’t going to like what she was about to say.
“Can you put down here?”
A ping in the pilot’s HUD marked one of the rooftops that ringed the courtyard where the firefight had gone down.
“Not following you,” he said.
“I can go down and get them. Then we can pull them off the roof.”
“No, Amanda. No way!”
She didn’t reply.
But neither did he leave.
Sunlight and dust washed through the windshield. Smoke in the distance from the downed bird. People were dead and dying.
He loved flying.
Hated the military.
Hated death.
His dad had died when he was a kid.
Hence all the afternoons spent at the star port wishing he could get away. Get away as his mom fell apart.
He hated death.
“We got to,” said Amanda.
His jaw clenched. Teeth gritted. Technically, he outranked her. He was a captain. She a sergeant. But they’d both known who was in charge when they started flying Reaper together. She was the leader. The shooter. It was the nature of the team. The preeminence of the airborne sniper.
He just wanted to fly.
And make sure none of the good guys got killed.
He swore again and brought in the repulsors for full flare, throwing out the landing gears though he knew he wouldn’t even touch the deck of the trash-laden rooftop she was asking him to put her down on.
“Amanda,” he began. Like he was going to change her mind. Save her. Even as he did what she wanted him to do.
“I can do this,” she said simply. “The alley cleared of hostiles once we started dropping targets. We have this window right now to go get them. We can’t leave them.”
And then the SLIC was hovering over the rooftop, repulsors screaming to hold position. He cranked his head around and watched her drop off the cargo deck.
A second