All You Need Is Kill

“We’re under attack! We’re under attack!” she shouted, nearly breathless. Her face was streaked with lines of red and white warpaint. I began to wonder if the whole loop thing was just me going crazy for the last few seconds of life in a steaming crater somewhere.

Rita took a step back to appreciate one of the brightest minds MIT had to offer. “Which tribe’s attacking?”

“Not a tribe! The Mimics!”

“This how you always dress for battle?”

“Is it that bad?” Shasta asked.

“I’m not one to criticize someone’s customs or religion, but I’d say you’re about two hundred years late to the powwow.”

“No, you don’t understand!” Shasta said. “They forced me to dress up like this at the party last night! This sort of thing always happens when you’re not around.”

I suppose everyone has a cross to bear, I thought.

“Shasta, why are you here?” Rita said, with surprising patience.

“I came to tell you your axe isn’t in the hangar, it’s in the workshop.”

“Thanks for the heads-up.”

“Be careful out there.”

“What are you going to do?”

“I can’t fight, so I figured I’d find a nice place to hide-”

“Use my room,” Rita said quickly. “The javelins can’t make it through the walls or the glass. It’s tougher than it looks. You just need to do me one little favor.”

“A… favor?”

“Don’t let anyone in here until either he or I come back.” Rita jabbed a thumb in my direction. I don’t think Shasta even realized there was anyone standing next to Rita until then. I could almost hear her big eyes blinking from somewhere behind her glasses as she stared at me. I hadn’t met Shasta Raylle yet in this loop.

“And you are…?”

“Keiji Kiriya. A pleasure.”

Rita stepped toward the door. “You’re not to let anyone in, no matter who they are or what they say. I don’t care if it’s the president, tell him to go fuck himself.”

“Yes sir!”

“I’m counting on you. Oh, and one other thing-”

“Yes?”

“Thanks for the good luck charm. I’ll need it.”

Rita and I hurried to the hangar.

4

By the time Rita and I had made the relatively long trip from the Sky Lounge, U.S. Special Forces had established a defensive perimeter with their hangar at its center.

Two minutes for Rita to put on her Jacket. One minute forty-five seconds to run to Shasta’s workshop. Six minutes fifteen seconds to put down two Mimics we encountered on the way to the Nippon hangar. In all, twelve minutes and thirty seconds had passed since we left the Sky Lounge.

The base had descended into chaos. Tongues of flame shot into the sky and vehicles lay overturned in the roads. Smoky haze filled the alleyways between the barracks, making it difficult to see. The firecracker popping of small arms fire, useless against Mimics, rang through the air, drowned out by the occasional roar of a rocket launcher. Javelins met attack choppers as they scrambled into the sky, shattering their rotor blades and sending them spiraling toward the ground.

For every person running north to flee the carnage, there was another running south. There was no way of knowing which way was safe. The surprise attack had smashed the chain of command. No one at the top had any better idea of what was going on than anyone at the bottom.

There were hardly any Mimic corpses, and of the ten thousand plus Jackets on the base there was no sign at all. Human bodies were scattered here and there. It didn’t take more than a glance at a crushed torso to know they were KIAs.

A dead soldier lay face down on the ground thirty meters in front of my hangar. His torso had been shredded to ground beef, but he was still clutching a magazine with both hands. Beneath a thin layer of dust a smiling, topless blond stared up from its pages. I would know those prodigious breasts anywhere. The guy in the bunk next to mine had been looking at them during all those heart-to-heart talks I’d had with Yonabaru in the barracks. It was Nijou.

“Poor bastard died looking at porn,” I said.

“Keiji, you know what we have to do.”

“Yeah, I know. There’s no going back this time. No matter who dies.”

“There’s not much time. Come on.”

“I’m ready.” I thought I was, for that one second. “Fuck! This isn’t a battle, it’s a massacre.”

The hangar door stood open. There were marks where someone had jimmied the lock with something like a crowbar. Rita thrust one of the battle axes into the ground and unlatched the 20mm rifle slung on her back.

“You’ve got five minutes.”

“I only need three.”

I ran into the hangar. It was a long narrow building with Jackets lining either side of the passage down the middle. Each building housed enough Jackets for one platoon, twenty-five to a wall. The air inside was heavy and moist. The lights set into the walls flickered off and on. Most of the Jackets still hung from their hooks, lifeless.

The overpowering stench of blood almost knocked me off my feet. A huge dark pool had collected in the center of the room, staining the concrete. Enough to fill a bird bath. Two lines that looked as though they’d been painted with a brush extended from the pool toward the other entrance at the far end of the hangar.