Warp Marine Corps- The Complete Series

by C. J. Carella

  The zombie Lamprey didn’t have its helmet on. Its sucker mouth snapped at Russell. Armor or not, he didn’t want those serrated teeth anywhere near him.

  “Hold him!” he yelled at the two other guys while he chopped at the feeding tube. Make that six limbs to go.

  “He’s climbing up the spear, man!” one of them warned him.

  The dead alien was pushing the shaft deeper into its guts while its remaining three arms reached for Russell. He tried to pull back but was still off-balance; the tango’s remaining three-fingered hand closed on his left wrist with unnatural strength and squeezed it, right on the flexible joint. The nanotube fibers bent under the relentless pressure.

  “Motherfucker!” Russel screamed at the sudden burst of agony. He shortened his grip on the e-tool and kept hacking with his free hand. One chop, two chops, screaming all the while as the bones in the trapped wrist grated against each other. A third desperate hit finally loped off the alien’s arm. Russell stumbled back and ended up on his ass, the zombie claw still around his wrist, although it wasn’t exerting as much pressure as before. Still hurt like a mother, though.

  He reached for his spare Ka-Bar and used it to pry open the alien’s fingers; he had to chop off the last one before it let go. By the time he was done, the battle had pushed on past him and the zombie that almost killed him had gotten drawn and quartered; the pieces were still twitching but couldn’t do shit. Good.

  No time for malingering, though. From the shouts and screams just a few feet away, things weren’t going so well anymore. He got a better look as he struggled into a sitting position.

  The Marines’ initial rush had rolled over the zombies, who had been scattered and strung out in clumps almost all the way to their line of departure. But Russell saw that the fighting was turning into a giant brawl, and the zombies outnumbered the Marines. Not by a lot, since there’d been a lot fewer Lampreys to begin with, but when you added all the losses the Americans had taken, the undead aliens had the edge. Status icons were beginning to turn yellow on the roster window. He had to join in.

  Nanomeds were already dulling the pain. His suit had immobilized the broken wrist by hardening the nanotube fabric around it into a solid mass that would do for a cast for the moment. That still didn’t get him back to a hundred percent or even seventy percent, but it would do. Russell got back to his feet, leaning on the e-tool, then hefting it one-handed as he rejoined the fight.

  Two zombies had dogpiled Gonzo. One was biting him; the other was trying to get its hands around his neck. If it did, it was all over for his buddy.

  Russel swung the e-tool at the second zombie’s arm. It sank into the dead flesh with a sound like hitting wood. Gonzo grabbed the damaged limb and tore it off with a twisting motion. That weakened its hold enough; he kicked the critter off of him. The second zombie only had its tiny arms left; they were grabbing Gonzo’s belt while it gnawed on his chest with its sucker-mouth, almost like a baby trying to get some tit. Fucking disgusting. Russell steadied the e-tool with both hands, ignoring the agony flaring up in his damaged wrist, and drove the sharpened spade into the alien’s neck. The e-tool got stuck; he leaned on the handle, putting all his weight into it to pry the wound open. The dead flesh tore with a wet sound and the feeding tube rolled away, severed from its body, mouth still puckering open and closed. Russell kicked it away.

  Another Marine showed up and between the three of them they took apart the two zombies. By the time they were done, Russell was feeling a bit shaky. Two fights in one day took a lot out of you. He’d already past the safe limit for chemical boosts, which sucked because he could really use another shot. That shit would shave years off his life, but he could always get rejuv treatments later to get them back. He would have to do without. They had to keep going until every alien zombie was dead. Dead again. Whatever.

  His armor’s power indicator was flashing amber. His suit’s twin batteries were both below twenty percent. Turned out hand to hand drained power even worse than a forced march.

  “Come on,” he told the other two between breaths; he was panting like a winded dog. “Let’s kill them all.”

  They followed him.

  * * *

  “That’s the last of them,” First Sergeant Goldberg said. He sounded a little punch-drunk.

  Fromm could sympathize. He could no longer raise his right arm above his shoulder. The unfamiliar motions involved in hacking flesh over and over had strained his muscles beyond what nanomeds could undo right away. His breath came in labored gasps, and all he wanted to do was lie down and close his eyes.

  No time for that. It took a command override before his implants delivered another shot of stims into his bloodstream. The overdose got his heartbeat racing, and put a thin red haze between his eyes and the world, but the desperate urge to sleep faded away, and that was all that mattered. More nano-meds would get his arms back in working order, just like they would for every Marine who wasn’t crippled or dead.

  Three more men – no, one of them had been among the three females in the company – were dead. Six more were injured too badly to walk or fight; everybody else was hurt to some degree, not to mention exhausted. He authorized additional doses of stimulants for everyone, because they weren’t done for the night.

  Heather’s message had arrived in the middle of the fight. He’d been too busy chopping off the limbs of an alien Lieutenant Hansen was holding at spear point to answer, and had only managed to read the terse note a couple of minutes later, as the battle wound down and the last handful of zombies were rendered harmless through mutilation.

  Get ready to move. Anybody who can fight. Two hours or less.

  It wasn’t much, but he could work with that.

  “We’re running out of suit power,” Gunnery Sergeant Freito announced. “A couple of guys are high and dry; they’re using the power packs from the casualties now, and I’m having people trade off packs until everyone is at least at twenty percent, but that’s the best we can do. Had to drain all the area force field packs, too, except for the one you told us to save up. We went through a twenty-hour sustained ops equivalent in the last two fights.”

  “I think we all feel like we just did a full day’s work, Gunny. Maybe two.”

  “You can say that again, sir.”

  Even Goldberg and Freito, two of the toughest Marines Fromm had known, were worn out. They’d taken off their helmets, like most everyone else after the fighting was over; the two non-coms looked like they’d aged a couple decades since this dog and pony show from hell had started.

  Fromm sipped some water from his suit’s feeding tube. His drinking reserves were down to three quarters, despite the nanites working hard at recycling his bodily fluids; the system wasn’t a hundred percent efficient and couldn’t keep up with the demands of the last forty-eight hours. They were out of ammo and scraping the bottom of the barrel on everything else.

  “All right,” he said. “We’ll return to camp. I want everyone to be ready to move at a moment’s notice, except for the walking wounded, who will remain behind to watch over the other casualties. We’ve got more work to do.”

  His officers and NCOs looked surprised but carried out his orders. They might not know why he’d issued them, but they trusted him. Just as he trusted Heather.

  Be ready.

  “We will be,” he whispered.

  Thirteen

  They once had been humanoids, almost elfin in appearance, except for a third eye where a human forehead would be. But they had self-evolved into two separate species: the planet-bound, who retained their original features, and the spacers, who had grown in size to accommodate the larger and more complex brains they desired for themselves. That subspecies of giants became the Pathfinders, the best pilots of the galaxy.

  Awakening the alien had taken some doing, but it was no longer just a mindless slave. Or maybe she’d reached the Pathfinder in the past, long before it became the Corpse Ship. Either way, the former Seventh Circle Path Maste
r was now trying to teach her everything it could.

  “Everything is a matter of balance,” the ghost in the machine explained. Lisbeth and her new teacher were in a virtual space created by the alien’s memories. The huge three-eyed creature made her feel a bit like a child. So did the lecturing tone of the conversation.

  “That’s not very useful,” Lisbeth complained. “And time is running out.”

  “Not here. As long as you are with me, time is nearly irrelevant. Not wholly so, because your mind is still anchored to the physical realm, but enough. You can spare a few moments to listen, and learn.”

  “Okay, I’m listening.”

  “I will not bore you with the details of our philosophy,” the Pathfinder said. Its three eyes regarded her steadily as it spoke. It had no gender; one of the first modifications the Pathfinders had made on themselves was to remove sex from the equation. “We considered extremes to be the definition of evil. Everything can become lethally toxic, in high enough concentrations, whether it is a substance, a desire or a principle. Finding a middle ground between opposites was always our primary goal. We did not believe in a static point of balance, either. Circumstances change, and what was once perfectly balanced will eventually tilt one way or another, breaking the preferred state. And when confronted with extremism, we came to realize that the only way to counter it was with an equally-strong opposing force. Thus the use of extremes is permissible in order to achieve balance.”

  “Makes sense, I guess,” Lisbeth said when the alien paused, apparently expecting some response from her. She’d quickly discovered that she didn’t like being lectured by million-year old aliens any more than she liked being lectured by anybody. “And that helped keep you sane when going in and out of warp.”

  “Yes. Starless Beings feed on extremes. They take what they find inside us and intensify it, leading to much suffering. Too much light or too much darkness is equally blinding.”

  I think I read that inside a fortune cookie while having dinner at Luna Base.

  “Mock me if you must, but listen and learn.” Thinking was as good as talking out loud, as far as the Pathfinder was concerned.

  “Sorry. I’ve had a couple really bad days.”

  “I understand. Communing with the Marauders is agonizing. Even in my mostly unaware state, I could sense how unbalanced they were. A perfect example of extremes taken to their evil conclusion. Their malignancy affects this galaxy even now, millennia after their passing. Their tainted souls bred a legion of twisted entities, beings of darkness who continue to haunt the Starless Path long after the Marauders were no more. I was fortunate enough to live in a cleaner, better time, one far closer to the ideal balance than any era since, and possibly most cycles before it.”

  “So what can we do?” she asked it. “I’d rather be like you guys than the Marauders.”

  “Lead a balanced existence, or to tilt to the light if you must. In some ways, your species is better prepared than most to handle the trials ahead. For one, many of your cultures have a strong moral sense and believe in an absolutely-good entity that judges one’s deeds. That belief, while extreme, confers a measure of protection against the dark that more cynical civilizations cannot match.”

  Guess I’m shit outta luck, then.

  “Amusingly enough, your avowed atheism conceals a great deal of faith,” the alien answered her unvoiced thought. She might as well speak her mind.

  “Sure. One can have a moral compass without believing in some Big Kahuna in the sky, you know.”

  “Certainly. It just takes some additional effort to keep that compass in working order. Not that it is easy under any circumstances. At the moment, the balance between light and dark is skewed towards the dark. You will need to try to appeal to the light to counteract it.”

  “Warp angels so we can fight off warp demons?”

  “There are beings that closely correspond to those entities in the Starless Path.”

  “I’m really not qualified for this. We need to get you in touch with a Catholic priest, or some Baptists and Mormons. Somebody who believes in this shit.”

  “Unfortunately, you are the only one in a position to learn. Reaching entities on the light side of the morality spectrum will not be easy, for you or anybody of your kind. It will be particularly difficult for those who enter the Starless Path with violence and murder in their hearts.”

  “In that case, we’re screwed. We are few in number, and most everyone hates or fears us. Murder in our hearts is kind of our default mode nowadays. First Contact put us in a proper killing mood, and this war hasn’t helped.”

  “That is a problem. You are a warrior civilization, and they attract the kind of Starless Beings that fed upon the Marauders. You are at great risk of becoming just like them, unleashing a cult of death upon the entire galaxy.”

  “Just like enemy propaganda likes to portray us. Well, if you call someone a monster long enough, that’s what you’ll end up with.”

  “I would like to avoid such a thing. Even if that means allowing you, and by extension your entire species, to fade away.”

  “To be killed, you mean. Fade away my ass. We are going to be murdered wholesale. I’d really like to avoid such a thing,” she told the alien, mocking its regretful tone and words.

  “There is some hope that will not be necessary. Unlike your species, the Marauders had few moral restraints to begin with. Their dominion over the Starless Path only exacerbated those traits. By the time they found the ossuaries of my species and defiled our bodies, they had given themselves wholly to the dark.”

  “Yeah, we would frown on that kind of thing, even in our current mega-violent mood. In fact, we mostly want to be left alone. Most people in the US would rather trade and build than fight. We won’t take any shit from people picking a fight from us, though.”

  The Pathfinder considered her words, probably checking them against her thoughts and memories. It wasn’t as if she could hide anything from the jolly three-eyed giant. For a good while, the alien remained silent, lost in thought.

  I’m being judged, and if I’m found guilty, the sentence is going to suck.

  “Very well,” it finally said. “I will aid you. In part because I want nothing more than to end this miserable shade of an existence, this unbalanced torment. But also because I think you and your people are worth the gamble. If I am wrong, the universe will eventually balance itself. The Marauders were dealt with by the Peacekeepers. All things come to an end. If you surrender to the temptations of the extreme, something will eventually rise to oppose you. But here and now, you will have my help.”

  “That’s great. Heather is trying to figure out a way to provide power to the Corpse-Sh… I mean, this ship.”

  “I am aware my sole link to the physical realm is my now-dead shell,” the Pathfinder said. “Calling it a Corpse-Ship will not offend me.”

  “That’s good to know.”

  “In any case, both you and the Tah-Leen are laboring under a misapprehension. The missing components in this vessel are a life support system for the Marauders, who never learned how to survive in the vacuum between planets, and a set of secondary weapons designed to counter any Starless Beings that ventured into the material plane.”

  “I thought warp demons were people who got possessed and stuff,” Heather said. “Are you saying the actual Warplings can cross over to this side?”

  The Pathfinder nodded.

  “Holy shit.”

  “Holy shit indeed, Lisbeth Zhang. Such intrusions are rare, but devastating when they happen. My point, however, is that this ship is not missing a power source.”

  “Then where is it? There are no active power plants anywhere. Inactive ones either, for that matter. Even a super-compact gluon plant would take some room.”

  “The answer to that question is also the reason the Marauders desecrated the bodies of my people for their purposes. We had learned how to tap the Starless Path itself to provide us with energy. All the power you need
is but a thought away.”

  “Holy shit.”

  “Indeed.”

  * * *

  “On your feet, Marines!” Sergeant Fuller said. Similar orders were ringing out among the tattered remnants of Charlie Company. Time to get ready for whatever was next on the menu. It would have been nice if the menu had included some shut-eye, or even another hot meal, but all Russell expected was an extra serving of hard times.

  “We shoulda brought along a field mess,” Gonzo said, popping his last protein chew into his mouth and working on it with half his jaw while he put on his helmet. “Been living on fucking snacks and MREs for like three days. And we’re running low on MREs,” he continued through the fireteam network.

  “Yeah, something else we would have had to lug around on our backs,” Russell said. “No, thank you.”

  “Try fighting after a week of short rations and bouncing around a cargo truck,” Grampa added.

  “I’m sure it sucked balls, Army, but you’re in the Corps now,” Russell broke in before the goldie could get going. Nobody was in the mood to hear bitching about life after First Contact. Grampa got carried away sometimes, and his whole ‘back-in-the-day’ bullshit was getting pretty old.

  “Oorah,” Grampa said in a sarcastic tone. That was something else Russell didn’t want to hear for a while. He figured the Devil Dogs’ battle cry was going to bring back bad memories from here on. Fighting primmie style had been rough. And they were about to do it again, except against a bunch of even more advanced ETs.

  He checked his spear. He’d cleaned off the alien gunk, and the Ka-Bar blade all but gleamed. There were a few nicks here or there but it was ready for action. So was he, more or less. His damaged wrist was still pretty tender, even after a corpsman got some nanos to knit the bones back together, but he could use it.

  Charlie Company started moving in column, which meant immediate trouble wasn’t likely; otherwise bunching up like that would have been suicidal. A single Lamprey with a laser on continuous beam could shoot down the entire column, especially now that their personal force fields were on their last legs. Russell did a quick headcount. A hundred and twenty-two Marines fit to fight, including Fourth Platoon, who without their Hellcats were just a squad’s worth of lightly armored spear carriers. This was going to be fun.