“We all owe her, man.” That had been SOL, who’d turned out to be a good pilot after all, thanks to Grinner. But he didn’t mean what he said, and everyone knew it. Soledad was scared, and he was trying to talk himself into doing what he had to do to escape being eaten by the Foos.
“We all do,” Mooch agreed, also meaning nothing. Hard to be a hypocrite when your mind was linked to everyone else’s. “But she’s going to mess up the deal. We’re making our runs with near-zero casualties now. Most of the people we’re losing as the ones who don’t want to deal with the Foos. So Grinner is good as dead, no matter what we do.”
“So why not wait? Let things, you know, take its course?”
“Because then the Foos will know we’re not reliable. That we’re not willing to go the distance.”
Gus was shocked to realize the words were coming from him, but he kept on going. Each step got easier than the last. “Look, we’re all making sacrifices for the greater good. Grinner not going along, well, she’s being selfish. She’s hurting everybody. After all we’ve done.”
He let them think about it for a bit. They all felt guilty about their deal with the Foos, but at the same time they all felt like they were part of something bigger, something important.
“We did what had to be done, but she acts like she’s too good for that. She could ruin everything. She has to go.”
After that, all that was left was figure out how to do the deed. The only time they could have a ‘friendly fire’ incident would be while docking with the Enterprise, and they couldn’t shoot her down in front of witnesses. None of their other ideas panned out, and they were about to give up. That’s when the Foos crashed their virtual meeting.
SOL stood up and screamed briefly before he changed. Nothing they saw in the warp illusion was real, of course, but watching their buddy’s eyes turn solid black was still scary as hell. And his voice when he spoke was worse. But the Warpling solved their problem. All they had to do was let their Foos have her. A simple mental signal from the pilots and their new buddies would do the rest. They had all agreed, freely and of their own free will. The Foo had let SOL go, but the pilot didn’t look well afterwards. Nobody did, after agreeing to kill one of their own.
Except Grinner saw it coming somehow, and when the squadron jumped she vanished. Tricky bitch.
“Not a bitch,” Gus muttered. “A witch.”
Hungry.
“Almost there.”
Emergence.
A Wyrm ship this time, one of the dreadnoughts that had sunk the Mount Whitney. Killing those turncoats was a pleasure. Nine War Eagles fired as one and let the big Wyrashat dragon-ship have it. Forty-five blasts at point-blank range, coordinated so each successive volley went right into the breach the previous one had opened; that was more than enough to make it burn. The Foos fed upon the dying, and it was like watching a school of piranhas going on a blood-frenzy. Ten thousand alien souls were devoured, and watching them go didn’t feel bad anymore. Gus actually enjoyed it.
After that, he didn’t talk to his Foo anymore. Its thoughts were just another part of him.
* * *
“They are trying to run, Your Highness!”
The Lord of Tactics was exhausted, but surprise and shock livened up his tone. Grace-Under-Pressure watched the data herself on the holotank, unwilling to believe her eyes. The enemy fleet, the hundred or so ships still able to maneuver, reversed course and tried to open the range in order to return to their departure point. The American and Hrauwah ships left – the entire Pan-Asian contingent had perished in the battle – wouldn’t be able to mount an effective pursuit, not in their current condition. Even the fighters…
“Multiple warp emergences detected around the enemy ships: American fighter vessels. It appears Fleet Admiral Kerensky isn’t willing to let them escape.”
“They must be out of their minds,” Grace said. Those pilots had been fighting continuously for nearly eight hours. She’d been briefed on the maximum number of transitions they could perform safely; that number had been exceeded halfway through the fight, and their operational tempo had actually increased after that. By rights, all the pilots should be dead or hopelessly insane by now; instead, their casualties had come to a halt and the little flying cannon had pounded the enemy into scrap without taking any further losses.
As she watched, the last remnant of the grand alliance against humanity – half a dozen civilizations, most of which had never cooperated with one another – fell one by one until none remained. Once again, a battle ended with the total annihilation of one side. What had been something of a rarity in Starfarer affairs had turned into the normal state of affairs when humans were involved.
With those fighters, they do not need us.
That thought wouldn’t have been so alarming before humans had demonstrated how truly dangerous they were – and how angry they must be at all Starfarers. Grace was certain the Wyrashats wouldn’t have willingly sent their ships to fight side by side with an enemy that had threatened their very existence a few months before. The Alliance must have coerced them, and even then those ships had sailed to battle under the flag of the Galactic Imperium, and not their own. Such quibbling might not matter, however. Every polity that had joined that ill-fated fleet would pay a price, now that the humans had gained the upper hand.
“All enemy vessels have been destroyed.”
It is over.
The thought didn’t bring the mixed feelings of relief, sorrow, and satisfaction that normally followed the end of a fleet action. Something inside her was growling in apprehension. What was wrong?
“There is some unusual activity among the American vessels. Their warp shields are fluctuating.”
Not even humans cared to be in close proximity to a warp aperture any longer than they had to. With no threats present, those devilish shields of theirs would have been shut off right away.
It is not over.
* * *
“Cut power to all warp systems! Do it!”
Captain Cochrane wasn’t given to raising his voice. The shouts ringing over the command channel were just another symptom of the growing tension affecting everybody aboard Odin and the rest of Seventh Fleet.
“The generators are off, sir. The apertures appear to be drawing power from an outside source.”
Kerensky listened in to the reports from the Odin’s bridge silently. He had nothing useful to say. Every vessel’s warp shields were still open despite having been shut down. They were growing larger, in fact.
“All our projectors are off-line,” the Defense Coordinator said. “Nothing is feeding those shields. They have to collapse.”
It took a great deal of power to punch a hole in spacetime, and even more to keep it open for any amount of time. In the Odin’s case, a full fifteen percent of its energy output was dedicated to the maintenance of its sixteen warp shields. As soon as their power was shut off, reality should have reasserted itself. There was no possible way for those shimmering lights around the ship to remain.
Something on the other side is keeping them open.
Impossible. And yet, there they were, and if they grew much larger every ship affected would be completely engulfed and would cease to exist. All the warnings from other Starfarer species about the insane risks humans took with warp space were about to come true.
Kerensky had begun to order all his ships to turn their shield projectors back on – better to try to regain some measure of control over the runaway spatial distortions around them – when a flash of blinding light and a sharp pain in the base of his skull froze him in place.
A chorus of cries and curses from the CIC crew filled his ears as he blinked and shook his head. Everybody had been affected. Everybody was blind, another impossibility when their implants could create images in their brains even if their retinas had been burned off. Sightlessness was a thing of the past.
The only place where that didn’t apply was warp space, of course.
His
vision came back slowly, filled with afterimages of shapes and colors he couldn’t identify. Officers were barking orders in a desperate attempt to make sense of what had just happened. The first thing they discovered when they regained their senses was that the warp shields were gone. The second was that several crewmembers were unconscious.
There had been one more change, but only about a third of the spacers aboard Third Fleet noticed it. Kerensky was among them.
The exhaustion that had threatened to overwhelm him was gone, replaced by a feeling of exhilaration. As soon as the initial shock wore off, he was filled with resolve and certainty. He dismissed the bizarre warp malfunction; let the astrophysicists among the crew figure out what happened there. The only thing that mattered was that he now knew how to win the war. He, and certain elements of Seventh Fleet. He would leave the rest behind; he didn’t need them.
He looked around the CIC. His gaze was met mostly with confusion and unease, but here and there he was rewarded with nods and smiles of agreement. Those men and women understood. They would suffice to do what was necessary. He cast about with his mind, and discovered he could reach across all of Seventh Fleet and touch those like him. They included every warp pilot still alive in the fleet. Good. He would need them most of all.
“Transmit on all fleet channels,” he said; his imp obeyed the verbal command, giving him the ears of all surviving members of Seventh Fleet. “Once again, we have stood. Despite the treachery of our enemies, and the misguided vision of certain elements in our command structure, we have prevailed.”
He couldn’t say what he really had in mind: that there were as many traitors in New Washington as among the aliens that infested the galaxy. Not yet, not until all untrustworthy elements of Seventh Fleet were purged. A brief pause allowed him to send a subvocalized set of commands to a number of officers in the Security Department; his newly-sharpened instincts told him who he could count on.
“As soon as essential repairs are completed, I will lead a task force on a new mission. To ensure a smooth process, there will be a reallocation of personnel among functional vessels. Detailed orders will follow shortly.”
There was more confusion among the crew of the fleet bridge, except for those who’d shared the same epiphany Kerensky had. That was all right. The unenlightened would obey his orders, enough of them; the doubters and second-guessers would be dealt with.
It was time to put an end to the ongoing threat to humanity, and he knew exactly how to do it.
Sixteen
Redoubt-Five, 167 AFC
The reanimated metal undercarriages walked, staggered or crawled forward, ignoring the drones that followed and monitored their advance.
“Splitting up in two groups,” Gunny Freito called out. “Jackson, you got three tangos coming your way. Uris, the rest are yours.”
“Copy that.”
Everybody had been repositioned to acquire the best fields of fire available. That wasn’t saying much; Sergeant Jackson’s fireteam looked down a thirty-meter long corridor that the shambling robots coming his way had to use; Uris’ approach had twenty. At those close ranges, any area explosives would endanger the shooters almost as much as the targets. Time to improve the odds a little more.
“Send out the Sparrows,” Fromm ordered.
Each Marine in the squad had carried six 100mm ‘Sparrow’ mortar bomblets. Meant to be launched by a magnetic rail system over great distances before their self-propelling thrusters engaged to direct their final approach, these munitions had been reprogrammed to go on flight mode automatically. Used that way, their range was a tiny fraction of normal, and their speed too low to survive in the open against any high-tech forces. In the enclosed spaces of the alien building, neither shortcoming would matter.
“On the way.”
Thirty-six bomblets set forth, their warheads dialed for anti-armor work. They split evenly and headed towards the two enemy groups. The drones providing guidance for the approaching munitions sped away to get to a safe distance. Their visual feed blacked out to protect their electronic eyes moments before the shaped-plasma explosions went off.
The building trembled slightly under the multiple explosions, shaking dust off the walls and ceilings around Fromm’s unit. On the receiving end, the effect was rather more noticeable. It took a few seconds for the clouds of superheated gas and pulverized debris to clear enough for the drones to report on the damage to the enemy units.
Three of the reanimated Marauders were done, shattered into pieces; a pair that had been struck by nine bomblets apiece, and one of the larger group. The two survivors were in worse shape than they’d started with. One was only a headless torso being dragged forward by its single remaining tentacle; the other was sneaking forward on one leg after losing all its other limbs. Neither of them appeared to be much of a threat.
“Very well,” he said. “Let’s…”
“You’ll screw everything up, Petey. Like you always do.”
He turned around and saw the grinning face of June Gillespie, mere inches away from him. Blood stained her perfect teeth; more red rivulets ran down her nose and ears. She looked just like she had the last time Fromm had seen her, just before Navy corpsmen bagged her dead body and wheeled it away.
June had been killed during the Battle of Xanadu. He was looking at a ghost.
She laughed; the sound was deafening, chilling.
Someone was trying to raise him on his implants, but he couldn’t hear the words. He couldn’t do anything except stare into the eyes of the dead woman.
He was dimly aware of First Sergeant Freito screaming in terror, and more cries of shock from others nearby, but most of his attention was focused on June, and the ghosts that began walking up behind her.
* * *
Mind-Killers.
Heather recognized the Marauder weapon the moment the world plunged into absolute darkness and her dead uncle appeared in front of her.
Uncle Bert lunged at her and she cringed away instinctively.
“You’ve filled up, Heather,” he said in a breathless voice. “You look good enough to eat.”
“Go to hell,” she told him, focusing her will like a weapon. The hallucination popped out of existence like a punctured balloon. A moment later, she was back in the Marauder building. Everybody else was staring at something that existed only in their minds, trapped by hallucinations created by the Kraxan weapon.
Not quite everybody. Lisbeth Zhang and Doctor Munson appeared to be fine. Heather knew better than to joggle their elbows; she wished them the best of luck and went about her business.
Mind-Killers opened miniature warp gates and exposed the targets to them, triggering the same effects anybody who engaged in FTL traveled experienced: vivid hallucinations and potentially-lethal physical reactions, everything from spikes in blood pressure to autonomic system failure. Against non-warp-rated beings, those effects were invariable fatal. Everybody in the task force could withstand exposure to null-space, however, so for the most part they would only suffer debilitating but not lethal symptoms, unless exposure lasted a long time.
She’d seen the weapon in action at Xanadu, when Lisbeth Zhang used it against the Tah-Leen aliens threatening the human delegation there. She wasn’t sure if the cybernetically-enhanced corpses coming their way or some other building system had deployed them against the invaders. Either way, nobody was in any shape to handle the remaining two techno-zombies. A Marine started shooting at something only he could see. He was only hitting a wall, but any second now they’d start getting blue-on-blue casualties.
It was worse than that, she realized with a sick feeling when her mundane imp picked up emergency transmissions from the surface, bounced along the fiber-optic transmitter they’d brought down. The team aboveground was also under attack, both physically and mentally. If someone couldn’t stop the Mind-Killers, the human forces wouldn’t be able to defend themselves.
She reached out towards Peter Fromm first. Selfish of her, but also pr
actical; she’d communed with him several times already, so establishing contact was relatively easy. It took a moment before she could see through his eyes. Several ghosts, including June Gillespie’s, were tormenting him. She blotted them out of existence with a thought.
“Warp illusions,” she explained to him as he recovered.
“Got it. Can you help everyone else?”
“Yes,” she said with a certainty that she didn’t feel.
“Best get to it, then. We’re about to have company,” he said, moving towards the enemy, rifle in hand.
Neither of them wasted time in saying endearing parting words, no last ‘I love you’ or whatever. Mission came first. Which was one of the reasons they loved each other.
She rescued a handful more Marines, beginning with the team closest to the reanimated Marauders. That took about five seconds; too slow. She had to send out the equivalent of an all-hands broadcast, and she had no idea how to pull that off.
Then again, maybe all she needed to do was figure out how the Mind-Killers were doing it, and copy them.
Heather shifted her perceptions, fighting a surge of vertigo-induced nausea as her body reacted to the altered sensory input. Her ‘warped’ senses spotted the source of the Mind-Killer emissions. Tachyon waves were shooting out of the buried building, reaching every mind in range instantly, unfettered by relativistic constraints. It took her a few moments to identify the source, and to piggyback her own signal into it. She used all her strength to send out a simple command:
WAKE UP!
It shouldn’t have worked. The Mind-Killers tapped into warp space itself for their power. The Marauders had in effect an inexhaustible energy supply. A single human mind couldn’t hope to match that. And still her shout carried through and not only dispelled the hallucinations but closed all the microscopic apertures that had caused them in the first place. She felt something greater than herself giving her a push; it was like being washed over by a massive wave. When it was over, she found herself shaking uncontrollably.
Warp Marine Corps- The Complete Series Page 122