The Midnight Sun (The Omega War Book 2)

by Tim C. Taylor

  “We’re traitors?”

  The Zuparti laughed. “They don’t care about that. Treachery implies honor and morality, and the Veetanho consider themselves above such weaknesses. We’re a threat, a complication to their ambitions. The only way for us to stop being a threat is to kill all the Veetanho in the system. It’s too late for anything less. Surrender is not an option.”

  Sun’s heart filled with horror. What had she led her people into? But she hadn’t; her sister had.

  “Major, my leg…” Sun could hear pain in the Commander’s voice. “The medical nanites are failing. If I become too incapacitated to do the deed myself, promise me you’ll shoot me dead rather than allow me to be captured and held up as an example to anyone who might dare to side with the Four Horsemen. If you’ve any sense, you’ll do the same for our wounded, then kill yourself. I know some species have moral taboos about self-termination. I hope you don’t.”

  “Copy that.”

  The thought of capture haunted her the remaining two hours before the shift ended, after which she took her chance to sleep. With her empty CASPer safely lashed to Raknar-Alpha’s tug, she fell asleep on a litter shared with other troopers, leeches, and insects.

  While she slept, a muddy CASPer dragged her, step by squelching step, toward the sea.

  * * * * *

  Chapter 76

  “Aircraft incoming,” howled Kenngarr.

  “Warn the others,” barked Sergeant Hrrn. “The rest of you, hug the river bed.”

  Kenngarr dropped to all fours and bounded away to the main party – the Zuul acting as a runner to avoid using radio comms and maybe advertising their position. Meanwhile, Branco and the others in the rearguard slid down the muddy river gully and flopped into the river.

  He rolled onto his back. The foul water – coated in green river scum, which was home to millions of tiny yellow insects – had splashed over the bank with the impact of five CASPers and four aliens. Now the waves rolled back, lapping over Branco’s front camera, temporarily blinding him before settling down.

  It was a stream rather than a river, he decided. Despite six days of continuous rain, the broad stretch, thirty feet across, was shallow enough that the torso of his Mark 8 stood proud like an armored island.

  He gestured for the external cam to give itself a jet from its cleaning fluid and looked up at the sky. Directly above the watercourse, the canopy thinned significantly, but despite the blessed absence of rain this morning, the foliage was still too dense to see the sky, let alone any aircraft.

  So he trained his camera on his comrades in the rearguard, because running dark without comms made his CASPer suit a suffocating prison of isolation.

  For fanden! The Devil! He hoped he wasn’t developing claustrophobia.

  The camera dispersed the rising panic by reminding him he wasn’t alone. The four metal bellies belonged to Gjalp, Turnaround, Corporal Cleggy, and Ripper from Ultra-V Squad. The remaining three Zuul were kneeling in the water, and Betty was squatting down, but Tatterjee had decided the Zuul sergeant’s order didn’t apply to him.

  The Flatar had a point. Back aboard Midnight Sun, Branco would have described the little alien’s ginger and cream fur as pretty, though he’d only say that to Tatterjee’s face if motivated by a large wager. Now the little alien’s pelt was the rich brown and green of rotting vegetation mixed with dirt and water.

  The thumm – thumm – thumm of multiple aircraft rotors finally reached Branco’s ears. The aircraft sounded too big to be the drones that had buzzed overhead the past couple of days.

  This was something new.

  “Check ammo state and weapons function,” ordered Hrrn.

  Branco complied, running a rapid-check diagnostic of his arm-mounted MAC and machine gun. His sword blade flicked out simultaneously with the four other CASPers, churning the water like a pack of hungry piranha.

  “Good to go, Sergeant,” he reported, along with the others.

  The aircraft grew closer and louder.

  “Maintain weapons discipline,” said Hrrn, though noticeably quieter than before. “Wait for my signal before firing, then pick your targets according to the target zones I allocate.”

  With the aircraft drawing nearer with every heartbeat, Branco found himself wondering when he’d slipped into the habit of obeying an alien NCO as if it were as natural as the protests of his empty gut.

  It probably helped that, as a Zuul, Sergeant Hrrn didn’t come from a race that had launched a nuclear strike on Earth. Nor were they responsible for stripping Earth of its mercenary leaders and driving the Four Horsemen into forming the nexus of human resistance to General Peepo. Still, Hrrn was the child of another world, many light years from Earth.

  But not this world.

  They were all aliens here.

  The river was shaking now, the drone of the aero engines beating it into a froth. Branco activated the reticles in his HUD for his two main armaments, but his suit couldn’t identify anything to aim at. He was reduced to his eyesight. And with one of his two front cameras out of action, even with his pinplants, he’d lost binocular vision.

  A spark of fear worked Branco’s fatigue-clogged mind enough to remember why his alien comrades really bothered him.

  The jaunt out to chase Sinclair’s Scorpions had been an acquisition contract. The safe return of the Raknar to the alien owner with a seemingly bottomless Yack was a security contract. Or so it had been. To be honest, he couldn’t remember exactly what their contract was anymore, but it scarcely mattered, because their motivation was evolving into something very different.

  Only seven days had passed since the Midnight Sun had bought time for Indomitable Streak to escape and bring aid. Just one week. But time worked differently on this swamp world, stretching hours into endless epochs of fear and fatigue, and hothousing rumors and dangerous ideas until they grew and mutated like the molds that appeared on your body as you slept.

  With every hour, the mercs spoke less of working contracts and more of fighting a war. The Condottieri were no longer deadly rivals, but traitors. The enemy. And the most terrifying change of all – Midnighters were openly talking about the Veetanho race as the enemy. It hadn’t been too many decades ago that humans had been slaughtered in the Alpha Contracts. Isolated inside their metal carapaces, had the contemporary human mercs really forgotten that? Did they honestly think they could take on the most powerful race in the Union?

  Because that was how many Midnighters were talking now.

  And what of the Four Horsemen? From commercial rivals who’d struck lucky in the Alpha Contracts by not dying and had ridden that glory ever since, every day saw them being built into ever bigger heroic figures. Champions of Earth. The hope for freedom.

  All of which was half truth, half myth, and nonsense, and none of which applied to the non-human Midnighters. If the humans really were at war, then it wasn’t their war.

  And if those aircraft shaking the ground were to drop a company of CASPers, would the Zuul fight in that war?

  He dropped his camera view back to the Zuul. Z’yggul held her laser rifle out of the water. It was clean, and it was dry. But would she use it?

  The aircraft were overhead now.

  The engine note changed.

  Branco raised his arms and pointed them at the canopy, weapons free.

  The aircraft passed over and moved away.

  Idiot! That change in engine noise was only the Doppler effect. Imbecile!

  He safed his weapons.

  But he couldn’t stop thinking of the Zuul. Why were any of them still here, suffering in the mud?

  The ever-present oozing slime coated the inside of his CASPer no matter how hard he tried to wipe it off. He slept in mud; it coated his food, he even drank it, despite the heroic efforts of the water filtration unit in his suit. Every pore in his skin was a miniature firing hole defended tenaciously by the stuff.

  His mind drifted to the muddy 20th Century battlefields he’d visited in Flande
rs: Ypres, the Somme, Passchendaele. What was it the British Tommies had sang as they squelched to and from the frontline trenches?

  We’re here because we’re here because we’re here because we’re here…

  Maybe that was the answer to the Zuul mystery. They were here because they were here, and the devil take anyone who wondered why.

  “Keep down,” ordered Sergeant Hrrn. “Keep still.”

  The aircraft circled around and came back.

  Branco used every targeting device and optical filter to peer through the canopy at the sky. And failed.

  In the end, the only sensors that could penetrate the trees were his Mark 1 lugholes, and his ears told him that the aircraft had passed back overhead on a parallel course to their arrival, but a few hundred yards to the north.

  “We’re clear,” said Hrrn. “I expect the river’s course is visible from above in the thinning effect it has on the canopy, and they’re using it as a marker for their search pattern. Everyone up. Rest time’s over. Fill up your water carriers with the river water, because when the major hears about those aircraft, you can be sure her next orders will be to move away from the river and deeper into the jungle.”

  * * * * *

  Chapter 77

  The Dove relaxed into his camp chair and puffed at his Robusto cigar, enjoying the break from the endless rain. The sea breeze was brisk enough to cleanse his lungs of the fetid swamp air, but not so strong that it whipped the ash from his cigar tip and dashed it into his eyes.

  This morning he’d awoken as always: deeply regretting abandoning his darling Margherita and children to stake his future on this mission to retrieve a few old museum pieces. But after a pleasant day by the seaside, he’d sleep with renewed confidence that he, Il Colombo, would once again return home having triumphed against the odds, wearing the famous swagger and the glint in his eye.

  That his adversary, Captain Blue, had been developing a similar reputation would make it all the more delicious.

  “Your assessment?” demanded Penree. “Can your company hold this coastal position?”

  The Dove shut his eyes, trying to hold on to his good mood for a few moments longer.

  But it was hopeless. That little veneer of peace – was it so much to ask for? – had been punctured by that annoying creature with the whiskers and the stupid rat’s tail.

  Taking a deep draw on his cigar, he rolled the taste of fine Honduran tobacco around his mouth and blew it directly at Senior Commissar Penree’s ugly face.

  True to her nature as a member of the most annoying race in the galaxy, the Veetanho military advisor didn’t even wrinkle her nose in disgust. “Is this exhalation an attempt at humor, Colonel?”

  His translator pendant made it clear that Penree saw little in her human colleague to amuse her.

  Good, thought the Dove. I want to piss you off, not make you laugh. And I don’t do so idly.

  But he said nothing and turned his attention to the construction work bustling away on the fortified ring of hills. Hidden from sight in the depression within, his artillery batteries were being deployed. Penree seemed to think the batteries would be key.

  “I’m impressed with how easily my team can assemble such strong defenses so rapidly, and with only minimal instruction from orbit,” Dove admitted. “Already Forts Capitoline and Caelian are ready, and Fort Palatine will be finished by suppertime. On the other hand, this fortress complex is a complete waste of my force’s time. Splitting my personnel is a strategic error that even an infant of my race could point out – even one distracted by cute furry animals.” He raised an eyebrow at the alien. Had that jibe hit home? How the hell should he know? Behind those inscrutable thick goggles, the alien held a perfect poker face.

  “At most,” Dove continued, “all we need is a fortified forward base to support our naval ops and the sensor grid manufactory, but this” – the Dove shot to his feet and spread his arms to encompass the building work – “is utter madness.”

  The Veetanho made no comment.

  Dove ignored her and turned his mind to the lie of this land. Penree was no fool. There was a reason she wanted a coastal stronghold, and that meant this area could soon be a battleground.

  To the north of the river delta, where the swamp drained into the sea, the coastal plain consisted of featureless scrubland and mudflats, except for a peculiar range of hills that ran in a straight line for several miles before disappearing beneath the sea. The site of Seven Hills Base was typical of this hill range – a central depression surrounded by a ring of hills. Then nothing but flat ground before the neighboring hill-rings in the sequence, each about a mile away.

  These were impact craters, not natural geological formations. If one were to dig into the depression, the Dove suspected, one would recover the rotted carcass of a kinetic torpedo from an ancient war, long forgotten. The combatants, too, had most likely disappeared beyond written records, leaving the galaxy for younger races to wage their own wars. And earn their own mercenary pay.

  “Your agreement is not required,” the Veetanho informed him out the blue.

  “Of course it isn’t, Commissar Penree, but my respect is. Oh, yes, I know your weakness. It’s not much, but it’s there all the same. You Veetanho are the greatest generals in history, the best warriors, and most fearsome technicians of war. A Veetanho force has never been defeated on even terms. We both know that’s a steaming mound of flyblown manure, but you dearly want the other races to believe it. You want respect. Well, I have news for you, Commissar. I respect and honor your race, but you as an individual are an imbecile.”

  The Dove took a nervous draw of his Honduran, watching carefully for any movement of the alien’s gun hand. Seeing nothing, he continued.

  “If by some chance there were any survivors of Midnight Sun, and if it were capable of lifting off from the sea – and these are huge ifs – we have enough ships in orbit to send it permanently back into the watery depths, with no need for assistance from my artillery. Once finished, the Seven Hills Base will be a strongpoint against infantry attack, and the hidden artillery battery at its center will dominate the area. But the fort won’t protect against the battlecruiser, and as for the stragglers fleeing through the swamp, we’d be better off using my troopers to pursue them, not bottling my people up here. It’s almost as if you expect an amphibious attack.”

  The Dove suddenly flicked his gaze at the alien. “An amphibious attack in strength.”

  The Veetanho said nothing.

  Admittedly, the alien had spent a great deal of its time saying nothing, but that had been because Penree considered any human to be far beneath her station. This was different. The Veetanho’s mouth pursed with tension; her jaw was firmly clamped and ears slightly back.

  It wasn’t racial contempt keeping Penree silent anymore; she had something to hide.

  Her silence was deafeningly loud.

  Unfortunately, those unspoken words were far from comforting. They were Paul Revere’s midnight warning, Garibaldi’s call to arms for Italian patriots.

  Something still on board the Midnight Sun scared the hell out of Penree. Something he hadn’t been briefed about.

  And like any sane person, the Dove had a healthy respect for whatever could scare a Veetanho. Madonna! What have I gotten myself into?

  He puffed up a smokescreen and thought through the possibilities. None put him at ease.

  His comm chimed. “Colonel,” said DiAngelo, “one of our submersibles has definite confirmation of Midnight Sun’s crash site.”

  “And your depth charges have decimated its crew and forced the shattered wreck of a once proud ship to the surface. Correct?”

  “Not quite, boss. The reef has been smashed to powder, and a deep crater gouged into the seabed. It’s the crash site all right, but the ship’s gone.”

  “It just…rolled away?”

  “Ahh, yes, Colonel. Exactly so. There’s a much shallower channel leading away to the deep ocean. I’ve followed it for t
hree miles, and then it stops. I have teams down there now, but it looks like the ship started up enough power to boost itself off the seabed and limped away. I can search for it, but if I locate the ship in this ocean, it’ll be by pure luck.”

  The Dove puffed at his cigar as he thought.

  “Negative, DiAngelo,” he said and glared at Penree. “I’ve received fresh intelligence. Midnight Sun may have amphibious combat teams. In fact, I’m gestating a suspicion that the humans scurrying around the swamps under the command of the mad sisters are only a cover story to conceal a far deadlier force. Pull your teams out of the water, put yourself on high alert, and return to the safety of Seven Hills.”

  “Copy that,” acknowledged DiAngelo before letting rip with an unhalting stream of Milanese invective that even the Dove couldn’t follow.

  Only seconds after cutting the link to the naval team, the Dove received a call from Avanti Base in the heart of the jungle.

  “Colonel, our reconnaissance flight has located the Raknar.”

  “Ah, that’s fine news indeed. Were you spotted?”

  “I don’t believe we were.”

  “Splendid. Did you locate both Raknar?”

  “Not…exactly. The onboard AIs agreed something unnatural was below their position, but they can’t say precisely what.”

  “So what you’re telling me is that non-parametric statistical inference engines scored a hit, but nothing algorithmic did.”

  “Correct, sir. I’m landing a drone-equipped team ten klicks from the…ah, sighting. The drones will find a way through the trees.”

  “Excellent. Let me know when you’re close and patch me through to a drone. I want to have a word with whoever’s in charge. I do hope one of the sisters is still alive. I find them such charming young ladies.”