“Hey, commander, I’ve caught up with you,” Radge shouted.
Jason glanced at his squadron’s roster and saw that Radge had now as many confirmed victories as him, forty in total.
“Cut the chatter, Radge,” he snapped. “Banter all you want after the op.”
The Arachnid was still pursuing Mitch. Jason sped up again and tried to lock on the Biozi interceptor.
Dammit, this bug is slippery.
Jason bit his lip in frustration. He fired one missile in friend-or-foe mode. While the Arachnid was dodging it, Jason turned sharply and accelerated to get on his six.
C’mon, lock!
His crosshair turned green. He squeezed the trigger. The Arachnid disappeared in a bright explosion, bits of its carapace and appendages flying in all directions.
“Oh, God,” Mitch gasped. “I owe you big time, commander.”
“Cut the chatter and get back into the brawl, Mitch.”
Now that Mitch was out of immediate danger, Jason focused his attention on the tactical map. Squadron Castor had entered attack range and was launching missiles at the Biozi station. Squadron Draco wasn’t far behind, preparing for its attack run. The wing was taking casualties, but it could have been worse.
“Good job, everyone,” he said. “Keep the pressure on. We’re doing fine, but don’t get cocky. Don’t get too close to the station; it’s right on the edge of an asteroid field.”
He realized that one of the green dots on the map was moving away, toward the station.
“Radge, what the hell are you doing?” he snapped.
“This one is mine,” Radge shouted. “That’s my star number forty-two!”
Radge already had forty-one victories, and was accumulating kills faster than any pilot with whom Jason had served.
“Break pursuit and return to the squadron immediately,” Jason said. “That’s an order.”
The station blazed with explosions as a volley of missiles hit it. Radge was still pursuing the Arachnid, getting closer to the asteroid field.
Jason swore inwardly and punched the afterburner. “Radge, that’s my final warning—turn back, or I’ll court martial you for insubordination.”
“But I can get him, commander! Just a few more secs…”
“The Arachnid’s leading you into a trap, you idiot,” Jason shouted. “Get out of there!”
Radge screamed as his Rapier was cut to pieces. A yellow dot on the map indicated he had time to eject.
“Watch out, everyone; the spiders have deployed nano-filaments around the station,” Jason warned his squadron. “At high speed, they’ll cut through your birds like a laser through plastic.”
The Arachnid Radge had pursued turned around.
“You can’t fly blind, commander,” Porto boomed. “You need to see the nets. We have to paint them somehow.”
Jason glanced at the tactical map. “I’ve got an idea. No need to paint them. Stay out of this zone; I’m going in.”
He ordered the onboard nanocomputer to map all objects floating in space large enough to be used as anchors for the nano-filaments. Then he told the computer to connect all of them and display the lines on his HUD.
A dense network of red lines lit up all around his interceptor. “Oh, boy,” he muttered. Jason wondered why he was risking his life to save Radge. Maybe to atone for his past mistakes. He pressed on.
The Arachnid headed straight toward him.
The missile lock icon flashed. Jason made his Rapier jerk to the side and almost brushed one of the red lines. But the missiles shot past.
My turn. Curve ball—catch!
He fired an alpha on a deliberately skewed trajectory. The Arachnid dodged. Jason squeezed the trigger of his rapid-fire blasters, forcing the Biozi interceptor to fly into its own nets. It dodged Jason’s fire, but was sliced to pieces by the nano-filaments.
Jason set course for the yellow dot on his HUD that represented Radge. Once he had a visual, he set the nanocomputer on standby, muted all channels, and disabled the onboard cam.
“Whatta you gonna do?” Radge asked him, helplessly floating in space in his suit. “Bring me back to the fleet? Court martial me?”
Jason remained mute, his face distorted by anger, his finger tight on the trigger. He aimed the crosshair of his Rapier’s blasters at Radge’s chest.
How easy it would be to just squeeze that trigger. Send this son of a bug to hell.
Radge scoffed. “Oh, wait, you can’t court martial me, ‘cuz if you do, I’ll talk. I’ll tell everyone about how you sacrificed three pilots to save your own skin. So what, you’re gonna shoot me?”
No one would know. The nightmare would be over, and my career would be safe.
“C’mon, fire, get on with it!” Radge yelled. “You hate me ‘cuz when you look at me, you see your younger self. You see that hothead who caused the deaths of his comrades. Know what? That young pilot, you can’t get rid of him. He’ll always be part of you.”
Jason had to admit there was a grain of truth in those words. Radge did remind him of his younger self, a risk-taker who believed himself invincible, as if the hand of some higher power protected him from harm. Invincible he was not, though, and his friends had paid the ultimate price for his arrogance.
Jason’s finger moved away from the trigger. Slowly, reluctantly. In normal circumstances, Radge would have been fired from the ASF, or even tried for insubordination, but the fleet desperately needed good fighter pilots. Beggars cannot be choosers. Jason felt it was his responsibility to make a decent ASF pilot out of this arrogant hothead.
He punched a button to open the cockpit. “Get in, before I change my mind.”
Radge shot the thruster of his suit and flew to the rear seat of the Rapier. Once he was safely on board, Jason closed the cockpit and set course on the Phenix.
“What’s that pic above your control panel?” Radge asked. “It’s you with your three wing mates, right?”
Jason nodded. “Yes, the ones who died on Arcturus. I carry this pic with me, always. You’re right about me. I’m not as tough, as self-confident as I want to appear. You’re wrong only about one thing—I didn’t abandon my wing mates. They died protecting me. But you’re right about the rest. I’m a flawed role model, and you just proved your own point by repeating my mistake.”
The young pilot kept silent for a moment, staring at the distant stars.
“No,” he finally said. “You’re the best role model I could hope for. You risked your life to save me after everything I’ve done. You’re not flawed. You’re…human.”
Part Four: Riley Lance
22
Rebellion
Five months after the Retroforming, Deneb Algenubi D
Riley hated inaction. She’d been locked up in an internment camp for three months. Once a promising security officer on an exploration ship; now she was nothing. Her body was changing into something alien, weak, and repulsive. Soft and slimy.
“What a horrible disease,” she grumbled to her cellmate. “I hope our masters find a cure soon.”
He shook his head. “They won’t, ‘cos what we have isn’t a disease. And they’re not our masters.”
Riley stared at him in disbelief. “What are you saying? Did the plague liquefy your brain?”
Her cellmate raised his weary eyes at her. His eyelids quickly moved down and up again. Riley knew that was called blinking, one of the symptoms of the disease. The Taar’kuun never blink.
“If it’s not a disease, what is it?” she pressed him.
“Retroforming. We’re back to the form God intended for us.”
“Blasphemy!” Riley felt the urge to bolt from this accursed place, but a forcefield prevented escape. “Guards!” she called. “Get me out of here! Put me in solitary, I don’t care. Just get me out of here!”
Her cellmate kept on rocking his head. “They don’t care. I bet there isn’t a single Taar’kuun in the whole camp. It’s all automated. They’ll never let us out, not until th
ey find a way to re-assimilate us. Permanently. Delete or alter our human genes so they can’t be restored.”
Her cellmate was right—she hadn’t seen a Taar’kuun in weeks. The camp followed an inflexible routine. The infected were allowed to leave their cells only once a day, and even then their choice of destinations was very limited. They could go to the canteen to share a meal with their fellow detainees or to the library. Then back to their cells.
Riley collapsed on her bunk. “Maybe it would be more merciful to let us die,” she moaned.
“Merciful? You’re using human words without even realizing it.”
“What?”
“Merciful. Please define that word.”
Riley shivered and crossed her arms on her chest. She was feeling cold and hot at the same time. Sweat trickled on her forehead.
Losing water—what an inefficient way of regulating body temperature.
“Dunno,” she muttered. “I’m not sure what it means. Just heard that expression at the canteen.”
“The definition of mercy is: compassion or forgiveness shown toward someone whom it is within one’s power to punish or harm. The Taar’kuun never show compassion or forgiveness. They’re not the chosen ones. God is nothing like them. God is compassion.”
“Nonsense,” Riley spit. “Compassion, forgiveness? Why would a supreme being show such signs of weakness?”
She jumped to her feet with renewed energy and threw herself against the forcefield. “Let me out!” she screamed. “You, putrid cockroaches, I’ll tear you to shreds with my own arms if you don’t let me out!”
The forcefield vanished. Instead of rushing out, she froze.
A noise was rising, like approaching thunder. A human avalanche hurtled through the corridor of the detention block.
“Uprising!” someone shouted. “Everyone to the entrance doors!”
Riley joined the throng, leaving her cellmate behind. She was in no mood to beg for mercy. Anger burned inside her, and her thirst for revenge had to be quenched. Her former masters had abandoned her to a gruesome fate, turned their backs on her.
Where was their God when billions of loyal TGS citizens were losing their supposedly perfect Taar’kuun form and turning into monstrosities?
The automated defenses of the internment camp sprang into action. Turrets sprayed the mob with paralyzing bolts, and new forcefields fired up as a measure of crowd control.
However, the humans were builders, engineers, and explorers. The Taar’kuun had genetically engineered and trained them to be creative and able to adapt. Technicians armed with makeshift tools threw themselves into work, dismantling forcefield projectors and deactivating auto-turrets.
The internment camp was indeed fully automated. No Taar’kuun dared set a foot into this accursed place without good reason. But once the rebels took control of the facility, the TGS authorities were forced to react.
Riley reached a control room where several “infected” worked to reprogram the defense systems. The external cams showed dropships touching down on the landing pads. Their doors slid open to disgorge troopers in dark biosuits.
She clenched her teeth. Bring it on. I’d rather die with a blaster in my hand than from this disgusting disease.
“The facility is ours!” one of the technicians shouted. “Let’s show those filthy bugs what the monkeys can do.”
Riley couldn’t grasp what he meant by “monkeys.” She knew that the infected referred to themselves as humans, and that they were supposed to have genders, just like animals. It was all confusing and illogical, but Riley didn’t really care.
She was itching for a fight. Although she wasn’t member of the warrior caste, she’d received commando training, and her body had been enhanced with bionics. During her short career, she’d survived more dangerous situations than any Taar’kuun trooper.
She grabbed a tool kit from a locker, dashed to the corridor, found a disabled auto-turret, and disassembled it. Her bionic implants gave her excellent hand-eye coordination and superior speed of execution. She disconnected the turret’s blaster and plugged it into a portable generator, thus creating a portable weapon.
The troopers stormed the facility, shooting to kill. The air filled with the booms of their plasma rifles and the screams of dying rebels.
She took cover behind a wall and fired her makeshift weapon at full power. Her blaster bolt burned a hole in the helmet of the trooper she’d targeted. She dashed to him before the other troopers could get a lock on her and snatched his rifle.
Using his body as a shield, she set the rifle on his shoulder, aimed, and fired. The rifle roared and recoiled, and another Taar’kuun collapsed on the floor.
The troopers shot back, and the body of the one she was using as shield jolted as if receiving punches. The stench of burned biosynthetics and Taar’kuun flesh assaulted her nostrils.
She fired repeatedly, until the whole squad was neutralized.
Short of breath, the muscles of her arms aching, she let the corpse of the trooper fall to the floor.
This body may be soft, but it’s surprisingly fast. My bionics seem to work just fine, adapting to my new physiology.
Breathing heavily and clasping the plasma rifle, she ran. As she turned a corner, she glimpsed the exit doors.
A squad of eight troopers equipped with blaster-resistant shields were protecting the exit. No way she could take out eight troopers on her own.
She heard noises of steps behind her. She wasn’t alone; the rebels were charging. She grabbed a blaster-resistant shield dropped by one of the troopers she’d killed, and rushed forward. The crowd of rebels followed her with a roar.
A squall of plasma bolts met the charge. The temperature soared, as if the air itself were about to ignite. The shield lurched as balls of ionized plasma hit it at supersonic speed. Riley threw away her rifle and grabbed the shield with both hands, without slowing her pace.
She leaped forward and slammed into the Taar’kuun formation. She hit one trooper in the face with her shield, snatched his plasma dagger from the sheath on his belt, and activated its blade.
The troopers couldn’t target her at such close range with their rifles, so they went for their sidearms. She thrust the plasma blade into the throat of one of them and slashed the right arm of another. Then she grabbed the injured trooper and hurled him against the ones still standing.
The rebels engaged in hand-to-hand combat with the Taar’kuun, using whatever makeshift weapons they had. The troopers were overwhelmed. In mere seconds, they were all on the floor. The enraged rebels pounded them with hammers, crowbars, and other primitive tools. The screeching of dying Taar’kuun mixed with the yells of the rebels in a deafening racket.
“That’s enough!” Riley shouted. “We need to seize the dropships.”
She picked up a shield and rushed outside.
The sun blinded her. The air was so hot it burned her mutated lungs. The dropship was taking off; she could see its trembling contours ascending toward the incandescent sky. She had the reflex to raise her shield, just before the guns of the dropship spewed a stream of bolts at her.
“Target its flagellar rotors,” she shouted. She knew those biosynthetic rotors would regrow eventually.
The rebels fired at the flanks of the dropship where the rotors were located. The vehicle struggled to gain altitude, leaned to one side, then went down. Riley jumped inside, shot the two pilots with a sidearm, and seized the control stick.
“The Taar’kuun attack has been repelled!” shouted someone from the loudspeakers. “The camp is ours!”
The crowd cheered.
Now that the adrenaline rush was over, the realization that she’d crossed the event horizon struck her. There was no way back; mankind had declared war on the all-mighty Galactic State.
Riley shivered, wondering what would happen next. Whatever awaited her, she would rather face it head on than be locked away.
23
Deneb Algenubi D
As w
ith all rebellions, the one Riley was taking part in had no clear objective. Once the camp had been secured, the rebels gathered in the mess hall and held the most chaotic meeting she’d ever seen.
Several people tried shouting over one another. She went from group to group, trying to make sense of what was happening.
“We need to reinforce the camp’s defenses,” a tall man stated. “The Biozi will launch a massive attack, and we need to be ready for them.”
“Biozi?” she asked.
“Yes, Biozi, short for bio-assimilators,” the man clarified. “The Taar’kuun.”
One of Riley’s neighbors handed her a neuronal data stick and said, “Download that into your brain, and you’ll understand.”
She thanked him and put it into a pocket on her belt.
“We have to leave the camp,” a female shouted from the other side of the mess hall. “Listen to me, everyone. We cannot repel a full-scale Biozi assault. We must go to the mountains and join Multan’s fighters.”
“Yes, Multan is a great leader,” someone in the crowd seconded, a young male. “He’s been fighting the Biozi for three months, and his army is growing by the day.”
Riley wondered how her fellow detainees knew so much about what was going on outside the camp. No doubt they’d crafted transceivers to communicate with other rebel groups.
“It’s a mistake,” the tall man countered. “We must defend this facility. If the Biozi want to retake it, I say—bring it on!”
Some people cheered, raising their fists, others booed.
“I’m taking the dropship and setting off to the mountains,” the woman who’d mentioned Multan said. “Follow me, if you want to live. We’ve got several aircraft, and we can take about four hundred people in one trip. Once we find Multan, he’ll give us more craft so we can go back and transport the rest.”
“Very well,” the man said. “If you want to flee, follow that crazy plan. If you’ve even a shred of common sense, you’ll stay here.”
The woman walked out of the mess hall, followed by a small crowd. Riley hesitated, as many did. She didn’t have enough information to make an informed decision.
Battlegroup Vega Page 15