by P. R. Adams
They banked and headed north, then descended.
“Ensign, don’t land.” Benson tried another text: What if we brought the shuttle into the ruins?
The lieutenant came back quickly: There’s nowhere to land.
Benson twisted around. “Are there winches and cable aboard?”
Reyes put the shuttle into hover mode and unbuckled. “There’s a bare-bones system, Commander.”
They headed to the airlock, and the ensign wrapped an emergency harness around herself, then helped Benson do the same. After that, the pilot opened the outer hatch and dropped to her hands and knees. She scraped ice from a panel just beside the ramp mechanism, then popped it open. An arm telescoped out, revealing a spool of cable and a winch mechanism.
The pilot tapped the cable. “Maybe two hundred kilos, tops. And it’s not the fastest device in the world. Rescue systems are add-ons.”
Two hundred kilos. That was more than Halliwell and Stiles. How many were still alive?
Benson sent another text: How many do you still have?
Stiles responded: Six with Srisha.
That was three trips, all with something stalking them. That was probably going to be too long. Leaving people exposed didn’t sit well with Benson.
She dictated another text: We’re going to look for a landing site or something safer than the winch system we have. How long before pickup?
There was another delay before the answering text: Any minute now.
Benson waved Reyes back. “That’s a last-ditch option. There’s something running around down there.”
The pilot closed the airlock hatch and undid the emergency harnesses, then helped Benson back to the cockpit. “What’s next, ma’am?”
No fear. No hesitation.
Benson liked that. She felt bad about what she was going to ask of the young woman. “We need to find someplace to set down or to at least get close enough for them to get in fast.”
Reyes’s head whipped around. There was something in her eyes—not quite fear but maybe apprehension—that said she hadn’t expected that idea. “In ruins?”
“Doesn’t sound like they can outrun whatever’s down there.”
The pilot buckled back in. She leaned forward and squinted at the imagery, then drilled down on several places. “I’ve got a couple options. Things could shift around when we get in there with our maneuvering thrusters.”
“All right. We can only try.”
A thumbs-up was Benson’s only answer before the shuttle shot forward. They approached the ruins quickly.
Saving lives, completing the mission—Benson told herself that made it all worthwhile.
But a nagging voice began to question the whole point of the exercise. What did it mean when one group of spies didn’t trust another? Could any of them be trusted, or had all the loss and risk been pointless?
Or worse, had they been intended for some other purpose completely?
30
Captain Eric Knoel lay among the rocks several meters from the edge of the crater, seething. In all the galaxy, there was no military force more feared than the Black Lightning Commandos. They were fearless, their training brought them to physical perfection, their gear was unparalleled.
Yet here he was, with only nine of his elite Commandos remaining, hiding among the rocks in the cold and dark, counting on the freezing rain to protect them from searching eyes.
Hiding!
Even his armor couldn’t truly shut out the pressure of the rocks or the cold of the wind. Its howl was a reminder of the screams of the dying.
Knoel shut off the external audio input. He’d heard enough screaming.
The dull tang of blood reminded him of his own mortality. He’d fallen down the wall while climbing out. That was when the damned turret gun had found its accuracy and chased his team from the crater.
Not just chased but destroyed.
How had primitive oafs like the Kedraalians managed that?
He pulled his face mask back and spat onto the blackened stone, enjoying the sting of the cold on his face and the charred, ruined smell that clung to his tortured sinuses. He wondered how long it would take for the blood to freeze. Would it be lost in the crevices of the black rock?
The pain became too great; he pulled the mask back on.
One of his men belly-crawled closer, leaving the cover of smooth boulders for a moment. It was Klausman, a sergeant, born from the same batch as Knoel.
The sergeant established a short-range, private connection. “Captain!”
“Yes, Sergeant?” Knoel didn’t care that his words sounded clipped and impatient.
“I have consulted with the others. There are no signals coming from inside the crater.”
“There will be no survivors. Their weapons were just as lethal as ours.”
Klausman bowed his head. “We spoke about that, too. A spy betrayed us.”
Knoel turned to consider the other Commando. “You have proof of this?”
“The major. One of his soldiers. It is well known that they were weak and broken. They would sell out their homeland.”
For the third time since crawling from the crater and finding cover, the captain checked his communicator. Any attempt at connecting to O’Bannon or his men failed. The only systems that responded to a wide-area test were still in the crater, systems that had survived the engagement longer than their users.
He showed the communicator display to the sergeant. “Major O’Bannon is dead, János. If he was a spy, he was even more incompetent at that than soldiering.”
“What else could explain this? We are superior to these invaders.”
“I have asked myself just that question. No answer is to be had.”
“Is it possible we have actually defeated them and do not realize it?”
Something rumbled in the crater below, and the two men pressed themselves flat against the ground. Their suits powered on to full, rendering them all but invisible. To be seen, a powerful surveillance system would need to be employed. Surely, that was beyond the capabilities of the primitive and backwards Kedraalians.
After several long breaths, the rumble turned into the distinctive roar of rockets, then the whine of other engines.
The sound receded, and Knoel risked a glance.
“A shuttle.”
The sergeant’s head came up. “They flee?”
“They head for the ruins.”
“Péter is there. Sergeant Áder. He was to set a trap, was he not?”
“Sergeant Áder hasn’t responded since we reached the crater floor.”
That seemed to rattle Klausman. “But his training was in ambush. He was an expert.”
“Then he met someone who was better.”
The words stung Knoel. They were fire in his chest. It was blasphemy to even think that the Supreme Leader could have a fallibility, yet there it was—the thought that someone was better.
Who could be greater than Supreme Leader Graf? Only the few members of his select advisers were even capable of speaking to him and understanding his genius. And the greatest of those advisers, the father of the Black Commandos and the other elite units that would lead the Azoren to ascendancy, never quibbled for even a moment when talking about their master.
Failure wasn’t in the Supreme Leader’s DNA, and his DNA was in the Commandos.
“We cannot fail.” Knoel muttered that, but it was loud enough for Klausman.
“Yes, Captain! That is true! What losses we have suffered, it is merely a separation of the weak from the strong!”
“Reasonable thinking.”
“Then we return to the crater now to finish our work?”
Knoel studied the eastern sky, which had swallowed the shuttle. On infrared, the heat of its trail dissipated quickly, being sucked into the frigid air. “No. We head to the ruins. We finish the job Sergeant Áder apparently couldn’t.”
“I will have the men move to the Panthers.”
“Good. I will take o
ne last look into the crater to determine what awaits us when we return.”
The captain edged forward, moving cautiously and maximizing cover, even though he had no real concern that he might be spotted by an enemy scout. Confidence was returning to him now, and it left little room for such ridiculous ideas to take root. What had happened in the crater was a fluke, a necessary strengthening of the blade through fire and hammering out impurities.
Once at the edge, movement immediately caught his eye. There were ten or more people rushing about below. Even with maximum magnification, details were hard to make out. But the numbers were meaningful. If the turret gun had gone silent because it had failed, ten people would pose no threat. Nor would twenty. Or thirty!
He would be returning with his men and soon, and they would exact a cold vengeance against the Kedraalians.
Just as Knoel started to push back from the wall, he spotted two people moving near the base of the crater wall. They were dragging something down from a ledge, letting it roll to the crater floor, then lifting it.
A body. One of his men.
Being stripped.
Physical perfection. The greatest of training. A mind beyond compare.
And those animals were…stripping it. Taking away his armor like crude scavengers.
Barbarians!
No such activities were going on across the crater. O’Bannon’s men would probably be left on the crater wall until collected.
It seemed a better fate than the obsoleted humans deserved. The old man had been the perfect example of why the next wave—the Übermensch—must inevitably replace their predecessors.
O’Bannon’s death was almost unfortunate, really. He had been so concerned about his pathetic soldiers, like a father saddled with a genetically flawed progeny. The man had invested himself so ridiculously, not just in the inadequate soldiers he commanded but in old texts and the arts, things of no value when the Federation required engineers and scientists.
Those flaws must have been tied to the genetic detritus scrubbed from the captain and his fellow Commandos.
Knoel glanced back down one last time.
The Kedraalians were foolishly leaving themselves exposed. There weren’t even any obvious guards watching over them all.
It was tempting to finish those in the crater off first, then drive to the ruins.
No. The ruins would be the better option. They were going there for a reason, and he had to know what that reason was.
He made his way on hands and knees through the maze of rocks and shallow paths until he could see the Panthers, hidden just over a hundred meters out from the crater.
The engines were still powered down, and there was no sign of Klausman or the others. Had they gotten lost somehow? Impossible! The path back was embedded in their systems!
Knoel stopped. O’Bannon’s hollow threat about killing the Black Lightning Commandos bubbled up from the well of suppressed memory.
A vanity. A moment of nonsense exchanged between two soldiers.
“The heat of battle. Nothing more.” Knoel almost pushed up from where he’d stopped at the end of one of the slick, black gulches.
Almost.
But thinking back on the major’s words, Knoel wasn’t so sure.
What sort of nonsense would drive a man—a soldier—to threaten his superior? Madness, possibly.
Resentment.
How would it feel to be replaced, to be rendered obsolete? Knoel couldn’t imagine someone being superior to him, of course, but he could at least try to think what it might be like. If someone like O’Bannon felt pain and frustration—as he had clearly shown he could—then they could let that cloud their judgment. It was one of many flaws of the old mind.
But that line of thinking relied on a horrific notion: A mere human—and an old one at that—had gunned down Commandos.
That was a chuckle-worthy idea.
Perhaps Klausman had spotted something—a sniper hiding in the ample cover?
Knoel tried to connect to the sergeant, but nothing came back. It was as if the communicator had been smashed. None of the other Commandos showed up in the captain’s communicator display, either.
Then it wasn’t their communicators but his. Logic made things so much easier.
He ran a loopback test, setting up a communicator system within his own communicator, then trying to establish a connection between them.
A green light flashed.
His communicator was functional.
Something was wrong, then.
Knoel checked his weapon. He had a full magazine loaded and another in a leg pouch. He had two grenades. And a knife. Finishing the old fool off with that would be quite satisfying.
But it couldn’t be O’Bannon.
Something wormed its way through Knoel’s gut. His mouth went dry. His heart raced, and the speed of his breathing increased. Everything seemed to take on a greater crispness.
Adrenaline.
He was experiencing fear.
That was a human weakness.
The captain laughed. “You have gotten into my head, you old bastard.”
Knoel came out of cover but stayed low and turned his stealth system on. Even if O’Bannon couldn’t possibly have killed nine Commandos, there was no need to give away location. No matter what had happened, stealth was prudent.
High-end optics scanned for movement or symmetrical shapes. His own eyes darted around, not focusing but skimming past things to allow other sections of his awareness do the processing.
A boot. A leg.
Something was just beyond the rear of the closest Panther. When powered down, the vehicles were low and sleek, their angular armor flattened out. They were nearly six meters long and just under half as wide. Many things could be hidden behind even one of the vehicles.
But Knoel was sure this was the booted leg of one of his men, and the rest of the body was almost certainly what was hidden.
The captain slowed, brought his weapon to ready, then edged forward.
After a few steps, he cranked his external audio input as high as it would go. There had to be some noise beyond the wind howling. Faint heat patterns were all that remained of the booted steps his men had taken. The white heat imprints were rapidly fading into the ambient blue-black cold.
Knoel crouched at the front of the vehicle.
Logic. Reason.
If someone had killed one of his men, it stood to reason the others were also dead. None of their communicators were working. They were nowhere to be seen.
Logic. Reason.
If nine Commandos had died, one Commando stood little chance against the killer. It would be wiser to slip into the Panther, power it on, and drive away. Back at the base, he could lay down an ambush. The terrain would be more familiar and advantageous.
Logic. Reason.
If the communicators of his men had been destroyed, what had killed them was capable of inflicting significant damage to systems. A bullet to the head wouldn’t destroy a communicator. A grenade blast wasn’t likely to, either. Something that could target electronics seemed more likely.
Knoel checked his communicator one more time, then powered it down.
Logic.
Reason.
Whatever had killed his Commandos must have the ability to perceive them, even in the dark. This didn’t sound like O’Bannon or his men.
Kedraalians?
It was a troubling thought. More troubling to the captain was not knowing what had happened to the Commandos.
He pressed his back against the Panther and slowly duck-walked to the corner. The booted leg was barely visible from where he was at now, but it was there. The toe pointed skyward.
Knoel popped around the corner, weapon raised.
Then he quickly fell back, eyes blinking in disbelief.
It was Klausman. His face was clear—eyes bugged out, mouth open.
Something had cracked his helmet and facemask open. Worse, it had torn the sergeant’s head from his
body. Blood slicked the ground behind and beneath the Panther. And the chest…torn open.
Definitely not O’Bannon. That old fool—
Something thudded against the roof of the Panther.
Knoel brought the weapon up, pointing to the source of the sound, licking his lips.
Softer thuds drew closer, then something tumbled over the edge.
He fired, and the arc of the thing changed, until it landed about a meter away and rolled to a stop.
Another head. Another cracked helmet. Another one of his Commandos.
The captain dropped to his back and sighted on the vehicle roof.
Thudding—heavier once more—moved toward the front of the vehicle. The killer. It couldn’t be human, could it? Beheading people, tearing through armor?
He rolled to his knees and scampered for the vehicle door, unconcerned about the clatter of his weapon or the banging of his knees against the unyielding stone.
What mattered was…
Getting to the door.
Throwing it open.
Tossing the weapon onto the other seat.
Sliding behind the wheel.
Closing the door.
Powering the vehicle up…
Nothing. When he pushed the button to start the engine, there should have been the welcome purr, the comforting vibration in his feet.
Something banged against the hood of the vehicle.
Black as midnight. Shiny and slick, like a gel caught in the moon. Diamond sparkles flashed in an almost canine face.
The robot! One of the stupid dog-robots!
It drooled onto the reinforced glass of the window—black and thick.
Robot. It was a robot. And robots didn’t drool.
“Blood.” It was a whisper Knoel felt rather than heard.
His gun should be able to destroy such an ancient thing as the mechanical beast. Even if it was coated in some sort of liquid.
Is that from the crater? Something it had been exposed to while doing reconnaissance?
Impossible! That was O’Bannon and his foolish superstition speaking.
The Commando grabbed his weapon and threw the Panther door open, but the robot was nowhere to be seen.