Tau Ceti - The Phage

by M. D. Cooper

  Terrance sent over the ship’s net as he manned scan and comms.

  The new pilot’s mods he’d asked Marta to implant at the same time she’d embedded Kodi were fully employed; today was the first time he was using them in a combat situation.

  Khela shifted in the copilot’s cradle, the light armor she wore contrasting with the powered armor cladding her soldiers. Terrance and Logan had witnessed a ‘transient incident’, as Marta had coined it, and they’d been forced to bench her, forbidding her to participate on the ground operation with the rest.

  Her father had looked as if someone had punched him in the gut when he realized what his own daughter had been hiding from him. Somehow in the madness they’d all been living, he’d failed to realize that Hana had died, and that Khela’s team had been covering for their leader these past few months.

  Stars. Fragmented memories left over from her paired partner.

  Terrance couldn’t begin to imagine what Khela had been suffering—and silently soldiering through—during it all. The thought of being left stranded with disjointed pieces of Kodi’s mind was unsettling. It wasn’t just the disorientation and dissonance that the fragments themselves would cause; the constant reminder of a fallen comrade would be tough to take.

  As if his thoughts had drawn her gaze, she shot him a look out of shuttered eyes, and he returned it with a nod, turning his attention back to the navigation plot.

  Kodi sent privately, and Terrance shot him a mental look.

  The AI’s voice was amused and slightly chiding, and Terrance reminded himself that Kodi had seen his share of combat as a soldier back in El Dorado.

  Terrance sent sharply, then laughed.

  Kodi sent him a mildly incredulous look and Terrance sobered.

  His HUD updated with a constellation of pins as each soldier’s ident appeared. Their powered armor allowed them to drop the six-meter distance onto the debris-ridden, grassy median that lined a housing row, abandoned months ago. They rolled as they hit the ground, then came up into a running crouch as they spread out to their assigned positions.

 

  This was repeated thrice more, and as the last soldier hit his target drop site, Khela straightened in her cradle, her role as overwatch now beginning. Terrance watched her direct the teams as they infiltrated the spaceport’s various hangars, planting charges that could be remotely detonated in a carefully-timed sequence.

  Khela informed them several minutes later, and Terrance acknowledged.

 

  The pair of AIs powered up their frames and made their way aft to the Eidolon’s rear ramp.

  Logan sent, handing over the controls to Terrance, who acknowledged the handover just as the AIs dropped.

  Terrance banked the shuttle and lined it up for the strafing run they’d plotted, targeting the row of hangars along the edge of the tarmac and barracks just beyond. If all went well, there wouldn’t be an airman left who would be capable of flying one of the Galene fighters after this evening was over.

  * * * * *

  Logan crested the berm overlooking the military side of the spaceport. Below, he saw two dozen craft of varying sizes, arrayed in three neat rows. His optical scan could just barely make out the heat signatures of the four Marine teams. He set his scan to sweep the area, and saw random blobs of heat that denoted clusters of humans stationed within the various outbuildings. As he watched, the Marines efficiently fanned out, planting their incendiary devices at preordained locations, then moved to cover the areas where GSC soldiers were stationed.

  He switched his attention to the structure midway down the runway, looming over the other buildings. This—the spaceport tower—was his objective. He nodded to Charley, a silhouette hovering silently behind him, and then lowered his frame silently down the side of the berm. Together, the two AIs glided unnoticed from shadow to shadow as they approached their target.

  When they arrived at its base, Logan scanned the structure, noting a single human standing watch in its uppermost level. Dropping a passel of breach nano into the tower’s locked doors, he slid them open, and the two slipped inside.

  As Charley’s frame didn’t have the combat capabilities his did, Logan signaled the AI to wait for his all-clear, before turning to begin his trek up the tower stairs.

  * * * * *

  Reggie Akawa sat in front of the spaceport’s holo display, his graveyard shift halfway complete. He blinked, fighting—and losing—his battle with a jaw-cracking yawn as he shook his head and forced himself to dutifully scan the sensor return from the tower’s radar array, which continually swept a hundred-kilometer radius around Voyager Central.

  Nothing. Of course there’s nothing. Not even movement on the elevator. No cars due with shipments coming down from the ring until 0900 tomorrow morning.

  He sighed, then gave into temptation, pulling out his portable holo where he’d downloaded a game his brother had gifted him, an ancient 2-D thing Wen claimed dated back to old-Earth. Reggie had humored his little brother by letting Wen think he believed his tale, but really, what did it matter? The gift was a fun retro thing, and Reggie had found himself drawn inexorably into it.

  Checking the spaceport net, he saw no one nearby, so he toggled the device on and quickly became engrossed in the game. An hour passed, and the silence of the sleeping spaceport did nothing to hinder Reggie’s absorption—until a soft scraping noise sounded behind the console in front of him. He looked up from his copy of Mortal Kombat, right into the eyes of—

  “Moloch!” he gasped, falling out of his chair as the figure on his screen morphed into a real-life visage that loomed over him.

  The creature seemed to have sprung from the ether, ringed by an eerie glow of fireballs falling from the sky. Explosions reflecting in the plas windows that ringed the topmost level of the tower cast an otherworldly pall over the specter, and it advanced menacingly toward him, golden eyes glowing, reflecting off a bluish-silvery skin.

  Reggie sat frozen, sprawled half-upright where the chair had dumped him, his knees bent, heels and hands pressed into the floor. He began to scoot backward on his butt, slowly, ever so slowly, but froze when the figure turned to observe him, fantastical reflections dancing across its skin from the flashes of light erupting in the distance.

  said the towering apparition as it loomed over him.

  In the low lighting used for nighttime tower operations, Reggie could just make out Moloch’s signature bandolier slung across one shoulder. The beast seemed to be missing the massive chained orb he usually favored, but there was no mistaking the four sharp, metallic claws at the end of the arm that reached for him.

  That movement galvanized the young GSC noncom. He shrieked in terror, crab-walking backward rapidly on his hands and heels, getting as far away as he could—and then the apparition turned from him to begin manipulating the tower controls. The moment those golden glowing orbs turned their attention away from him, Reggie scrambled to his feet. An especially close explosion did the rest, and Reggie raced from the room, his mind gibbering in terror. Years later, he still swore by the tale of his visit from the creature of the Netherrealm….

  * * * * *

  Logan’s voice sounded over the
combat net.

  Terrance suppressed a smile and made a mental note to ask Logan about that last comment, as Khela set the teams on rotating schedules to provide ground support for Charley, manning ECM and point-defense and ensuring the base remained under planetary control.

  It’s nice to have an op go off without a hitch, he thought as he listened to a chorus of and responses filtering in to Khela from her Marines.

  Terrance gently banked the Eidolon, sending it on a downwind. It would rendezvous at the far end of the runway, where Logan and Charley awaited extraction.

  A mental shout came across the net from one of Khela’s Marines operating the tower’s scan.

 

  THE ELEMENT OF SURPRISE

  STELLAR DATE: 09.12.3246 (Adjusted Gregorian)

  LOCATION: Bridge, Avon Vale

  REGION: Galene nearspace, Tau Ceti

  “The GSC’s blockade ships are on the move!”

  The scan officer’s cry cut through the quiet of the ship’s bridge center as Landon ended his communication with the FSTC’s Admiral Berrong.

  Stepping closer to the holo display, he accessed the direct feed from Scan and studied it. He could feel every war game sim that he and Logan had ever practiced hovering in the back of his brain for easy reference should he need them.

  “Do our comm microdrones have tightbeam lock on all our surprise packages?” he asked Hailey, and received a nod of confirmation. “Very good,” he said, as scan updated the GSC ships’ approach vectors.

  He was pleased to note that they had correctly identified the ships most likely to respond to action at the Voyager Spaceport, as seventeen ships had begun to alter course for the elevator. That meant the tactical nukes they had carefully seeded between the ships and the planet were well-placed. The goal was for the ships to fly directly into the bombs, which were floating unseen in the black, waiting for proximity detonation.

  Based on the GSC ships’ vectors, the bombs needed minimal adjustment to ensure the vessels driving toward them hit the ersatz minefield at precisely the right moment.

  He reached out to the to the nukes and nudged a few into better intercept solutions, as the comm officer tossed a countdown clock—time to intercept—up on the main holo.

  “The GSC ships are powering weapons,” Scan warned, just as the countdown clock reached zero, and seventeen ships intent on firing at the newly liberated Voyager Spaceport plowed into Elastene-clad tactical nukes silently awaiting them.

  Dozens of nuclear fireballs bloomed in the darkness, their spherical blasts enveloping the GSC ships in light, heat, and plasma.

  When the scan cleared, Landon couldn’t help but nod in satisfaction as he saw that the five corvettes were gone, while the nine destroyers in the formation were venting atmosphere, their engines dead. The three cruisers were in better shape, losing air like the destroyers, but still under power.

  Then something exploded within one of the cruisers, and the ship broke apart, a large chunk of its hull careening toward a destroyer that was shedding escape pods like a dog shaking wet fur.

  Landon was certain that many of the destroyer’s personnel were still aboard when the destroyer was hit by the debris. The impact spun the ship about, and then it tore in half, the disparate pieces losing altitude.

  For a moment, it appeared as though the two remaining cruisers were going to continue their run, but then one hit another nuke and was torn asunder.

  The Avon Vale’s bridge crew let out triumphant cries as the final cruiser sluggishly began to turn and boost away from the planet, only to hit another nuke and go dark.

  Terrance’s voice came through to Landon on tightbeam.

  he informed the Enfield executive.

 

  Landon sent an acknowledgement just as Hailey called his name.

  “Sir, Tobias reports Jason is freed, and the FSTC’s calling us again,” Hailey’s eyes remained focused on her holo and her hands wove rapidly through its interface as she delivered the news. “It’s Admiral Berrong again.”

  “Thank you, Hailey.” Landon replied, accepting the token and opening the channel to the FSTC ship.

  he began,

  The woman nodded. Her tone approached sardonic as she added,

  Landon shook his head.

  Berrong looked as if she wanted to press him for more information, but Landon noticed a second wave of GSC ships maneuvering to cover their limping and wounded sister vessels.

 

  Berrong pursed her lips.

  Landon nodded and sent the woman a sympathetic look—or he tried to. It was likely more on the impatient side.

  “A flight of GSC ships is shifting orbit to hit Voyager Spaceport!” the scan officer called out.

  Landon concluded and closed the connection with Berrong, then turned to the weapons officer. “How’s it look?”

  ”Fifteen cruisers and nine destroyers, sir. Vectors indicate we’ll have twenty MFRs with good targeting solutions for fusion impacts.”

  Landon reviewed the data, knowing that they couldn’t destroy all the ships, but hoping the attack could drive the GSC vessels back once more.

  ”Very good. Proceed.”

  STANDOFF

  STELLAR DATE: 09.12.3246 (Adjusted Gregorian)

  LOCATION: Offices of Planetary Security

  REGION: Ring Galene, Tau Ceti

  Deep in the bowels of Henrick’s compound, three figures raced toward the main lift that would take them to the Acting President’s private office.

  As Jason followed Tobias’s massive battle frame, he worked to thread nano into a flechette weapon he’d taken from one of his jailers, in order to breach its biolock. He looked over as Calista tossed something his way, and snapped a hand up to catch the lightwand.

  he grinned at her, and she shot him a side-eye glance.

 

 

  Calista groaned.

  Tobias reached the lift doors first and threaded nano into the controls, overriding them and forcing them open. The darkened maw of the shaft appeared, and Tobias leapt across, his battle frame landing on the ladder’s rungs with a reverberating clang.

  Jason teased the Weapon Born, as the AI began to climb up the shaft.

  Tobias made a rude noise. he sent.

  Jason snorted and followed him into the shaft. ��re two floors below her office; this shaft opens out just behind and a little to one side of her massively ornate desk.>

  Calista’s voice quipped, her tone droll.

  Jason added as he paused outside the sealed lift doors.

  He rested his hand against the seam, but Tobias stopped him.

  the AI added.

  Jason swung to one side, hanging off the edge of the ladder as Calista climbed up next to him. He turned and peered over at her.

  he asked,

  Calista rolled her eyes as she pulled a magnetic carabiner out of her armor’s chest plate and snapped it around the ladder, freeing up both hands. Popping open a hidden compartment in her upper arm, she extracted a pair of black bands.

  she informed him, her voice dry.

  Jason snorted and hooked one arm through a rung as he reached for the items in her outheld hand. Turning them over in his hands, he asked,

 

  At his impressed glance, she proceeded to explain how to use the bands, which he quickly donned.

 

  He settled below her, pulling the lightwand from where he’d stashed it for climbing, and readied himself for the showdown ahead of them.

  Tobias announced, and a moment later, Jason received a feed showing the interior of Henrick’s office.

  It was empty.