Waypoint Magellan

by L S Roebuck

  Moreno hoped that whoever had killed Anderson and Jindal could be captured before escaping out of Marine Headquarters. The general quarters locked down the entire base, including the adjacent Magellan Central Command, from where most of the stations functions — such as life support, port control, and communications — could be overridden from the decentralized control centers scattered around the waypoint.

  The door began to buzz with someone entering the access code on the outside wall. Moreno drew her weapon, flipped off the safety and leveled it at the door as it slid open.

  Standing in the door was Private Boro, holding a poorly patched up North.

  “Boro,” Moreno gave orders reflexively, “Lay North down on the table.”

  Moreno, who was incredibly strong for a woman of her stature, jerked Phan off the table and into a chair. Phan screamed in pain.

  “Sorry about that,” Moreno said dryly to Phan.

  Boro, as gently as possible, set North on the table, relief flowing through his stressed muscles as they lowered the heavy Marine.

  Moreno re-cuffed Phan’s arms behind the chair back. He started to laugh uncomfortably. “Boro is one of us… auuggghhmfp.” The pain of his torn flesh interrupted his sentence.

  Boro frowned, and immediately clasped his hands behind his head, and knelt as before. “I surrender myself per military code title four, section 2A. I am sorry. I should be charged with treason.”

  Moreno looked around. She had three stunned civilians lying on the floor, one murderous traitor handcuffed to a chair, another who had just taken a surrender position, and one of the waypoint’s strike commanders bleeding out on the table. She didn’t have another set of handcuffs and she knew that it could be five minutes before Wong came back with a medic. She couldn’t take a chance — Anderson and Jindal were dead, North was bleeding out, and apparently Johnson was a traitor. She took the stun sidearm from North’s belt and pointed it at Boro.

  “Sorry. You ready for a nap until we sort this out?”

  North raised a weak arm and pushed on Moreno.

  “He’s alright,” he said, smiling at Boro. “He saved me from that knuckle dragger’s partner…” North waved a few fingers in Phan’s direction. He moaned slightly and closed his eyes.

  “Boro, I’m watching you closely,” Moreno said, “only because North vouched for you.”

  “I understand,” Boro said calmly. “How can I help?”

  “Get those civilians upright and revived from the stun bolts Phan no doubt hit them with.”

  Boro silently got to work.

  Moreno grabbed the first aid kit Wong had removed from the bottom of the conference table and started pulling out medical supplies. As she did, she started shouting intensely at Phan. “Tell me everything about this Chasm group now.”

  “I’m not talking,” Phan said, and spit in the general direction of Moreno.

  “I’ll tell you everything, XO,” Boro offered.

  “Go ahead and tell them. It doesn’t matter. Soon we’ll all be dead, I suspect. If she makes it back, she’ll make sure we go through with Scorched Earth protocol,” Phan blabbered.

  Moreno taped healing gauze to North’s elbow and moved next to Phan, drawing the stun gun she had taken from North. Phan eyed the stun gun. “If you stun me,” he said, “I will never wake up before we are all dead.”

  “What is the Scorched Earth protocol? How many Chasm agents are on Magellan?” Moreno barked questions.

  Phan silently bowed his head and said nothing. Moreno turned to Boro.

  “I don’t know what Scorched Earth protocol is. Sounds like bad news,” Boro said as he propped Lydia against the wall. “But Chasm I do know. Our ultimate goal is to divide and separate from Earth, making it impossible for Earth to influence the future development of Arara. We are going to make a real Utopia. A beautiful place where there is no money, no war, where everyone has a place, and the smartest people have the power they need to build systems that help us all. No more popularity contest elections, where the rich influence with secret power. We’ve been planning this moment for generations.”

  Boro hung his head shamefully. “But I didn’t know it would come to this … cold blooded murder.”

  “Not murder. We take life only because it serves the common good, not randomly or out of some sort of righteous fury,” Phan seethed. “Don't impose Earth's binary morality on us.”

  “I know what you believe, Phan,” Boro said calmly and evenly. “And it sounded like wisdom. But look around you now. How much death has happened already? How much more to come? My brain understands what you say, but my soul … my soul… convicts me.”

  “Moron! There is no soul. That is the myth that religion has made people slaves to for centuries, for millennia,” Phan said, struggling in his restraints. “And may more people die. Individuals do not matter. Only the great Arara rising matters. Only the common good, which Chasm will define when this day is done. Raven One is returning soon and when she does, you will all be —”

  Phan started to twitch and then slumped in his chair.

  Moreno holstered the discharged stun gun. “I’ve heard enough from this traitor,” she said.

  North forced his eyes open again, and exchanged a glance with Moreno, letting her know he was okay. North spoke to Boro in a commanding tone. It was clear he was weak from his recent injuries, but there was a steel resolve in his voice. “How many Chasm operatives are there? Speak now, private!”

  “I don’t know for sure, but I suspect maybe 100 or 200 well-trained sleepers on Magellan. Some have been here for decades,” Boro said. “We brought another 500 from Arara on the American Spirit. The plan was to take control of this waypoint. And Cortez, and Marquette. We were going to force evacuate Gilbert and then destroy it in space. But something has gone wrong… I think Scorched Earth may be a contingency plan.”

  North painfully sat up from the table. “I need some water,” he said, focusing back on Moreno. She pulled a silver pouch filled with an electrolyte-infused drink from the first aid kit and handed it to North. He took a swig, and then turned to Boro.

  “Seven hundred against a few dozen civilian police and less than 100 Marines.” he thought out loud. “I don’t like those odds. And who knows how many traitors we have in our Corps.”

  “Where are your weapons?” Moreno jumped in. “Is the plan still on?”

  “As far as I know ma’am. I was on the lowest level of need-to-know. There is a secret armory on the American Spirit with probably enough armament for 1000.”

  “Who are your leaders? Who is running the show?” Moreno demanded.

  “We have several cell leaders, I don’t know who they are. My cell leader was Johnson. Half of his unit are Chasm,” Boro said.

  “Good, that’s means we should still have 30 strike Marines who are loyal,” North said, sitting up. The painkillers and stimulants Moreno had administered were starting to kick in.

  “That’s assuming none of your unit is sleeper Chasm,” Moreno said.

  “My guys are solid. None of them are capable of being traitors,” North said defensively.

  “I hope you are right,” Moreno said, nervously running her fingers through her short dark brown hair. “The leaders, Boro?”

  “The cells reported to the Magellan Triumvirate – sort of a three-headed command group. Raven One, that’s a code name and I don’t know who she is, except that she went deep undercover several years ago. She is the Magellan leader. Also a merchant named Joti, he was in charge of intelligence. In addition to leading his own cell, Johnson was in charge of coordinating the muscle. I know that on the American Spirit, they had a Triumvirate as well. Dek Tigona was the Spirit’s leader, and their military operations director was some woman by the name of Sparks, I think that was a code name, too. And the third member was the American Spirit’s captain. I don’t remember his name.”

  “Dek Tigona,” North growled his rival’s name with guttural disdain. “Now I have a real excuse to put a bulle
t into that traitor’s head.”

  “North, we’ll bring this Dek character to justice,” Moreno warned the injured Marine in a calming manner. “But remember your rules of engagement.”

  Lydia started to stir, supremely groggy and suffering from disorienting pain, typical side effects from a blast from a stun gun. “North? You’re alive…” she croaked. She tried to stand, but almost immediately collapsed. Boro lunged and caught her. She smiled at him as he moved her into a chair.

  Skip had also come around. “This is the worst hangover I’ve ever had.” He successfully tried to stand, and leaned over the table North was sitting on. He laid his hand on North’s uninjured arm, partially to steady himself, partially as a quasi-embrace with his best friend.

  “I’m glad to see you are alive,” Skip weakly smiled at North. “What is going on?” North nodded his head toward Boro and Moreno.

  Moreno continued her interrogation of Boro. “What else?”

  “Also, you should know that Raven One, the leader of Chasm on Magellan, personally cracked the master waypoint controls five or six years ago,” Boro explained. “So if Chasm can secure the Central Command, they will be able to control the station electronically, blocking communications —”

  “— or turning off life support,” North completed.

  “Impossible,” Moreno said. “The command protocols are uncrackable. I mean, it would take centuries.”

  “Raven One?” Skip asked, “Why the code name?”

  Lydia, who was tending to the still unconscious Kora, ventured her opinion. “I suppose it’s so if some one intercepted a message, like we did, that operative wouldn’t be compromised.”

  “Well, I’ve sounded general quarters, so Central Command is locked down right now. I better get down there and get command of this situation as soon as possible. North, can you gather your strike team and bring them to secure Central Command until we figure out what is going on?”

  “Yes, ma’am. But we need to make sure you have armed escort. Johnson is still on the loose, and he’s already killed two officers. If you are lost, God forbid, I’ll have to take command of all the Marines on Magellan. I do not want that responsibility.”

  “You are right of course,” Moreno said. “Wong should be back soon. And I have Tricia rounding up the rest of your strike team.”

  North put pressure on his wound, causing him to wince. He asked Boro, “How in the world did they crack the code? And why didn’t they take over the station then?”

  “You don’t understand. Raven One is beyond genius,” Boro said, his words painted with awe and reverence. “Everything is about timing. They needed a way to get enough troops out to secure a waypoint by force if need be. Also, we wanted to make sure there wasn’t time for the waypoints to ready a resistance. Finally, we needed a ship to get people off Gilbert, which was to be destroyed, scorched earth or not.”

  “The Magnus,” Skip said. “I’ve noticed that the transmission date stamps and the computer’s telemetry on the ship's likely position have never matched up. I always assumed it was some sort of relativity effect. And it’s on the way. Is it possible that Gilbert is already gone?” Moreno and Boro spun around, and North turned his head quickly towards Skip.

  Kora was coming around as well. Moreno pulled some pills from the first aid kit, and distributed them to the trio.

  “Chew this,” Moreno said. “It should reduce the side effects of the stun gun.” Kora pulled herself into a chair with an assist from Lydia. The brunette reached over and gave North’s hand a reassuring squeeze.

  The door chime went off, and the room’s intercom sounded. Tricia’s voice came over the speaker. “North, are you in there?”

  Moreno unlocked the door and opened it, revealing a frazzled Tricia flanked by five members of North’s strike force, decked in full assault armor and each armed with an automatic assault rifle.

  “Thank God,” North said.

  “Commander, are you all right?” asked one of North’s troops, Mac Dillington, Flora’s older brother. The other troops expressed similar sentiments until North raised his hand.

  “I’m all right, guys,” he said. For an officer, North was friendly with his subordinates to a fault – at least that is what Anderson had told him on several occasions. He acted more like a friend than a commanding officer. Still North engendered great loyalty among his men, several of which were a decade older than their young team leader.

  “What is going on?” Mac asked. “Anderson and Jindal are dead?”

  “Johnson killed them,” North said. “I saw it. He tried to kill me, too, but Boro saved me.”

  “I don’t understand,” Kora said. “What does this Chasm group want?”

  “They want to cut off ties with Earth by destroying a few waypoints,” North replied, “so they can reorder Arara society into some socially engineered super utopia and –”

  Moreno cut him off. “North, I have a plan, and we are going to have to move quickly. Most of the passengers are off the American Spirit, and I can only hope that those loyal to Chasm are among those who have disembarked. If they are going to take Magellan by force, they’ll need to get to their weapons, which Boro has said are still on the American Spirit.”

  “But what if they are just going to destroy Magellan, not take it over?” Skip asked nervously.

  “I’m betting that the Chasm operatives want to live to see their grand Arara rise, if possible, so they’ll want to be well on their way on the American Spirit before they destroy Magellan. And unless they have a nuclear weapon tucked away on the ship, the only way they can destroy Magellan is to trigger some catastrophic event from Central Command, like forcing a reactor explosion or venting the atmosphere.”

  “No, they need Magellan gone, not just incapacitated,” North said. “They must want to blow the whole station to kingdom come, and the only way to do that is to overload the reactor. And if Boro is right, they have the codes to do it.”

  “It would be a lot easier to use a nuke,” Mac said.

  “No way they have a nuke on American Spirit,” Skip spoke up. “Radiation alarms would have picked it up as soon as they were within a few hundred kilometers from Magellan.”

  “Unless Raven One had somehow tampered with the monitors,” Boro suggested. “My colleagues will stop at nothing, take any risk, sacrifice their very lives if needed to build the perfect Earth on Arara. Do not underestimate their resolve.”

  “Either way,” Moreno said, wanting to end the conversation and get into action, “we will have strategic victory as long as we secure the Command Center and keep anyone from boarding or leaving the American Spirit. I am going to take these five with me to secure central command.” Moreno indicated the five Marines that had come with Moreville.

  “Once I have centcomm, I’ll start coordinating with the civilian government. This is going to get messy.” Moreno took North’s hand. “North, you round up the rest of your troops, and position yourself in the docks and make sure no one gets on American Spirit. Hold the landing bay. Nothing lands and nothing takes off without my authorization.”

  “Understood,” North replied.

  “When Wong gets back, send him to coordinate with the MPs and Boro to attempt to apprehend any Marines Boro says are turncoats. Boro will you be willing to give us the names of your conspirators?”

  “I don’t know them all, but those I know, yes,” Boro said with a bit of shame, head hanging.

  “North, wait for Wong to get back, get whatever medical help you need, and then secure the landing bay,” Moreno said, as she exited the briefing room with the Marines and Tricia in tow. “Now let’s see if we can stop this revolution before it begins.”

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  Amberly awoke alone in the room that had become somewhat of a holding cell for her on the Firebird. Her mother, the so-called Raven One, had ordered Sparks and Dek to keep Amberly locked in the plain sleeping quarters, under threat of airlock.

  Amberly shivered. The room wa
s cold. She slid off the thin bed and walked over to the computer console and tried to log in again. She had to get some message to Kora or, better yet, North, that Magellan was in danger. Her biometric password was rejected again. Still locked out. She wondered if she could find out where Joti hid her infopad, Verne.

  She moved toward the lavatory door, opposite the room’s access door to the hallway. She activated the sink, an upward-facing semi-sphere, with its flat side facing up and covered. She waved a hand, and the cover retracted. Another wave and a small jet of pressurized water shot up. Amberly cupped some water in her hand and then splashed her face. She tapped the sink, and the cover returned. The runoff water in the sink was vacuumed out.

  Amberly was still trying to reason out her mother’s plan. When she thought about it, of course, what Chasm was trying to achieve was clearly rational. The history of Earth was one of disorder and chaos, replete with preventable wars and famine driven by individual pride, differences of creed, greed, identity politics and often some combination of the four. If Chasm could, relying on the brightest and most clever people as guides, build a planet where everyone was truly equal, and peace wasn’t optional, wouldn’t that be the desired state of society?

  Amberly also understood that in order for Chasm’s utopia to be built, that the individual had to submit to the greater good. Millions of people had died on earth because of the chaos of individualism, Amberly reasoned. Why is it so hard to accept that a few thousand might need to die for a perfect world?

  She didn’t understand how her mother and this so-called Chairman would build the perfect world. But she wasn’t so arrogant to think that she was anywhere near the brightest humanity had to offer. Her mother was obviously gifted beyond what Amberly had been aware growing up.

  But as much as Amberly held onto the reason, she couldn’t blot out their faces: Kora’s pale face crowned with her mother’s raven-black hair; the imposingly beautiful Lydia, even that runt Skip. They had all been her friends in good and bad times. Would friendship have any meaning in this new Araran order? Would love?