MissionSRX: Deep Unknown

by Matthew D. White

  Fox was right, of course, no matter how much he wanted to fight it. He was doing nothing right in their memory. For Allison to see what he had become would have destroyed her. She likely never would have been able to forgive him or condone his actions. Maybe it was better she wasn’t around to see it.

  On the other side, maybe that was his strength. That losing them was the only way for him to get to where he was now. He wanted to believe there was a purpose to it all, that he wasn’t simply being played until the bullet finally arrived with his name on it.

  If that was all there was to live for, it was an awful waste of a universe, Grant reasoned and turned the photograph over. A single smudged line of handwritten text was still visible across the years.

  Love you forever! -A

  Grant smiled again as a single tear fell down his face. He dropped the lights to nothing, praying to whoever would listen for whatever minimal level of forgiveness was reserved for monsters like him.

  23

  Eight hours of leave later, Grant rode the central elevator from the crew quarters to the bridge alongside Scott. He shared a glance with the remarkable engineer. “You ready for this?”

  Scott nodded. “Absolutely.”

  Together they filed into the commander’s briefing room, still heavily damaged but now with a repaired and active table. Commander Fox was already waiting for them, along with Mason and Othello. According to the display, the other ships’ commanding officers were on the line from their own stations.

  Fox stared at his fellow commander, seeing not anger but a renewed fire behind his eyes. The soldier looked recharged, whatever hate and malice that had infected him appeared to have crept away. “So what’s the story?”

  Grant took a deep breath. “I cannot in good faith have us return to Omega for reassignment at this time. Rather, we have an exceptional opportunity to strike a solid blow against the Cygnans and figure out what they did to Major Kael.”

  Fox kept a stoic expression on his face. “I hope you thought this through. What did you find out?”

  Grant looked at Scott. “Tell them.”

  “Well,” Scott began, “We have data collections from the cruiser that we boarded, plus the dreadnoughts here and at the site of Captain Clark’s crash. There’s a lot of information there, but between them I found references to a single location that I think is their home base. It’s a ways out there, but not beyond our reach. At Commander Grant’s request I deployed a passive intelligence probe to the location last night.”

  Scott continued, “The source is worse than I expected. It’s the most deadly parts of Mercury and Venus together in one. It’s a roaster in orbit around a star at extremely close range with a thick atmosphere that’s likely toxic and corrosive. An unstable tilt has contributed to it having an overactive crust of tectonic plates which give it very rough terrain.

  More than that, we found their facility. From what I can tell in the data stream, it’s an experimental deployment devoted to compromising our biology. Kael’s infection, the liquefying rounds, stuff like that, all likely came from there.”

  “So you want to destroy it?” Fox looked at Grant.

  “I’d like to but we won’t be able to do it. Not from the air, at least.”

  “He’s right. The mass driver cannot penetrate an atmosphere that thick without breaking up. They’ve also got a substantial network of surface to air weapons capable of hitting any projectile we could steer in. From what I can tell, they utilized a pair of tectonic plates that have slipped under each other to get the bulk of their facility farther underground. Whatever’s down there was deep enough to be undetectable by the probe.”

  “That doesn’t leave us with much. What do you suggest?” Fox asked.

  Grant looked between the other team members. “We go from the ground, deploy from beyond line-of-sight and work our way in one step at a time. Targeting the defenses can help us bring support closer in with us until we can breach the compound.”

  “You’re not going to be able to hike a couple hundred klicks.”

  “No, and we’re not going to. We’re taking Lyran tanks.”

  “What?”

  Mason cut in, “There’s a tank battalion loaded on every Patriot for ground assaults, twenty-four per ship. We’ve got the people and the time to train up some operators.”

  “Right. That’d give us the power on the ground to skip most of their defenses and secure the compound. If they call for reinforcements, we’ve still got Patriots for orbital cover.”

  “Why wouldn’t they secure the ground too?”

  “I ran this by every intelligence officer on the ship.” Scott continued, “The consensus is that they either just didn’t consider infiltration by ground at all, or that the environment would take care of those threats for them. The atmosphere is deadly and the terrain isn’t much easier. Once we get to the system and have some higher resolution imagery, we’ll be able to plot some routes in. I also don’t think they even thought about us finding the base; it’s extremely isolated and has a tiny footprint.”

  Fox nodded in skeptical approval. “If this is what it needs to be, then let’s not keep them waiting. How do we offload our equipment?”

  “The Patriots will need to drop all the way to the surface to deploy our vehicles. It’ll a ways to the west but still within driving range. The plate evens off into a level desert that far out and has no sign of any defenses.”

  “You said each ship has a tank battalion,” Othello asked, “what capability will that give us?”

  “Each set of twenty-four is broken down into several classes.” Mason responded, “The bases are identical, twelve are loaded up as main battle tanks with line-of-sight cannons, six are non-line-of-sight artillery pieces, four are outfitted for close-combat or urban warfare and two are defensive shield generators with comm, RF and IR jammers.”

  “Here’s what I’m seeing.” Fox announced, “Sergeant Mason, I’d like you to get a training solution for all of the personnel we need to staff them for all four Patriots. Move out and let’s get under way before the Cygnans come looking for their busted ships. We’ll drop within a two hour jump, train and put the crews together, transfer as needed and head for their orbit. Make this quick. I think this is at the limit of our capabilities and an unnecessary risk so prove me wrong.”

  Grant nodded, “Always do.”

  “Cocky.”

  “You know me,” Grant smiled, “Whatever doesn’t kill me had better run for its gaddamn life.”

  ***

  As the sky outside the Flagstaff’s bridge began to shrink, Fox watched his pilot slowly maneuver the unwieldy battleship into the Patriot’s landing bay once more. When they were clear, the leading doors slid shut and a series of service control arms met the landing brackets of the human ship, locking it in place for the trip ahead.

  “That’s it, we’re secure.” the pilot announced to the room and leaned back in his seat after the hair-raising operation. Outside, a series of valves unseated to slowly equalize the pressure between the two ships as if it was landing on a pad deep in Earth’s atmosphere. From the rear of the landing bay, a long loading ramp extended from the wall in a similar manner to their landing clamps and attached itself to the upper loading port beyond the landing bay.

  Fox took his leave from the command deck. His once-grand battleship, the greatest responsibility with which he’d ever been responsible, was beginning to be a liability.

  ***

  Together Scott and Othello rode the main service elevator down to the lowest level of the Patriot: the ground vehicle bay. The door was a layer of thick acrylic, or a force field for all Scott knew, and gave an impressive view of the entire room.

  The vehicles were referable as tanks because they had no other applicable words to describe them. Each one had a footprint close to that of a rocket booster crawler, with six sets of wide, deep all-terrain treads attached underneath and a flowing body that hid any secondary functions beside the towering cannons
that were mounted front and center on each chassis.

  The battalion was arranged on the deck in a four-by-six formation held in place by a series of thick clamps from the ceiling and likely outfitted to roll straight down the ramp and into combat. Below them, Sergeant Mason was already talking to a large quorum of soldiers.

  At the edges of the formation were a number of existing crew members that Scott recognized from their previous engagements. A few of the security officers from Mars still wore their old utility uniforms with some inconspicuous differences in the camouflage pattern. On top of that, the new arrivals were far too clean to have been drug around as much as the rest. The door opened as he pontificated on their evolving situation.

  “I don’t know what you’ve been told about our operation so far, but that’s not important. We’re fighting for humanity, HOOAH!” he paced from one side to the other, speaking forcefully but plainly, “What you see around you is courtesy of a very gracious alien host. They have a problem that they can’t handle without us and in time we will be assisting them.

  In return, they’re helping us defend Earth. Our assignment is a ground invasion to destroy an isolated base in an extremely unforgiving environment utilizing the equipment you see behind us. You’re all trained Armor and the systems are mostly translated, so I don’t expect you to have any trouble down there. We’ve only got simulators and a couple hours for practice and training but that will have to do. Once we get to our staging area, I’ll send you to your units and we’ll get our orders.”

  ***

  Far above, the Commander Prime paged through Scott’s notes from the Cygnan data feeds. His work was extensive and cross-referenced with the commentary from their handful of intelligence officers. The case was fairly well made and he felt certain that he had made the right call.

  Now of a clear mind, Grant tried to make sense of Major Kael’s rabid accusations before he got a hatchet to the face. Although he could discount most of the ramblings, lingering questions still remained. How much did they really know about the Lyrans? Of the Cygnans? How were they driven to build an entire supposed fleet for use by an undiscovered species? He couldn’t imagine the raging economic cluster a similar proposition would make of life on Earth.

  At least Commander Fox had seen the light and decided to be part of the solution rather than continue to stand in his path every step of the way. Not that he didn’t appreciate the occasional course correction and insight but they still had a job to do. Besides, in the end it was to be Grant’s call.

  The officer’s quarters on the Patriot were an order of magnitude larger than the ones on any Space Corps ship, which was to be expected since it had the space. The desk flowed from the rounded wall without any additional means of support but was textured just enough to keep the stack of documents from spilling to the floor.

  As always, it was far from a clear plan of attack, but it was all they had to go on. From the probe they knew the base was there, however it was still an enigma as to what was underneath. The best they could think up was to land out of range and drive up to the front door.

  And what then? Get out on the open ground knock? Blow their seals and haul-ass in? Knowing the Cygnans, they’d destroy their own facilities before letting themselves be taken alive.

  They didn’t have enough heavy armor to go around for the entire force ground. Even outfitting the crews of a hundred tanks would be a stretch. They’d all need to be issued oxygen tanks, Grant reasoned while leaning back in his chair, regardless of whether they’d be going outside. They’d have to load the ground teams up with sealed armor for protection from the elements and hope they’d hold.

  That was another possibility if they blew the walls of the base open: whatever was waiting for them would likely be as ill equipped as they were to deal with a rupture.

  What would be next? Bring Scott Ryan’s multispectral scanners in and have them gather whatever was there before the aliens torched the whole place? He had to question the engineer’s judgment on occasion but maybe it was standard procedure when breaking out the scanners. They had far too many close calls when those things were deployed.

  ***

  After the first training session, Scott took a trip to his nearest armory and to the support bay. On a clear workbench he dropped a block of milled titanium: the Lyran precision railgun.

  “Listen to me,” he looked down accusingly at the weapon, “You nearly got me killed. Something’s gotta change.” Scott removed the circular drum magazine, cleared the chamber and set the rounds aside before checking over the power supply.

  A small series of knobs were milled into the left side of the receiver. By pulling the trigger, he listened for the snapping dissipation of energy down the barrel and watched for the meter to recharge between shots. Getting the feel for the operation, Scott turned each one, waiting for the feedback to change.

  The leading rotary switched appeared to change the rate at which the system recharged, probably, Scott hypothesized, at the expense of stopping power. Depending on how heavy a target he was facing, even that change might end up being enough to save his life. Why it was backed all the way off, he didn’t know. With the adjustment it wasn’t enough to make him trade away the ZiG or the SAW, but he was relieved to have a better picture of the Lyran system although he didn’t have the faintest idea what was going on under the hood.

  Hanging on the wall above the table rested the larger Cygnan weapon Scott had been given by Lieutenant Carter. Like its compatriot, it silently mocked him, daring the engineer to pull it apart. “Not now. You can just wait here.” he said, absentmindedly, allowing him to release the growing tension through a brief moment of anthropomorphic levity.

  ***

  “This is the last chance. Are they ready?” Grant asked Mason as the sergeant entered the bridge of the Patriot.

  “They can drive and they can shoot.”

  “Run and gun; can’t ask for much more than that.”

  “No, sir, we can’t.” Mason added, “Our guys did very well with the operational training. Without going into details they’re not much different than traditional armor. There’s no way we’ll be able to handle maintenance but that shouldn’t be a problem with such a short deployment.”

  “Concur. Field maintenance and troubleshooting might be too much. If any are compromised, we’ll have to offload quickly and pile into another. Decontamination might get messy though.” Grant looked between Mason to Fox and Wright, “I think we have a plan.”

  Wright looked over to his countdown and back to the group, “We’ve got ten minutes on the clock.”

  Fox nodded. “Then we’d better get moving. Sergeant Mason, get your crews ready to offload to the other Patriots.”

  “They’re already packed up. We’re just waiting on the shuttles.”

  Within a five minute window, the fleet arrived at their decided position with only a two hour blind flight to their target. Without a bigger role to play for the moment, Grant swung back to the Flagstaff to inspect his fighter.

  “You’re going over the ground?”

  “Just what I said.” Grant replied to the chief, who looked halfway between crushed and furious. “There’s no other way, it’s already decided. They’ve got an IADS that could take us out from orbit.”

  “Understood, sir. Your girl is ready when you are.” Chief Robins said, “Don’t keep her waiting, so to speak.”

  “I won’t. Thank you for all the work you put in it. Again.” Grant stepped out onto the deck dead in front and looked up at the towering ship. At his range, he could just barely see the canopy above the leading array of multi-barreled cannons. “I hope I’ll be back.”

  ***

  Scott knew better than to broach the subject of the Cygnans and Lyrans with the commanders, especially after Kael’s psychotic mutiny. Clark’s ship was a steep price to pay for having a weak mind.

  That didn’t mean, however, that Scott didn’t think about it on his own. He overheard some of what Grant and Fox
had discussed in the canteen but it was the notes that had tipped him off to there being more to the story.

  He had left his initial sheet of calculations with the commander for his review. When Grant had delivered them back, he must have made a few inferences of his own. By mistake, Scott had included his first few estimates of the crew strength.

  In the span of time during the visit with the Lyrans, he had confirmed they were down over twenty percent. On the same sheet, the commander had absentmindedly scribbled some rambling statements, which could have only had come from the major.

  Scott brought up the security feed on the monitor beside him. Although there was no sound, Kael was sashaying about and waving his arms like a true madman. A few of the lines he could nearly sync up with what he was watching:

  I will give them a full accounting of Earth’s defenses plus the Lyran armada. He could cleanly read the major’s lips before Grant took the shot, striking him in the back of the shoulder. He shuddered to remember the moment he got full control of the ship and warned the commander he would fire at their visitor outside.

  Scott wondered if the operation was part of the question that still lingered in the commander’s mind; if he was actively avoiding returning to Omega since he wasn’t sure the aliens could be trusted. He tapped at a scribbled-out line of text at the center, smaller than the rest. The Cygnans are the saviors of the universe, not the Lyrans and certainly not humanity. Hearing that from someone as unhinged as Kael would have been enough to cause anyone to think twice about their actions.

  A knock at the door startled the engineer, pulling him from his self-enveloping daze. He straightened the pages and looked back to see Commander Grant standing at the entrance to the service bay.

  “I figured you’d be down here.”