Beyond Antares Dimensional Gates

by Edited by Brandon Rospond

  Renck started marking and tagging the heat signatures that were appearing in his viewfinder, separating friend from foe, before spooling up the final weapons’ systems. Each time an enemy position was identified, one of the four mag support weapons that were securely anchored to the beast began to pivot and target the area. The AI systems compensated for the matronite's movements and delivered carefully dispersed patterns of shots that ripped through their intended targets. As the opposition started to regroup, the brood mother began taking incoming fire, driving it further and further into an almost uncontrollable rage.

  With the artificial systems continuing to neutralize each of the pinpointed threats one after another, Renck diverted his attention to managing the complex system of neural control rods and drug injectors that manipulated the matronite's mental state, in an effort to prevent it rampaging out of control. Directing the lavan's attention toward the closest group of Ret personnel, he initiated a controlled release of aggression, letting the huge creature charge their position. The brood mother smashed through every obstacle in her way, sending crates and boulders flying with equal ease. As it crashed into the intended target, even the hardiest of the Boromites screamed in fear as the force of the impact sent them falling like rag dolls over the steep ravine that led out to the surface.

  With a terrifying clash of grinding teeth, the monstrous form of rough, hardened carapace let out a keening, otherworldly wail that caused many of those in earshot to stop, staring dumbstruck up at the great creature in awe. Having opened the floodgates to the matronite's pain, Renck now struggled in vain to close off the relevant synapses and regain control over the animal, but such efforts were futile. With no option but to allow it to vent its rage, he drove the vast lavan deep into the enemy camp, directing it with sharp pain impulses that further fueled the destructive rampage that left little but devastation in its wake.

  * * * *

  Rovan was in pain, a lot of pain. The Ret clan member had been completely wrong-footed by the arrival of the brood mother. He tried to pull his crippled body across the metal decking toward his fallen carbine, but a heavily armored foot kicked the weapon away from his outstretched hands. Looking up, he saw a pressed, hard-nosed face staring down at him over the body of a rifle that was aimed squarely at his head. The broken man chuckled, resigned to his impending fate.

  Breathing deeply, Rovan addressed the victor. “You think there won’t be consequences for this? For any of you?”

  Madroth slowly paced the length of one of the nearby shipping pallets, running one bony hand down the length of its brushed metal surface, her response calm and detached. “I’m sure there will be. Your guild does have a reputation.”

  Leaning on one arm, the fallen Boromite pivoted himself round to address the speaker. “Then you know what's coming. You’ve signed Jent's death warrant, you understand that? You are all going to die for this. I hope it was worth it.”

  The Guildess watched quietly as the Ret leader spat out a congealed wad of blood, his breathing growing increasingly ragged. Locking eyes with her adversary, she took a moment to think before phrasing her reply. “You may very well be right. At some point in the future we may indeed come to regret what took place here today. Perhaps we have damned ourselves and our brothers and sisters. But right here, right now, we are the ones left alive and standing. And if I have anything to do with it, that’s how things are going to stay.”

  Calmly, Madroth raised her ported weapon and exhaled a long, slow breath. “You can only push an animal so far before it lashes out. You should have known that.”

  The Ret leader's vision was already beginning to fade before the sound of the gunshot blasted out, ending the life of the last remaining Ret guilder on the asteroid. As the ringing echoes faded, the exhausted Jent contingent turned their backs on his form and began the long task of preparing their newly acquired assets for transit off the station, and back to the rest of their guild's fleet.

  Hard Truths

  By Scott Washburn

  “The C106 plasma carbine is the standard infantry weapon used by the Concord Combined Command,” said the instructor. “A number of other militaries use similar weapons and they all operate on the same principle.”

  Concord Cadet-Squad Leader Tamika Gatchnall watched as Senior Instructor Magale picked up the carbine and held it out for the class’s inspection. She reminded herself that the instructor, the carbine, and the firing range where they stood were actually real and not just a sim. The training academy used a lot of sims—computer generated simulation, projected directly into the cadets’ brains through the ubiquitous IMTel—for training purposes. It was cheaper and easier and sometimes more effective than the real thing. But when it came to things like weapons training, they insisted on making it real. Weapons were dangerous, after all, and it wouldn’t do to let anyone become careless with them because ‘it wasn’t real.’ Of course, the fact that the sims were absolutely indistinguishable from reality didn’t help.

  Magale passed the weapon around the group to let them feel the weight of it. Cadet Marc Nierny, a friend of hers, took it and then handed it to her. It wasn’t as heavy as she’d expected but it was still pretty weighty and would be awkward to handle without the power assist of the combat armor she’d normally wear when using such a weapon. The carbine was about as long as her arm and had a pistol grip near the rear and another handhold near the front. She passed it on to the next cadet and eventually it was back in Magale’s hands.

  “Note the plasma emitter here,” he said pointing to the business end. “The pulse actuator is here, and the ionic compression pack is here.” He pointed to several other features on the weapon. “We’ve made these things as idiot-proof as we can, but it seems like someone’s always coming up with a better idiot, so pay attention! There is a dual safety system built into the carbine. There is a physical switch here, which must be put into the ‘fire’ position by a push and slide motion. But it still won’t shoot, see?” He pointed the weapon down range and nothing happened. “You still need to activate the weapon with a direct command through the IMTel. Like this.” Naturally they couldn’t see him give the mental command, but a moment later a bright blue flash erupted from the emitter and the bolt leapt away almost too fast to see. There was a puff of smoke and a sharp crack from the target area.

  “In addition, when you are not in a combat zone, the weapon defaults to a safe mode. In that case you will need to re-issue the mental command each time you want to fire. Naturally in a combat zone you will only have to activate the weapon once.” He raised the carbine and fired several more times.

  “The carbine can also operate in a rapid-fire mode called scatter. This reduces the effective range and the striking power of the weapon, but allows you to blanket the area with a lot more fire. Very effective against lightly armored targets. You can set the mode via your IMTel link.” He switched modes and fired the weapon again. This time there was a rapid series of flashes and reports from down range.

  “Finally, the weapon has a built-in IFF feature to avoid accidentally shooting at friendlies. But that does not relieve you of the duty to act responsibly! No system is one hundred percent reliable—especially in combat. Damage or enemy countermeasures can bollux the best system. Make sure of your target before you fire! You got me?!”

  “Yes, sir!” The entire class answered in unison.

  “All right, let’s see what you can do. Put on your helmets.” Tamika and the others had been issued lightweight training helmets which could give them some of the same information features as the helmet of the combat armor they would normally wear—once they were issued it. She fit it in place and lowered the transparent visor. A small Ready cursor appeared on the visor where she could see it clearly. A moment later it was replaced with: Weapons Orientation Training.

  Magale selected a cadet at random and had her come up to the firing station. He put the weapon’s safety back on and handed it to her. “Tie the weapon into your helmet,” he said. />
  “Tied in,” she responded.

  “We’ll do some dry-firing first. Put it on practice mode. Good. Now, take off the manual safety and give the ready command. Line it up and fire when you think you are on target. Don’t worry, it won’t actually fire, but the IMTel will calculate where your shot would have hit.”

  “Like a sim?”

  “Exactly like a sim.”

  The girl, who was Dara Beltran, a member of Tamika’s squad, did as she was instructed and for a few minutes fired imaginary plasma bolts at the targets down range. Finally, the instructor was satisfied and allowed her to fire off a half-dozen real shots. “No need to flinch,” said Magale. “There’s virtually no recoil and the suspensors built into the carbine null what little there is. The weapon doesn’t inflict damage through impact, it actually vaporizes a small section of the target’s mass and the explosion from that is what does the damage.”

  “Senior Instructor?” Tamika raised her hand.

  “Yes?” The man seemed surprised that anyone would have a question.

  “Isn’t it… inefficient to have us aiming the weapon manually? Can’t the sighting mechanism be programmed to recognize an enemy and fire automatically when it is on target?” Magale fixed a withering glare at her and stepped closer. “I… I mean that’s what combat drones do, after all…”

  “Are you a drone, cadet?”

  “Uh, no, sir.”

  “Then don’t act like one! Here, you’re next!” He thrust the carbine into her hands. She was surprised, but recovered immediately and took her spot on the firing platform. Linking the weapon to her helmet was just a matter of mentally giving the command. The message on her visor switched to Weapon Link Engaged and then disappeared to be replaced by a view through the carbine’s targeter. The target, which had just been a speck two hundred yan away, jumped into view as if it was almost in arm’s reach. A reticle with circle and cross-hair was superimposed, showing where the weapon’s fire would hit. The magnification was so great that the reticule was jumping all over the place with the tiniest motion of the carbine. The instructor helped her back off the magnification until she could control it better. Her father had taught her how to shoot when she was a child, so this was all fairly routine. Except the weapon he’d trained her on fired an actual projectile so she had to account for range, crosswinds, and so forth. Here it was an energy weapon which would place the bolt exactly where she was pointing.

  Once she was ready, she put a half-dozen shots in the center of the target, the magnifier allowed her to see the impact points clearly. A nice tight grouping. Magale seemed surprised. “You’ve fired one of these before, Cadet?”

  “No, sir, not a plasma carbine. But I was taught how to shoot when I was little.” She decided it wouldn’t be a good idea to tell him that the reason her father had taught her to shoot was so that she’d be ready to kill Concord soldiers when they invaded her world.

  “Huh. All right, next!” The other cadets took their turns while Tamika watched and tried to pay attention. She was still a little miffed at the way Magale had brushed off her question. But she’d noticed that here at the C3 academy on Hadley IV, people didn’t seem to like it when she asked questions. And not many people did ask questions. Was that because nearly everyone here had been part of the IMTel shard since birth—before birth actually? Did they have a better grasp of navigating the nearly infinite store of knowledge available to them? Tamika had only been part of the shard for a little over a standard year—since her home planet had been forcibly added to the PanHuman Concord. Maybe once she’d been here longer she wouldn’t have any more questions either… The thought bothered her. Did the others think she was some sort of idiot? Or maybe they just didn’t care. Neither notion was comforting.

  When the last cadet had had their turn, Magale put the carbine aside and took up another, somewhat larger weapon. “This is the plasma lance,” he said. “It’s heavier, bulkier, and can hit a lot harder than the carbine. While it can fire in the same two modes as the carbine, it has a third mode, the lance mode, which fires a single, more powerful bolt which can damage heavily armored targets. Typically there will be one of these in each squad.” Magale let them all try it and Tamika found the thing much less comfortable to handle than the carbine. No doubt it would be easier when she had her armor.

  That concluded the class and they took a transmat back to the main part of the campus. Tamika was still amazed at the matter transmitters. They could move a person vast distances in the blink of an eye. They were kind of disorienting, too. She had no idea where the firing range was in relation to the campus. One kiloyan away or ten thousand?

  “So what do you think?” asked Nierny as they stepped off the transport pad. “Pretty flinkin’ nad, wasn’t it?”

  Tamika was still having trouble with the local slang. “Uh, yeah, nad. Really nad.”

  “But I think you sort of racked Magale off a bit with that question. Why do you do that, Tam?”

  “Uh, to find things out?”

  Nierny laughed. “Maybe that’s why they made you a squad leader.”

  “Maybe.” Now that was a question she’d like to ask someone! Why had they done that? And who had done that? Maybe there isn’t any ‘who’. She was still unable to fully grasp how the IMTel worked. Everyone told her that there weren’t any leaders who ran the Concord. No presidents or chancellors or kings or emperors. Not even any ruling councils, congresses, or parliaments. Nor were the machines themselves running things. Apparently no one was in charge here! The military shard of the Concord, the Concord Combined Command, or C3, did appear to have leaders—at least at the lower levels. There were squad leaders and section leaders and force commanders and such, as well as ship captains and squadron commodores and fleet admirals. But if it went higher than that, Tamika wasn’t sure. Surely some…one must be directing higher level strategy! Or maybe not…

  And yet things got done. Decisions were made and orders issued—at least to C3. Ordinary people didn’t get ordered. They did whatever they pleased. Or so it seemed. The few ordinary people Tamika had met all seemed happy and totally unlikely to do anything that might upset the status quo. Did they really have free will, or just the illusion? How the hell could you even tell? Just thinking about it gave her headaches—which made her wonder if the headaches were the IMTel’s way of making her not think about it…

  But she was a squad leader and the members of her squad followed her orders—without question. What a surprise. It still confused her.

  In the following days they were introduced to more weapons and equipment: lightweight plasma pistols and the small x-slings which could be worn on the arm of their armor to fling tiny micro-bombs. There were also the larger support weapons like plasma cannons and x-launchers which were mounted on suspensors and operated by teams of gunners. And then there were all the drones that normally accompanied Concord troops. Spotter drones and targeter drones and batter drones and scout drones and a host of others, including weapons drones, which ranged in size from small to enormous. Her people probably would have called the big ones tanks.

  The drones fascinated her. They seemed very versatile and while they would follow orders, they seemed capable of so much independent action. Some were called buddy drones and these were designed to work in conjunction with an infantry squad. They would stay close by and assist the squad. Others operated on their own like any other combat formation. Tamika knew that when she had progressed farther in her training she would learn a lot more about them.

  The days raced by, but it wasn’t all work. There were sporting events and social events mixed in which were designed to build a camaraderie among the cadets. Tamika slowly came to feel less like a stranger and more like a part of the team. Still, there was a distance there which couldn’t entirely be closed. At night in the barracks, the cadets routinely paired off (or formed more complex combinations) but Tamika had not joined them. The others obviously thought that was a bit odd, but no one pressured her in any w
ay. Well, Marc Nierny had dropped some pretty obvious hints, but he had not been offended when she didn’t respond. She wasn’t sure why he was even interested in her. She hadn’t taken advantage of the body-sculpting available through the nanosphere and wasn’t nearly as beautiful as the others. She wasn’t bad looking, she didn’t think, but she didn’t have the ethereal beauty that most Concord citizens possessed. She spent many a night listening to the noises from the other bunks and asking herself questions she couldn’t bring herself to ask anyone else.

  Well, there was one person at the academy she might have had the nerve to ask, but that person didn’t seem to be around. Captain Natchia Krissa had taken an interest in her during some especially troubling times for Tamika in her early days at the academy. The captain, whose consciousness was currently housed in a humanoid machine after having been killed in action, had helped Tamika through her crisis and became something of a friend. Even after completing the class Krissa taught, Tamika had talked with her from time to time. But recently her office had been closed and inquiries only said that Krissa was on leave. Tamika found that she missed the strange machine-woman.

  Finally a day came all the cadets had been waiting for. They were issued their suits of combat armor. These were the things which helped make Concord soldiers so formidable. As with all Concord technology, they could access the energy sources and matter manipulating powers of the nanosphere. The primary function of the armor was, of course, to protect the wearer. It did this, not by encasing the person in a heavy suit of material plates, but by forming a protective energy field to stop or deflect enemy fire. As a result, the armor appeared ridiculously light and flimsy in the eyes of the cadets. It was actually referred to as ‘hyperlight armor’.