Burning Eagle

by Navin Weeraratne

  “What was it like?” he asked quietly. “Tennyson?”

  “I wondered when you were going to ask me.”

  He shrugged. “It seemed a little rude. I mean, you were there. You were just there. I didn’t want to bring up something that might be painful.”

  “Don’t sweat it. For me it was just a year ago. All eighty years frozen in space has done, is make me both antiquated and larger than life. Tennyson was bitter; I died four times. We didn’t know if we could beat them, and they were fighting to exterminate. No one expected that.”

  “I never understood that. How did you not see it?”

  “That’s four generations of smug hindsight, right there. To all of you, you can’t imagine what we were thinking. To us, it made perfect sense. The last relay on Paradiso was found and destroyed, three months after they hit this place. That whole time, they seemed interested in capturing population centers intact. We built our strategy accordingly. When they opened with genocide, it caught us off guard.”

  “I’ll bet. That must have been disturbing.”

  “It was. We all saw what would be in store of us, if they’d won. But we adapted, and our tech was better. It was just a matter of time before we tipped the balance.”

  Khalid nodded. He whipped out his binoculars and did a quick scan.

  “I wonder what they learned here, that made them want to wipe us out.”

  I checked my gun. “Whatever it was, let’s give them a refresher.”

  I studied the early evening battlespace in my mind. The feeds from the two drones dominated the content: terrain, temperature signatures, areas of interest. The buggies contributed what they could – stuff about soil and dust content that no one cared about. There was chatter back and forth between the bright green silhouettes for each of us and sometimes the drones, mostly stupid shit. Koirala stood out from us even in virtual space – her silhouette was blue and she communed directly with the Battlefield Control computer up in orbit.

  “Hey,” Khalid tapped my arm, and I came back to real space “check out the crash.”

  Coming up on our right was a charred and impossibly crushed mass of metal. Twisted plating stuck out of a crater. The wake was twenty meters long. The second buggy had already stopped beside it, Koirala and Saleh dismounted.

  “Calamari fighter went down here,” said Saleh over his shoulder.

  “Damn straight he did,” said Khalid, climbing out. “That smells like – like rotting meat.”

  “That’s what things smell like when they’re dead,” I replied.

  Saleh winced, “I bet they smell like that when they’re alive.”

  “That was a big one – maybe a couple of tons?” I said. “Basically an elephant.”

  “How big do they get?” Saleh.

  “No one knows.”

  “And we’re not going to be the ones who find out,” said Koirala. She was already climbing back into the second buggy.

  She was right. I liked our rules of engagement – they were the most elegant I’ve ever had. If we saw an Invader, we were to kill it. If we found an injured one, we were to kill it. If we captured one, we were to kill it. I figured some of the Direct Action teams were stuck with retrieving specimens. I was grateful we had nothing to do with that.

  Back home, the Paradiso campaign had been pitched as a liberation. When satellite images showed humans had survived, the matter was cemented. What a coup that had been for the planners! We weren’t taking back a planet. We were actually going to save people.

  Out here though, it was clear that the Transcendents knew the real score. Liberation was all well and good. However, Paradiso was always just a counteroffensive in a larger war. A war of extinction. We were here to kill the Calamari, every last one of them. When we were done here, we’d find where they came from. Then we’d go there, and do it again. On an on, till we wiped them from existence.

  Or, they would continue doing it, to us.

  We left the crash behind us and drove on. Half an hour later, we reached the AO.

  The camp was a cluster of metal shacks, adobe walls, and plastic tarps. There were solar panels on booms and stilts across the settlement, and the tell tale, slow-turning drums of rotary gardens.

  Koirala tapped the side of helmet. An invisible, tight–beam laser, fired into space.

  Koirala: Control, this is Zulu One. How copy, over?

  Battlefield Control: Solid copy, Zulu One. Go ahead.

  Koirala: Strong EM emanating underground, from the core. Drones detect two hundred plus warm bodies on the surface, all human. Chromographs however show equipment painted with Calamari pigments.

  Battlefield Control: Zulu One please confirm: no Calamari are present at the AO?

  Koirala: Affirmative Control. No Calamari scent patterns detected. The only organics are human. Livestock detected in the outer campus grounds.

  Battlefield Control: Persistence of EM activity from the core, suggests a high likelihood that the asset has survived. Presence of humans without Calamari supervision, implies they are independent forces using stolen or scavenged equipment. Mission objectives updated: approach friendlies and make contact. Standby in AO until arrival of marines from the Washington.”

  Koirala: Affirm.

  “Alright gentlemen,” she stood up from behind cover. “We’re about to make contact with people cut off from the rest of humanity, for eight decades.” She shimmered back into normal view. We deactivated our ponchos, and reappeared as well.

  “We should have brought those Green Berets along, after all,” said Khalid. Iron cored, diamond pellets tore into him, tearing off his arm. A follow up shot splashed out his brains before he had time to fall.

  Stimulants flooded my system and my second heart kicked in. I was on the ground, head down, scanning.

  Koirala and Saleh were still alive. Rounds tore up the ground where they were hunkered down, pinning them. The drones were still transmitting, but the buggies tore off in opposite directions. Their chaff launchers crack-whoomped, canisters popping thick, grey, nanite smoke into the air. They disappeared.

  Rocket pods shrieked from inside the slum village. Lights streaked into the sky, exploding like fireworks. The glittering smoke they created grew thicker, and started spreading in the sky.

  “Chaff!”

  Battlefield Control disappeared from our feed, and with it any chance of orbital strike support. We were on our own.

  Koirala: Reactivate ponchos if you haven’t already. At full charge, Zulu Two, you and I will go in.

  Jahandar: Affirmative, One. I’m at seventy percent, cloak reengaging in thirteen seconds.

  Koirala: Zulu Three, get to higher ground, up on that ruin. The drones and buggies can’t see through the enemy chaff, but we can still tight-beam them. I need you to pinpoint targets for them with your laser scope.

  Saleh: Why are they shooting at us? Why are humans shooting at us!

  Koirala: Stay focused! Jahandar, you’re with me.

  My poncho reengaged and I became hidden to the world. Electronically, thermally, optically I no longer existed. Koirala was already up and running, I could see a blue blip where she was supposed to be. Saleh moved off as well; climbing the broken stairs of a roofless, two-storey, shell.

  People started coming out of the village. They wore desert cloaks and old leathers over diamondoid armor plates. They carried Calamari weapons as well, but too small, too compact.

  Too human.

  Coordinates sparked over their heads, one at a time. Saleh was pinpointing the targets.

  Drone One: Engaging.

  Koirala: No, wait till we get past them.

  We slid and stepped past them, like children playing a game. One passed so close I could smell the dried sweat on his clothes. Another stared right at me, sniffing. His eyes were bloodshot.

  Saleh: They’re all human. Colonel, this is a mistake!

  Koirala: The only mistake is that we didn’t just shoot them all when we got here. Drones, we’re clear. Ope
n fire.

  Nano-launcher shells from the drones exploded in the air above the figures. A black, glittering mist formed and descended. The screaming began almost immediately. Then heads started exploding as the machine guns on the buggies opened up. They tore about at high speed, orbiting what had become a kill box.

  Koirala: Cease fire.

  Buggy Two: Sixty two hostiles still alive.

  Koirala: The nano-cloud has them. Let them scream.

  And scream they did.

  Jahandar: What the Hell? Just finish them!

  Koirala: No!

  The screams went on for one long, long, minute. Two minutes after that, the kill box in front of the village was filled with dark, oily, pools. They fizzed quietly; bones and weapons sank into them, melting.

  Koirala: Buggies, come in close and see if you can draw fire from anyone who still feels brave. Everyone else, cover us.

  The buggies roared in and buzzed the village. One even entered and drove around inside. It drew no fire.

  Buggy One: No hostiles within. Life signs detected.

  Koirala: Keep an eye on them. Jahandar, with me.

  We walked into the village.

  While it was a shanty settlement at best, the paths were clean and orderly. There were markings on each building, I recognized them from our briefing downloads: Calamari street numbers. There were some vehicles here, rugged pickups and open top buggies for the most part, solid rubber wheels all running on biodiesel. I passed a couple mounted with Calamari heavy weapons. One of them was anti-air. I marked them for deletion and kept moving. Once it drifted over, the nanotech fog would dissolve them.

  A heat pattern appeared behind a corner, warm and human – but too small. It came scurrying out and stood in the middle of the street. It was a small boy, perhaps nine or ten, his head shaved and wearing a rude, brown tunic.

  I deactivated my cloak. He yelped, his eyes wide as saucers.

  Koirala: Jahandar! Get your cloak back up, now!

  I lifted up my blast visor and smiled across eighty years.

  “Hey there kid. You should go inside. It’s not safe out here.”

  His eyes became fierce slits and he held up his hand at me, middle finger extended, our truest racial memory.

  I frowned. “Well that’s not very nice.”

  And then he exploded, killing me.

  Diamond II

  I came up for air, spluttering water. Looking down unsmiling from the poolside, was now-Commodore Cullins. I splashed him: he looked far too serious. I can’t be arsed dealing with people too serious, while I’m butt naked.

  “Dude. This ship has a pool.”

  “So I mentioned,” said Cullins, his tone cool. He held out my towel. “I also mentioned an emergency meeting called by Sun Tzu - commander of the Union Expeditionary fleet. You may have heard of him? He’s your client.”

  “Uhuh.”

  “Why did you miss the meeting?”

  “Because Sun Tzu is a liar, and I’d have punched him in his android face.”

  “What?”

  “You heard me,” I climbed out and took the towel. “He’s playing a game.”

  “That’s quite an accusation.”

  “I requested all the D-Day mission data from Special Operations Command. Eighty percent of Direct Action missions have been raids on enemy computer centers, or old Transcendent cores. Fifty percent of Support’s missions, were held in conjunction. Sixty percent of Recon’s missions were to scope out these locations. These are the best ground troops in the entire Union, and look at what they were being used for.”

  “So? They were Command and Control assets. The aliens could easily salvage destroyed Transcendents for processing power, or keep them alive and coerce them. There’s nothing odd about going after C&C.”

  “And C&C is mostly what they were – like the burned out, wiped, zombie-brain that Colonel Koirala’s team just found at the Sarasvati campus. This is what was expected for the most part, yes? Regular, C&C centers?”

  “Yes. Where are you going with this?”

  “Gerard, if it’s what we expected to find, then why did he convene an emergency meeting? What’s the emergency? What was so unexpected?”

  “What was the emergency? You do know that it’s other humans who are shooting at us down there?”

  “What did he talk more about? That, or that we’ve failed to find the enemy’s main headquarters?”

  Gerard was quiet for a moment.

  “How did you know that? And yes, not knowing where the enemy’s central command is, is an emergency.”

  “Really? What armies is this central command going to throw at us? What navies are going to launch from what shipyards? The enemy has been annihilated. All we need their central command to do, is sign off on their own defeat. There is no emergency.”

  He pondered that a moment.

  “Unless,” I fastened my gun-belt, “unless of course, there is. He’s a Transcendent being. He’s not going to panic over nothing – that’s a human, emotional response. Sun Tzu will only act on data. He’s called an emergency, because his data tells him that he is threatened. Only another Transcendent could threaten him. And it must be staring at him in the face.”

  Gerard said nothing.

  “Gerard, you need to realize that nothing about this ship’s mission, makes any sense.”

  “Nothing? Like what?”

  “Like why would a god turn to ants – to find another god? What can Doctor Jovanka possibly offer him? Why task a whole capital ship with ‘trying to solve the problem from a different angle?’” And no offense, having you here, makes the least sense. He gives you a senior command because, a century ago, you got into a deep space nuke fight with the bad guys. How does that matter, today?”

  “We can’t really understand the motives of a Transcendent mind, Jack. These are all perfectly good, out of the box solutions that cover multiple bases. They make perfect sense to me.”

  “We can’t keep saying ‘oh, but how does a god-mind work, anyhow?’ whenever they do something that we don’t understand.” I pulled on my clothes. “How’s this for an answer instead – Sun Tzu is desperate.”

  “Desperate?” he smirked.

  “These measures you call ‘out of the box solutions?’ I call, grabbing at straws. Desperation is the point where you try anything and everything, no matter how ridiculous.”

  “No,” he shook his head, “You’re confusing actual foreknowledge with the predictions of theory. Doctor Jovanka also believes there is a Xeno-Transcendent here. He believes it so strongly; it could be an article of faith for him. He says it’s impossible for it not to be here. But this is not based on knowledge – it’s simply a prediction of theory. Sun Tzu is no different.” He stabbed his finger at me, “Why do you think it odd, that a researcher into Transcendents – and a Transcendent researcher – both expect to find such beings here? Early European anthropologists thought there were no ancient tool-users in Africa. They had expected to find flint tools – so they didn’t recognize the quartz ones, lying all around them.”

  “Sun Tzu didn’t call an emergency meeting of the UEF’s top echelons, because of the predictions of theory. During the Tennyson war, do you remember how timid he was? He kept avoiding confrontation with the main alien fleet.”

  “He was analyzing them. They outnumbered us massively, and the Independents were waffling about committing military aid.”

  “It went on for weeks. Then, as casualties climbed and the public started to panic, he turned around and won the war - in days. Isn’t that timing convenient? Also, the Independents finally dispatched their ships – but he didn’t wait for them. What commander acts without an ally, unless he’s certain he won’t need them?”

  “Where are you going with this?”

  “He held off destroying the alien fleet till the last possible moment, because he was trying to make contact with their Transcendent. He already knew it was there. Can you imagine what a prize peaceful contact would have
been? Now consider this campaign. Look at the resources expended already, on finding a Xeno-Transcdent. Look at all the desperate straws he’s grabbing. Do you think he’d do that, without strong data?”

  He had a faraway look in his eyes. His face became hard. “I want you to keep all this to yourself.”

  “Even from Jovanka?”

  “Especially from Jovanka.”

  “You still want to be involved in all this? You’re fighting two Transcendents now.”

  He said nothing, and left.

  Koirala II

  The cloudbank broke and parted and the planet carrier Washington tore through. It left a wake of spinning, boiling, anger. Tornadoes would follow within hours but the planet carrier would be long gone by then.

  In the desert below, the sun was shut out and early twilight came. Insects crawled under dead leaves and lizards flitted into their burrows. A group of nomads driving black-smoking rigs watched as the vessel orbited. One lowered his dust mask and hood to make the proper curses. His only weapon left was defiance.

  Fifty thousand feet in the air, Commodore Gerard Cullins watched the man. Static waves scratched across the screen. Even so, Cullins could make out the anger in the man’s face. A man who never asked to be liberated.

  He poured himself a measure of whiskey. The heavy, clear glass was made from meteoritic crystal. He sipped it neat: whiskey always tasted better when drinking alone. His bed was immaculate. The black covers folded back, the white sheets smooth as an iced pond. His table was printouts, touch pads, and holo screens he never minimized. There was a cleared patch for his head when he nodded off. In a corner was a framed picture of an ice-haired woman. She had traded beauty for gravitas, her smile was accusation and disappointment.

  “Commodore?” a voice on speaker.

  “Go ahead Private.”

  “Colonel Koirala is here to see you Sir.”

  “Let her in.”

  The door opened. A marine guard stepped aside and a small made figure walked in.

  “At ease Colonel.”

  “You wanted to see me Sir?”