That was the start of three frustrating days crisscrossing the forest, more than enough time for Alice to wonder whether the whole idea was a stupid mistake. All of this extra walking was burning calories that, unlike working in the fields, did not promise any return on the investment. She was within perhaps an hour of giving up when a shout came from the far end of their search line.
“I’ve found it!”
“Are you sure?” she shouted back.
“Oh, yeah!”
I just hope it hasn’t got stuck up a tree, she thought as she made her way in the direction of the voice.
On that count at least, she wasn’t disappointed. The pod was much larger than the drop pods she’d seen before. Over seven metres wide, it appeared to have landed on and pulverised one tree on the way down. The red and white parachute had snagged on another tree and it was that splash of colour, which had helped Brahimi find it. As William had said, it was clearly human, confirmed by Brahimi as they gathered around, pointing mutely at the lettering on its side.
“Oh God, it’s from Baden Station!” Alice breathed.
“How the hell can it be here?” one of the women asked.
“These things don’t have jump drives, Sue,” said Brahimi. “It must have spent the last eighteen months in real space getting here.”
They all stared up at this symbol of defeat. The great space station of Baden and the fleet that called it home, had been Landfall’s outer defence. An invisible bulwark that the inhabitants of the planet had mostly never thought about, they’d simply expected that Baden would always be there. But the Nameless swept it aside in less than two hours and that had been the start of the train of events that had led them here, hiding in the untamed and barely charted wilds of a world in which they had once been masters. Alice felt sick. Despite herself, she’d hoped the object would be something positive and new, a sign that somehow things were about to change for the better. It had been a foolish hope. Instead, all they had found was a distant echo from a golden past.
“Well, let’s crack it open and see what or who is in there,” she eventually said. “Then get on our way again.”
The impact of landing had bent flat most of the metal ladder up to the hatch, so it took a certain amount of scrambling to get up to it. Once there though, opening it was simple, as in spite of their name, airlocks didn’t actually have locks. There was a hiss as the pressure equalised before the hatch swung inwards and Alice half scrambled, half fell into the pod. It was dark and there was a kind of deep cold that suggested the interior had been frozen for a long time. She shivered and stepped closer to the hatch, where warmer air was flowing in.
“What have we got, Boss?” someone called as Sue scrambled up after her.
“Good question,” she replied looking around. There were twelve capsules lining the curved walls. Nine of them stood empty, three were closed and small lights glowed. Rubbing at the frosted glass she peered into one of the capsules. Inside was a man in fleet uniform. There was a control panel and she tapped the space bar, which brought up a display for the three capsules.
“One of them is dead,” she said grimly. “According to the computer, he or she died six months ago.”
“The other two?”
“Alive and in hibernation. Erm... if I’m understanding this, their condition is stable. I wonder how we wake them up?”
“I wonder should we?” asked Sue, “I mean they’re safe in there aren’t they?”
That was a good point, Alice thought to herself. She’d heard these pods could sustain people for several years and if she was reading the display right, the pod’s power reserves were well inside the green, even after months in space, suggesting that the capsules could keep the two men alive for years to come. So they could simply be left there. As she pondered the question, Brahimi levered himself up and in.
“Computers!” he exclaimed. “Come to me, my sweet digital children!”
“Brahimi, find out if we can open these,” Alice said before turning to look at them. “But don’t do anything until I say so.”
“Alright,” he replied. Then after a moment he added: “Hey, this thing is transmitting a distress beacon.”
“What!” Sue and Alice simultaneously exclaimed.
“No wait, the pod’s trying to transmit, but the aerial has been damaged. Nothing is going out.”
“Jesus, if you do that again I’ll slap you!” Sue admonished him.
“Switch it off,” Alice ordered. “Sue, find what we’ve got while I get this thing concealed.”
“Did you hear that?”
Alice paused as she reached up another branch to the man standing on top of the pod. They’d found a muddy puddle and dragged the parachute through to mute its colours, now they were using branches and whatever else they could get hold of to break up the profile. If a Nameless aircraft did cross overhead, she didn’t want them to have any reason to investigate the area.
“What did you …” Alice began.
She couldn’t say what it was. Maybe it was a voice, maybe it was the sound of steps. The detail didn’t matter, the cogent fact was it was an artificial sound. Sue and Brahimi were still inside the pod, the other four were all in sight.
“Pack it up, pack it up now!” Alice snapped as she scrabbled up the side of the pod and into the hatch. Inside, Sue had the pod’s inventory laid out on the floor.
“Well we’ve hit pay-dirt, boss,” Sue commented. The pod was designed for twelve and the supplies were extensive.
“Get it into a pack. You have one minute!”
“What?”
“We’re in trouble!”
From outside there was a scream.
Alice reached for her pistol.
“Get back,” she muttered as she chambered a round. “Both of you.”
There were raised voices.
“I know you’re in there,” a human voice said. “Come out please.”
There was a pause.
“We won’t harm you.”
Alice glanced at the others and pressed her finger to her lips.
“Please don’t hurt us! We’re not armed!” she called out, before slipping over beside the hatch.
She could just make out voices below, then after a moment came the sound of someone scrambling up to the hatch. A man pulled himself through, head first – then froze as Alice pressed her pistol to his temple.
“I’m not much of a shot,” she carefully advised him, “but at this range, I fancy my chances.”
“Easy now,” he said with equal care. “We’re not here to harm you.”
“That’s super. Who are you?”
“Lieutenant Martoma, Third Battalion, Battle Fleet Marines. We didn’t come here for you. We didn’t expect to meet you, in fact where did you come from?”
“I’m asking the questions,” Alice snapped back.
“Alright, can I come in, this is uncomfortable,” Martoma asked after a moment.
“Nice and easy.”
He glanced back outside.
“Corporal, it’s under control. Let’s keep this cool.”
Martoma levered himself up. Alice kept the pistol pressed to his head as they both stepped into the pod. He wasn’t wearing the reactive armour of a marine but the uniform, webbing and the rest of his equipment were the real deal.
“Brahimi, watch the hatch,” she said not taking her eyes off Martoma. “Sue, his gun.”
The Lieutenant lifted his hand as Sue took his pistol.
“Boss, there’s more of them, they’ve got guns!”
Alice glanced toward Brahimi. When she looked back, the Lieutenant was looking at her sleeve.
“You mind explaining to me, Corporal, why you are brandishing a weapon at a superior officer.”
Sue and Brahimi exchanged nervous looks.
“You can’t be marines, none got out of Douglas,” she said.
“We never got in,” he replied. “We thought everyone was evacuated to the shelters.”
�
�They were. Douglas Base fell and we got out,” Alice replied as she nervously adjusted her grip on the gun. “I was a corporal in the auxiliaries.”
“You obviously saw the pod come down and, like us, you investigated,” he replied. “This can’t be all of you though.”
“We’ve got…”
“Brahimi shut it!” Alice snapped.
“Okay, okay. I can see you don’t trust me, but let’s keep this calm. Maybe we’re not on the same side, but we’re certainly not on opposite sides,” Martoma said calmly. “And we can’t stay in here forever.” Glancing at the laid out supplies, he added: “Although we could clearly stay for a while.”
He wasn’t wrong. Whatever forces he had outside held four of hers and, the Lieutenant at gunpoint aside, she wasn’t in any kind of position of strength.
“Okay, here’s my offer. Tell your men to unload their weapons. We’ll share out the supplies and then go our separate ways. Agreed?”
Martoma’s eyes flicked from Alice to the other two.
“I think we have trust issues here.”
“No, I’m okay with not trusting you,” Alice bluntly replied.
“That leaves you with the only loaded gun.”
“Yes, but I don’t intend to start a fight. Do you?”
“All right, terms accepted.”
“Just as well you didn’t revive the two in the pods. Chemical Hibernation is a hell of an assault on the body and they’ll need serious medical attention when they come out. Better they stay in there for the time being,” Martoma said, making small talk as they divided the supplies. “Look, I don’t have the manpower or the orders to stop you if you’re determined to bug out.”
There had been only four marines including Martoma. They didn’t have the reactive armour the marines in the trenches of Douglas had used and their uniforms were worn but reasonably clean, all of which suggested to Alice that at the very least the unit’s discipline was holding steady.
“But we’ve been out here for a long time, fighting an insurgency where we can. At the very least my commander will want answers. If we’re it as far as humans on this planet are concerned, then we need to stick together.”
“No we don’t,” Alice replied. “Look Lieutenant, I appreciate this might be exciting for you, but we don’t need or want soldiers around. I’ve seen what happens when we try to stand and fight. We get flattened. Don’t think that just because I’m still wearing these,” she tapped the stripes on her sleeve, “that your orders carry any weight. The only military order I’ll follow is the last one I was given at Douglas – get my people out and keep them alive. Now, Lieutenant, it looks like everything is packed up. Those two in the pods are Battle Fleet personnel, so you can take responsibility for them. You can leave first.”
“So we can’t follow you.”
“That’s correct.”
Without a further word he walked away, shaking his head.
“Well, nice at least that we’re not the only ones left,” Sue said as they set out half an hour later.
“If that’s the last we see of them,” Alice replied, “I’ll eat my gun.”
She wasn’t wrong.
7th May 2068
“Corporal Peats, I presume,” a voice said unexpectedly from behind her as she weeded a row of banana patata.
Alice scrambled for her pistol as she spun round.
“I’m not armed, I am not armed!”
The man in a marine uniform had his hands raised. The holster at his hip was open and empty. He looked to be in his early forties. His blond hair and beard appeared to have been cut by an enthusiastic but unskilled barber, but other than that he was relatively neat. His accent suggested German or perhaps one of the Nordic countries and while his clothes were ragged, she could see he wore the standard battledress uniform of the fleet marines. And his insignia was that of a colonel.
“What part of your training suggested that was the best way to approach someone?” Alice said, heart hammering in her chest and her hand still on the pistol butt.
“A demonstration of good faith and perhaps a slightly misplaced sense of humour,” he replied. “I am Colonel Ernst Dautsch, Battle Fleet.”
“You found us.”
“Never lost you. One of Lieutenant Martoma’s men tracked you, then reported back to me.”
“Well, I was quite clear with him so you’ll know we’re not interested, unless you’re here to simply take what you want by force,” she replied. “Will I find the camp overrun?”
“The Lieutenant didn’t exaggerate when he said you have a negative view of us.”
“Not negative Colonel, pragmatic. When resources are tight, a man with a gun can simply take anything or anyone he wants. So what is it you want here, Colonel?”
“To link up with you.”
“Still not interested.” Reluctantly her hand dropped from the pistol butt. “But how are you out here?”
“We were among the troops that were to be dropped on Douglas Base as part of the Kite String convoy to Landfall. Unfortunately my shuttle was one of three that took hits on the way down. The pilot did well to get us down in one piece, but we overshot Douglas by a good one hundred and fifty kilometres. With all the confusion caused by the drop, it took the Nameless some time to realise some of us were out here – enough time for us to get clear of the crash sites.”
“I’m guessing you must have used Douglas’s back door to get you out. However, we didn’t have its exact position and if we were even spotted moving towards Douglas, it would have been a giveaway that some other way in existed. So we stayed out here to contribute in whatever way we could. When we stopped hearing radio transmissions from Douglas, we feared the worst. With you out here, it seems we were right.”
He paused for a moment before asking: “So how about it, Corporal? What’s your story?”
Reluctantly she ran through the siege and fall of Douglas, while Dautsch listened with a thoughtful expression.
“So, there are perhaps thousands of people out there. We’d assumed that the base was overrun and that few if any got out.”
“And most of them may have been subsequently hunted down in the open. I don’t know,” Alice replied with a shrug.
“And you decided to stop here and start farming?” he asked, looking around.
“We couldn’t keep getting by on hunter gathering. Too much of Landfall’s natural fauna has nothing in it the human digestive system will recognise as food.” Alice gestured to the field around them. “Banana patata might not taste very exciting, but it is nutritious. Of course, whether we’ll get a chance to harvest them is now open to doubt.”
When Dautsch raised an eyebrow, she continued.
“If you’re here then the Nameless will probably come and we’ll have to run.”
“Is that your plan? Run? Where do you see yourself in a year? In two years? In five? Ten? How long do you think you can survive by scavenging and trying to farm in the wilds, while avoiding the Nameless?”
“And what’s the alternative? Fight? I was at Douglas I saw how that went! As far as I know, we’re it. We are the human race.”
She brushed angrily at her eyes. He was silent for a moment then smiled slightly.
“It never crossed my mind,” Dautsch said finally, “that you’ve been out here with no contact with anyone else.”
“What do you mean?”
In her chest she could feel her heart begin to accelerate again.
“We’re not it. We are definitely not it. The Americans broke out from their shelter, although with how many we don’t know. But more importantly we’ve received transmissions from space. Courier ships have been making periodic passes through the system. We’ve received their transmissions but haven’t been able to respond – yet. Earth was attacked and they threw back the assault. Earth still stands. The rest of the human race is still out there.”
Alice felt her legs fold as she flopped down. The colonel stepped forward and she felt a water bottle being pressed
into her hand. That Earth, and everyone and everything she loved was gone, was the faceless dread she’d lived with all these months. With those few casual words, the emotions she’d bottled up for so long just overflowed.
“I’m sorry, it never occurred to me that you didn’t... couldn’t know the wider situation,” he said, as she composed herself.
“It doesn’t change anything,” she said through gritted teeth.
“It changes everything,” he replied as he sat down beside her. “It means there’s light at the end of the tunnel. A small, weak light certainly, but it’s there. You’ve kept your people alive and I’ve done the same for mine. And I’ve done it by not throwing their lives away on pointless military actions.”
“So what’s your plan, Colonel?”
“First and foremost, we stay on the board – hurt the Nameless where we can and keep our heads down where we can’t. There will be a liberation and I want us to live to see it.”
Chapter Eleven
Hell’s Mouth
My name is Mateusz Bielski. I am... rather I was, a citizen of the independent colony of Junction Station. I remember it started with a birthday...
Junction Station 27th July 2066
“Happy birthday to you! Happy birthday to you! Happy birthday dear Brand! Happy birthday to you!”
On the control deck of Junction Station, everyone cheered as Brand managed to blow out all twenty-one candles out in one try. Bielski even saw a smile on the face of Approach Controller Caple, as he put away the fire extinguisher he’d been holding. He’d disapproved of having naked flames on the Control Deck,
“Thank you everyone,” Brand said. “Consider this the warm-up for the main event. My place, twenty hundred hours, we’ll rattle this tin can!”
There was another cheer from the younger individuals and grimaces from a few of the older ones. Brand’s parties could get famously wild, which had got him up in front of the disciplinary board a couple of times. Brand winked at Caple.
The Last Charge (The Nameless War Trilogy Book 3) Page 20