Origins

by Jamie Sawyer

  Kaminski made a fast recovery. Hot food and Jenkins did wonders for his constitution, and over the days he became more and more like his old self, despite the metal in his head. Professor Saul remained bed-bound, but I had reports that he was conscious and lucid.

  As we entered Alliance space, we began to receive updates on the war. Virulent as the plague, scuttlebutt raged throughout the ship. The news wasn’t good: another two star systems purged by the Krell, and still they kept coming. Several new war-fleets had entered Alliance space in the last six weeks, and we’d lost three battlegroups across the old QZ. The Navy had taken a pounding at Askari and the latest prediction on reinforcements was another two years. Those were the real effects of time-dilation from the Core; the currently insurmountable realities of running an interstellar war.

  I returned to the Observation Deck on the approach, but found that it wasn’t as empty as I’d expected.

  “Morning.”

  There was the Legion, including Kaminski. He was even dressed in full uniform. Eyes glued to the long armour-glass window.

  “Morning, Legion,” I muttered. “I thought that this would be a good place for some privacy.”

  “You want us to go?” Mason asked.

  “No,” I said.

  I was suddenly glad of the Legion’s presence: their reassuring aura. I realised that I didn’t want to face Calico alone. Having Kaminski back, the team being together: it felt like old times. It felt good.

  “You know why they want to see you?” Jenkins said.

  “No, I don’t know why they want us,” I said. “It’s not just me: the Legion goes where I go.”

  “You think Ostrow knows?” Mason said.

  “I doubt he’d give me a straight answer even if I asked. I don’t trust spooks. Never have.”

  Below, Calico bloomed like an enormous grey flower. It had been growing steadily for the past day, larger and larger until it filled every view-port. The wave of memory that the world evoked irritated me.

  Post-Treaty Calico had enjoyed a period of relative calm, but corporate investments had never quite returned to pre-War levels. Ore seams had dried up and fortunes had waned. Nervous company men in their glass towers back in the Core had decided that Calico Base wasn’t such a safe bet any more. The result was Calico, 2284: a mess of half-abandoned mines and refineries, of haunted hab-domes and empty dom-blocks.

  “I’ve been here before,” I said, absently. “Ten years ago.”

  Watching her go: boarding the shuttle, leaving human space behind…

  Mason pulled an intrigued face. “Isn’t this where the Endeavour expedition was launched?”

  I saw Jenkins give her a determined frown, shaking her head not to go there. But Mason was always with the questions, and she wouldn’t be deterred.

  “Yes,” I said. “I was here when the ship launched.”

  “Must’ve been quite the occasion,” Mason said, with genuine interest.

  “It was. But Calico was very different then.”

  The resurgence of the Krell threat – what the media was now calling the Second Krell War – had, perversely, led to renewed interest in the outpost, but for all of the wrong reasons. The Krell had already destroyed several border systems, and that put an enormous strain on the resources available to Calico. As of now the place was experiencing a migrant crisis. Air, water, heat: those things were finite quantities in space. The population was crippling the outpost.

  “There must be something to enjoy down there,” Jenkins said.

  “Maybe the open air?” Mason suggested. Her tone was playful; sarcastic even. “The plant life?”

  I groaned. Calico Base had neither of those.

  “What would a Martian know about open air?” Jenkins said, frowning. “Your cities are almost as bad as Earth’s.”

  “Except they’re red,” Martinez said.

  “Let’s not get started on who has the best planet,” Mason said, backing away from the obs window. “Because we all know who will win that one…”

  Kaminski interrupted the conversation. “What’s that?” he asked, pointing to a structure in space.

  Calico’s orbital dock – a boxy conglomeration of workshops and hangar bays – was just visible at this distance. Several warships were either docked with the station, or moored in close proximity. The gathered fleet was substantial; comprised a variety of different starship patterns. The dock sat a few thousand klicks from the surface, tethered to Calico Base by a long metal girder that glinted in the muted starlight: a space elevator.

  “The Spine,” I said. “Locals were proud of it, once.”

  “That didn’t work out so well,” Mason said. “Whole thing is locked down, so I hear. Only military personnel and cargo can use it now.”

  “Not that,” Kaminski said. His face had grown pale, and I noticed that his hand was shaking as he pointed. “I mean the ship.”

  The UAS Colossus was moored at Calico Base, so big that she filled several berths in the orbital dock. She dwarfed all other ships, her profile and pattern unique.

  “I’d heard that she was here,” Jenkins said, with more than a hint of annoyance in her voice, “but nothing concrete…”

  “You need new sources,” Mason suggested.

  “When the great Keira Jenkins’ scuttlebutt is unreliable…” - Martinez sucked his teeth - “you know things are FUBAR.”

  It had been six months since any of us had seen the Colossus, and like Calico she had changed since we’d parted ways. We had been through a lot with the old warship. She had almost been put down in Damascus; had suffered debilitating interior and exterior damage. The injury to her left flank – a ripple in the ablative plate – had been enough to puncture one of the engine nacelles, and most of her essential sensor-suites had been critically damaged by the journey through the Shard Gate. I’d heard a rumour that her data-core and stacks – the thinking elements of her AI – had been seized by Science Division. They could refit her, repair her, but she wouldn’t be the same ship any more. And not without Admiral Loeb, I thought.

  “You okay?” Jenkins asked Kaminski.

  “All good,” he said. “It’s just… Kind of weird seeing her again.”

  The Independence’s shipboard PA chimed. “All hands, prepare for arrival at Calico Base. All hands, prepare for docking procedure.”

  I sighed, turned away from the obs window. “Come on, Legion. We better get down there.”

  “Has James arranged transport?” Mason asked.

  “Jesus, girl,” Jenkins said, rolling her eyes, “you want to wear that interest any more blatantly? Have some respect.”

  “Fuck you, Jenkins. I’m not interested in him; I’m only asking.”

  “We’re going down the Spine,” I said. “We can get a nice view of Calico Base on the way.”

  “This day just keeps getting better…” Jenkins moaned.

  The Legion were given priority disembarkation orders and the docking procedure went as smoothly as could be expected, considering that the space lanes around Calico were choked with starships. We didn’t ride alone – a dozen space jockeys from Scorpio Squadron took the cart down with us – but it was a nicer ride than for the rest of the Sim Ops teams. They were assigned to dropships, and subsequently parked in holding patterns in high orbit. Professor Saul and the other prisoners were being held aboard the Independence; they would be dropped to the surface once appropriate medical facilities had been secured. Captain Ostrow had stayed with them for the formal debriefing procedure, and I was glad to be temporarily rid of him.

  The Spine was a mutant tree searching for sunlight. An enormous structure erupting from Calico Base, metal vertebrae lined by a series of elevator carts: glass-sided, affording a panoramic view over Calico’s surface. The Lazarus Legion were sprawled across the insides of the cabin, variously lolling against bulkheads and padded drop-couches.

  “No weather, no sunlight, no nothing,” Jenkins added.

  “That’s not quite true,” Ma
son said. She was, tourist-like, pressed up against the armour-glass window: looking out at the approaching city. “They have Spiders.”

  Beyond the confines of the crater-base, there were small dark figures on Calico’s surface. At this distance they looked like spiders crawling on cheese but I knew that was just perspective playing a trick.

  “Those, my friends,” said Mason, “are Spider mechanised mining rigs – ‘MMRs’ for short.”

  “Check out New Girl,” Kaminski said. “She’s a regular bookworm.”

  The rigs were actually two or three times the height of a man, just as wide – massive, multi-limbed walking machines used to extract ore from surface seams. Except for the base itself, Calico had only micro-gravity, and the Spiders used their many legs to anchor themselves to the surface.

  “Creepy…” Martinez whispered. “I don’t like them much.”

  “Me neither,” I said.

  It so turned out that real spiders were regular survivors, having been transported to most corners of the galaxy by the human race. Arachnids existed in almost all human-friendly environs and stirred the same reaction in most varieties of humanity. As the cart glided towards the terminal, several of the Spiders paused and watched us go. Although I knew that there were men in there – that the mechs were nothing more than strength-amplifiers for the drivers inside – it was easy to believe that they were big arachnids. There were hordes of them, scraping the grey surface of Calico. They were equipped with paired lasers and other industrial operating tools, all mounted on the front of the machine under the cockpit – positioned so that they looked like an open maw. Lots of the machines had graffiti and other personalised logos on the outer hulls.

  “Three minutes to touchdown, sir,” Lieutenant James said.

  There were some sighs from the Scorpio Squadron as the elevator made descent. We were close enough to the surface now to see every detail of the base.

  “The hospitals have been busy,” Mason whispered.

  Vacuum-tents were pitched out on the grey. Huge red crosses – meant to be visible from space – marked most of the structures as infirmary domes. In the distance, just beyond the Alliance base proper, were the refugee camps: of a more haggard and mismatched nature, a patchwork of oxy-tents, shanties and temporary dwellings.

  “How many do you think there are down there?” Kaminski asked. His voice was low, sullen. He hadn’t been speaking much, I realised.

  “Millions,” Mason said, “at a guess.”

  Set on Calico’s frozen surface, they were maintained by temporary life-support facilities – leaching off the central heat-sink. Mobs wearing tattered vac-suits had gathered around the base of the military outpost.

  “This isn’t a nice place for a trooper,” James said, absently. “Even the Legion should watch itself down here.”

  “I’m not scared of your bullshit, James,” Jenkins said.

  “I’m not bullshitting you, California. Way I hear it this place is on the verge of civil war.”

  “I do not want to be around when this place goes off,” said another of Scorpio Squadron.

  James nodded along enthusiastically. “They’re saying that the Alliance governor, Tarik Al Kik, is a puppet of Congress. He’s trying to broker terms for an increased military garrison, but all the Workers’ Union want is better working conditions. That’s not easy when the life support is carrying twice the number of colonists this place was designed to hold.”

  “There was a riot in the industrial sector last month,” another pilot said. “The Workers’ Union holds a lot of power out here.”

  “You guys are worse gossips than Jenkins,” Martinez said.

  There were six million colonists on Calico, and about a million Alliance personnel. Those odds, if they ever became relevant, weren’t good.

  “This isn’t living,” I said. “This is surviving.”

  “Sometimes surviving is good enough,” Jenkins responded.

  “But fighting is better,” Kaminski said.

  The Legion fell quiet as the elevator commenced final descent.

  The base – a carpet of glowing lights – came up to meet us.

  The Spine ended in an enormous terminal; a space with the look and feel of a starport departure lounge. Concession stands lined the walls and glowing advertising holos dominated the domed ceiling, but things weren’t right down here. The departures and arrivals board displayed a single message: ALL CIVILIAN TRANSPORTS ARE SUSPENDED UNTIL FURTHER NOTICE. Columns of civilians – from their appearance, not indigenous to Calico – were lined up at the gates for processing.

  Kaminski looked daunted by the presence of so many people. Jenkins moved to his side, protectively, but he waved her off.

  “I’m good,” he said. That was his mantra: as though, if he said those words often enough, they might even become true.

  “Do you want us to call a transport to the military sector?” Mason asked. “I’m sure that we won’t have to push our way through this mob.”

  “No need,” Martinez said. “Someone leaked that we were coming.”

  There was a welcome party gathered at the gate: four young officers in Army fatigues, and a clutch of Sci-Div personnel with a grav-stretcher.

  “That’d be for you, ’Ski,” Martinez said.

  Kaminski shook his head. “Fucking science pukes.”

  “It is my pleasure to welcome you to Calico Base, sir,” said the lead Army officer, face beaming with pride. “Independence commed us with an update on the prisoner situation.”

  Another young aide cut in: “Five hundred soldiers, sir? They’re saying that it’s the biggest haul in military history, since hostilities with the Directorate commenced.”

  Jenkins sighed and activated her wrist-comp. She frowned as she read the news-cast, and waved it under my nose. LAZARUS LEGION RESCUES FIVE HUNDRED PRISONERS FROM DIRECTORATE PRISON, the headline read. Beneath, there were images of the Legion – all service shots that were years out of date. The story claimed that the Directorate prison had been bombed by the Alliance during a dawn raid, and that it had been declared incompatible with the Geneva Convention.

  “Baker isn’t going to be happy,” she said. “The Boys didn’t even get a mention.”

  “Baker is never happy,” I said.

  This was the Alliance propaganda machine in full effect, and whether we liked it or not the Lazarus Legion were a key weapon in Psych Ops’ armoury. Our names were known throughout Alliance and, increasingly, Directorate space.

  “Private Kaminski? Serial code 561892?” the aide asked, reverently, despite being several ranks above that which ’Ski had or ever would achieve. “I’d like to welcome you back to Alliance space. You are due a full medical evaluation; Science Officer Delores here will make you comfortable.”

  Kaminski grinned at the small brunette beside the stretcher. “Where I come from, that means something completely different…”

  Jenkins jabbed him in the ribs. “Quit it, Private.”

  “PFC Dejah Mason; you are also due a full assessment.”

  Mason rolled her eyes. “Can’t a trooper get a break?”

  The female science officer ignored her protest, and moved briskly on to me. “I have orders to see to your hand—”

  Simultaneously, all five of our wrist-comps chimed with updates as they linked to Calico Base’s mainframe.

  “Great,” Martinez said. “And this is why I prefer fieldwork…”

  A series of messages flowed across the small panel mounted on the stub of my left wrist. One update caught my eye, and cancelled out all of the others:

  *** REMAIN ON STATION ***

  ALL OTHER ORDERS ARE RESCINDED WITH IMMEDIATE EFFECT

  LAZARUS LEGION MUST BE READY FOR

  REASSIGNMENT AND DEPLOYMENT

  “You just get the same message?” Jenkins asked me.

  “Yeah,” I said. “Real cryptic.”

  “Even me…” Kaminski added.

  “You’re still Legion,” Jenkins said.


  “Let’s get moving,” the lead aide interrupted. “If you will all just follow me—”

  An MP grunt broke the line and approached the Legion.

  “Welcome to Calico Base, Legion,” he said, going to salute. “Please submit to security procedures.”

  “It’s fine,” the aide said. “The Lazarus Legion doesn’t need to be checked.”

  There were several Mili-Pol on the clearance gate, all armed with short-pattern carbines – security-issue models, M400 kinetics. A couple started to deploy handheld scanners, sweeping the new arrivals.

  “Standing orders, ma’am,” the MP said. “All incoming personnel to Calico Base have to be checked.”

  “Check us,” Jenkins said in support. “And make sure that you check everyone coming in, whether they want to be or not.”

  The aide looked hurt as the security detail ran their checks; scanning us and our luggage with negative results.

  “You need more dogs,” Jenkins muttered, under her breath. “You can never have enough dogs.”

  An assortment of combat dogs – big, ugly bastards with bionics grafted to their skulls – milled around the terminal. They occasionally stopped to sniff the air; circled around us but took no particular interest. Science Division had found, as a result of our mission in Damascus, that dogs were able to differentiate simulants from real skins. The exact science wasn’t yet known, but so far this was the quickest way to detect next-gen and combat-sims.

  Just then, James clambered down from the elevator cart.

  “Steady!” I shouted. “He’s skinned!”

  The dogs went berserk: mouths wide and slathering, eyes glossy with rage. Their MP handlers fought to hold them on heavy chain leashes. I was surprised by the vigour of their reaction.

  “Aerospace Force Sim Ops,” James said, pointing out his shoulder patch. The rest of Scorpio did the same.