Origins

by Jamie Sawyer

  “Get an extinguisher over here!” a trooper said. “She’s on fire!”

  Just then, a pistol began to discharge from the mob. Rounds spanked off the defensive barriers. Soldiers began to return fire.

  “Get your shit together, troopers,” I yelled. Not just at the Legion; at anyone manning the defences. “We’re getting into that elevator.”

  “Go, go, go!” Baker shouted. “My Boys’ll hold the fort. We’ll take the next cart up!”

  Baker began to randomly fire his sidearm at the crowd, slamming another clip into the feeder when the first was empty. The soldiers around him didn’t move either, instead braved the hail of incoming small-arms fire. Too many of them were already dead or dying. It was only a matter of time before the indigs broke through the cordon.

  The Directorate would know where we were going now. Alicia Malika’s sim was dead, but once the neural-link was broken the Shanghai Remembered would know that we were going up the Spine. They might even have been monitoring her, watching her feeds via a simulator somewhere. I swept the sea of angry faces; wondered how long it would be before the Directorate sent more copies of the Warfighters after us…

  “Just go!” Baker said.

  The Legion and Ostrow backed towards the open elevator door. Another home-made explosive hit the Spine, more fire pouring over the barricade. The crowd dragged a trooper across the divide – he disappeared, flailing and shouting.

  The elevator cart was heavily armoured, and nothing the indigs had done so far was capable of disrupting the machine. The interior looked a lot like a starship cargo deck. Sealed metal crates sat on the apron, in a state of organised disarray.

  “Get this cart moving,” I ordered.

  Somewhere along the way, although in my current state I couldn’t say when, I’d picked up a carbine again. Jenkins and I took up positions behind the crates. Picked off targets as some made a run for the doors, bodies splitting with red light. Kaminski did the same, firing with a handgun. Saul huddled behind a crate, covering his ears.

  “Control panel…” Ostrow groaned. “Need… my clearance…”

  “Do it!” I said.

  Ostrow punched keys on the control panel, pushed his hand onto the DNA scanner. The cart lights began to flash amber, cycling in sequence. The enormous pneumatic blast doors rolled into position; years-old gears grinding as they did. More gunfire plinked against the armour-glass. The chanting reached a crescendo outside – so many voices, so disparate, that I couldn’t even make out what the protest was about any more.

  The doors slammed shut – finally – with a thunderous boom, and the cart vibrated as it mounted the magnetic rail. Inside, everything sounded muted: the ring of gunfire far away. Another improvised explosion chased us and hit the outer hull, but the elevator commenced its ascent.

  I crept out from behind the crate. The cart was moving towards the upper dome, where it would enter a lock and then continue out into space. From where I crouched, I could look down on the battle below. Despite myself I involuntarily exhaled.

  “Is it bad?” Jenkins asked, still hiding.

  “It’s bad,” I said. “Really bad.”

  The dome was filled with civilians, all storming the barricades. Not just those looking for safe passage off Calico, either: now armed gangs, the groups we’d seen roaming the vandalised corridors. They had weapons – from improvised laser drills, through to carbines and pistols. It looked like some of the military armouries had been plundered.

  “Baker isn’t coming after us,” Jenkins said. She spoke the words as a statement, not a question. “None of them are.”

  I nodded. “I… I think we’re all that’s left.”

  Ostrow gasped for breath. He lay slumped against the control panel. Martinez put his hand on Ostrow’s shoulder. He made a horrible noise at the back of his throat, but waved Martinez away when he went to prop him up. His tanned complexion had gone grey as Calico’s plains.

  “We’ll get you to the Colossus—” I said.

  “I’ve shut down the other elevators,” Ostrow interrupted, speaking fast, like he didn’t know whether each word would be his last. “No one else is coming.” Both hands were suddenly on his chest, wrapped around the black box. “You need to get to the sh… ship, with this data…”

  “Rest,” Martinez said. “Just take it easy for a moment.”

  “I can’t rest!” Ostrow barked. “And neither can the Legion. You need to do this, for all of our sakes.”

  “All right, mano,” Martinez nodded.

  The cart continued its progress, through the lock in the upper dome, and we danced between the gravity wells generated by the main base and the docks. Space opened above, Calico below. The entire outpost looked as though it had been under attack. Lights flashed and winked. Domes were breached. Some structures were blackened.

  Above us was the orbital dock, the skeletal scaffold encasing several Alliance starships. Safety lights still flashed on the extremities of the mooring spars, warning pilots of the danger of getting too close. The Colossus was the biggest ship, but was in a state of repair. Large sections of hull plating had been removed, and the remainder was covered in robot maintenance teams like insects on shit.

  “I can see her…” Kaminski muttered under his breath.

  He wasn’t talking about the Colossus: the Shanghai Remembered was coming into view. Martinez crossed himself, muttered a prayer under his breath. I even heard Saul – previously quiet, too stunned to say or do anything else – inhale sharply. Directorate warships had that effect on people, and especially ships as old and venerable as the Shanghai. She hung in low orbit, moored so that she could oversee the destruction of Calico, just as deadly as I remembered her. Whereas in Damascus she had employed stealth – had been reining in her firepower – here she unleashed it in all her hellish fury. An armour-plated destroyer class, her hull flashed with laser batteries, discharging death into the void. There were Alliance ships around her in pieces.

  “There goes the Navy,” Jenkins said, matter-of-factly.

  The Shanghai wasn’t alone. Three more ships of the same pattern lingered in near-space, in the same orbit. A swarm of T-89 Interceptors and Z-5 Wraith attack ships were disengaging from the main Directorate fleet, descending on Calico Base.

  We crossed beneath the shadow of the Shanghai, like a minnow beneath a shark, and made good our approach to the waiting Colossus.

  “Weapons at the ready,” I said. Nodded towards the cart bulkhead. “We don’t know what will be on the other side of that door. Mason and Martinez, help Ostrow. Jenkins and I will cover the door.”

  The Legion rumbled agreement and got ready to move.

  The engine chugged as it docked, and the cart slid into position. The amber strobe began to flash again, control panel chiming.

  “Protect Kaminski, Ostrow and Saul,” I said to Jenkins. I braced against the exit bulkhead and prepared to open it. “You ready for this?”

  “Looks like it,” Jenkins said. Her weapon was primed and trained on the door like it had personally offended her. “Just give me a target.”

  “On my mark…” I said.

  As I dropped my hand, the bulkhead opened.

  The Spine terminated in a main dock. It was a vast, worklike space, caught in semi-dark, lit by the occasional LED overhead lamp and an observation window at one end of the hangar. Scores of airlock-style doors provided direct access to the ships in port. Because so many workers were stationed here, the docks had their own gravity generator. That made for better battlefield conditions, if the docks turned out to be hot.

  I battle-signed to Jenkins, and took up a spot behind a stack of crates. She nodded and followed suit on the opposite flank. Our carbines were trained on the hangar.

  At the other end of the dock, beneath the sign that declared DOCK THREE: UAS COLOSSUS, I saw movement. Flashes of blue uniform were visible at this distance. Navy crew.

  “Harris? That you?”

  Admiral Joseph Loeb poked his h
ead around the engine nacelle of a transport shuttle. He was clutching a pistol in an entirely unconvincing fashion, his cap pushed back on his head and sweat pouring down his face.

  “It’s me,” I said. To Jenkins: “Stand down.”

  “What the hell is he doing here?” she asked.

  Loeb grimaced and shook his head. From all around him – stowed in the shuttle cargo bays, behind crates, wherever else there was to hide – Navy crewmen and maintenance teams appeared.

  “He’s your captain,” Ostrow groaned from behind us. “And you need to move. Are the pilots here?”

  “I am.”

  James emerged from the group. He looked barely ruffled by what had happened; had obviously been up in the orbital docks the whole time. Aviator-helmet in the crook of his arm, he flashed a white-toothed grin at Jenkins.

  I knew that she wouldn’t be happy with the idea of going aboard the Colossus with James and Loeb, but she was a soldier first and foremost. Before she could argue, I said, “We don’t have a choice.”

  She nodded with dour resolve. “Understood.”

  “These were the only officers that I could trust,” Ostrow said. “I knew that the Directorate hadn’t got to them.”

  Of James, I asked: “Your real body aboard the Colossus?”

  “Sure is,” James said. “Otherwise I’d be leaving it behind, and can’t have that…”

  “Where’s the rest of Scorpio Squadron?”

  “Coming up the Spine,” James said, frowning. “You didn’t see to them…”

  “They’re gone,” Ostrow said.

  “Hang on!” James insisted. “If my squad are down there, we can’t leave them—”

  Ostrow began an unpleasant-sounding cough. Sounded a lot like he’d dislodged something inside of him, and it wasn’t a good something. “I’m not going through this again. They’re dead: everyone is dead.”

  Still clutching the case, he stumbled at half-steam towards the dock, the Legion and the Navy crew in tow.

  “Code red,” the ship-wide address system demanded. “Repeat: this is code red. All hands to battlestations.”

  I hadn’t expected the sudden and visceral emotional response that I felt as I stepped aboard the Colossus. The memories that I associated with the vessel were like caged demons – desperate to get out, to drag me back to what had happened here. They rattled at their bars as I stalked the corridors. I ground my teeth, locked the gate: fought to remain in the now. As I looked down the empty corridors, I could hear the voices of the invading Directorate Swords – could see their dark shapes lingering at the edge of my vision like ghosts.

  If being aboard the ship was having any effect on Loeb or James, neither of them were showing it.

  “CIC is this way!” Loeb yelled, taking off down a corridor. He broke a security tape that had been strung over a junction; hustled the rest of us onwards.

  “Will he even be able to fly this thing?” Jenkins queried. “He’s awaiting trial for negligence.”

  “Court-martial,” Loeb corrected. “And nothing has been proven yet.”

  “Ostrow isn’t looking good,” Martinez said. “He needs medical assist, immediate.”

  The Mili-Intel officer was strung between Mason and Martinez, in a semi-conscious state. His glasses had been lost at some point during the evacuation, but both of his hands were still wrapped very tightly around the black box, making it even more difficult for the Legion to support him. I didn’t say it, but I suspected that Ostrow didn’t have long, and I doubted whether there was much that we could do to help him.

  Loeb waved at an officer. “Lieutenant Allaji, get that man down to Medical.”

  Allaji nodded, gathered another sailor with him, and took over the duty. As Ostrow was transferred between crew, he suddenly jerked awake. His eyes were wild, unfocused, and the abrupt activity sent a wave of pain across his face. The sailors quickly vanished with the injured man.

  “He isn’t going to make it,” I said, under my breath.

  “I didn’t think that you even liked the guy,” Jenkins asked.

  “Doesn’t mean that I want him to buy the farm,” I said. “Not here, not like this.”

  Crewmen scattered in our wake. Loeb fired off orders at everyone we passed, from engineers to a handful of Marines that Command had stationed as a garrison.

  “Get our systems warmed up for activation. But do not – repeat not – initiate drive boot. Keep the mainframe AI off-line until I give the order.”

  Despite his predicament, no one challenged him.

  “Aye, sir,” I heard his comm crackle.

  “Loeb out.”

  We hit the command intelligence centre at pace.

  Just as the rest of the ship had been refitted, so too had the CIC. It was crammed with glowing consoles, with new scanner-units and weapons stations. The lower workpit – where the tactical holo-display was situated – was criss-crossed with gantries and suspended observation pods, making for a hectic and complicated working environment. The blast-shutters were open, and the tactical display hummed with a holo of near-space. Twenty or so officers were at stations, powering up what little tech would not be detected by the Directorate fleet.

  “Get my command throne ready, now!” Loeb said.

  “Aye, Admiral,” a young-faced Naval woman replied. The command throne had been shrouded in a plastic sheet; the guts of Loeb’s personal scanner-suite opened beside him.

  “Do you want the scanner running passive, sir?”

  “Of course I do!” Loeb said, settling into his throne. Someone offered him jacks to his data-ports, and he slammed them into his forearms. “Let’s see what we’ve got… Get the weapons systems booted, but all modules are to remain on passive. Nothing that might let that bitch see that we’re powering up.”

  James and the Legion chose posts around the CIC. Saul was silent, and took up a seat at the rear of the centre. There was more than enough space.

  “We have a helmsman and a navigator, sir,” an officer said. “The bridge is ready to go online.”

  “And now we have weapons…” Martinez said. He’d taken one of the weapons pods at the nose of the vessel; it hummed as the pod elevated inside the crew-pit. “I have the Shanghai in my sights, but I won’t remember her.”

  “Don’t fire!” Loeb barked. “Any of our weapons go active, and the Shanghai will read our identification codes and energy signature. She’ll know that we’re out here.”

  “How long until the Colossus’ engines are operational?” I asked.

  “Three minutes,” Loeb said. He waved at the workpit, to any crewman who was listening. “Recall all robot engineers and anyone on the outside of my ship—”

  The communicator beside me washed with air-traffic from surrounding space. “Broken knife,” an operator said. “Repeat: broken knife.”

  “What’s that supposed to mean?” I asked, exasperated.

  “It’s the code word for general retreat,” Loeb said. “It means that we’ve lost.”

  Already, ships in near-space were breaking orbit, pulling away from Calico, leaving multi-coloured smears of light on the blackness of space. Activating FTL drives. Far below, Calico Base was being consumed by a carpet of warheads. The collected, focused firepower of the Asiatic fleet was unstoppable. Intense white explosions claimed the precarious towers. Hab-domes lay open to the void. The mine shafts were collapsing in on themselves, consumed by the dust-plains of Calico.

  “God have mercy on their souls,” Martinez said. “Gracia de dios.”

  “I… I can’t get the remote docking claws open,” an officer said. “I’m getting a systems error. I need to make a link with Calico Space Control for permission.”

  “No way,” Loeb said. “We’ll have to pull away with them attached. It’ll do wonders for our hull plating, but it’s a damned sight better than getting hit by a Directorate warhead.”

  “Null-shield is ready for activation,” an officer said. “On your order, Admiral. The engine and thrust c
ontrol will be two minutes and counting.”

  Loeb nodded. “Raise the shield.”

  This was it: the gamble. With the shield up, I seriously doubted that the Asiatic fleet would be able to ignore us.

  “Raising.”

  Space outside rippled. The effect was just at the edge of my perception; a blue tint against the black. Something – probably a piece of debris thrown by the engagement between the Alliance and Directorate – hit the shield. It sparked brightly, marking successful activation.

  “Thrust control is going to helm!” Mason yelled. The excitement in her voice was barely containable. “We’re going to make this—”

  “What are we going to do?” Kaminski asked. “We can’t use the Q-drive in-system.”

  He was right; using the quantum-drive technology that allowed us to compress space and time wouldn’t be possible in the gravity well of a local star or world.

  “We’ll use the faster-than-light drive,” Loeb declared. “Pull away at full thrust, and hit maximum velocity. That’ll get us out-system, and away from here.”

  “Good enough,” Kaminski shrugged.

  Outside, a stray Interceptor approached us. The frag wounds on my back throbbed in time with my pulse, willing the far smaller ship to just fuck off! Martinez was antsy, and I could see his holographic suddenly snapping to focus on the Interceptor.

  “I could take it…” he said.

  “You want to do the honours?” Loeb asked me. He flipped open the manual control unit on his command station. It housed an archaic but symbolic red button labelled SYSTEM BOOT. There was, no doubt, a good deal more to it than just pressing a button, but nothing felt quite so definite as pushing a DNA-encoded control.

  I reached over, watched the incoming Interceptor – framed perfectly by her bigger sisters, the Shanghai and the rest of the Directorate fleet – and rested a finger on the button.

  “Going online,” I said.

  I pressed the button.

  “We have helm control.”

  “Patching to bridge.”

  “Activating inertial dampeners, internal and external.”

  “Engine is online. Thrust control ready.”