Origins

by Jamie Sawyer

  “I don’t have any answers,” Saul said.

  “How can anyone answer that?” Elena said, her small shoulders sagging.

  Saul nodded. “Whatever Command and Sci-Div thought they could achieve with this thing…” He gave a dry swallow. “They were wrong.”

  “What’s it doing?” Mason asked.

  “Always with the questions…” Jenkins muttered.

  “It’ll reap that planet,” Elena said, flatly. “It’ll scour Devonia until only the Artefact remains, and then it’ll do what all living things do: replicate.”

  Professor Saul nodded, knowingly. “Yes, yes. I expect that the Creep, as Corporal Martinez calls it, will become rampant. The contagion, for want of a better word, will consume all bio-matter on the surface: tip the atmosphere into an unstoppable spiral of decline.”

  “How long do we have?” Mason asked. “Until the, ah, end.”

  “Days? Hours?” Elena said, noncommittally. “Maybe less.”

  “Enough time to make peace with our maker,” said Martinez.

  “The Krell will be dead,” Jenkins said, with no pleasure whatsoever. “But so will we.”

  “We tried,” Kaminski said. He shook his head, exhaling slowly. “This is the end, my friends. The end.”

  Beyond the view-port, the Revenant fired dark lances of energy across space. A Krell orbital-station – tiny alongside the enormous machine-ship – exploded, caught a wing of Needlers in the blast-wave. When multiple Krell ships launched at the Shard vessel, it responded with just as many lance weapons, gun-turrets forming from its hull. There seemed to be no end to the machine’s capabilities.

  “We should bug out…” Mason offered.

  That’s just surviving, I thought, as I looked at Elena. And it’s never going to be enough. She grasped my trembling hands. The shadow of fear lurked behind her eyes. It struck me that it was the first time I’d seen Elena genuinely afraid since we’d come to Devonia.

  I can’t let her die out here.

  “We have to end this,” I said. “We have to stop that ship from leaving Devonia.”

  “That’s great and all,” Kaminski said, “but based on what I’ve just seen there’s no way that we can get off this ship, let alone deal with the Shard…”

  The communicator beside Kaminski flashed with signals; emitted a primitive beeping.

  “What’s that?” I asked.

  Admiral Loeb tossed his head dismissively towards the comms officer in the crew-pit. “It’s the damned Directorate. They’ve been sending us an SOS signal since… well, since Kyung bought it.”

  Just then, the shattered remains of the Shanghai Remembered glided across both the tactical display and the observation window: a broken black hulk of a warship, her running lights flashing red to signal an emergency. Her hull had been breached in numerous places, with extensive new damage. She had discharged most of her evac-pods.

  “They must’ve been desperate, if they think being lost out here is any better than staying on-ship,” Kaminski said. “I’ve already been there.”

  “Kyung was slaved to the Shanghai,” I said. “But whatever happened to her…”

  “That ship is operational,” Elena completed. “The engine is still hot.”

  Someone, or something, was trying to correct the ship’s course vector; to stabilise her orbit. It was a hopeless and extremely optimistic manoeuvre – the Shanghai was going down, no matter what – but the corrections were delaying the inevitable. The ship’s thrusters fired irregularly even as we watched.

  Loeb glared at me. His old eyes shone with something dangerous.

  Hope.

  “If Kyung is dead, or neutralised,” he said, “her ship will be especially vulnerable. The officers are probably slaved and there will still be crew on board…” He shrugged, as though unwilling to accept responsibility for the plan. “Her engines are working. Your call, Lazarus, but in our current circumstances the Shanghai’s energy core is the biggest weapon we have at our disposal.”

  “What would the energy output on that thing be?” I said.

  “Planet-killer,” Loeb muttered, definitively. “Shard or otherwise: if the ship’s energy core breaches down on Devonia, everything will go with it.”

  “Artefact and all…” Jenkins said, under her breath. “You don’t run a whole planet without a pretty big power source, after all. And if that went up too…”

  We’d destroyed an Artefact on Helios with plasma warheads. The Shanghai Remembered was probably packed with nuclear and plasma munitions: that, combined with the energy core, would make it a sizeable explosives package.

  “What are you going to do?” Elena asked. “You can’t go back down there!”

  “I’d advise against it,” Dr Serova joined in. “In your state, I don’t know whether you’ll survive another extraction. I’ve never seen anything like those readings on your last—”

  I spoke over the doctor. “Is the second Dragonfly docked?”

  Lieutenant James emerged from the crowd. “Yes, Lazarus. She’s refuelled and ready to go.”

  “Back into the tanks?” Kaminski offered.

  “You got it,” I said.

  Elena followed me all the way. Clawing at my uniform, begging me to stop, telling me not to go. Not to leave her here, among the madness. Tears and realisation mingled across her delicate features. What else could I do? I had to end this. Had to do something to give Elena the life that she deserved.

  Back in the ravaged Simulant Operations Centre, medtechs rapidly jacked me into the tank. By the time I was hooked up, ready to make transition, Elena had calmed to a bitter acceptance.

  “I’ll be back,” I said. “I promise.”

  She bit her lip, clutched my naked shoulders. “I wish that I could believe you.”

  “Like you said: the Directorate will never leave us alone, not while the Shard are still out there. I can’t let this thing live.”

  “There has to be another way,” she said, repeating words that she had been screaming a few moments ago.

  “There isn’t. It has to die, has to be finished here.”

  Elena knew it, too: was just desperate to say anything to stop me from getting back into the tank. She pursed her lips and backed away, arms crossed over her chest, rubbing her elbows anxiously.

  “We ready to do this?” I asked.

  One by one, the Legion called in.

  I hooked up each data-cable in turn, fresh blood whipping about me as it polluted the amniotic. Every muscle and bone, fibre and atom of my body was aching – singing with injuries of two hundred and thirty-nine simulated deaths.

  I always knew that you would get me in the end.

  The Dragonfly launched through space at maximum thrust. In the cramped passenger cab, the Legion were pinned to crash couches as we made hard-burn.

  “Transition confirmed,” I rumbled across the comm-link.

  “I hear you,” came back Elena’s voice, static-riddled, barely audible. “Admiral Loeb is here too.”

  “Elena…” I whispered. “I hadn’t expected you to be on the CIC.”

  “Special concession,” she said, voice brimming with emotion. “Admiral Loeb says that it’s the least he could do. How are things out there?”

  I watched the scene unfolding both on the tactical scanner-suite and in real-time via the Dragonfly’s view-ports.

  “Pretty bad,” I said. “The Revenant is destroying anything that comes near it. Although it could just be me… it looks like it’s getting bigger.”

  Helixes of dark matter – the Creep – spiralled from the surface of Devonia, extended like fragile space elevators to the Revenant in high orbit. The ship was literally sucking the world dry. The process was horrifyingly simple: a biomass to nano-mass conversion.

  “It’s not just you,” Elena said. “The ship is gaining mass, and fast. Admiral Loeb thinks that we’re still at a safe distance, but he doesn’t know for how long.”

  The vast, monolithic Revenant was rapidly in
creasing its territory, destroying Krell vessels that trespassed too close.

  “As it gains in size,” Elena said, her voice sounding painfully distant now, “it’ll begin to eradicate all threats within weapon-range.”

  “What are the range of its weapons?” I asked, rhetorically. “Tell Loeb to be ready to pull out. Tell him to leave as soon as the Shanghai crashes.”

  Elena gave a short intake of breath. Stifled a cry. “Yes.”

  “Not before, you hear me?” I said. “This is important. If the neural-link breaks too early, I can’t guarantee that the plan will work. We need to be sure.”

  “I know,” Elena said. “But it doesn’t mean that I have to like it.”

  “I might be okay,” I said. “I’ll probably be okay.”

  Elena gave a weak laugh. “We can hope.”

  “Don’t do anything to draw attention to the Colossus—” I urged.

  The comm-link degenerated into a hiss of white noise, and I angrily cut the connection.

  Across my HUD, green lights indicated a state of readiness for the Legion. All suits sealed for EVA, all weapons primed and ready.

  “Coming up on the Shanghai,” James declared. “She’s tracking us, but she isn’t firing.” He swallowed. “Not yet, at least.”

  “All-stop,” I ordered.

  James applied the grav-brake. The gunship slowed, sailed closer to the Directorate destroyer. The nearer we got, the more damage I noticed. I banished the creeping doubt that she wouldn’t be able to fly, that her drives were somehow compromised beyond operation.

  “Get buttoned up,” I said, “and open the rear access hatch.”

  “Solid copy,” James said. “You want me to remain on-station?”

  I shook my helmeted head. “Withdraw to the Colossus. This is a one-way ticket for us.”

  Kaminski stood from his crash couch, his boot-mags holding him upright in zero-G. He nodded at me, smiling like he really didn’t give a shit.

  “Game time, people,” he said.

  “On my mark.”

  “Ready when you are,” Jenkins said.

  From the rear of the Dragonfly, access ramp deployed, we fired our harpoon launchers. Left arms extended, aimed at the warship below us.

  The harpoons traced a bright arc across space, active charges firing, trailing cables from our battle-suits. Simultaneously, we thought-activated our thruster packs. In normal gravity, the pack gave enhanced mobility: in micro-G, we flew. Almost immediately, I found myself outside the gunship – chasing the harpoon as it traced an unstoppable course to the Shanghai.

  “Successful launch,” James said, over the comm-link. “You crazy bastards.”

  “We’re Legion,” Mason replied. “It’s what we do.”

  The Dragonfly’s engines fired, and it retreated back to the Colossus.

  Comet-like I sliced through the heavens, too small to be caught by any of the Shanghai’s defensive systems, or to be of interest to the sprawling Revenant. I breathed in short, ragged gasps; watched the reflection of laser fire and railgun munitions on the inside of my face-plate. There was a jolt as the harpoon hit the Shanghai’s hull – a second ahead of my arrival – and the DISTANCE TO TARGET indicator on my HUD rapidly depleted. I fired my thrusters again, readying to land.

  “All clear,” Jenkins declared.

  The Legion were on the outer hull of the Shanghai. The site was a field of charcoal; barren and vast. Chino characters bigger than me marked her armour, letters in bright white. I’d landed beside a series of campaign badges – marking successful operations on the Rim, in the Sierra Gulf, and around Jupiter.

  I took stock of our situation. We were fastened to the outer hull by mag-locks in our boots and gloves. We were also alone, although I knew that we wouldn’t stay that way: once the Directorate realised we were out here, they would send a response team to our location.

  I checked my wargear. Plasma rifle, plasma pistol, grenades. Good enough.

  Ten metres along the hull sat an airlock: closed. I had no maps or schematics to assist me, but it was a way onto the ship. Also good enough. As I watched, the outer door slid open, beams of light probing from inside.

  “Weapons free,” I said. “Kill them.”

  “My pleasure,” Kaminski said. “This is for Capa, you assholes.”

  The first soldier – wearing a vac-proof hard-suit and an exo-skeleton – disappeared in a cloud of red mist. Bored through by a volley of pulses from Kaminski’s plasma rifle, sent spiralling across the cold of space. It seemed somehow appropriate that he should get the first kill.

  Already, responding to the death of their comrade, the rest of the response team was moving out. My HUD flagged six of them; even in armour, their difference in temperature registered against the vacuum. Carrying mag-rifles.

  I grabbed a grenade from my combat-webbing—

  THIS MUNITION TYPE IS UNSAFE FOR DEPLOYMENT IN A ZERO-GRAVITY ENVIRONMENT, my HUD warned.

  —primed it and tossed it in a single sweep. The Directorate had no chance to retreat; caught outside the lock. The grenade exploded: a precise sphere of fragmentation, spreading out to cover a multi-metre radius. In zero-G, the sharp debris quickly populated the area. One Directorate Sword caught a face full of shrapnel – clutching at his breached helmet, spinning away from the ship. Two more suffered suit failures, venting atmosphere from punctures in the torso and shoulders.

  Before the team could rally, before the Swords could properly reply, Mason and Martinez slaughtered them with plasma fire. Two of them managed to return fire, one almost hitting ’Ski, but it was uncoordinated. A single round bounced off my face-plate – left a nasty scar on the armour-glass – but I avoided a suit-breach.

  “And that’s how you do it,” Kaminski said.

  In less than five seconds, the response team was gone. Just a collection of empty armoured suits and dead bodies floating from the open lock.

  “We need to get inside,” I said. “And fast.”

  The Revenant was at our backs, and somewhere beyond the third moon lingered the Colossus. How long until she became the target for the Shard mothership?

  Quickly, we clambered inside.

  We smoothly breached the inner lock – whether the ship retained atmosphere was irrelevant – and got aboard the Shanghai.

  “You ever been on a Directorate ship before?” Martinez asked me.

  “Not that I know of,” I said.

  Let alone the ship responsible for killing my mother, I thought. Somewhere in here, someone programmed the firing solution that killed her.

  “She’s gone,” I said to myself. “And there’s nothing I can do to help her.”

  Only Elena mattered now.

  “I have,”’Ski said, his expression dropping. “It didn’t work out so well.”

  To the rest of the squad, I said, “Smooth deployment. Priority is to reach the bridge SAP.”

  “Affirmative,” the Legion chorused.

  “Blast doors shutting behind us,” Martinez said, “so she still has some emergency power.”

  “No way back,” Jenkins said, with a smile. “Same as ever.”

  The entire corridor was bathed in flashing emergency lights, an AI calmly reciting machine-code in the distance.

  Two sailors – dressed in black Directorate Naval Force uniforms – dashed through an open door, virtually into my path. They turned to face me. Young men, scalps shaven, probably Uni-Korean stock, with respirators over their lower faces. One had a kinetic pistol, and raised it in my direction. My plasma rifle was faster: the muzzle to the shooter’s chest.

  The Legion brought weapons up as one.

  “Stop!” I yelled.

  The sailor froze. Eyes locked on mine; pools of despair. Not a Sword, just a shipboard technician. Probably brought up on stories of the mighty Lazarus Legion, of the demon that was Lazarus. Let them believe it. The gunman’s friend backed away a step, stumbled.

  “Bridge,” I asked. “Which way?”

  My
suit ran the translation into Chino, and the words came out in an emotionless machine burr.

  The gunman nodded towards the end of the corridor, to an open hatch that led deeper into the bowels of the ship.

  “That way,” he said, in perfect Standard.

  I nodded. “Go,” I said. “Evac-pods are down there.”

  Whatever the Shard had done to Kyung, whatever she had become, had polluted the Shanghai Remembered. Every shipboard station bleated warnings and emergency response codes, and every monitor was filled with flickering, alien gibberish: reflections of the Shard machine-code.

  My HUD blinked with bio-signs all around me, running through the corridors. Gravity fluctuated, had ceased altogether on some decks. We passed through a science wing of some sort. Lots of labs, branching off a central corridor. Men and women in smocks – so similar to the officers of the Alliance’s Sci-Div – fleeing in panicked droves.

  An enormous explosion sent a shudder through the space frame. The deck lighting failed, and we were plunged into darkness. Mason grabbed at the wall, steadied herself, and the rest of the squad paused. If the Shanghai lost power in orbit, or her energy core ruptured before we hit the Artefact, this whole plan would fail—

  “Hostiles!” Jenkins yelled.

  “This old crate isn’t as dead as we thought,” Kaminski said.

  Two Sword commandos wearing hard-suits bounced into view, and opened fire with mag-rifles. My null-shield failed, and I took a hit on the shoulder. Intense stabs of pain bloomed along my right side, the ablative plate cleanly penetrated by gunfire. Before they could fire again, Mason and Martinez took them down. Their smoking carcasses smashed into the wall, life-signs extinguished.

  Ahead, there were words printed in glowing Chino characters.

  BRIDGE, my HUD translated.

  The bio-scanner flickered with hot targets, converging on our location.

  Rounds sprayed the wall beside me, punched through the metal-plated walls. Something inside the bulkhead exploded and steam started venting across the corridor. I felt shots hit my back, bouncing off the Ares battle-suit. At least one got through though. ATMOSPHERIC VIABILITY NEGATIVE, my suit told me.