by Randy Dyess
Captain Moore was in shock. He couldn’t reply as he thought about his whole career being tossed into the wastebasket for reasons he could not understand. Why aren’t they talking about what happened on Candus? Why are they trying to cover up what happened to the Castle? he thought, before coming to a realization. They knew the attack was going to happen!
“I said: do you understand, Mr. Moore?” the head executive repeated. “Whatever the outcome of this hearing, you are no longer an employee of Candus Corporation and your captain’s license will be revoked. Do you understand and agree to our terms and conditions?”
“Terms? Conditions?” came his shocked reply.
“Yes, terms. You will agree to an immediate loss of your job with no pension and no further benefits for you or your family. You will agree that you and your family will leave all Candus Corporation planets and will not return. You will agree to reimburse Candus Corporation for the death benefits given to your family. Do you understand and agree?” the head executive asked. “I will give you forty seconds to reply.”
“I agree,” Captain Moore whispered.
“Louder, so the whole committee can hear.”
“I agree, damn it!”
The head executive nodded and handed the data pad to his assistant. “We will require your print.”
“You will produce paperwork stating my crew is innocent and will be given back the pay and benefits they deserve as a rescued crew?” Captain Moore asked.
The head executive looked at him and finally agreed. “That’s all we’re going to do for you or them—exactly what’s stated in the agreement.”
He grunted and held up a second data-pad for his aide, who rushed over, grabbed it, and took it to Captain Moore. “We need your print on both documents,” the harried aide said. “The committee has already signed.”
Captain Moore took his time reading the documents before placing his hand on each of the data pads. He looked at the head executive with hatred. They already had all of this planned—already had the documents created and approved, he thought as he looked at the man who had just ended his career and jeopardized the future of his family.
“Lieutenant,” the head executive barked, “escort Mr. Moore out of this station and take him directly to his family, so they can pack and vacate Candus soil.”
“If you do that, how will I talk my crew into agreeing with your charade?”
“Fine. Lieutenant, take Mr. Moore to his officers and give him twenty minutes to get their agreement. If he hasn’t gotten their agreement within those twenty minutes, throw the entire crew in the brig.”
“Yes, sir,” the security lieutenant replied. “Come with me, Mr. Moore.”
*****
“Well, that sums it up,” Landen Moore said after telling his former officers what took place in the hearing. “This is what we must do, and you’ll have to talk the crew into it. For some reason, they’re covering this up and I'm being made the scapegoat. You and the crew must agree to their demands, so you can keep your career. All of you are still young and need your jobs to survive.”
“What will happen if we don't go along with this crap?” Lt. Johnson asked.
“They will throw every one of us into prison as mutineers and thieves. They’ll end up working us to death in some mining prison and place a crushing debt on our families to pay for our stay at the prison. You have to go along.”
“And if the crew doesn’t agree?” Lt. Jones asked.
“You must convince them, Sara,” Captain Moore replied.
“What are you going to do, Captain?” Lt. Morris asked.
“I'm no longer a captain, Bill. Call me Landen.”
“I don't think I can do that, Captain,” Lt. Morris replied.
Captain Moore chuckled and smiled, “Okay. I don't know what I’m going to do—they are booting me and my family off Candus property, and with the record, they are sticking me with, I'll never get another job aboard a ship. I don’t know what I’ll do.”
Tears came to Lt. Jones’ eyes. This whole situation was beyond her comprehension and she didn’t know how to react. Landen gave her a hug. “I know, Sara, I know. I’ll do the best I can, and it's important that you continue. It's important that all of you continue,” he said, looking up at the others.
He was about to say more when the Candus Security lieutenant barged in. “Time’s up,” he said while looking at the group. “Do you all agree with the conditions of your release and continued employment?” The group of officers nodded. “Do you believe you can get your crew to agree with this deal?”
“Yes, you pig!” Sara shouted. “We will do what you asked and our crew will follow. Take us to them, so we can start talking them into telling your lies.”
The lieutenant sneered at Lt. Jones. “Very well. You four can go. Mr. Moore, however, is going out another door.”
Landen hugged Sara again and shook hands with Bill, Frank, and Andries. “Maybe someday we’ll run across each other again,” he said before he turned around and walked out the door, followed by the laughing lieutenant.
Chapter 14
Sergeant Yamikani looked at his squad. All of them had heard voices ahead of them, and the marine on point raised his fist in the air, signaling the patrol to stop. They stopped and dropped to their knees as the marine on point signaled that there were five people heading their way.
Sergeant Yamikani briefly thought of what the signal would look like if there were spiders in front of them and heading their way. We really do need to create a spider contact signal. He moved forward to join the marine on point to get a better look at what he had seen. He could hear at least five people arguing about not checking in and finding somewhere to hide until things cooled off. As the small group came into view, he could see they had no weapons.
“Hi,” Sergeant Yamikani said as he stepped out of the shadows. His sudden appearance startled them. “Terran Marines. You look like you might need some help.”
Agent Brown was the first to react. “Sorry, you took us by surprise. We could use some help. I’m Fred, and this is Cooper, Aleski, Dag, and Santos. We work for Horizon Corporation’s repair yard and had just finished repairing a ship. We were taking it for a test ride when all the power went out on us and we ended up crashing into the lake. Luckily, we managed to get out and swim to shore. We were too tired to do anything else, so we rested up. When we spotted all the smoke rising from the marine base and the city, we decided to walk back and see what was going on. What brings the marines all the way out here?”
“I’m Sergeant Yamikani. You don't know about the attack?” he asked.
“What attack? What are you talking about?” Agent Brown lied.
“Why don’t you come with us? Our main unit is a little further down the beach. I’ll take you to them and let the sergeant major tell you more about what's going on.”
“Sounds good to me. Things were getting a little desperate. You wouldn't happen to have any water on you, would you? We didn’t think we would be gone for more than a few minutes and didn’t bring anything on the ship with us. We’re hungry, as well—we took off right before breakfast.”
“Sorry,” Sergeant Yamikani replied. “I can spare just a little water, as we don't have much, ourselves. We had to quickly abandon the base once the attack started and didn’t have time to grab anything, either.”
“What is this attack you keep talking about?”
“I’ll let the sergeant major answer that. Let’s move out before it gets dark,” Sergeant Yamikani said as the remaining marines stepped out of their shadows.
It took over twenty minutes of walking before they saw the larger group of marines in formation on the beach. As they got closer, Agent Black could see Sergeant Major McCoons in the center of the formation. Oh crap, he thought, he’s going to recognize me from Candus.
“Hey, that’s Sergeant Major McCoons, isn’t it?” he asked.
“Yes. How do you know the sergeant major?” Sergeant Yamikani asked.
“I agree,” Sergeant Yamikani said.
The group made their way to the other NCOs and Sergeant Yamikani started to introduce them when Sergeant Major McCoons cut him off.
“Well, hi there, Dr. Jones,” Sergeant Major McCoons said.
“Dr. Jones?” Sergeant Yamikani asked. “I thought your name was Cooper?”
“No, this is Dr. Jones. I met the doctor after the spider attack on Candus! Funny how he happened to be on two different planets during two different spider attacks,” McCoons said coldly.
Agent Black stepped forward. “As you can probably guess, my name isn’t Cooper and it isn’t Dr. Jones. It's not Agent Black, either. My real name is Fidel Menelaos, and Dr. Jones is just one of my cover names. I actually work for Senate Intelligence—in fact, all five of us are Senate Intelligence agents.
“The reason I'm on this planet is the same as it was on Candus: the Senate Security Committee and the Intelligence Agency knows about the attacks, and I have been testing equipment and weapons against the spiders. We were sent here to test a new comm unit and railgun. As you can see, the tests weren’t successful. The weapons didn’t work, and our ship sank to the bottom of the lake.”
The other sergeants and agents didn’t understand what was going on. Why would Fidel give up his cover? Senate Intelligence agents were never supposed to give out their real names—not even to each other. “I can understand what your job was,” Sergeant Major McCoons said, “but I can’t understand how you can ignore the attacks and let millions of people get taken by those monsters.”
“Those were my orders. I never put you or anyone else at risk on Candus or elsewhere. I didn’t make the decision to hide these attacks—I just followed orders. I’m sure you had to follow an order or two you didn’t like during your career, Sergeant Major. Did you tell everyone you met about the attacks, or did you discuss the matter with a few trusted people? I’m guessing the latter since this doesn’t look like everyone assigned to the marine base and there are no officers present.”
Sergeant Major McCoons understood what Fidel was referring to. He’d been ordered not to tell anyone about the attack on Candus. A lot of marines had died on Shaserus and he might have been able to prevent their deaths if he had just spoken out. “I’ll give you that one, Fidel,” he said. “We’ve all had to do things we’re not proud of because of our orders.”
“We’re not happy about this either, Sergeant Major. All five of us are fed up with how the leadership is handling this crisis. We all know the Senate doesn’t care about any of us or anyone in the outer rims—they’ll let entire planets be captured if it serves their purpose.”
Agent Brown stepped forward. “Sergeant Major McCoons, I’m Rutger Burchard, or Agent Brown, as these agents know me.”
“I’m Enes Youta,” Agent Green said.
“I’m Nikolai Vincenzo,” Agent Blue said.
“I’m Jaslene Nylah,” Agent White said, “and I used to work for Senate Intelligence, as well.”
The sergeants were shocked that five Senate Intelligence agents would offer their names and place of employment. “We've all done things we not proud of,” Rutger said. “That ended this morning, though, when we were almost killed because we were sent to another planet to face the spider attack. If you would allow us, we'd like to stay with your marines until we can find some way off this planet. None of us are going back to our old jobs, and we’re going to try to find a way to help people on the outer rim planets survive this. On Chaovis, we experimented with some ancient kinetic weapon designs and we were successful in killing the spiders and even damaging a ship. I think I can remember the designs well enough to replicate them on a printer, once I get to a printer.”
Sergeant Major McCoons said, “We know about your weapons. In fact, one of our friends found out about them and printed a few of the designs for us. We had been drilling with them for over a month.”
“You have them here?” Fidel asked.
“Had,” Sergeant Major McCoons replied. “Some damn inspector took them from us and locked them up in the armory. We couldn’t get to them in time when the spiders attacked, and when they bombed the base, the armory was destroyed. All we have left are these,” he said, holding out his nano-blade and activating it. “These are based on our descriptions of when we used swords to kill spiders on Candus, but these nano-blades can cut through anything. They were very useful for fighting the spiders this morning, but I would prefer the kinetic weapons. With these, you have to let the spiders get close to you, and I’d rather kill them from a distance.”
“Where did you get that?” Fidel asked as all five agents stared at the nano-blade.
“One of our friends made them for us.”
“How are they still working? All of our equipment went offline after the spider EMP.” Rutger said.
“The handle is made of a new composite ceramic. I was told how it worked, but I didn’t understand it. I don't know all the details, but the people who made this are the same ones who told us about the spider attacks and your use of the weapons. They seem to be more trustworthy than our own leadership. As you can see, they do work, which is more than I can say about the weapons given to us by Marine Command.”
“Those are some friends,” Fidel said. “Are they associated with the Senate or Marine Command?”
“Not exactly. They’re a small shipping company located on the outer rims. They’re working for their themselves and the people of the rim. They know the Senate, navy or our leadership is not going to officially do anything about the spiders, so they are doing it unofficially. I think they worked something out with the Senate Security Committee to look the other way while they’re doing whatever they need to do. The Senate Security Committee seems to be willing to let these people fight the spiders for them and take all the risks.”
“You said the spiders landed and attacked the marine base this morning?” Rutger asked.
“Yes. We lost a lot of good marines during the bombing. The marines you see with me were able to form a defensive pattern and fight off the first wave of spiders without losing a single person. We killed thirty or forty spiders with these nano-blades. They work if you know how to use them.”
McCoons nodded to Sergeant Henry, who picked up the backpack with the extra nano-blades. He reached grabbed five spare swords and handed them to the agents. “Here,” Sergeant Henry said, “you might as well start to learn to use these. Chances are you’re going to have to use them before this ends.”
“I'll train them,” Sergeant Preston said as he looked at the five agents. “Follow me.”
When they had gone, Sergeant Henry looked at Sergeant Major McCoons and asked, “What was all that about?”
“Fidel was on Candus with the group of survivors I was with. He told everybody then that he was studying spiders and just happened to be on Candus when the attack occurred. He left the group before we got to the spaceport and nobody saw where he went. Chances were, he had another ship in orbit to pick him up and left the rest of us there.”
“Do you think he has a way off the planet this time?”
“It didn't sound like it, but I’ll ask later tonight. For now, we’ll let them join us. He was right about his actions not putting anybody at risk and I don't think these others will, either. They sound as fed up with the Senate and their leadership as we are.”
“Maybe, but that could just be a lie to smoke us out. I don't think I've ever heard of a Senate agent walking away from the job before.”
“I have—in fact, I’ve met him and you have, too,” McCoons said. “Right now, have fourth squad go to that grove of small trees and bushes and gather all the wood they can. I want a large fire every five meters apart about thirty meters in front of our lines. Let’s see if we can't use them as a warning system. If those spiders come tonight, they’ll block our view of the fires and that should give them away. Also, put another pile of wood in the middle o
f the formation and start one or two small fires for heat.”
“Understood, Alphus. I'll get on it.”
McCoons looked at his marines and motioned for Sergeant Yamikani. “Have everyone fall into fighting fours and get some rest. I want one person from each group on the line at all times. Rotate every hour.”
“Yes, Sergeant Major,” Sergeant Yamikani replied before telling the marines to form up.
“Let's hope they don't attack tonight, but something tells me they will,” McCoons said to himself.
*****
The spider attack came in the middle of the night, and the marines on the front line could barely see the black monsters in the dark. They had formed four men fighting teams and twenty marines were now on the front line.
As Sergeant Major McCoons had hoped, the fires helped provide an early warning system for the attack. When the lookouts spotted the flames disappearing and reappearing, they knew the spiders were on their way.
“Contact!” one of the lookouts shouted. “Contact immediate!”
The marines on the front line activated their nano-blades and stood, ready to fight off the first wave of spiders. The rest, including Sergeant Major McCoons and the five agents, awoke instantly and moved into their positions, igniting their nano-blades. The marines couldn’t tell where the spiders were until their legs were less than a meter in front of them. Nano-blades slashed into the dark as the first of the spiders made contact.
Sergeant Major McCoons watched as five marines on the front line were jerked into the darkness. “You five,” he yelled at five men held in reserve, “get to port side and fill in second line gaps.”
“Yes, Sergeant Major,” they shouted.
McCoons thought for a moment before going to Fidel and the rest of the agents. He asked them if they could take their team and build torches with the remaining wood. After lighting them, he wanted them to throw the torches in front of the formation’s front lines to help the marines see the spiders better.