It showed the dark edge of the ship with the bright glow of Proxima’s atmosphere in the background. The officials watched as the contrast from the bright surface of the planet flared and then diminished as whoever had taken this footage adjusted their settings.
“You sent a scout ship alone,” Mariad Rhossily said with incredulity, and Solomon could tell she thought the situation warranted a vessel with a lot more guns.
“Please, Imprimatur, just keep watching,” the general stated.
A different object eclipsed the view, before the scout ship swung past it to get closer and closer to the vessel. Solomon recognized the long launch tubes of Proxima’s missile defense system, hanging above the invading vessel and not doing anything about it.
“Why didn’t it fire?” he heard Rhossily murmur.
“Look,” Solomon murmured, noticing something about the Proxima space weapon. “No lights. No movement,” the young man said. “It’s been deactivated.”
“But…how?” the Imprimatur of Proxima stated.
The ship grew larger ahead of them as the Intrepid had drawn closer, and now the image revealed metal buttresses hundreds of meters tall, support girders snaking with oddly-opalescent wires, and holding in place large ‘units’ like the modular components of a computer. It was a machine landscape, Solomon thought. He thought he recognized ceramic pipes—or some sort of material that looked ceramic, anyway—that were so wide, he could very well have flown a Marine transporter down the middle of them!
“It doesn’t have a hull,” Solomon realized.
“Lieutenant?” Asquew asked. “Observations?”
“It doesn’t seem to have any external sort of shell. That means it’s not worried about asteroid impacts.” Solomon gestured to where several of the metal shapes—from the rounded domes to the cylinders—were criss-crossed with scars and scratches from impacts. “And also that it’s not trying to keep a hold of an internal atmosphere…”
Across the table from him, Asquew nodded, as if she had already come to that conclusion but had been waiting for someone else to verify it.
“It’s not a ship. It’s a machine,” Solomon said in astonishment.
The recorded image on the general’s desk flickered with lines of static, but then cleared to reveal that the Intrepid had gotten close, very close indeed.
The giant arms of stanchions, buttresses, and supports dominated their view as the Intrepid must have performed a very close fly-by. Solomon couldn’t see any lights flickering on the ancient metal, scarred and scratched. He also couldn’t see any obvious rivet or bolt joints. It was like every part of the vessel had been molded as a whole unit.
There was movement, however, from the hissing and escaping gases from vents here and there. The Intrepid paused, then drew closer, but their reasoning couldn’t be worked out or ascertained.
And that was when it happened.
Something moved in the innards of the vessel, like an internal organ pulsating.
“What is going on?” Solomon heard Ochrie breath.
“Wait,” Asquew stated, as the shadows and movement inside the strange invader continued. More hissing, and finally—
The giant metal girders were moving on unseen, internal tracks. It was like watching the thing give birth, Solomon thought with a shiver of revulsion.
Something dropped into the night—one of the modular units, roughly cylindrical and made of a dark rust-red metal. Around its body were three rings of reflective black obsidian, and they were each moving at different speeds, like a gyroscope.
“What is that thing?” Mariad whispered.
“What are those things,” General Asquew corrected her, as, in the distance, more of these cylinder-craft dropped from the belly of the invading craft.
How many was that? Solomon tried to count. Twenty? Thirty?
“It’s an invasion fleet,” Rhossily stated.
“Only thirty ships…” Solomon murmured. And none of them looked a match for the Marine Corps dreadnaughts, although they might be three times the size of the Intrepid, he guessed.
“Wait for it…” Asquew nodded once again at the picture as something started happening to each and every ship: the black obsidian rings were rotating faster and faster, creating a blur…
A blur like a Barr-Hawking engine, Solomon thought, before the first vehicle suddenly burst with light. White and bluish radiance spilled from the rotating rings around the nearest ship, and it shot forward, blurring as it did so and creating a glowing line of pure white like a comet’s tail, gradually fading from view as the energy, radiation, and radiance dispersed.
“It jumped,” Mariad Rhossily stated.
But it didn’t, did it? Solomon frowned.
“Perhaps. But not as we know the technology. It almost looks like a faster-than-light drive, and not the sort of jump-drive that we have….” Asquew muttered darkly.
As well she might be annoyed, Solomon thought. Faster-than-light was technically and practically impossible. Or at least, it was impossible for the likes of humanity so far. Their Barr-Hawking ships worked by creating a miniature event-horizon of super-charged particles so dense that they folded time and space. The Barr-Hawking jump-ship then just traveled the shorter distance between the two points.
Faster-than-light, or FTL, was merely theorized as a way of breaking the light barrier. Only neutrinos could travel faster than photons, but so far, humanity had never managed to create any sort of field or vessel that could withstand the pressures of even near light speed travel. You could feasibly cross entire solar systems near instantaneously.
“Is it faster than jump travel?” Solomon asked immediately.
“We don’t know. But the speed is not the biggest problem,” Asquew said. “It’s the fact that every one of these ships have that engine.” She nodded as, one by one, each and every ship vanished from the field of view, leaving the Intrepid and the mothership behind.
“Where did they go?” Rhossily asked.
“We just don’t know.” Asquew shook her head. “We received this footage two hours ago, and so far, there has been no sign of them again. But we have run projections on the footage.” She waved her hand, and the image was replaced by a star map of Alpha Centauri and its planets, with lines of light radiating out in a tight cone.
“If they maintained their courses, then this is where those trajectories would meet,” Asquew said in a low voice, as the star map suddenly zoomed out, and out again past the neighboring systems, the vast spaces between the stars, finally encountering the scatter-gram edge of the Oort Cloud, and then the Sol System’s very own outer asteroid belt.
Solomon watched the arrow-straight lines of light spear across humanity’s solar system, ending at one planet.
“Pluto,” Solomon breathed in horror.
“Precisely. These trajectories are too exact,” Asquew nodded. “We believe that, should the ships maintain their course, they will be attempting to establish a bridgehead on Pluto, our furthest planet, and from there, they will be free to attack all of the planets of the inner solar system with ease.”
The Ru’at mean to trap us within our own solar system, the Gold Squad Commander realized. Any movement that we make to rally our fleets or strike back would mean that we have to deal with Pluto first.
“Did the Intrepid get any scan readings on the vessels?” Solomon asked. “Propulsion, speed, weapons?”
“Ah, well…” Asquew gestured to keep watching the footage as the Intrepid moved closer to the underside of the vessel, where the craft had been ‘birthed.’
Solomon saw many, many roughly-hexagonal ports in the underside of the invading craft, from which these strange devices must have dropped. The Intrepid flew closer to the nearest, catching a glimpse of a tunnel leading up into the body of the craft, with not really internal walls to the tunnel, but instead strata of wires and pipes—
Flash! Something speared out from the invading crafts launch tubes: a light, bright and tinged with purple-blue, hitting the Intrepid
straight—
The screen glitched and rolled into static.
“What was that? What happened?” Mariad asked quickly.
“More things that we don’t know,” Asquew grumbled. “That was the last transmission from the Intrepid, and no attempt to hail them or track them has led to any success whatsoever.”
“Are they dead?” Ambassador Ochrie looked up sternly, defiantly.
“We fear so, Ambassador.” The general shut down the frozen images on her desk and looked to the assembled. “It is clear in my mind that this is not the work of NeuroTech. No matter how much money they have, I am sure that they could not keep a construction like this secret for so long. This is the work of inhuman hands, and I fear that what we have just witnessed is the start of an inhuman invasion.”
The room fell silent as everyone considered what terrors the future would bring. Could they win against the Ru’at machine, as Solomon was now thinking of it?
While at the same time fighting a war with the Martians?
“Lieutenant Cready, I will be sending you to Earth with Ambassador Ochrie and Imprimatur Rhossily to present all of this evidence to the Confederate Council,” the general stated. “I cannot trust this film to be transmitted in any way other than by hand. At the moment, the word of the invasion hasn’t spread across the Confederacy, but when those ships start arriving, everyone will know. I need you, Lieutenant, to convince the council that we must be prepared when the enemy comes for us.”
Earth. Solomon blinked. I am returning to Earth. But why? Confusion gripped him. Did I do something wrong? Is this a reprimand? Surely it would be better for him to be out there on Pluto, with his unit, defending humanity against the Ru’at?
“Sir? My squad, sir…. Will they be joining me as before, as an honor guard for the ambassador?” Solomon asked.
“Negative, Lieutenant. If our analysis of that footage is correct, then the first of the vessels will arrive at Pluto within the next few hours. The rest of the Outcasts will warp and be there to greet it when it does,” Asquew said.
“But, sir—” Solomon couldn’t believe it. They were going to send the Outcasts—his Outcasts—into battle without him?
2
Acting Field Commander
“Outcasts! At-TEEEEN-Hut!” snarled Warden Coates, storming into the suite of dormitory rooms that had been found for what remained of the Outcast Company. They were on board the general’s dreadnaught, still hanging over the surface of the embattled Mars.
Jezzy shot a measured look at Karamov as they ran to stand in line beside their brothers and sisters, everyone quickly falling into grim silence. Lieutenant Cready hadn’t returned yet from his debrief with the general, and a tense air hung over the Outcasts family.
Some of them were on deployment to Mars when Ganymede was attacked, Jezzy knew. They hadn’t been a part of the general’s battleship ceremony, but they received their own full Marine appointments after their recall when the Ru’at had appeared.
Now there was a flush of nervousness, fear, and celebration that ran through the crowd, Jezebel Wen saw. The Outcast Marines who had been on Mars had never encountered the cyborgs, so they didn’t know why they had received this sudden honor, but each of them knew they wouldn’t get it for free.
“Immediate, full-company deployment to Pluto. I expect all ready to ship out in the hour, understood?” Warden Coates stalked the front line of the Outcasts, sounding and looking as nothing had happened on Ganymede, the sergeant thought. He sounded just as angry, just as perennially disappointed with them, but out there amidst the ruins of his beloved Ganymede Training Facility, Jezzy had been sure that she had seen some new feature of their warden. He had listened to their battlefield recommendations. He had appeared, if not humble, then at least a little more human.
That didn’t last long, did it? Jezzy growled to herself as the warden opened his mouth to continue his tirade.
“The general has taken a personal interest in the operations of you Outcasts, so consider yourselves privileged!” the warden stated. “But don’t let the fact that you’re wearing fancy power armor mean that you can relax! Don’t think for a second that because you’re wearing a full Marine Corps insignia, that means any of each and every one of you is indispensable, by any definition of the word!”
Great pep talk, Warden, Jezzy could have groaned.
“And if I hear of any insubordination whatsoever, if you so much as look odd at your superior officers, if you bring shame in any way to the noble traditions of the Marine Corps—” The warden’s face twitched with suppressed indignation. “—I promise that I will bust you out to Titan no matter what sort of fresh hell the rest of the galaxy is sliding towards! Understood!?”
“Sir! Yes, sir!” the Outcasts roared.
“Good. A few announcements, then. In her great wisdom, the general has allocated us to the Oregon, a Marine Corps battleship, where you will be reporting to Colonel Faraday, and Sergeant Wen will be acting field commander with a temporary field commission to first lieutenant in Lieutenant Cready’s absence.”
What? Jezebel flushed. I don’t even know what that means… she thought, and realized that no one else around her did either, as she was rewarded with a few side-long, suspicious looks.
“Well, what are you waiting for? Get yourselves suited up!” Coates barked at them, and the Outcasts broke into tense, excited, and nervous action as they rushed to their lockers to grab their undermesh suits.
“Warden, sir?” Jezzy waited for the rush of bodies to clear before she approached Coates.
“Wen? What is it?” He half-turned to regard her fiercely.
“Thank you for the honor, sir, but I don’t think I understand…” she started to say, but Coates cut her off immediately.
“You’re one of our best combat specialists, Wen, if not the best. I need you to lead the rest of the Outcasts against the Ru’at. I need you to teach them how to kill cyborgs. Specifically to kill cyborgs.”
“Oh.” Jezzy wavered in place. “But what about Lieutenant Cready and Gold Squad?” she asked. Did this new designation mean that she would no longer be fighting alongside Solomon and the others?
“Lieutenant Cready is being deployed elsewhere, making you the acting field commander. Don’t ask questions, Wen, just trust that there are better minds than ours working all of this out!” he said harshly, before stalking out of the room.
Jezebel Wen felt oddly out of place when she turned around to look at the rest of the bustling room. There was Karamov already shrugging on his undermesh suit, there was Willoughby and Ratko who had fought alongside of her on Proxima. Malady was practicing a few experimental punches in mid-air at the back of the room. It was like watching a walking mountain.
Everything is changing. We’re changing, she thought for a moment. Is this what war means?
And just where was Solomon Cready going?
3
Taranis Industries
Solomon watched the tall, barrel shape of the Oregon swing out from the docking arms of the general’s dreadnaught.
It is leaving without me, he kept thinking, over and over again. His Outcasts were leaving without him, under the acting command of Jezebel Wen.
The dreadnaught itself was a giant of a ship, one of only six such super-massive pyramids of steel that acted as the flagships of the Marine Corps fleets. In comparison, the tub of the battleship Oregon, under Colonel Farady, was the size of a cat to a human.
It was hard for Solomon to think that there must be a few hundred people on board that moving vessel, and half of them were his own battle-brothers and sisters.
Jezzy, Karamov, and Malady… he thought as he watched through one of the dreadnaught’s portholes to see the distant craft turn majestically. One side of the Oregon suddenly lit up in a red-tinged radiance as it caught the reflected glow of the Red Planet below.
The Red Planet that we are currently at war with. Solomon could see the smears and specks of disaster across the surface of Mars
even from this high orbit. Black clouds hung heavy over craters and billowed across the fierce Martian deserts.
What have we done? Solomon thought.
They’d nuked Mars.
We’ve nuked Mars, he corrected. He was more deeply a part of the Marine Corps than ever now, and whatever actions his superior officers took, he knew that he would have to be the one dealing with them from now on.
“Strange to think, isn’t it?” murmured a voice behind him, and Solomon was surprised to turn around and see that it was none other than Brigadier General Asquew joining him in the small viewing lounge.
“Strange, sir?” Solomon snapped to attention.
“That in our lifetime, we’ll have nuked another planet and encountered aliens…” She sounded worried, haunted almost, as she narrowed her eyes to look at Mars.
“Any word of the seditionists?” Solomon said.
“The Chosen of Mars are still attacking Confederate ports on Mars, but their attacks are desperate and uncoordinated,” Asquew said. “I am sure that their resistance will be annoying for many years to come, but right now, I do not think there is anything standing in the way of a troop deployment to the surface of Mars to recapture the cities and habitats stolen from us.”
At the same time as we’re expecting the Ru’at at any moment? Solomon thought in alarm.
The general must have sensed a little of what Solomon was worried about, because she turned to look at him seriously. “The Ru’at, and that blasted message of theirs, forms the existential threat to humanity,” she said. “And we can only face it if humanity is unified—meaning that we need to initiate swift and rapid action to take Mars, and then we can move to using Mars’s impressive processing factories in the war effort,” she said, before dropping her voice lower. “There is another reason why I need you to return with the ambassador to Earth, Lieutenant Cready,” she stated.
“There is a mega-corporation on Earth called Taranis Industries. It specializes in biology, chemistry, medical sciences, that kind of thing,” the general said. “We happen to know that Taranis Industries and NeuroTech were very close for a time, sharing research and facilities and what have you. Our analysts now believe that the cyborg technology could not have been possible without the help of Taranis. While we believe that NeuroTech has been destroyed on Proxima, Taranis Industries still has its base on Earth.”
Invasion- Pluto Page 2