by Rick Partlow
Chapter Ten
“Holy shit,” Braun murmured, adjusting the focus of the binoculars.
I didn’t respond, just touched the control on my wrist to dial up my helmet’s image magnification. The swarm of small shapes descending out of the golden dawn sky over the spaceport surged forward in my vision to become the wickedly-angular, gargoyle shapes of Tahni assault shuttles and the fat, bulbous, delta winged lifting body of heavy-lift cargo landers.
There were dozens of them coming in, the attack craft touching down lightly and lithely at the corners of the landing field, while the cargo birds braked with desperate, heavy-laden urgency on streams of fire and settled in hard near the open center of the port. I could hear the roar of their landing jets from over three kilometers away, without the aid of my helmet’s audio amplifiers.
“That’s got to be at least two of their heavy cruisers in orbit to carry this many landers,” I said with a tone of clinical detachment that I wished I really felt. “Or a dedicated cargo ship and a cruiser. Either way, that’s hundreds of troops coming in and a shitload of supplies for them.” I dialed down the magnification and looked over to where Braun and Sophia and Sharon, one of Braun’s most trusted lieutenants and the same woman who’d been with Braun the night I met him, were huddled under the concealment of a broad-leafed bush. “They’re putting a lot of resources into holding this place down.”
“They’re showing us they’re not giving up,” Sophia said grimly, thumping a fist into the sandy dirt of the hillside. We were only a thousand meters up, but this hill offered a pretty good view of the port and a quick escape route down the other side that led to the forest. “They’re giving the Commonwealth the finger because the military couldn’t take the colony back.”
“I just wish the Commonwealth was around to see it,” Braun said, handing the binoculars off to Sharon. He looked at me, the expression on his face not so much scared or worried as just exasperated. “You’re the military advisor, so advise me. What do we do?”
“We lay low,” I said instantly. I didn’t even need to think about it. “They’re going to be putting on a show of force, probably locking down every way in and out of the city and stepping up live patrols to augment the drones and satellites in places they can’t see because of tree cover or terrain. They’ve got the troops for it now. If they see our people coming or going, they’ll track us back and we’re all dead.”
I tapped a finger against the coil shroud of my Gauss rifle, trying to run possibilities through my head. “The tourist resorts on the other side of the forest,” I said, pointing that same finger at Braun. “You said you have people hiding out there, that no Tahni had come by yet?”
“Yeah,” he confirmed, now finally seeming worried. “What? You think we should get them out?”
“For now,” I confirmed. “Tell them to take everything they can strip out of the places and set up temporary shelters in the forest. We’ll bring them into the tunnel system if we have to, but we already have a lot of people in a small space.”
“We can’t just sit around and do nothing,” Sophia objected. She’d gotten pretty gung-ho since the raid on the detention center. Fierce in other ways too, I’d found out.
“We won’t,” I assured her. “But we have to give whoever their new commander is time to do the whole dog-and-pony show that new CO’s go through, to make all the grunts understand there’s a new boss in town. Once things settle down and they get a bit more complacent and sloppy, then we can hit them.”
I shrugged expressively, harder to do in armor. “We need to get out of here before we’re spotted.”
***
It took us over an hour to get back to the tunnels, and another twenty minutes in the cart to reach the research base. Justin, Sharon’s husband, was waiting for us at the tunnel entrance, looking a bit better and less ragged than he had a couple weeks ago, when we’d busted him out of detention. He was fidgeting, as if he’d been waiting for us for a while. I pulled off my helmet as we walked up to him.
“Munroe, Carl,” he said, giving Sharon a silent hug. “There’s been a transmission by the Tahni…broadband over the local ‘nets.” His face went grey under his salt-and-pepper beard. “It’s meant for us. You need to see.”
Braun shot me a look and I shook my head. We followed him up the ramp and through the hallway to the main control room. Everyone staying at the base was crowded in around the console and the big monitor hanging on the wall there, muttering in low tones, but the conversation stopped as we came in and they all turned to us, their demeanor as disturbed and shaken as Justin’s. A Tahni face was frozen there, narrow as their faces went, and jagged like a granite cliff, with brow ridges even more pronounced than usual and lips so thin they might as well have been nonexistent. Justin reached for a control on the console, looking back at us.
“We’ve all seen it, but I ran it back for you.”
He hit the control.
“I am Colonel K'tann-len-Renn-Tan,” the Tahni male said, speaking English with an odd, singsong tone from a throat not made for it. “I am the new commander of the Imperial garrison here on the world you call Demeter. I speak to the human civilians who cooperated with the Commonwealth military to attack us, both in the failed assault on our base several…” He seemed to be hunting for a word. “…weeks ago, and the more recent strike on our detention center. We respect the spirit that makes you refuse to accept our inevitable victory, but your actions are hopeless and will only result in the deaths of your friends and neighbors. We demand your immediate surrender, and the surrender of any Commonwealth military personnel who survived the failed invasion attempt.”
He paused and made an expression I couldn’t interpret, but it was a change in demeanor.
“We will not allow actions against us by the populace here to go unpunished. When you act collectively, we will punish you collectively.”
A pause and the image expanded outward from the close-up shot of his head to a wider one, in the middle of the Amity Central Square, a small park with monuments to the ship who’d discovered the world and to the scientists who’d founded the Revenant project. The Revenant monument was a holographic wall that curved around in a semicircle facing the forest. In the middle of that semicircle were a group of civilians, maybe twenty in all, their clothes ragged and torn, their bodies skinny from insufficient food, their faces masks of fear and desperation.
“This,” the Tahni commander went on, “is what remains of the Commonwealth government on this planet. The Colonial Governor, the Mayor of this city, and all of their staff members. They are all that remains of human authority here.”
I felt like I was in zero gravity for the first time, not knowing which way was up, my stomach rebelling. They weren’t going to…
Arrayed in formation in front of them were eight Tahni in their version of a dress uniform, carrying laser carbines. At a word from an officer behind them and to the side, they raised their weapons and opened fire. The lasers ripped apart the air with crackling flashes of ionization and sent waves of steam and smoke billowing up where they hit the polymer coating and the buildfoam core of the monument.
I jerked and swore reflexively as the Tahni firing squad emptied their weapons into the humans in front of them, sweeping back and forth even after they were all down. Their bodies jerked and sprayed blood, and their clothes burned and smoked and melted away. The camera didn’t look away until the last round had been fired. Then it panned back and showed the crowd of thousands of people lined up behind in the streets between the Central Square and the government offices, some of them screaming and collapsing in terror or grief, guarded by rows of Shock-Troops and at least sixteen High Guard battlesuits.
One man yelled in terror and tried to run, but he was shot down after twenty yards by a Shock-Trooper’s KE gun. There was more screaming but no one dared move.
The view of the camera switched back to Colonel K'tann-len-Renn-Tan. Whatever his expression meant, it hadn’t changed.
/> “I do not enjoy killing…” Again, the hunt for a word. “…noncombatants. But if you force my hand, I will do so again. Surrender before we find you. If we have to search you out, you’ll be killed without the chance to give up.”
The video froze on his face with the mouth slightly open in mid-word, his teeth bared like a wild animal. Justin reached over and shut off the screen. Sharon was sobbing and he folded her into his arms, crying as well.
“Motherfucking sons of bitches…” Braun looked like his cork was about to pop, his face beet-red, hands clenched into fists, eyes darting around like he was searching for something to hit.
Sophia leaned heavily against the wall, looking as if she might pass out.
And I stood there, feeling as if every eye was on me, like every one of the people in that room was pointing an accusatory finger my way. I’d done this. I’d suggested the mission, basically forced Braun into agreeing to it. Those people, those innocent civilians had died because of me.
I heard a clatter on the floor and realized my helmet had dropped from my hand. I stared at it like it was some alien artifact, then plodded to the door. I thought Sophia was calling my name, but it seemed to be coming from very far away. I hit the control to open the outer hatch and stumbled outside into the mid-afternoon sun, shaded by overhanging oaks. The sound of the river couldn’t drown out the roaring in my ears as I walked around behind the building, where no one could see me from the door.
I went down on a knee beside a century-old oak and tried to keep from puking my guts out. This was just like Konrad…I’d tried to do the right thing, and someone had gotten killed because of it. No, this was worse. Konrad was an asshole who probably wanted to kill Gramps. These people had done nothing except get caught in the wrong place at the wrong time.
An image of their corpses smoking and charred and in pieces floated across my vision and I felt a fresh lurch from my stomach. I grunted, smashing my gloved fist into the tree. That felt good, so I did it again until it hurt. Bark had peeled off under the armored knuckles of my gloves.
“Munroe.” Now I heard her voice, felt it penetrating the fog across my thoughts. I turned, half-raising and saw Sophia standing there, tears streaking her face. “This wasn’t your fault.”
“I’m a dumbass kid,” I said harshly, rejecting her absolution. “I don’t know what the fuck I’m doing and I should have kept my mouth shut.”
“If you hadn’t helped us free those prisoners,” Sophia said with infuriating logic, “they’d have forced our location out of them. Everyone here would be captured or dead, including you and me and Carl and Sharon and her son. What happened after…that’s on this Tahni commander. No one forced him to kill innocent people; he did that because he doesn’t care about civilians and he doesn’t care about our morals.”
“And that makes it okay?” I asked, bitterness creeping into my voice. “That’s supposed to mean I should just deal with it and move on?”
Then she shocked me by hitting me in the shoulder. I stumbled just from the surprise; it hadn’t hurt through my armor, but it was hard and full of anger.
“Fuck you, Munroe!” She yelled at me, crying again. “I knew those people! You think I don’t feel guilty for being part of what got them killed? You did what we needed you to do, and you’re going to keep doing it because this is a damn war and you’re a soldier.”
I glared at her resentfully. “I am not a fucking soldier,” I shot back. “I’m a Recon Marine.”
“Then act like one and get back in there,” she said, pointing behind her at the research facility. “Those people need leadership and right now, Carl isn’t thinking past wanting to kill somebody.”
“Damn it, Sophie,” I muttered, shaking my head in resignation.
“Did you just call me ‘Sophie,’ Munroe?” She asked, eyes narrowing dangerously.
All of a sudden, I was scared. “Umm…yeah. Sorry, it just kind of slipped out.”
She looked at me sidelong for a second, then grabbed me by the neck yoke of my armor and pulled me into a kiss. It was hard and strong enough that it took my breath away. I blinked as she let go and saw a hint of a smile on her face.
“Don’t ever call me that in front of anyone else,” she warned me with flashing dark eyes.
“Yes, ma’am,” I promised.
Braun was engaged in a loud and mostly incoherent argument with Sharon and Justin when I stepped back inside. The best I could tell, he wanted to go launch an attack right now and they were trying to get him to see that would only get us all killed.
They stopped gabbling when they noticed Sophie and me coming in, but I could still see the wild madness in Braun’s visage. Everyone else in the room, twenty people in all, still had the mixture of fear and despair they’d worn when we’d come back from the spaceport.
I bent over to pick up my helmet and dusted it off before tucking it back under my arm.
“Braun,” I said, trying to keep my tone even and reasonable, “we can’t go off half-cocked here and try to get revenge, or this Colonel what’s-his-name will get exactly what he wants: to draw us out into the open.” I walked over to the console and set my helmet down, leaning back against it.
“There’s a saying I heard from my great-grandfather,” I told them, trying to sound like Captain Kapoor when he was lecturing the company. “It went something like, ‘the conventional army loses if it does not win. The guerrilla wins if he does not lose.’ I honestly can’t remember who said it, but it makes sense. We can’t afford to lose, and we can’t afford to let them win.”
“So, we do nothing?” Braun demanded, still furious but a bit less strident. “We sit back and let this ugly Tahni bastard think he has us too scared to move?”
“No, Mr. Braun,” I said, grabbing at the very little patience I had. “What I’m saying is, we don’t go to them, we let them come to us.” I threw up a hand, wondering if anyone here had even watched a movie or played a ViRdrama about the military. “Look, he’s trying to make a statement, to show us he’s in charge and he won’t put up with us. He’s going to start doing risky stuff, like sending out patrols everywhere to show us he can.”
“We should attack the patrols?” Braun asked eagerly.
“We don’t have enough ammo to attack them conventionally,” I corrected him. “We need to rig up some IEDs.” At their blank looks, I expounded. “Improvised Explosive Devices. If you guys know where we can get our hands on a few common industrial chemicals…”
“There’s a storehouse out at a construction site near the resorts,” Sharon said immediately. “They have all the chemicals you need for the buildfoam dispensers and fabricators.”
“That’s perfect,” I slapped a palm on the console, feeling a bit more confident now. “But we also have to think like the Tahni Colonel. You get what I mean?”
“He’ll think wherever we hit is where we live,” Sophia said, picking up on what I was implying.
“Not just that. If we hit his guys everywhere but here, he’ll see that, too. So, we have to map any attacks out and make sure they’re evenly distributed. And there’s something else.” I looked over at Braun. “We don’t have enough people to do this right, but we don’t have enough space for the ones we do have.”
“What’s your idea, Munroe?” Justin asked me.
“We have to start smuggling people out of the city,” I declared. “But to do that, we have to set up a series of shelters for them all around the forest, maybe up in the hills, too. I’m thinking we could get some building supplies when we raid the construction sites, haul them out on four-wheelers. Then we have to start training them.”
“How are we going to arm them?” Braun wanted to know. “And feed them?”
“We’ll scavenge weapons from the Tahni patrols we ambush,” I said, thinking about two seconds ahead of my mouth. “For food…well, they haven’t been guarding the shipments from the soy and algae farms that closely, yet. We should grab all we can before they do. After that…” I shru
gged. “We might have to hunt.”
“You’re talking about eating the Revenants?” Sophia blurted, alarm on her face. “We can’t do that, Munroe! Do you know how many years---decades!---it took to establish a balanced ecology here with…”
“I understand, Sophia,” I said, raising my palms in placation. “And we’ll try not to take any more than we have to. But if it’s a question of letting kids starve or killing a mastodon…” I shrugged. “What would you do?”
She hissed out a breath, closing her eyes for a second and, I thought, forcing herself into some perspective. “All right,” she said, calming down. “You’re right. The genetic material is still stored back on Earth. If we have to, we can start over.”
“You’re the boss, Mr. Braun,” I said, nodding to the older man deferentially. He seemed to have calmed down as well, and looked thoughtful. “It’s your call.”
He rolled his eyes slightly at that, but then nodded. “You’re right, Munroe. We can’t just jump right into the fire; that’s what he wants, that’s why he did this publicly in front of everyone.” He looked over at Sharon. “You worked at the resorts; you know where the stuff is. You want to take some people over to pick it up tonight?”
“Sure,” she said. “Justin and Aaron can come along.” Aaron was her son, the one who’d been wounded in the attack on the Tahni main base that first night.
“I’ll round up a few volunteers to start planning out intercepting the food shipments,” I said. “You should get on finding a good place to settle in refugees.”
“Yeah, I’m the boss,” he replied sarcastically. But he waved a hand in assent. “I’ll get on it. Jesus,” he breathed, “refugees. How’d it ever come to this?”
I considered how to answer that for a moment, trying not to sound like a know-it-all Lance.
“This is what happens when you lose, Mr. Braun,” I told him.
“We haven’t lost yet, have we?” Sophia asked me, a waver in her voice that told me she wasn’t sure.