Defiance: (The Spiral Wars Book 4)

by Joel Shepherd

  “Maybe he thought anyone searching would rule it out,” Jalawi said thoughtfully. There was a thick, gooey mess growing in places along the lakeshore. In some parts, the goo gave way to more substantial sponges, or the leafy fronds of seaweed. Algae, sponges and weeds were about the only life that grew on Cephilae’s land. “Or maybe there’s spots in the crust that he knows won’t change. Eruptions here aren’t big, they just make lava flows.”

  “It should mean that whatever he’s hidden the data-core in, it’s gonna be real tough, right?” asked Private Deal. “Like, what’s tough enough not to melt in lava? And shouldn’t it show up on scan?”

  “Yes it should,” said Jalawi. This was the second time he’d been down to a planet since Phoenix had gone renegade. The first had been Vieno, the barabo world where Major Thakur had ordered Charlie Platoon to venture on the brave and daring mission to retrieve fresh fish for the galley. Vieno had been beautiful, warm sandy beaches and no need for environment suits. A few of Jalawi’s marines had remarked a bit too loudly that they wouldn’t have minded getting stranded there for a few months. Jalawi understood the sentiment. But cold, barren, barely breathable Cephilae had something Vieno had not — an artefact that might save the human race from a cataclysm even bigger than the loss of Earth. “Okay,” he told First Squad. “Who’s up for a swim?”

  Five hours into the Cephilae orbit, Erik allowed the transition to second-shift as at any other time. Lieutenant Commander Draper and Lieutenant Dufresne were eager to get ‘their’ ship back, just as he and Suli always were when they relieved second-shift in the middle of something interesting, and Erik trusted the judgement and skills of both his second-shift pilots enough that he no longer worried himself half-to-death wondering what would happen if the bad stuff happened with them in charge.

  He went to the gym first, to run the aching numbness out of his legs, then to do squats and lifts for twenty minutes. It was never enough, but he always made some time. When you were the primary pilot of Phoenix, with over six hundred lives resting upon your abilities, staying in shape was not optional. Flying was a physical skill as much as a mental one, and the brain, as his Academy instructors had always drilled home, was just another organ in your body. Looking after it meant more than doing crossword puzzles.

  As he ran, he glimpsed crew elsewhere in the gym giving him looks. That always happened — Phoenix was a big ship, and most crew didn’t see him all that often. But these glances were more than the usual ‘hey, there’s the Captain’ glances. These were more like he recalled immediately after Phoenix had gone renegade, and Captain Pantillo had died. Now the looks held uncertainty, even wariness. He’d proven he was an able combat commander, and that the less-favourable impression of him when he’d been Lieutenant Commander beneath Pantillo had been incorrect. But his sister was hostage to an alien who was fast becoming their enemy, taken expressly to stop Phoenix from doing anything to cross him. And now, inevitably, it appeared that Phoenix’s survival might require it.

  They didn’t just look at him sideways because they doubted he was up to it. They did it because they considered themselves in his position, and wondered if they were. To Erik, it all felt like an intrusion. He wanted to shout at them all that he hadn’t wanted to bring Lisbeth aboard, for precisely this reason. But he couldn’t, because he was Captain, and had to be above that sort of thing. He set his jaw, in grim determination, and ran harder.

  After running, with bridge operations chatter playing endlessly in his ears, he grabbed a shower, some food from the galley, then dropped into the Briefing Room, where Trace had set up a command post with support from various non-commissioned officers, usually sergeants, who were in platoons not currently deployed or about to be. She had a big map of Cephilae displayed on the central holographics, with multiple separate windows open, monitoring each deployed platoon, their position, and the positions of all Aristan’s ships.

  Erik sat with his meal and ate, listening as Trace, while watching everything else, had a very serious conversation with Gunnery Sergeant Brice from Bravo Platoon, and Stan Romki, about the possible, known and unknown capabilities of parren marines, and parren assault shuttles. Styx even joined in over coms, injecting what she knew of parren military operations from her time, while reminding them all that her knowledge on the matter was considerably out-of-date, and that parren technology had doubtless changed beyond recognition since… largely in a backward direction, she opined.

  Watching Trace, it struck Erik as slightly odd, seeing her commanding from the rear like this, instead of leading from the front, as she’d done so often in recent months. But on those occasions there had been either a full deployment with all marines in action, or a single, focused objective that she wanted to take in hand personally. Here at Cephilae, there were multiple objectives, and it remained uncertain which was the true objective, if any. The need of the hour was coordination, and so she sat here much the same as Erik did on the bridge for hour after hour, and watched the screens, and coordinated.

  “Captain,” Lieutenant Angela Lassa interrupted him from the bridge. “I’ve got an incoming message from the Toristan. It’s Aristan himself, he wants to speak to you.”

  “Put him on,” said Erik, swallowing his mouthful. He could have formulated the conversation silently, but with Aristan he needed to be absolutely clear. He indicated to Trace, who glanced from her conversation, saw his gesture and flicked all room coms to Erik’s channel.

  “Hello Captain,” came the smoothly translated tones, from elsewhere in orbit.

  “Hello Aristan,” said Erik, aware of all the Briefing Room stopping to hear. “I’m listening, go ahead.”

  “We have been observing your marine deployments and shuttle movements. There appears to be an obvious pattern in the targets of your search. You are looking for lakes of between ten and fifty human square kilometres surface area, with a hill or elevated surface feature in proximity to the north-east. You are further concerned that the temperature on Cephilae has risen considerably since Drakhil’s time, due to the fluctuations of this sun. The lake surfaces were frozen in his time, and have unfrozen since, and expanded considerably in volume. Doubtless rainfall has also increased as humidity has increased, leading to larger lakes.”

  Erik’s eyes met Trace’s as Aristan talked. Trace merely watched, calculating… and saw, perhaps, in Erik’s deadly lack of expression, something of the cold contempt in his heart. Her own expression became a little concerned. Erik did not care.

  “There are many such lakes still remaining,” Aristan continued. “The Fortitude Fleet could arrive from Tarimal System in less time than we calculate. I believe it would be wise that my own shuttles should join in your search. If you tell us what are the remaining variables for which you search, we will add our own shuttles, and the time taken by the search shall be halved.”

  “Aristan, I have a drysine queen aboard,” Erik replied, still without expression. “You’ve spoken with her, you might recall.”

  It had not been a pleasant conversation. There was a pause. “Yes Captain, I do recall.”

  “She wants this data-core more than anything in the universe. She will do anything, end any life, to acquire it. She has made it absolutely plain that she will not tolerate its acquisition by any vessel other than the UFS Phoenix.”

  He could almost hear the sneer in Aristan’s synthesised reply. “And why is it Phoenix that has acquired this degree of trust, Captain?”

  “Because she has ways to control us,” Erik replied. “Leverage. I’m sure this translates, with one parren word or another. She does not need to threaten us with death to get us to move in agreeable directions. But you, on the other hand…” He did not finish the sentence. Let it dangle there, expectantly. “She is very well behaved in most matters, because she is even more vulnerable to us than we are to her. But if she loses this data-core, she will likely become violently unstable, and we cannot prevent her from acquiring this ship’s weapons control if she truly desires it.
”

  There was a long silence. Erik suspected that the cool, aloof Aristan may actually be consulting with others about their next move.

  “I understand, Captain,” came the eventual reply. “We will consider this matter, and contact you again shortly.” The link disconnected.

  “Is it really wise to be playing chicken with a homicidal megalomaniac?” Romki asked drily from Trace’s side. Erik said nothing, and returned to his food. Trace’s look of concern grew.

  “Captain,” said Styx, “I apologise for my uncertainties in matters of organic psychology. But am I correct in presuming that this is a bluff? Because I can assure you, I am never liable to become violently unstable, and I would never place this ship’s safety in question.”

  Erik recalled the Tartarus, when the liberated army of drysine drones had abruptly turned their guns on Trace when she had taken a command posture Styx had not liked. Styx had turned out to be correct in the end, and Phoenix’s security had not been threatened by that action. But no command crew had forgotten it. “Yes Styx,” said Erik. “It was a bluff. He doesn’t know that you’re not violently unstable, and the possibility introduces an element of uncertainty. He can’t do anything now without fear that we’ll fire on him, and for the moment he still needs us, and can’t fire back. It also raises the possibility that we’ll do something completely irrational, which I’ve chosen to blame on you. I apologise, but it seemed necessary.”

  “I’m sure it’s an extremely clever course of action,” Styx said diplomatically. “I am pleased to be in the company of officers who can calculate such actions against unpredictable organic foes.”

  “What would a drysine have done in our circumstances?” Romki asked her.

  “In my time, drysines were never in these circumstances. Overwhelming force makes such calculation unnecessary. In hindsight, that lack of challenge may have made us dull, with fatal consequences.”

  “We’ll get that data-core, Styx,” Erik assured her. “I want it just as much as you do.”

  “I doubt that,” said Styx.

  “LT,” came Private Gonzaga’s call from beneath the lake. “Lance Corporal Graf thinks you better come and take a look at this.”

  “Yeah Gonzo, tell me what you see.” Jalawi was watching the approaching storm across the lake, white clouds having turned dark in the last ten minutes, with flashes of lightning and rain that blotted all view of the far shore. Ensign Singh in PH-3 was feeding him radar scans, and the weather did not look particularly serious… but it was always a concern on unfamiliar alien worlds, where things were often more extreme than intelligence predicted. At least he hadn’t been sent to explore some site on Cephilae’s night side, as Lieutenant Crozier had been.

  “LT,” said Gonzaga, “we all really think you should just come and take a look.”

  They’d been warned not to discuss sensitive things on open coms. These marine frequencies were very short range, and they were in the middle of nowhere with only a few science bases anywhere this moon, the nearest being over a thousand klicks away… but still, Phoenix officers hadn’t wanted to take the chance. If Gonzaga thought Jalawi should come and take a look, that meant he’d found something serious.

  “Okay, I’m coming in. Charlie Platoon, the LT is going for a little swim, Staff Sergeant Spitzer will now answer to all of your above-water needs.”

  “Third Squad copies, LT,” said Sergeant Mishra. “Try not to get eaten.”

  “Second Squad copies,” said Hoon.

  Jalawi ran final suit diagnostic to prepare for submersion, and checked his enormous Koshaim rifle. “Rats, Elm, you guys are with me. Gonzo, how’s the waterlife treating you?”

  Gonzaga chuckled. “Oh they’re real friendly sir. Just, you know, no sudden movements.”

  “Great,” said Jalawi, as Privates Rick ‘Rats’ Lewis and Dalo ‘Elm’ Melidu finished their final suit checks. “Be a great way to end fifteen years in service, eaten by calamari.”

  “Don’t be a pussy, LT,” said Jersey, who was listening in.

  Jalawi chortled, and saw Lewis and Melidu grinning behind their visors. Lewis was ‘Rats’ because he was such a nice boy he’d say that when upset instead of swearing properly, while Melidu was ‘Elm’ for being such a pest off-duty that an officer from another company had called him what army grunts called the alien bugs that soiled your field kit on exercise — an ‘egg laying motherfucker’. They, plus Spitzer, were First Squad’s First Section, Jalawi’s own personal foursome.

  Marine armour was of course completely airtight and designed for all kinds of hostile environments, from vacuum to poison gas. Clean, fresh water was a relatively simple proposition, and had required only a few adjustments in Phoenix Assembly, mostly to temperature regulation, as cold water drained heat much faster than cold air or vacuum. Thankfully, suit powerplants generated plenty of heat, so adjustments were mostly a matter of redirecting some of the exhaust heat to warm the occupant instead.

  Getting a final thumbs-up from Lewis and Melidu, Jalawi racked his rifle, got a final directional fix on Second Section’s floating buoy, and waded into the water. The water rose quickly to his waist, and suit environmentals began to redirect exhaust heat with a blast of hot air through the fans — cold, the visor readout said. Six degrees Celsius. Cephilae’s sun had heated everything considerably from what it had been, twenty five thousand years ago, but it was still no beach vacation spot.

  Resistance built as he pushed against the building force of water, then the surface vanished over his head. He settled into a rhythm, the suit’s weight easily counteracting buoyancy, walking like a kaal in slow motion.

  “How you boys doing?” he asked the privates, testing lasercoms underwater.

  “Good LT,” said Lewis

  “Bit fishy, LT,” said Melidu.

  “Suits you,” said Jalawi. He’d expected the view to be murky, but it was actually beautiful. Visibility was good, the smooth rock bottom descending into deepening dark ahead. There was a lot of seaweed anchored to the ground, some of it taller than a suited marine, waving in the gentle currents. They reminded Jalawi of fields of long grass on Kerensky where he’d grown up, and had gone riding horses with his parents and friends — a less expensive and often more reliable form of transportation on that rough-ass but beautiful colony.

  Amidst and above the seaweed were a lot of fish, all of them apparently different species. They flashed silver as they turned, catching the overcast light from above, the smaller ones skittish and nervous, the larger ones prowling, too big for easy alarm. Underfoot, as he picked his way past the widely spread plants, were an increasing variety of sponges, and some big, cushion-sized things that felt bouncy underfoot. Melidu cursed, but with amazement, and Jalawi turned to see him half-vanished in a cloud of ink.

  “Thing I stood on squirted me,” Melidu explained.

  “Well you’re heavy,” Lewis scolded him. “Don’t tread on things, you big galumph.”

  “Still suits you,” said Jalawi, and nearly skipped sideways as something as big as a cat and hard-shelled brandished outsized claws at him. “Whoa. Big nippers. Glad I’m armoured.”

  “What do they taste like, do you think?” Melidu asked.

  “Now that’s some smart thinking there, Private,” Jalawi admitted, pressing on in the comfortable knowledge that anything biting his suit would regret it. “We in Charlie Platoon are masters of the seafood acquisition duty. Could add it to the biological discoveries publication.”

  The BDP was a running joke amongst marines that stretched back centuries. Back then, some politically connected general had thought it a smart idea to get marines to participate in xeno-biological science, by helping the scientists to categorise new forms of life. Marines were often more well-travelled than many scientists, and during the war against the krim had often become the very first humans to ever set foot upon many worlds. Some marines had joined the program enthusiastically, being as interested in new alien critters as anyone, but many others i
n the war, tired, frightened and hungry, had been more interested in supplementing their rations with fresh meat. The joke was that the United Forces marines’ stomachs had discovered more rare and unusual creatures than all the human scientists put together.

  “It wasn’t rare!” Melidu recited the standard joke. “It was well done!”

  They’d gone another hundred metres, steadily downward into the cold and dark, when Jalawi first saw a darting shade of movement. He stopped, holding up a fist, now even slower in the higher pressure at twenty metres down. His helmet lights panned, a glare in the gloom… and caught another darting shape.

  “There, you see that?” Lewis demanded. “How big is that?”

  “Uh, Second Section, this is the LT,” Jalawi said cautiously. “We’re just shy of a hundred metres from your position… and we seem to have run into one of your friends.”

  “Oh, there’ll be more than one,” Lance Corporal Graf said cheerfully. “We make a lot of bubbles, and we’re hot. I reckon we stand out like target beacons.”

  “And not the slightest bit aggressive?” Jalawi pressed, beckoning the Privates forward. Lewis and Melidu’s helmet lights beamed and speared about him, panning this way and that.

  “Well we’re still alive,” said Gonzaga. “I think they’re just curious.”

  Jalawi hadn’t gone another ten steps before he turned his head, and suddenly one was looking straight at him, barely twenty metres away. He stopped again, and felt his breath catch a little unpleasantly. It was huge. Intel informed them the local parren scientists called it a toulemlek, a name that did not appear to have any particular translation. Sergeant Lai of Delta Platoon, having just recently become the first human to set eyes on one in person, had taken to calling them ‘toulies’.

  “Wow LT,” breathed Lewis. “Weapons out?”

  “No no,” Jalawi said cautiously, trusting Second Section’s judgement.