Cherubim

by David Hallquist

  We tumble to the deck, as my legs are finally entwined by the battleoid’s cables. It lands on top and begins cutting through my already degraded frontal armor with its weapons arms. My armor’s getting so thin, I think my boot would come though the glacis if I kicked hard enough. I can’t get anything free, and it’s raising its x-ray lance to fire through my chest.

  There’s a blast of raging x-rays, and everything is still.

  The assault-battleoid spasms and then goes limp, while smoke rises from a glowing crater in its back. That flash was from one of ours, taking out my enemy while he grappled with me. One of my squadron, Shockwave, actually gives me a quick thumbs up and goes back to fighting the remaining titanic cybernetic monstrosities.

  “For Lord Arga!” blasts though the radio frequencies.

  Just behind the Saturnine assault-battleoids, the raider lord is leading a horde of his men out into the hangar. They’re clad in garish spacesuits covered in crazed designs and wearing bandanas or spikes on top of their helmets.

  As for their leader, he looks like a buffoon.

  Lord Arga is in what appears to be a homemade exo-frame. It’s a combination of mechanical loader, industrial robot, and Saturnine assault-battleoid parts roughly assembled into a manlike shape and somehow all cooperating in moving in the same direction, at least for now. The whole thing is coated in the garish multi-spectrum warpaint of the Vestal raiders, with an oversize helmet with spikes on top. One arm actually has an asteroid mining magnetic force blade attached to it, while the other is the stylized neck and mouth of a Venusian dragon. Finally, a huge, colorful cape of smart fabric actually billows out behind him, as if there were an atmosphere here.

  He and his fellows raise their weapons, give a war cry on the general band, and charge.

  If I die to this lunatic, I will never live it down.

  He points the arm with the ridiculous dragon on it at me. Its mouth opens, and a plasma emitter within belches forth a cloud of raging blue-white plasma, filling my world.

  I’m already holding the remains of the Saturnine assault-battleoid up as a crude shield. My vulnerable frontal glacis is protected, but searing plasma curls around the ruined enemy mech and washes around my limbs and head. Temperature alarms light up everywhere, and armor vaporizes off my extremities. Sensors blink out, and laser clusters fail, one by one. On the other hand, the plasma vaporizes sections of the smart cables wrapped around me, freeing me at last.

  When the plasma finally stops, I hurl the melting remains of the assault-battleoid aside and focus my few remaining frontal sensors on what’s happening.

  The raider lord is right there, standing over me. He’s raised his magnetic force blade overhead, ready to bring it down on me like some crude kind of sword. It’s ridiculous, actually; we’re in an age of interplanetary travel and robotic exo-frames, and he’s using a sword, of all things.

  I block his sword with my…uh, sword.

  My plasma blade flares to life, filling the room with harsh blue light. Our blades cross, and streams of plasma from my blade coruscate around the field lines of my foe’s magnetic force blade. I force his blade back up, easy in this minor gravity, and already his generator blade is glowing red-hot from the plasma feedback from my blade.

  Flaps of Arga’s frame pop open, revealing clusters of weapons-pods now pointing right at my weakened chest armor. At this range, he can’t possibly miss.

  I raise my feet and ignite the thrusters in my boots. The blasts of flame knock him back and away, while sending me skidding across the hangar floor. I quickly spread my wings, then activate my remaining maneuvering thrusters to stand and halt my uncontrolled flight. I can finally bring my x-ray lances into play, and I bring them forward, ready to fire.

  The raider lord has managed to find his feet as well, against a wall. His chest armor is still open, and the weapons pods are aimed straight at me across the hangar.

  We pause for only a microsecond.

  I detect the charge building in his weapons pods, and I open up with all four of my x-ray lances. My beams cut right through the open weapons panels on his exposed chest, through the pilot’s compartment, and into the reactor behind the pilot. His frame detonates in a spray of plasma and fragments that cut through his own men at his feet.

  Looking around, I see the rest of my squadron are finishing off their assault-battleoids.

  “That only counts as one,” Mad Dog transmits.

  “I fought two and you know it.”

  “One and a half,” he relents. “Shockwave shares the first one.”

  The remaining raiders pause in their attack. They see that their leader is gone, their assault-battleoids are gone, most of their fellows are gone, and the ship they were going to escape in is also gone.

  They do probably the first smart thing in their lives and drop their weapons.

  Reports are coming in. Commander Rackham led an attack on the command center itself and took it in spite of stiff resistance. Other squadrons and Marines have landed and are breaking into other sections of the fortified mountain.

  All over the asteroid, as the word of Arga’s defeat spreads, raiders are laying down their weapons and deactivating security systems.

  It looks like we’ve taken Vesta.

  * * *

  Vesta is ours at last, at least for the moment, and I’m finally able to relax as I read the after-action report. My squadron performed quite well in the face of determined and unpredictable opposition. While our frames got banged up, and one of my men is still under observation in sick bay (in spite of his protests that he’s fine) we haven’t lost anyone. There were some injuries among the Marines—most of those from mines and booby-traps—but we lost no one here. Since the main resistance dissolved with the death of their raider lord, there was no heavy fighting in the civilian areas of Vesta, and thus no civilian casualties, either. Added to all that, we’ve captured several specimens of Saturnine equipment and computer code.

  Everything went as well as it could conceivably go—this time, anyway. Still, I remember our operations at Eros and Terra, and it could very easily have been a disaster. We did everything right, but that’s not always enough. This time we got lucky, too.

  Vesta may be ours, but we don’t want her.

  This asteroid looks like it’ll be nothing but trouble. It’s been a pirate and raider haven for a while now. We’re in the process of freeing captives, running down their stolen assets, and returning what we can to the people or companies that were robbed. Since we’re also trying to rebuild the impoverished asteroid, and the locals can’t afford to pay for the crimes of the raiders, that means we’ll be footing the bill for that, as well as rebuilding…and there’s a lot of rebuilding to do.

  This whole asteroid is a giant wreck in space. Before it was a raider base, it was a Saturnine base, so the only things that were prioritized were the Saturnine base facilities. Everything else just kind of slowly broke down, which is deadly in space.

  After we get Vesta back on her feet, what then? We don’t need another big asteroid base; we’ve got Ceres for that. Besides, if we put a major presence here, the Venusians would no doubt wail about it, since they’ve only got their base at Pallas left. We also can’t let the raiders come back, and we don’t want another world to just take over the place when we leave. I don’t have anything personal against the Vestals, but even if I did, I wouldn’t want to hand them over to the Venusians.

  What it looks like will happen is we’ll leave a security force here, help them rebuild (by doing most of the rebuilding ourselves) and form their own government via plebiscite with a constitution. Who knows how it’ll all work out in the end?

  Either way, we won’t be here long.

  Our next stop is Mercury.

  No one really holds Mercury. No one really can, nor wants to hold it badly enough to go to the trouble it would take. Radiation, heat, and the steep gravity well of the Sun makes it hard to build and supply anything there.

  Still, there
are people there. Every major world has had scientific and mining stations on the barren world, at least until the war. During the war, it must have been a nightmare; settlements were cut off from the solar system and each other, all hoping their side emerged victorious to rescue them.

  We’ll be rescuing all of them. We’ll be escorting the heavy transports that’ll be delivering needed supplies and equipment, and we’ll transport anyone who wants to leave.

  One challenge will be any Saturnine forces or equipment they may have left behind as a nasty surprise. Another will be that the Venusians are pushing for the planet to become their protectorate.

  The biggest issue is whatever Saturn might have left lurking in the sun’s corona. We know they had space artillery hidden in the sun’s glare during the war, supposedly they took all that home…supposedly.

  Well, that stuff’s not my call. All I can do is get everyone ready for what may come.

  Another reminder bleeps on my desk. Mad Dog’s party is now going into full gear, and people are wondering when I’ll show. One of the hangars has been converted for the party, because it’s not like we’re going down to Vesta to celebrate.

  I let him know I’m on the way.

  * * * * *

  Chapter 4

  Rising Mercury

  It looks like the planet is being consumed by the sun.

  Mercury lies ahead. From out here, it’s an almost black sphere surrounded by the blazing sea of light from the sun. The intensity is turned down enough that the golden, crawling granules of plasma on the sun are visible, along with various sunspots in deep red or bruised purple. With all of this as the backdrop to Mercury, it becomes clear just how fragile a planet really is.

  It’s quiet here in the cafeteria, as the awesome spectacle takes up one whole wall in its terrible wonder. It cancels all other conversation and draws every eye to it as if by gravity. No one makes a move to change it or turn it off, though. The planet is our next destination, and everyone is thinking about what’s to come.

  The small world is an enigma in space. With the intensity turned down enough that the sun’s glare doesn’t wash out the small planet in front of it, it’s impossible to see the nighttime lights of the mining towns and science stations. The sun is also throwing out radio, x-rays, and a sea of proton radiation. All that together makes it almost impossible to tell what’s really going on here, near the center of the solar system.

  What’s waiting for us there?

  We’ve gotten requests for aid and resupply, the desperation clear in their voices and faces, in spite of the static hash thrown out by the sun. The need is certainly real. The mining and science stations were never set up to be independent for over a year, and the war has cut them all off from the rest of the solar system. The transports carrying emergency supplies and repair equipment are no doubt really needed. We’re all eager to get down there and help whoever we can: Terrans, Lunars, Belters, Martians…even Venusians.

  But what else is going on down there?

  Saturn was supposed to pull everything out from Mercury…but somehow, I just don’t trust that they’ve done so. I also don’t trust most of the people down there not to try something. Someone might take a shot at us on the way in, attack our relief ships and crew, or something else. Belters and Martians have pulled things like that before, citing some old vendetta afterword. Then there’s the point that Venus is now trying to claim Mercury for itself. Diplomatically, at least so far. So anything could happen.

  I’d prefer for us to go in ahead, iced down—but that’s completely impossible here. We’ll pick up heat so fast this close to the sun that icing would only buy us a short period of concealment. Besides, we’ll need reflective coatings to be able to operate long term this close to the sun, just to keep the heat down.

  The end result is that everyone down there is going to see us coming, and we won’t see anything coming at us. That’s what has us all staring into the sun and wondering about the days ahead.

  * * *

  “Sir, what was it like?” Eric Donner’s voice interrupts my focus on the slowly growing orb of fire on the screen.

  “Hmmm?” I look back around the officers’ mess. Most of the rest of my flight officers are here, too. They’re mostly staring at the image on the wall rather than eating. That’s not good; better do something about this mood.

  “Sorry, I was just thinking about something.” I stand up. “Anyone mind if I change the image?” Grateful calls come up to change it, and I switch to a nice view of the glowing underwater gardens of Europa.

  I sit back down and face Eric. His face has a neutral, unreadable expression, which makes sense since he pretty much had to learn how to tell all his new artificial muscles to work again, including his face. So he doesn’t have any expression unless he works at it. He’s also drinking a nutrient pack rather than eating a meal like the rest of us are. I guess his few remaining biological organs don’t need much more, but it’s got to be rough, and could be yet another barrier between him and the rest of the flight. They did such a good job of repairing him, though…he certainly doesn’t look like a cyborg.

  Stop it, Mike, I remind myself. Remember, the whole idea is to relax and get to know your new officer better, here, not stare at him like he’s a science experiment.

  “Uh, what was what like?” I try to clarify.

  “The Saturn virus,” he answers calmly and continues with a precise and smooth intonation, “I understand you were…invaded by the Saturn virus, like I was at the Battle of Mars. I would like to compare your experience with mine and see what similarities and differences might be apparent.”

  “Um…it’s kind of hard to talk about,” I say, trying to deflect.

  “Please, sir. As you know, I’ve had to undergo extensive reconstruction, and the virus had me under for quite a long time. It’s something I’ll struggle with the rest of my life. If you could share your experience, then maybe…it just might help.”

  “All right.” I sigh and try to collect my thoughts. What was it like? “It was pure hell. Call it what you want: Hell, the Abyss, the Void…it was awful. At first—” I close my eyes, trying to call up memories I’d hammered back down until they stopped waking me up screaming in the middle of the night. “At first it was just darkness, but a true darkness…an impenetrable, absolute void of all sight, sound, touch, or any sense at all. I couldn’t even sense myself, or the passage of time. Then came the real attack. It was as if all the pain, fear, and rage in the world were concentrated into one point and hurled at me. It tore at me until I thought I’d be blown away, that I’d lose myself and be replaced by something else…maybe.”

  Something in my gaze makes him flinch, so I soften my voice and approach. “Sorry, Mr. Donner, it was an extremely intense and painful experience for me. Still, I recovered—” mostly, I tell myself, “—and so did the others in my squadron who were effected.” Finally, I smile. “So did you.”

  He drops his gaze for a moment in thought. “Yes, sir. Thank you.”

  “So, for you?” I gestured. I’m no psychologist, but I know when to press and prod…and when not to. Let him open up the wound.

  “It was different, in some ways.” He closes his eyes in thought. “The darkness was…peaceful for lack of a better word, though I got the impression of another presence there…”

  “Huh. So, it affects people differently. Interesting.”

  “Well, I was almost unconscious from my injuries when the virus hit, and I went under quickly and spent most of the time comatose. I remember waking several times as the medical teams put my mind back together, piece by piece. Sammy, too; we were connected for much of the procedure, to get backup memory and personality imprints from each other. In a way, we’re connected more closely than ever before. In a lot of ways, waking up was harder than the actual virus itself.”

  “Well, I’m glad your Angel made it through.” I nod, remembering. “I lost mine in the attack—he sacrificed his core to save me, taking most of the
hit.”

  He nods, and after a long pause, asks, “Sir? Do you ever wonder if…?”

  “Lt. Commander Michael Vance, please report to the briefing room.” The command comes in loud and clear though my augments.

  “Gotta go. We’ll pick this up some other time.” I rise to leave. This will probably be the pre-briefing for the mission to Mercury—all the stuff I’ll need to know to get everything and everyone ready. I’ll have to talk with Donner some other time, but it’s good to know he’s handled the Saturn Virus better than I or anyone in my squadron ever did.

  * * *

  My squadron is on the first flyby of Mercury. The nightside of the planet is a huge black circle in space, dead ahead. The sun is completely eclipsed by the small world, but the thin, pale streamers of the solar corona reach around the planetary shadow, as if trying to capture the minute world and draw it in.

  In the shadow of Mercury, I can actually use most of my senor systems. Most of our sensors were designed for the deep cold of the outer solar system, searching for faint energy signatures against the cold darkness. Here, finding a cold spot in all the glare of the sun or on Mercury’s heated day side will be much more difficult.

  The magnetic field of Mercury is stretched and distorted into a long, curving comet shape, blasted back by the relentless solar wind. We’re passing though the various magnetic field bands on the way in, and each sings a unique, eerie radio song as we approach. That noise is still better than dealing with the up-close blast of the solar wind, but that’ll come later.