by C H Gideon
“Obvious?” Jenkins repeated skeptically.
“Arh’Kel and human physiologies only differ on the basic building blocks: carbon vs. silica,” Styles explained. “Beyond that, most everything deeper than the skin is structurally similar. Sure, they directly incorporate iron into their skeletons, but they breathe oxygen just like we do. They’ve got the ability to store and extract that oxygen from the air or from mineral forms, permitting them to hibernate for long periods of time in the presence of oxidized iron, but beyond that, our cardiopulmonary systems are generally the same. Special muscles circulate oxygen-rich blood cells based on iron, they’ve got a fairly narrow range of internal pH they can tolerate, and they digest nutrients by breaking materials down with acid stored in their digestive tracts. Life is pretty varied, but the fundamentals are remarkably similar no matter where a given life tree took root.”
“Fine,” Jenkins said, hoping to get to the substance of the briefing before enduring too much more technobabble. “Why is there nothing in the archives about this device being found on Arh’Kel corpses?”
“I think this is something new, sir,” Styles explained. “The Arh’Kel are extremely unified in social purpose, but they’re also just as extremely solitary and individualistic. The almost mindless waves of soldiers that we’ve encountered here are totally unlike anything previously reported during the Arh’Kel wars, and this almost hive-mind is far from normal for Arh’Kel psychology. When they attack, they do so with single-minded purpose, but until our engagements here on Durgan’s Folly, they have never stood their ground while getting slaughtered. Guerilla tactics are much more their style. Displace, disperse, fortify, and counter-raid is what we’ve come to expect from rock-biters once they’re on their heels.”
“Is it possible we stumbled onto something critical down there?” Jenkins offered. “Maybe their backs were to the wall and they felt they didn’t have a choice?”
“It’s possible, but unlikely,” Styles said dubiously. “They reproduce in a process somewhere between egg-laying and spore-casting, leaving fertilized zygotes in prepared caverns and then leaving them behind to develop on their own. They indirectly supervise conditions in the hatcheries, but there isn’t much in the way of familial bonding in their society, so the way they think about protecting sensitive locations is alien to us. What we do know is that they’re unusually unified in their purpose, which is predominantly to spread their influence, and that means increasing the species’ numbers. Also, I should point out that Fleet Intel says that anything they have down here was built here. None of this gear was built elsewhere and dropped in from orbit, which means they’ve got factories and mining operations well-established all across the twilight band.”
“And they’ve been operating here, potentially, for thirty years,” Jenkins mused.
“It’s a long time for rock-biters.”
“How many are we looking at down here, worst-case scenario?” Jenkins finally asked.
“Under ideal conditions, an Arh’Kel takes about eight years to develop to maturity and can live for centuries, possibly even millennia. They’re asexual, so there’s no reproductive bottleneck except for the presence of the rare minerals needed to form their nervous systems. So with an ideal diet and environmental conditions, a dedicated spawning Arh’Kel can make about two zygotes per Earth day. It takes them about a month to get into spawning mode, but once they’re there, they can continue making offspring indefinitely. Between a quarter and three-quarters of these zygotes reach maturity, again, depending on the environment and dietary conditions.”
Jenkins nodded, having familiarized himself with their reproductive systems and growth potential prior to deployment. “How ideal are these conditions, Chief?”
“Honestly,” Styles replied grimly, “it looks like they’ve got everything they need to extract the rare minerals faster than our ninetieth percentile projections. But even if we only project half of their zygotes surviving to maturity..."
“In thirty standard years, that’s over ten thousand Arh’Kel per spawner,” Jenkins finished for him.
“With about three-fourths of those reaching maturity by now,” Styles agreed. “I’d probably run the number down to five thousand combat-ready Arh’Kel per dedicated spawner, and using primitive tools, it takes about ten Arh’Kel to feed one spawner. Using more advanced extraction methods, it gets closer to one-to-one, so even if there were only a hundred Arh’Kel here when Fleet withdrew three decades ago, and even if they’ve been operating with primitive extraction systems for the bulk of that time…”
Jenkins sank back in his chair. “A low-end estimate is still around fifty thousand Arh’Kel just from those initial breeders.”
“With a high-end estimate, based on the number of HWPs and orbital guns we’ve encountered, well over ten million,” Styles finished ominously.
“Critical mass on an Arh’Kel foothold is three hundred thousand.” Jenkins set his jaw.
“That’s the point at which they start building orbital infrastructure, including warships,” Styles confirmed. “Their population growth and behavioral patterns work like a clock. Even the databases we managed to steal from the interstellar Illumination League, an ‘august’ multi-species organization to which our oh-so-beloved Solarian cousins belong, confirm that there doesn’t appear to be much deviation in Arh’Kel behavior. Once they reach a given population point, they invariably do certain things.”
“But with these devices directly influencing their thoughts...” Jenkins mused, turning one of the broken implant fragments over in his hand.
“We have no idea what their behavior patterns will be,” Styles finished.
Jenkins closed his eyes and considered the possibility that this rock might harbor ten million Arh’Kel soldiers.
Then, like puzzle pieces falling together, he understood what all of this meant, and that realization chilled him to the bone.
“All they need are troop transports,” he whispered.
“And they’ll be able to send Arh’Kel soldiers through the wormhole gates fast enough to wipe out every human colony in the Terran Republic before our enlightened Solar cousins, or any other member species of the Illumination League, for that matter, can intercede on our behalf,” Styles declared flatly.
“Arh’Kel have been popping up all over the Republic in the last six months,” Jenkins mused. “They can’t all have these devices, can they?”
“No.” Styles shook his head firmly. “To my knowledge, this is the only encounter the Terran Fleet has had with this technology.”
“Are you confident about that?” Jenkins pressed.
“Extremely, Commander,” Styles confirmed, and Jenkins believed him. He didn’t know how Styles got his intel, moreover, he knew that he very much did not want to know, but Styles’ confidence had not yet been misplaced.
“Did they steal the technology from Sol?” Jenkins wondered aloud.
“It’s possible, and given the available information, it’s probably our best current guess,” Styles said with a shrug, “but I wouldn’t venture that far. All I know is that there are significant structural and functional similarities between these things and the uplinks the Solarians use to connect to their One Mind network. The architecture and tech base are a hundred percent Arh’Kel, let me be absolutely clear about that,” he said pointedly. “From the base-six coding to the flexible ceramic insulators, these were without a doubt manufactured by Arh’Kel for Arh’Kel. But the way the devices go about the process of interconnecting individuals…it was similar enough to make me see a potential link with the Solarians.”
Jenkins opened his mouth to continue the dialogue, but he was interrupted by a priority chime from the comm panel built into his tiny desk.
The chime signaled a P2P link-up with Fleet, a link he wasn’t expecting for another two days.
“This is Commander Lee Jenkins,” he greeted after accepting the incoming link.
“Commander,” came the friendly voice of Se
rgeant Major Tim Trapper. “It’s good to hear your voice, Leeroy.”
“Sergeant Major.” Jenkins cocked his head in alarm. “I didn’t expect to hear from an old Pounder like you. What’s our status?”
“I’m inbound with two hundred and fifty Pounders from the 203rd,” Trapper replied. “Heard you kids could use a couple cans of supplies and decided to deliver ‘em personally.” Jenkins and Styles made brief eye contact, but they both knew what Trapper’s arrival meant.
Fleet wasn’t going to arrive in two days as scheduled, and the old dog had probably bucked the chain of command in order to deliver supplies and badly-needed reinforcements, however meager, to the soon-to-be cut-off battalion.
Putting up a false front, Jenkins laughed. “I guess it’s true what they say: life’s one big circle. You start delivering pizza in your teens, take a break for a few decades, then pick right back up a year or two before they put you out to pasture.”
“Fuck you very much, Commander,” Trapper retorted.
Jenkins chuckled hollowly. “I’ll have my boys spit a steer and tap a keg.”
“Sounds good. I’m relaying my target zone coordinates, but the bus driver was in a rush to drop us off so we might need a little help finding the front door,” Trapper explained.
“I’ll dispatch a platoon to rendezvous with you and escort you to HQ,” Jenkins assured him as the coordinates hit his screen. The drop zone was fifteen clicks from the plateau, so escorting these reinforcements back to the barn seemed like the perfect job for the newly-promoted leader of 5th Platoon.
“ETA twelve minutes,” Trapper said.
“I’ll have my people there in twenty,” he said while Styles, without being urged, had already summoned Xi to the command center. “Stay frosty, Sergeant Major. The natives are restless and if you don’t watch your six, they’ll kill all of you and take my supplies.”
“Will do. I wouldn’t want you to miss out on hot chow and mail,” the sergeant major acknowledged. “See you in twenty. Trapper out.”
The line went dead, and Styles gave voice to their mutual concern. “The Arh’Kel fleet must have already arrived.”
“Which means that, aside from a couple hundred more Pounders and some fresh ordnance…” Jenkins nodded heavily. “We’re not getting reinforced any time soon, because Fleet is fighting the bad guys at the outer edge of this system.”
The situation had been ‘bad’ a few minutes earlier, but it had just rocketed past ‘worse’ on its way to ‘apocalyptic.’
“Signal the battalion,” Jenkins said grimly. “It’s time we hunkered down. I don’t want our names added to those lost on Durgan’s Folly. From here until Fleet shows up, our mission is to survive.”
11
The Hook-up
“I’ve got ‘em, LT,” Podsy declared after finally maneuvering the Owl-class drone into position over the quartet of drop-cans—massive cargo pods used to drop personnel and material from low orbit. “Forwarding the coordinates now.”
“They missed their DZ by twenty clicks,” Xi said in surprise. “How the hell do you miss that bad?”
“They must’ve been taking fire,” Podsy suggested.
“Either that or the pilot was stoned,” Xi quipped.
“Could be. Not everyone is the cream of the crop like us.”
“All right,” Xi piped into the 5th Platoon’s dedicated comm channel, “we’ve sighted the supply drop. I’m forwarding a new itinerary now; follow my lead and keep up the pace. The rock-biters have better seismic scanners than we do so they know our people are out there, which means every second brings them closer to those cans.”
“Why did Fleet drop these cans way out here?” Ford asked. Xi didn’t know the answer to that question. All Commander Jenkins had told her was to rendezvous with over two hundred Pounders and collect the supply crates they came with. “Why not wait until Fleet Ground touches down to resupply us?”
“I heard there’s a VIP from Fleet Command coming to personally inspect your tailpipe, Forktail,” quipped Nakamura, Wolverine’s Jock.
“Haha, Wolverine,” Ford deadpanned. “I’m sure you make your mama proud with that mouth.”
“Proud?” Nakamura feigned incredulity. “I make my mama scream with this mouth.”
“Jesus…” Ford said in clear disgust.
“I heard it’s Tim Trapper and the 203rd with what’s left of your pet octopus, Wolverine,” interjected Nazair, Spin Doctor’s Jock. “He said the thing’s filthier than the inside of your enviro-suit and he wants a full refund since there was nothing pleasurable about it.”
“Fuck you, Nazi,” Nakamura weakly retorted. “The octopus joke was old when your mom still had teeth, and we all know that’s been awhile.”
“Hit a little close to home, did it?” Nazair chuckled. “You can’t run from who you are, Wolverine, and you, my friend, are the end product of a long line of sexually twisted people. I mean seriously, octopuses? How desperate do you have to be to stick one of those things up...”
“Cut the chatter,” Xi interrupted halfheartedly. She enjoyed the exchange far more than she probably should have and had no intention of being a mere bystander to such banter. “I want everyone in 5th Platoon to know that you’re all sick and I’m ordering each and every one of you report to Doc Fellows for a full physical examination as soon we get back to the barn.”
“Oh, Mommy, do I have to?” Nazair whined.
“Spin Doctor, if I ever had the misfortune to expel something as pathetic as you from my body, I’d have the good sense to lock myself away and beg the universe’s forgiveness for my transgression for the rest of my days,” she retorted.
“But to expel me, you’d first have to let me in,” Nazair chuckled.
“Eww.” Xi wrinkled her nose in disgust. “I’d rather close my eyes and give Wolverine’s octopus a go.”
“Dammit,” Nakamura groaned, “are you people ever going to let that joke die?”
“Why, so Podsy can finally get some action?” Nazair asked with mock sincerity, causing even Podsednik to laugh.
“All right,” Ford grunted, “that’s enough chatter.”
Xi scowled, knowing it wasn’t Ford’s place to make the correction but deciding that he was probably right. She refused to think of him as her XO—executive officer—even though he was the second-highest ranking officer in the platoon. Which meant if she was ganked, he’d take over. Don’t get killed, she reminded herself.
“Heads up,” she said as soon as the first glint of a drop-can appeared on her visual pick-up. “I’ve got eyes on the cans.”
“Copy that,” Ford acknowledged.
“Forktail and Spin Doctor, prepare to load up,” Xi ordered. “Wolverine, help reposition the canisters if they’re dug in too deep to unload.”
Soon the mechs came to a stop in front of the four identical drop-cans. Their parachutes and braking thrusters had clearly been deployed, and only one of the cans had suffered any kind of real damage upon impact with the relatively soft volcanic glass.
Positioned around the canisters was a well-organized defensive line of FGF Pounders, the 203rd, just as Nazair had suggested.
And standing at the center of the formation was a man whose demeanor and physique made it clear he was someone to be reckoned with.
The long, gray-white handlebar mustache and clean-shaven head were distinctive enough for the Elvira’s facial-recognition software to easily identify the man as Sergeant Major Tim Trapper, Sr. He was a legend in the FGF, known as much for being a hard-ass as for his utter devotion to the people under his command.
Even before Elvira came to a stop, he strode purposefully toward the mech and timed his approach so that he set foot on the bottom step of Elvira’s boarding ramp as it touched the ground without breaking stride.
He entered the compartment and Xi stood from her chair to meet him.
“Don’t break your neural link...” he began before realizing Xi had no such connection. “You walked this thing
out here double-time on manual?” he asked, his eyebrows rising minutely in apparent surprise. “What is that, eight inputs per second just for the full-speed walk cycle?”
“Between seven and eleven,” Xi agreed, impressed at his knowledge of her mech’s control interface, “depending on the terrain. In this shit, it averages about nine and a half at full speed.”
He whistled appreciatively. “I’d like to see that sometime, if you don’t mind.”
“It would be my pleasure, Sergeant Major,” she agreed.
“All right,” he said, handing her a data chip. “This is an upload for Commander Jenkins that he needs to receive ASAP. It’s encrypted, so you can send it in the open if you have to, but a P2P link would be better if you’ve got one available.”
“We’ve got a relay-capable drone assigned to the platoon.” She nodded, handing the chip to Podsy. “The commander will receive the packet as soon as the drone reaches relay altitude.”
“Good.” Trapper nodded. “I’ve got twenty-three casualties and six fatalities from the landing. I’ll need to transfer the wounded to these walker mechs since some have spinal damage and the ride will be smoother on a walker than a roller.”
“Understood,” she said. “Wolverine, our humanoid mech, isn’t well-suited to carrying supply pods so have your people rig up some slings and they can ride in those.”
“Will do.” Trapper cocked his head to rattle off a series of commands using Pounder shorthand. “As for the supplies, I’m afraid I couldn’t get my hands on very much. Mostly chain gun rounds, a few rockets, some fifteen shells, and a few odds and ends that I didn’t think Fleet would notice were gone until after we’d touched down.”
“Everything makes a difference, Sergeant Major,” she said. “We’re glad to have you.”
“I’d like to say I’m glad to be here, but I’m not. Still, someone needs to keep today’s youth off the streets and out of trouble,” he quipped, a challenging twinkle in his eye as the first of the crates were loaded onto Elvira’s broad, flat topside.