Alliance Marines: The Road To War

by John Mierau

  Kagen was tougher than Ashlan would have expected. A kick to Card’s thigh put him off balance, and Kagen was winding up for a powerful backhand. Card had a longer reach, though, and danced back from Kagen’s attack. He countered with a savage kick to the side of Kagen’s head. The commodore collapsed on the shattered table, unconscious.

  But Ashlan was just steps away now. Other council members were scrambling for the gun, or circling behind Card.

  “Stop!”

  Ashlan skidded to a stop. Every council member was stopped in place, bewildered.

  Card looked around, panting. A leer grew on his ugly slit of a mouth.

  “Sit down. All of you!”

  Ashlan’s eyes never left Card.

  Her body immediately dropped to the ground.

  Everybody sat down.

  Card alone stood, nodding with supreme confidence.

  She hadn't meant to sit down. Why had her body obeyed his words? “What have you done?” Ashlan whispered, aghast.

  “Stop talking.” Card stood in front of her, dabbing at a cut on his eyebrow with a handkerchief. “What have we done? We put you in your place. We needed order, Ashlan. This Fleet needed order, the entire human race needed order.”

  He raised his hands into the air. “And we, the loyal sons of Earth, will give it to them.”

  CHAPTER FORTY-FOUR

  Padalecki waved Willard over when two more bodies started up the access tube. He pointed the muzzle of his weapon through the edge of the man-sized opening in the tube and drew a bead on two soldiers climbing up the long ladder.

  “They’re cool,” he called over his shoulder. “Sort of.” A text-only message from No arrived in his implant as he climbed back to his feet.

  Don’t shoot your brother.

  “In-law,” Willard corrected loudly down the tube as he slung his weapon, then repeated the words to Padalecki.“Brother-in-law. And if you saw my wife, you’d forgive me.” He slapped Jake’s head as he came out of the tube. “How about a little warning before approach next time?”

  “I pinged you three floors down, moron!” Jake grunted.

  “FleetNet isn’t getting any better I see,” Noelle said, behind him.

  Lee stood back while Willard greeted Jake and the major. When she caught sight of him, she stood straighter. She smiled, and her crinkled in the corners.

  Jake lumbered past her, an overjoyed smile on his ugly mug as he lifted Lee into a bear hug. “Goddamn! Good to see you, Captain.”

  “Okay, okay! Really good to see you too,” Lee laughed. Jake set him down, face clouding over. He ran his hands over Lee’s shoulders, feeling the outline of the wave emitters below his collarbone. “What the hell?”

  “It’s a long story, Jake. I’m okay.”

  “Yeah?” Jake asked, concern behind his eyes as he took in the scars on Lee’s bald scalp.

  “Yeah.” He slapped his former sergeant. “Command Master Sergeant, huh?” Lee said to the big man.

  “Yup, glorified babysitter.” He jerked a thumb at Major Carson. “But No here has potential.”

  “I remembered you looking a bit less dinged up,” the major said as she walked over, holding out her hand.

  Lee shook it. “We all got a bit dinged at the Row.”

  “Sure did.” Willard walked up on Jake’s left and kicked his shin. Jake hunched over and closed his eyes. “I lost the right foot, you idiot.”

  He nodded. “I know. Just wanted to make sure you still had the other one.”

  Jake tried to fight the grin, but gave in and wrapped a muscled arm around him. Willard returned the embrace, then squeezed tighter. He lost the bear-hug match, but even when the world was falling to shit, he’d take a minute and compete with Jake about something or other.

  “You can't see my souvenir from the Row, but one lung’s artificial.” Major Carson slapped her side, up high. “On the plus side, it can store concentrated ox and I can breathe like a Reacher now. The damn thing feels cold in my chest in the mornings, but I kept my fingers and toes, thanks to you,” Carson told Lee. “So I can live with a ‘chestal upgrade,’ Captain Zhang.”

  “Just Lee amongst ourselves, Major.”

  “Then I’m Noelle, or ‘No.”

  “Yay!” Willard cheered. “Now we’re all friends, can we get these two patched up, maybe?”

  Jake and Noelle exchanged confused looks.

  “You guys just get pinged with implant updates, right?” Willard asked.

  The Major and her CSO both nodded.

  Willard and Lee exchanged a serious look.

  Lee stepped forward, lifted a hand behind Noelle’s head and closed his eyes.

  Willard reached for the back of Jake's head as well. Jake pulled away. “Mind explaining?”

  “Some bad guys figured out mind control by implant. You want to let me patch you against it or take your chances, dumbass?”

  “Do it,” Jake grunted, and closed his eyes. “I knew implants were a stupid risk.”

  “So’s unprotected sex,” Willard muttered, focusing inward. “But your parents still had you.”

  “Ha ha,” Jake growled. “Good to see you too, bro.”

  CHAPTER FORTY-FIVE

  As ranking officer, and with Lee’s old unit vouching for her, Noelle found herself making decisions. After she had Willard and Lee repeat everything. Twice. Then, s

  he got to work.

  The doctors and patients were safest in the tender for now, given what Sameen and Frankie had told her lay ahead.

  Dr. Mentel balked at the idea of tagging along with the group, but before Noelle could say a word, Sameen sorted the doctor out with a hand to her throat and a few sweet, murmured words.

  Mentel stared at Sameen with a healthy fear—bordering on an unhealthy respect—and held out her hands. Sameen sliced the improvised cuffs off and Mentel hopped into the tube quick as a bunny.

  The Fleet Special Investigator smiled at Noelle. As usual, the deployed smile didn’t warm her eyes.

  Glad she’s on our side.

  Willard encrypted the door lock and showed the young doctor with the glasses how to manually slot and lock the airlock from the inside. Then Noelle started up the tube, and the group followed tightly behind.

  “We know Fleet pulled the plug on Mentel’s override project,” Lee supplied, “but someone kept her team working together off the books. Someone with high-level network access to keep her team working undisturbed on Ryson and sneak the override out in that system patch just now.”

  “It’s a system-wide update,” Frankie called out from somewhere below. “Every implant on the ship that accepted the patch is now infected with the override.”

  “The Puppet virus,” Jake intoned, trying the words out.

  “Puppet virus,” Frankie panted. “Yeah, I like it.”

  “God, listen to you wheeze!” Sameen tease. “You’ve got—”

  “The lungs of an Earther!” Jake and Frankie both said, overtop of Sameen.

  The group cracked smiles at Frankie’s lungs expense, but too soon Noelle pulled them back to business. “An override to make us follow orders we don’t agree with, and shut our bodies down if and when our brains route around it.” Noelle’s stomach revolted.

  Slavery.

  “Who’s controlling it? How?”

  “Someone with top level admin access,” Frankie grunted.

  “And how does it work exactly? Doctor Mentel?”

  Silence.

  “Go ahead, Carina,” Sameen said, her voice sharp as a knife-edge.

  Mentel sighed. “The admin has to choose and activate a target via implant. As soon as the admin activates the override, the body starts working around it. I’ve never been able to keep the control mechanism functioning for more than a couple, three hours before the brain is back in control.”

  “So we just explain it nicely,” Willard called out. “Once people know about override, they’ll roll out the red carpet to the Council room.”

  “It would
take too long,” Jake said. “Reacher ships are still pouring defensive fire on Earther ships, how long you think before the Earthers fire back? Or someone overrides our gun teams and makes them shoot to kill?”

  “We also don’t know who’s part of the plan,” Lee replied. “We don’t want to tip our hand. The mastermind could move onto whatever they’ve got planned next before we stop them.”

  “Or switch on the override for everybody between us and them,” Sameen agreed. “Turn them into guard dogs and point them at us.”

  “Why haven’t we turned on Return’s jammers, then?” Private Padalecki asked.

  Willard whistled. “Out of the mouths of babes.”

  “Aw, thanks, Lieutenant!”

  Jake and Willard simultaneously growled versions of ‘He’s married!’

  Jamming Return's network will leave us blind, too. Noelle worried about that, but the override was too powerful to leave in operation.

  “Do it, Frankie,” Noelle ordered.

  “On it,” Frankie puffed. “Okay. I’m running out of back doors, but Return’s electronic countermeasures are now scrambling every network aboard. The bad guys can’t add anyone to their zombie horde.”

  “Who are the bad guys, Doctor?” Noelle asked. “Who supplied you with top-level access for Override?”

  The ring of boots climbing rungs was her only answer.

  “I get someone powerful hates Reachers,” Willard shouted, “but why kill us now? Why not just walk us into the Takers on the front lines when we pop out of the Fold?”

  “That’s easy,” Sameen’s even voice replied. “Earthers think they’re the chosen people. Sorry, Noelle,” she hurriedly added, “some Earthers think that way. To them, this makes twisted sense: cut our numbers in half now, blame it on the Churn, and save the rest of us for cannon fodder against the Takers.”

  “Mind-controlled cannon fodder to boot,” PFC Padalecki said in a queasy voice. “We’re not even human to them, are we?”

  “Don’t be dramatic, Erin,” Dr. Mentel chided playfully. “It’s not about where you’re from. Surely your tech-savvy friend has noticed everyone on Return got the patch as well?”

  “Call me Erin again and my boot meets your face, Doc.”

  More silence, save for the vibration and echo of the rungs.

  “She is right,” Frankie said, with obvious reluctance. “The patch was delivered to everyone in the system.”

  “Not a culture war then,” Lee said.

  “Cull the working class now, in case the Takers do go down easy?” Sameen said.

  Noelle stopped her climb on the ladder and looked down at faces pitched with sick acceptance—and Dr. Mentel’s disinterested one.

  It wasn't about ideology, it was about money.

  Corporations. Politicians. The People of Means. All hiding behind Earther superiority, while really...“The big dogs don’t want to share what’s left after the war.”

  “Except the Cloke didn’t blow itself to pieces as planned,” Grunt added. “It got in the fight and it got out the message. Other Reacher ships heard the message and scrambled Fleet’s networks, expecting a follow-up attack.”

  Noelle nodded to herself, and started back up the ladder on the double-quick. “Giving our bad guys no way to activate the puppet virus until the jammers come down.”

  “Both good reasons for pushing the patch out now,” Padalecki reasoned.

  “They can't win cleanly now, but still need to act,” Lee said, his voice grim. “Before someone puts it all together and stops them.”

  “Except we have the pieces, and we know who to tell,” Sameen said. “My boss is the Inspector General, and Frankie’s boss is…”

  “The head of Information Division,” Frankie finished. “But forget him, we need to get to the Ashcan.”

  “They call Ashlan Daku ‘Ashcan’ now?” Lee asked.

  “Yeah, Cap,” Willard told him. “She’s a tough old biddy, no lie.”

  “We can’t do anything about ships shooting at each other. We focus on getting to the Admiral.” Noelle called down the line. “Frankie: can you upload Lee’s cure far and wide?”

  “Sure, if you’ve got Department or Council level access. Otherwise, we can only transfer it by direct contact, and only to people who accept the input.”

  Two floors left to go, then they had to move out in the open. They needed a better plan than ‘run for the council room.’ “The military is locked down, that’s the good news. MP’s and Council security are all that's going to try to stop us.”

  “No and I are technically AWOL,” Jake answered, “and Lee and Mentel are going to send off red flags: they're not supposed to be on this ship at all.”

  “So we got a fight on our hands.” Jake sounded delighted.

  “Easy, Grunt,” Willard said. “They’re just doing their jobs. We need to incapacitate, not eliminate.”

  “If you can’t incapacitate, you do eliminate,” Noelle countermanded, climbing into the light of the supply and repair module on the command deck. “If the jamming is defeated, the puppet virus could propagate to all the ships in the fleet. We can't let that happen, Understood?”

  Thin, sickly acknowledgements of the order echoed from below as Noelle levered herself out of the tube.

  The rest of the group slowly emerged into a room much like the one they'd gathered in below.

  “Remember our talk, Doc,” Sameen said, staring at Dr. Mentel with empty eyes. “Keep quiet. No calls on your implant, either, or Frankie there will know.”

  “I’ll…make sure…we all...know,” Frankie breathlessly promised the haughty grey-haired woman. “Just gonna...sit here a minute.” She propped herself on a waist-high crate.

  Mentel rolled her eyes-but they returned to Sameen quickly, and warily.

  A map appeared in Noelle’s head—in all their heads—showing less than a hundred metres of corridor between where they stood and the council room. She froze in place, and executed a memory engram to disable her implant's connection to the network. “We can’t trust the network right now. Someone high up is behind this coup, and could be monitoring for the kind of trouble we're planning”

  “What she said before? The major was right,” Lee called out. “We can’t let them stop us. We kill if we have to.”

  Noelle met each eye and nodded. “Frankie and Sameen each trust people at the other end of this hall. They need all the data we’ve got on this takeover, before someone else at the top can pull it off.”

  “We kill our own people?” Willard said, incredulous.

  “Or a lot more will die,” Noelle said.

  Willard looked at her and nodded, face serious. “Yes, sirs.”

  “Aw, fuck,” Frankie gasped, her breathing still not under control. “Can’t we just…gas them…or something?”

  “No gas grenades, no gas masks, and we kind of need to breathe, too,” Sameen reminded her, ticking up three fingers.

  Noelle put a hand to her chest. She had the beginnings of a plan. “Noe don’t. Or at least, not as much!”

  Frankie stared at her, winded and confused.

  Lee chuckled. “I take it Return has an all-Earther crew?”

  “Yes, it does.” Noelle turned intense eyes back to Frankie. “Can one of your dirty tricks get us into life support?”

  Frankie narrowed her eyes, looking from face to face. “You want me to kill everyone in this compartment?”

  “No, Frankie, I want you to remind them about the difference between Reachers and Earthers. Can you do that?”

  Frankie didn’t get it.

  Willard started heaving and panting and clutching at his throat.

  Then it hit her.

  Frankie grinned. “Hell, yes I can!”

  CHAPTER FORTY-SIX

  Ashlan had no control. She was trapped in her mind, ordered silent by the man now looking around the council room as if seeing it for the first time.

  “Never understood why you took this room apart, Ashlan.” Joseph Card waved
around at empty walls. “To be surrounded by paintings, bound books, priceless art.” He swung around. “And that rug! Was it a genuine Persian? Tell me where it is, I want it back when this is my office.”

  “I never cared enough to ask,” Ashlan told him truthfully, now Card had asked her a direct question.

  She couldn’t have lied if she wanted to, she realized. The override saw to that.

  The override. She remembered the day Commodore Kagen had stormed into her office with a physical copy of the report, printed out just to throw it in her face. She glanced where Kagen sat, struck as silent and still by Vice-Admiral Card’s commands as the rest of the council members. His left eye was blackening from Joe Card’s beating, but he had the same fierce look he wore when he confronted her about the report.

  She had ordered the override project scrubbed on the spot. Her skin crawled at the idea of anyone made a puppet, a prisoner in their own skin.

  Now, she was the puppet. At first she raged, then felt the terror flick its tongue, but she was too old and had seen too much to waste time on useless emotions. She banished the terror. Getting past the helplessness and dread was harder—she felt those emotions not for herself as much as for her Fleet—but she banished them, too.

  She had worked out the method of delivery: the mysterious system update, the one that had installed itself—an unprecedented violation. A betrayal of the host she hadn’t thought her implant capable of.

  Doctor Mentel’s work.

  That soulless genius had a lot to answer for, and to undo.

  Vice-Admiral Card was standing beside Kagen now, clapping a hand jovially on his shoulder. “Sorry about this, Fleet Admiral. You have made miracles come true. You may have saved the species.” He sniffed and looked around the empty office. “But I can’t serve a woman who turns her back on the things that make life worth living. I just can't trust you.”

  Creature comforts. Wealth. Preserving the elite. That’s all this coup was about. Outside she was placid. Inside, she raged. She wanted to scream. She wanted to race across the room and pummel the Vice-Admiral.