Messenger

by James Walker

  The lead squad reached the rear transport and swam along its hull. As they neared the bow, Guntar affixed an explosive to the hull and set a timer. He signaled to the third squad to infiltrate the ship once the explosive had punched a hole in its side, then gestured to squad two to make their way to the second transport. Finally, he led his own squad toward the lead transport.

  Squad one reached the lead transport and found the gaping hole their mine had torn in the hull. Cena led the squad through the hole into the hangar and paused at the sight of numerous P.S.A. agents flailing about on the surface of the water, struggling to ready equipment for a landing attempt, oblivious to the intruders.

  She gestured to her squad mates, then burst out of the water with her pair of automatic pistols blazing, sweeping each one in an arc to either side to engulf the P.S.A. agents in a full circle of raining bullets. Half a dozen agents fell under the barrage, and as the survivors scrambled to fight back, the rest of the rebel squad emerged from the water, the muzzles of their weapons licking the air with fire. Within seconds, every P.S.A. agent in the hangar lay dead or dying, their blood staining the water with expanding crimson pools.

  The rebels climbed the stairs to the catwalk at the aft of the hangar, taking them above the level of the water. They took off their rebreathers and paused for a moment to check their equipment and reload their weapons.

  “Let's keep up the pace,” Guntar said. “We need to take them out while they're still reeling from the surprise attack.”

  “Watch your spacing, guys,” Cena warned them. “Don't bunch up.”

  They commenced storming the vessel. At first, they encountered only a handful of support personnel, who surrendered the moment the rebels came into view. On the next deck, they found several P.S.A. agents guarding the hatches to the cabins and swiftly overwhelmed them with superior firepower and teamwork. Once the guards had been taken care of, they split up into groups of two, with each group taking a cabin.

  Cena placed a small explosive on her cabin's hatch, then stood back as it detonated, blowing off the lock. She nodded to her partner, then kicked in the hatch and burst in with her automatic pistols ready.

  A crowd of familiar faces waited on the other side of the hatch. For a moment, the captive rebels stared at Cena and her partner in bewilderment, then they erupted into cheers.

  Amidst the cheers, a particular face emerged from the crowd, his expression flushed with relief. Vic Shown came forward, staring at Cena as though she had returned from the dead, and threw a sharp salute.

  “Good to see you again, Sergeant,” he said.

  “Oh, don't look like that,” Cena replied. “You should know it takes more than a giant sword through the gut to put me down.”

  Vic's gaze dropped to her stomach and his eyes widened in alarm. “Um, Sergeant? About that gut wound.”

  “What?” Cena looked down and saw a crimson stain expanding across her abdomen. “Oh, hell. Looks like I overdid it.”

  Several rebels came forward and helped her sit down. She laid down her automatic pistols and held her wounded side, her face contorting in sudden pain.

  “You'll be OK, Sergeant,” one of the rebels assured her. “They must have plucked you out of the regen tank before you were finished healing. Someone grab the sheets off the cots and start tearing some ban­dages.”

  “Well, so much for my dramatic rescue. Talk about lame.” Cena picked up her pistols and handed them to Vic. “Here, take these and go report to Colonel Artega.”

  Vic accepted the pistols. “Understood. What's the objective?”

  “Where else do you go when you're taking over a ship?” Cena grinned. “The bridge.”

  *

  “—shore team has been wiped out,” the agent's panicked voice came through the comm. “They caught us completely by surprise. They're heavily armed. We can't hold them back—”

  A burst of gunfire brought the transmission to an abrupt end. Ridley and the captain exchanged dark glances.

  “We should attempt a landing to flush out their snipers, huh? Great idea that turned out to be,” Ridley said. “They infiltrated the ship through the hole they blew in the hull and ambushed our troops in the hangar while they were preparing to move out. That means nearly every agent on the ship has been taken out.”

  “It's the three-eyed girl they want, isn't it?” the captain said. “I'll get her from my cabin and bring her back to the bridge. We can use her as a hostage to negotiate our escape.”

  Ridley shook his head. “No. We can't do that.”

  “Why the hell not?” the captain demanded.

  “She's obviously just a product of some government lab,” Ridley said. “I can't justify putting an innocent in danger. Besides, I gave my word that she wouldn't be harmed.”

  “You think you can fight a war with that kind of soft attitude?” the captain snarled.

  “So you think I'm weak?” Ridley replied. “Let me tell you something, Captain. There's hard, and then there's monstrous. I've learned how to be hard. I haven't quite learned how to be a monster yet.” He held out his hand. “Now give me the intercom.”

  The captain only stared angrily at Ridley. “This is madness. You're throwing away our last chance to escape.”

  “Give me the intercom, Captain,” Ridley repeated. “That's an order.”

  For an instant, the captain looked like he might disobey. Then, with an annoyed grunt, he grabbed the receiver off the instrument panel and handed it to Ridley.

  “What are you planning to do?” he asked.

  “Isn't that obvious? There's only one option left.” Ridley flicked on the receiver and announced, “Attention enemy forces. This is the commander. Cease your attack at once. I repeat, cease your attack at once.” He paused, swallowed audibly, then said, “We surrender.”

  43

  One by one, the members of the Onyx Down's pursuit team boarded the dropships and strapped themselves in. Lamba and Omicron were among the last to board. The rectangle of daylight behind them narrowed and then vanished as the ramp swung closed.

  Omicron let out a petulant sigh. “I can't believe we're packing it in with our mission incomplete. So the enemy managed to recapture the target. So what? It's not like we couldn't get it back.”

  Lambda said nothing.

  “This ain't gonna look good on our records, you know,” Omicron pressed. “Chi strain is fresh off the presses. The brass are always leery when a new strain is first deployed. If we can't rack up some victories, we might end up getting canned.”

  “So be it,” Lambda said. “That's the eventual fate of all augments, anyway.”

  Omicron looked at her oddly. “What's gotten into you? You've been acting weird ever since we got Charlie back. Don't tell me 'cause you were the one who recovered the target, you think you're in the clear. Your job ain't over just 'cause you carry out one set of orders, you know. You start slacking off and you'll get the shaft.”

  “I'm not a machine,” Lambda whispered. “No matter how hard they try to make me one.”

  “What's that supposed to mean?”

  Lambda said nothing.

  Omicron opened his mouth to demand an explanation when the dropship's automated system warned of imminent takeoff. Within moments, the craft's powerful thrusters propelled it skyward, subjecting the passengers to high g-forces.

  As soon as the dropships were free of Chalice's atmosphere, they changed course to intercept the Onyx Down's current orbit, causing the angle of force to change. After twenty minutes, they began decelerating and exchanging signals with the Onyx Down to coordinate the docking procedure. Fifteen minutes later, guided by lasers and precise computer calculations, they entered the Onyx Down's hangar and se­cured themselves to the deck.

  After the docking procedure was complete, the ramps opened up and the passengers disembarked. With the hangar deck in zero-g, the passengers propelled themselves off the floor and walls to the elevators.

  They rode the elevators to the outer ring
and came under the effects of its simulated gravity. The passengers dispersed as each headed for his own station or cabin, leaving the augments alone in the passageway. Omicron turned to his partner to continue their earlier conversation, but Lambda surprised him by speaking first.

  “Omicron, there's something I'd like to ask you,” she said. “What kind of memories do you have of the augment training?”

  Omicron cocked an eyebrow. “The hell are you talking about? We just graduated not that long ago. My memories are clear as day.”

  “Humor me,” Lambda insisted. “What do you remember about it?”

  “OK, if you insist,” Omicron shrugged. “I remember a lot of weird virtual training to develop our reflexes and coordination. Classes on engineering and astro-navigation. Sick time to let our bodies adjust after the nanomachine injections and operations to improve our musculoskeletal structure and nervous systems. And, of course, plenty of mock battles where we beat the hell out of the other candidates to prove that we were the best. That's how we got here. Happy now?”

  “No,” Lambda said. “That's not how I remember it at all.”

  Omicron planted his hands on his hips and leaned over his diminutive counterpart. “Babe, you are getting weirder all the time. What the hell are you on about?”

  “The classes and the virtual training, I remember,” Lambda said. “But everything else is completely different. We weren't given recovery time after the operations to augment our bodies. The surgery was excruciating for days afterward. But the worst...” She held up one hand and stared at it through wide eyes. “The worst is what we did to the other candidates. They weren't mock battles, Omicron. We killed them—with vehicles, guns, knives, with our bare hands. That's how the training made us into elites by the time we graduated. The rigors of desperate combat were drilled into our bodies, our muscle memory, our subconscious. Fighting normals is nothing after frenzied battles with fellow augments crazy with fear and rage. Then, at the end, they wiped our conscious memory of it because most of us were driven half-mad by the slaughter, and because they thought we would be more loyal if we didn't know the truth.”

  Omicron looked long and hard at Lambda. After a protracted silence, he said, “Sister, you have lost it. You need to get your head checked out. I think that three-eyed freak really screwed with your brain when she touched you.”

  “I think you're right that she's what caused it,” Lambda agreed. “But she didn't make me crazy. She's shown me the truth. These are my real memories.”

  “How do you know?” Omicron demanded. “Just for the sake of argument, let's say your crazy story is true and they replaced our real memories with fake ones. Then even if you got your real memories back, how would you know they weren't fake too? Start thinking you've been believing in a fictional life and you end up questioning your entire existence. It's a waste of time.”

  Lambda looked up at Omicron with pleading eyes. “You're wrong,” she exclaimed, her voice desperate. “I can see now. My memories from before, they were just a little too crisp and neat. Just like they were inserted into my brain instead of forming naturally. But these new memo­ries that have replaced the fakes, they're different. I can tell they're real. I can feel it here.” She placed one hand over her chest. “My heart tells me they're real. There's no way I could feel so much anguish and guilt over a fake past.”

  “That's just sentimental bullshit,” Omicron sneered. Then, slowly, his derisive expression softened into one of concern. “Listen, Lambda,” he said with uncharacteristic softness. “You are really messed up. That three-eyed bitch really fucked you in the head. You should schedule a checkup with the maintenance team. A couple hours in the maintenance pod and you'll be back to your old self again.”

  Lambda cast her eyes downward, unable to conceal her bitterness and disappointment that Omicron would not believe her. Then, to her surprise, Omicron grabbed her shoulders, causing her to look up and see his eyes full of intensity.

  “Seriously, you need to let them fix you,” he whispered, his tone urgent. “If Commodore Falsrain or Commander Koga finds out the crazy shit you've been saying, they'll have you decommissioned in a heart­beat. This is dangerous, Lambda. Go to the maintenance guys and let them put your head back together, or you are in deep trouble.”

  Sorrow shone deep in Lambda's eyes as she stared helplessly at Omicron. Gradually, she resigned herself to the reality that he would not be persuaded to her side, and her sorrow faded to apathy. Then, as her mind continued racing, the apathy transformed into cunning.

  “You're right, Omicron.” She grabbed his wrists and pried his hands off her shoulders. “Thank you for the advice. I'll schedule a checkup with the maintenance team right away.”

  Relief showed on Omicron's normally scowling face. “Good. You're making the right choice.”

  “Oh, yes,” Lambda agreed. “I'm making the right choice, all right.”

  The rebels marched their P.S.A. prisoners through the forest until they reached a large clearing. They prodded the prisoners into the center of the clearing and took up positions around the perimeter. A pair of burly rebels wrested Ridley from his comrades and dragged him be­fore Guntar and Pierson, the latter with several layers of bandages wrapped around his torso.

  “It seems the roles of captor and captive have been reversed,” Ridley observed. He looked Guntar in the eyes and added, “I applaud the daring of your rescue operation, but you've made a serious mistake. Every one of our prisoners has been injected with a fatal poison, and without the antidote—”

  “You mean the necrofalium?” Guntar interrupted.

  Ridley fell silent.

  “No need to worry about that,” Guntar said. “We acquired some antidote during our prison escape, and we've already distributed it to the prisoners. Thank you, by the way, for taking such good care of the troops while I was indisposed. I can't wait to return the favor.”

  “Do whatever you want with me,” Ridley said. “But leave my men out of this. They were only following orders.”

  “It doesn't work that way, friend,” Guntar said. “You don't get to inject my men with killer nanomachines and then plead mercy for yours because they were 'only following orders.' What the hell do you think my men were doing?”

  “You can't give legitimate orders,” Ridley retorted. “The Union doesn't recognize you as a military. The so-called Sarisan Liberty Coalition is nothing but a glorified terrorist network.”

  “Spare me your self-righteous garbage,” Guntar snarled. “You have the gall to call us terrorists? What the hell do you call letting loose battle drones in kill mode into gatherings of peaceful protesters? Crowd control?”

  “That was the old governor's way of doing things,” Ridley said. “The Union recognized the brutality of his methods and appointed Governor Song to replace him. She understands the wisdom of ruling with a softer touch. The people's lives would be peaceful, if only you rebels didn't force us to take military action in response to your futile attacks.”

  This time it was Pierson who responded by asking, “And Spacy running amok in Port Osgow? Is that an example of the 'soft touch' you were talking about?”

  “Spacy isn't under colonial jurisdiction,” Ridley said. “What they do is out of our hands. I'll admit they went too far on Port Osgow. But even that action was only a response to the terrorist activities you were carrying out on the station.”

  “So if only we didn't exist,” Pierson said, “the people of the colonies would have peaceful, idyllic lives, free from any oppression and exploitation by the Union. Is that what you're saying?”

  Ridley hesitated.

  “It seems your faith in your government isn't as total as you would have us believe,” Pierson said. “Even under your enlightened governor, you suck the colonists' lifeblood through crushing taxes and micromanage their lives with the help of a pervasive surveillance network. Any­one who fails to conform is prosecuted as a criminal and, if the P.S.A. is in a particularly vindictive mood, executed as a
subversive. It seems to me that overthrowing your twisted system is not only the colonists' right, but their obligation.”

  Ridley's face drooped with exhaustion, making him look nearly a decade older than usual. His voice was tired as he answered, “That's where you're wrong. You want to force me into admitting that the Colonial Administration's methods are inhumane. All right, I'll admit it. That still doesn't give you the right to revolt.”

  Pierson crossed his arms and listened with interest.

  “To begin with, the people aren't on your side,” Ridley went on. “Most of them are happy to have their lives controlled as long as the recreation bureau keeps them adequately supplied with frivolous pleasures. Your propaganda makes a lot of noise about fighting for the peo­ple, but you're really just fighting on behalf of a discontented minority.

  “Secondly, your rebellion is hopeless. The Union has overwhelming military superiority. You'll never win. You're only causing more violence and suffering for nothing. But let's say that by some miracle you do win. What kind of government will you institute in the Union's place? Without popular support, you'd be nothing more than a military dictatorship.”

  “Don't think we're like you,” Guntar sneered. “Once we've dismantled the corrupt Union government, we'll let the people decide what new order to erect in its place.”

  A cynical smile crept onto Ridley's face. “You're deluded fools. Don't tell me that a pack of idealistic rebels hasn't pored through the forbidden history archives. How do you think the Union came into existence? Here's a clue: It started as a ragtag band of revolutionaries fighting against an oppressive dictatorship so they could institute an enlight­ened democratic government in its place. Sound familiar?”

  “What's your damn point?” Guntar spat.