Into the Maelstrom

by Loren L. Coleman

  No one had asked Sergeant Tousley, but he’d seen worse plans in his time. It wasn’t complicated or so rigid that the smallest deviation would ruin it. It relied more on small units thinking on their feet and working together. Zyborgs and Cyclops were brought in as the hardest-hitting units the Neo-Soviets could field. The Union would try to work Draco launchers in close and Ares assault suits that could turn on a temporary field to shield themselves from the Sleeper’s EMP defense. It should have worked fairly well.

  Should was the operative word.

  “It’s turning!” Kelly Fitzpatrick called out, five seconds ahead of Colonel Sainz transmitting the same words from the top of some nearby cliffs, where the joint command units had taken post.

  The Sleeper swung its cobra-hooded head around on its long, thick neck, hunching back and then thrusting its head into the draw so that the neck stretched to its greatest length. It let out the tortured scream that now gave Tousley nightmares—a long, shrill screech accompanied by a crackling sound of the thing’s fangs rasping together. It was only here, staring down the Sleeper’s throat, that Tousley finally found out where the weird crackling noise came from.

  “Okay, we’re live,” he called out to his abbreviated squad, chambering a grenade into the lower launcher of his Bulldog assault weapon. He intended to open with a bang once he was forced to fire.

  “Kelly and Jim, take flank and knock down anything smaller than an APC that looks our direction. Nash, you and Johnson hold those Dracos as long as possible. Move out!”

  His squad broke from cover just ahead of a Vanguard unit escorting one of the massively cyborged mutants known as Zyborgs. Several other Union squads moved in carefully from the other side of the draw, and more from deeper back. Tom threw his opposite number in the Vanguard unit a sketchy salute. The bow he got in return was just as lacking in sincerity. Tousley’s fingers tightened on the trigger of his Bulldog. Given the choice, he might have flipped a coin over where he’d donate his first grenade.

  Already the chattering reports of distant rifle fire echoed up the draw as what had been the primary assault force tried to play the part of a diversion. A single Draco missile arced up and impacted the side of the Sleeper’s head, gouging into the ridged chitin that spread protectively to either side. A gray-green fluid seeped out to wash over its neck, and the alien shrieked its fury. It craned its long neck back around far enough to disgorge plasma at the offender. With its attention diverted, a pair of Ares assault suits ducked out from around one corner to lock on with a Harbinger rail gun and a Lucifer plasma cannon. One hammered explosive ingots into the Sleeper’s carapace, cracking the thick chitin and drawing out a minor trickle of the translucent gobbets. The plasma ball tracked quickly down the magnetic chute but drifted wide. It exploded to one side, ripping free several of the pincer-legs and flash-burning the Sleeper’s side.

  The alien shrieked again, this time with a touch of what Tousley hoped was pain, and rounded back against the draw defenders. The Ares suits pulled back to avoid any EM pulse from the Sleeper.

  Concentrating on working his squad in close and watching for threats as Kelly and PFC Nicholas put down an ocher-hued Spitter at distance, Tousley had covered half the distance to the advancing alien when he noticed the lack of weapons fire echoing into the draw. Already the fire from Union forces this side of the Sleeper drowned out the supposed hard-punch diversion. A dome-bodied carapace shuffled out from behind some boulders, and Tousley stopped it cold with an M-81 twenty-millimeter grenade directly into one side. A Feeder swooped down, and Tousley wrote off the dome as finished now that the scavenger was arriving. He lagged back, trying to give the diverting force time enough to engage on the Sleeper’s rear quarter, calling to his squad to pace themselves. Kelly was already too far out in front, leading Nash and Danielle Johnson on a dash to the Sleeper’s side.

  “Bravo forces, take care. We are having trouble coordinating your diversion,” said Major Howard.

  Tousley didn’t get it. What trouble? The Neo-Soviets had several packs of Rad Troopers and a trio of Cyclops on the other side, not to mention a pair of Zyborgs and who knew how many Vanguard units supporting Typhoon missile platforms. They attack, the Sleeper is hurt, and the forces inside the draw move in for the big knockout. He heard the long, deep staccato chop of Vanguard Kalashnikovs now, but not so many as he’d have liked. Mostly Union weapons.

  He increased his speed, grabbing Nicholas away from putting the final few rounds into a struggling spear-shaped flier. They were all approaching at an oblique angle to the Sleeper’s head. It shrieked, twisting around to search out the larger threats. The creature’s immense armored tail rose over its back, then smashed down hard. The ground trembled and Jim stumbled to his knees. Tousley left him to catch up. Kelly, Danielle, and Nash were too far in front of the main advance, especially considering the strange signals from ’Becca. He had a feeling they would need him up there.

  The distinctive howl of a Wendigo’s antigrav generator running full out challenged the Sleeper’s intermittent shrieking. Tousley saw the armored tank speed in, flanked by Aztecs. He hadn’t heard that order passed.

  “Major Howard, we have an armored assault coming in. Should we clear?”

  No answer. Had something happened to the command post? Lieutenant Landvoy would be senior officer on location until one of the column captains made contact. A chancy decision to mount an armored assault. One electromagnetic pulse from the Sleeper and those vehicles would be so much dead metal.

  Kelly, Johnson, and Nash were at the creature’s side now, dwarfed by its chitin-covered legs that tore at the ground to heave the monstrous bulk along. The bulk of the Vanguard had arrived as well, though the mutant handler and Zyborg lagged considerably.

  Tousley tried again. “Major Howard, respond please!”

  The antipersonnel round actually came from the flank, catching Tousley high in the left chest. It spun him to the ground and out of the path of another burst that cut the air over him with the whistle of hypersonic slugs. The Zyborg that had lagged behind its Vanguard escort spun about on augmented legs, tracking along to fire on Jim Nicholas. Jim took a full burst from hip to shoulder, throwing him back several meters.

  Barely able to breathe, face against the cold dirt floor of the draw, Tousley suddenly knew what “trouble” the Union was facing.

  Betrayal!

  * * *

  The Fifty-sixth Striker’s Class F Cyclops mutants should have spearheaded the diversion after the Sleeper turned up the draw. Romilsky’s orders were sent down at the same time as those of Colonel Sainz, though she noticed that confirmation of her order came back late. Her forces moved forward behind those of the Union, late. And the Vanguard engaged first without waiting for the suddenly lethargic mutants.

  Too late.

  Romilsky gave the colonel credit; he did try to hide his suspicions and growing anger. His Major Howard did not, though she seemed unable to decide between open hostility at the Neo-Soviets or wounded faith in her commanding officer. Romilsky concentrated instead on the battle raging below the bluff onto which her Zephyr command crawler had lifted them, trying to divine the reason behind her Striker’s hesitancy to commit.

  “Gregor—” she began.

  “I am on it, Comrade Colonel.” The lieutenant sprinted for the Zephyr, the thruster-modified command crawler they’d landed not twenty meters back. It was faster than passing communications through the sergeant stationed within.

  “There has to be a reason for their delay,” she said when Sainz rounded on her a few seconds later. They stood watching their carefully constructed battle plan fall to pieces because of the Neo-Soviets’ lack of effort. It didn’t matter that the Sleeper had chosen the draw. Her plans had taken that into account early on.

  “Colonel Romilsky, we have a situation among the mutant handlers. You had better get in here.” Gregor’s transmission whispered in her ear with only the slightest burst of static. From the reactions of the Union officers and
their bodyguard, he had sent it on a common frequency. “Colonel Sainz, I have a relay from your Station Freedom as well. Recommend you take it local, unless you’d like to give me your safe frequencies.”

  “Keep on things, Major,” Sainz told his exec without a second thought. Again Romilsky wondered at such trust in a subordinate as she and Sainz stepped up into the Zephyr and the door rolled shut behind them.

  Gregor Detchelov welcomed them into the crawler with a silenced Ledzya submachine gun. With one hand he flipped a row of toggles, shutting down power to the communications board. Now Major Howard was cut off from the ground forces as well. Romilsky’s Sergeant Treyk lay on the floor behind the traitorous Gregor, thrown half into the Zephyr’s forward compartment, his blood spreading over the floor.

  “I am sorry, Comrade Colonel,” Gregor said. “But I’m afraid I cannot allow you to endanger that creation out there. It holds too many secrets.”

  A cold flush gripped her flesh. “Detchelov, you have no idea what you are interfering with. Put that weapon away, and at least your family will not suffer for your treason.”

  Sainz was slightly faster putting it all together. “Like hell he will, Katya. He engineered your problems below, too.” Then he shook his head in remorse, and said in English, “He’ll play this through to the end.”

  Of course Gregor had set it up! Katya Romilsky wanted to scream her rage. It was the mutants who were slowing things down and threatening the assault plans. Gregor had gotten to their handlers somehow. She had thought him more the dagger in the night kind of worry, not the orchestrator of such an elaborate charade as this. She had underestimated the depth of his resolve to preserve the Sleeper.

  “I’ll stamp your family with your betrayal for generations, Gregor Antoly Detchelov. No easy death for them, I promise you.” She took a half step forward. “Give me that weapon and free up that comm board.”

  In the forward compartment, something moved!

  “Collusion with the enemy. Failure to place concerns of the empire ahead of personal concerns. Nyet, Katya Olia, I am not the traitor here. Not even the Mental’s testimony could have saved you anyway. I am merely hastening the process of your fall.”

  “Wait!” Romilsky damned Gregor for even mentioning a Mental in front of Sainz. She wanted to leap forward and rip Gregor’s throat out with her own hands, but instead stalled for time. She couldn’t be sure of what she’d seen. Except for the murdered sergeant, no one else should have been aboard the Zephyr today. It was a chance, though, and she grasped for anything that might draw his interest.

  “Don’t you even want to know how Colonel Sainz and I came to conspire together?” Conspiracy, the key word in most Neo-Soviet minds when it came to any talk with the enemy.

  Most minds but Gregor Detchelov’s. “Not really. I will make up my own story as I need it. Dos vedanya, Katya Romilsky.”

  The paired shots echoed loudly in the tight confines of the Zephyr. Romilsky jerked with each shot, thinking herself dead, and then remembered that Gregor’s weapon had been silenced.

  Gregor slumped to the floor, showing the two red wounds blown into his back. From behind him, Romilsky watched in awe mixed with shock as the Mental staggered forward under the weight of a heavy Nagant sidearm. “Strasvicha, Tovarish Katya Olia.” His voice was reedy and laced with pain, as if it had cost almost as much to pull the trigger as it did to be on the other end.

  “Strasvicha, Tovarish.” Romilsky stepped forward and gently removed the weapon from his frail hands. He winced and started, then clutched that hand to his side. She glanced toward Sainz, but then couldn’t help reminding the Mental, “I ordered you to remain with the Leonid.”

  “I had a feeling I would be needed.” He glanced wearily at Sainz. “Strasvi, Colonel Sainz.” And then the Mental fainted.

  “Strasvicha,” Sainz returned to the unconscious man with due formality, then studied Romilsky for a bit. “Is this someone I want to know?” he asked.

  A question that could be read many ways. So Raymond Sainz had not yet decided to throw away their truce. “It is not someone you are allowed to know,” she said carefully.

  Sainz nodded, and bent to the comm panel. “Then since it is only you and I in here, help me get this thing turned on. We have to pull out what’s left of our troops before this defeat turns to complete disaster.”

  * * *

  Tousley rose unsteadily to his hands and knees, feeling as if he’d been hit by one of the fast-moving Aztecs going full bore. His chest hurt, and that was good. Pain told him he was alive, and the dull aching that spread over his chest meant the flak vest had held up. Not that he could count on such good fortune if the Zyborg turned back against him, though it had other problems. The Wendigo clipped it with a high-explosive rail gun ingot, killing its handler and shredding one side of the large mutant. The Aztec SPEARs finished the job. The cycles broke off at hard angles, leaving the Wendigo to fight a slow turn away from the Sleeper.

  Not soon enough. The monstrous, shovel-shaped head fell hard, caving down on the Wendigo and driving it into the rocky terrain. The field collapsed and the overload blew the flywheel power generators, and then the Wendigo disintegrated in a burst of released lightning.

  The shock wave threw Tousley five meters to his side, new pain blossoming across his already-bruised chest. He rolled to a stop and again rose to unsteady feet. Kelly was halfway up the Sleeper’s back, riding one of those ridges that could separate as an armored tentacle, sighting in on the creature’s head. Nash let fly from below, his first Draco round missing in his haste. Danielle, made of sterner stuff, was clambering up after Kelly Fitzpatrick. The Neo-Soviet Vanguard milled about near the sharp-spike legs of the Sleeper, distracted by what was happening at their rear. Three other Union squads that Tousley could see were also staggering to a confused halt.

  He waved his rifle at the Vanguard, then pointed at Kelly and Danielle. “Get up there and help them, damn you!” He staggered into a jog, still shaken by the sudden treachery but trying to catch up with his people.

  The Vanguard didn’t budge. They pumped grenade after grenade from their launchers at the Sleeper’s head. Most connected, though the alien colossus simply shrugged off the damage as it crashed its head down against the Wendigo again for good measure. Tousley pumped a grenade directly into its open maw as it rose up again. Then Kelly cut loose on full automatic from the Sleeper’s back, and Danielle launched a Draco missile at a joint in the chitinous plates protecting the neck.

  Blue-tinged lightning crackled over the Sleeper’s back in a display that made the exploding Wendigo look like child’s play. The lightning showered down from the crown of bloated pustules and tentacles that waved atop the Sleeper’s head, arcing and dancing over the carapace. Kelly shook as it caught her across the chest, spitting through her armor and cooking off some of her ammo. The Bulldog she carried blew out the breech and clip, taking her hands. Two spare clips shredded the front of her fatigues. Lower down, Danielle ceased to exist as at least one Draco round she carried detonated. On the ground one Vanguard had stood between two of the Sleeper’s legs and as lightning crackled there, he also fell under the massive damage that erupted over his chest. His fellows left him there, retreating with PFC Nash in their midst.

  Tousley slowed to a walk as he watched Kelly’s body tumble down the mottled carapace. It bounced off the jointed leg below and rolled off to the side for several meters. The Vanguard retreated along his path of advance, keeping an eye on the monstrous head that swung about in search of greater threats. The Aztecs continued to fly around with reckless abandon, drawing the creature’s attention for the time being. It gave them all a chance to escape. Tousley continued to walk forward.

  “You come,” a Vanguard sergeant said as the Neo-Soviet squad met him in the Sleeper’s shadow. “Colonel Romilsky out. We retreat now.” He held up a hand to grab Tousley by the arm.

  Tousley shook him off rudely, then jabbed the lethal end of his Bulldog into the stomach of
the Vanguard sergeant. His finger was a hairbreadth from pulling the trigger.

  “We go nowhere with you,” he said coldly, eyes never breaking from the Vanguard’s. “Nash, you’re with me.”

  Then he stepped away and turned his back on the Vanguard, not giving a damn just then whether the man shot him in the back or not. He waited for that bullet with every step, but did not once look back or at the Sleeper. They didn’t matter to him. He stooped over Kelly and picked up her lifeless body, slinging it over his shoulder.

  He began the slow walk from the field with Nash his only shield against the appearance of any symbiot creatures. “We don’t leave our people behind,” he whispered to himself.

  22

  * * *

  A n air of nervous excitement gripped the bridge of the Icarus as the four men and two women stared fixated at the main screen. Computers held the Union vessel at a constant position relative to the asteroid, constantly engaging the drives and firing attitude thrusters to follow the large mass as it tumbled on three axes. The hum of electronics was the loudest noise except for one female corporal’s heavy breathing and the methodical rapping of Captain Drake’s knuckles against the armrest of his chair.

  Randall Williams preferred not to think about the extra five hours the latest high-velocity burn had taken, as if the Maelstrom was trying to make up for its earlier gift on the approach to the gas giant. At the midway point, Darcie Boucher had noted a slight deviation in their projected time, and halfway through the decel burn Williams confirmed that the asteroid was not approaching as fast as it should given their speed. So began the process of decels and coasting, coming up on the asteroid much more slowly than initial calculations suggested.