Looking over to the side, Lash was passed out in his seat. I pulled off his helmet and felt around his neck for a pulse. I found it without a problem and saw he was still breathing. Letting out a thin smile, I took hold of the sergeant’s shoulders and shook him vigorously.
“Wake up, you pansy, we made it!” His eyes snapped open and rolled about, trying to regain his bearing.
“What . . . ,” Lash mumbled.
“I said we made it down! C’mon, get up!” I released his shoulders and extended my hand to him. He took it and I pulled him to his feet.
“Gaddamn. I can’t believe that worked,” he said and glanced back at me, immediately noticing blood oozing from the cracks on my shoulder plates. “You really need to get that looked at.”
“Yeah, I’ll get to that. First things first, let’s get out of here,” I replied.
We left the command bridge and went back down to the main floor. All of the remaining soldiers were in the passenger bay. Most were on their feet, but all were still disoriented from the flight in. Their spirits seemed to be lifted when I entered, and glancing across the crowd, most seemed to be only mildly injured. They followed me back out toward the vehicle bay.
The thick ice that had built up around the walls had begun to melt, and now water, dirt, and blood pooled all over the floor. The truck I had crashed into the wall looked far worse than I remembered. An entire side had been blown inward by the last blast on the ground, while steam still rose from the guns and engine radiators.
At the bottom of the loading plank, I saw a crowd of soldiers and crew members had begun to form. One flag officer stood at the center and looked right back at me. I approached him with the rest of my soldiers in tow.
He took one quick glance at my bloodied and beaten armor. “Captain Grant, I presume.”
I nodded. “That’s correct sir.”
He smiled and shook my hand. “It’s good to see you made it back in one piece. I am Brigadier General Day, commander of the 4th Support Group. We have sixty medics on hand to see to your men. I have been ordered to see you brought safely back to the fleet for a meeting with Heddings and Raley.”
“Is that so?”
“Indeed. We have two hours for you to get cleaned up and get that crap pulled out of your arm.”
“Thanks. This is starting to get really sore.”
“I can imagine. You look like hell.” The general waved to several medics standing by the wall and pulled me over to them. We all filed into a small medical center adjoining the landing bay and the medics began tearing off my armor.
Looking at it from another angle, the damage appeared far worse than I realized before. There were deep gouges in the metal all over, not to mention burn marks from deflected projectiles. Nearly every surface was coated in a layer of half-frozen blood and grime. Generous amounts of alien blood were also mixed in and nearly resembled motor oil, but with an odd reflectivity after being chilled. The right side had the remains of a thick flow from my shoulder wound, and the medics immediately focused their efforts on my shoulders.
“What all did you hear from us at the fleet?” I asked Day as I pulled off the rest of the damaged armor and leaned back on a hospital bed. Two medics went to work on my custom surgery job, spraying the area with a local anesthetic from an aerosol can.
“The command staff received their regular reports on schedule up until about sixteen hours ago.” The general stood to my side beside the medics and looked down at me with a thin expression of disgust while the medics sliced away disfigured bits of blackened flesh.
“Can you feel any of that?” he asked.
I flexed my hand. “Nope, it feels better than it did all day.”
“Good. The final call we received from Colonel Wolf’s ship indicated that they had evacuated from the surface in the presence of overwhelming enemy forces. There was a mention of encountering resistance in space, but there was no distress call. We had no updates until we got your message.”
“Do you know what happened to them?” I asked.
He sighed. “No, we have no record of their trajectory or their jump.”
I thought back to the events surrounding the transmission. “There’s a combat engineer who was with me, Sergeant Mike Lash. He launched the probes and helped me out quite a bit. He told me he recorded a data file from the colonel’s ship before it disappeared. He might be able to help you out.”
A medic dug deeper into my shoulder and must have hit a nerve, as my arm started to twitch along with his movements.
“That’s good news. I don’t know how we will be proceeding after we return to the fleet, but it may hinge on what your man has been able to recover.”
Another medic, armed with a short pair of forceps, started on my other arm. There were easily ten to fifteen breaks in the skin, and he began dislodging what appeared to be shards of gray ceramic dishes from the lacerations.
Day continued to watch the operation but didn’t say anything else.
I closed my eyes, but could still feel him standing nearby. It got to be too much for my overactive mind.
“Did you want any more details about the attack from me?” I asked.
“I would like to, but the admiral has ordered that no one else debrief you,” he said, then paused. “It’s also been commanded that no official statements be collected from the rest of your crew until we get back to the fleet, and this ship will be locked down for twelve hours after our arrival.”
“Is that standard fare for missions like this?”
“It’s an option, but to be honest, I’ve only seen it used once or twice in the last ten years,” Day replied, and stepped back. “Don’t worry about it for now. Get your rest.”
It should have been difficult, given the graphic surgery I was experiencing, but I passed out and felt no time go by.
“Captain Grant.”
Through the whirling cosmos in my brain, I heard my name called loud and clear. My eyes instantly snapped open, expecting to see the surgeons still hard at work. They were not.
White bandages were attached above the wounds, and all the blood was cleaned away. Sitting up, I saw no medics around anymore. Instead, Sergeant Lash and another man dressed as a pilot were standing at my side. Behind them I saw my armor placed upon the table where I left it.
Lash held his helmet in his hand, and I immediately caught his gaze.
“How long was I out?”
He smiled. “Not too long, I don’t think. We just reached the capital ship of the fleet. There’s a shuttle prepped to take us over to meet with the commanders.”
I stood up and rotated my shoulders. There was no pain, but I did feel something on my back. Reaching behind me, I felt several more bandages and lengths of medical tape. “What did they do to my back?” I asked.
Lash glanced over, and then picked up a stainless steel tray beside him. He tilted it so I could see the contents. A dozen or so bloody ball bearings rolled about within. “This could be it. Did you get hit by a mine?”
“That’s probable,” I said, remembering how I’d triggered the explosives back in the tunnel.
“And you didn’t realize it?”
“I’ve had worse,” I replied, and got back to business. “Do you still have the data file you retrieved from Wolf’s ship?”
The sergeant nodded, patting a pocket on his chest. “Right here. General Day had me deliver a copy to the intelligence officer on the bridge. He did a brief analysis of it, but I don’t know what he found.”
He turned and handed me the rest of my armor.
“I suppose that’s as good as anything,” I replied, and looked at the pilot. “How much time do we have until launch?”
“As soon as you’re ready, sir. We’ve got all the time you need,” he answered. “Except for us, the entire ship is locked down.”
“Yeah, the general said something about that,” I said, pulling on my chest plates and replacing the gauntlets. “Let’s go.”
Our shuttle ride too
k no more than three minutes to cross the space between the two larger ships. Once we got to the far side, we were ushered straight to the admiral’s study.
I entered alone, as directed, and immediately saw Admiral Heddings seated behind his massive wooden desk. The top glowed from a screen embedded in the surface, which gave a slight white glow to the older man’s face. General Raley was seated in a chair to the right, and both glanced up as I approached.
The admiral addressed me first. “Captain, it’s about time you arrived. We’ve got a few matters to discuss.”
“I’m sure we do,” I answered with a nod. “Truth is,” Raley replied, “All of the intelligence we’ve gathered about your operation led us to some fairly damning conclusions.” He paused for a second. “This is why we had to lock down General Day’s ship.”
“I don’t see the problem. We underestimated the enemy’s resolve to defend the moon. Colonel Wolf made a bad decision to evacuate and has not yet returned to the fleet. That doesn’t sound too bad.”
“Yes, but that is only half the story. There are a few issues that make for a very dangerous situation. For one, the enemy was hiding some far more dangerous equipment on the moon than we realized. Even before you were evacuated, we arranged for a bomber group to glass the entire moon.”
I was stunned.
“All that was for nothing?” I asked in shock.
“Yes. We will never know the extent of the secrets kept they kept. We could not sustain the losses required to find out.” Heddings had confirmed my worst fears.
“That’s not all,” Raley continued. “We also have the manner in which the operation was conducted under your leadership.”
He looked straight at me, and I knew what he was thinking. “You’ve shown multiple lapses in judgment that should never be known outside of this room.”
“Are you planning to accuse me of something?” I asked, trying to stay on the offensive.
“Not at all. I’m just stating the facts.”
“The last problem is with the events surrounding Colonel Wolf’s disappearance along with a legion of highly trained soldiers,” the admiral chimed in. “This is the first time a ship has ever disappeared into hyperspace to not be heard from again. If the aliens have discovered a way to attack our systems to cause this, it must be corrected as soon as can be. Because of these details, we have sealed all records of this mission for the next hundred years. Every man who returned with you, along with every member of Day’s crew plus the bomber wing, has been sworn to secrecy. None of this must ever be known on Earth. The backlash would be catastrophic.”
“So what of the missing ships and the crew? All of the soldiers disappeared?” I demanded, piecing together what the older officers were planning.
“It’s unfortunate that they should meet such an end.” Raley shook his head, bowing it slightly. “They were destroyed while on patrol on the outskirts of the system while attempting to secure a route from Sol Bravo.”
My blood began to boil. “You’re just going to pretend it didn’t happen?”
“Exactly.” The general cut me off, and continued on, ignoring my question. “The moon has been destroyed; there is not a soul left alive on its surface. And we are moving on to bigger things.”
“Maybe someday we will learn what they were doing there, but I don’t have much hope for that right now. Not that it matters anyway,” Heddings added.
I nodded again, trying to control the anger pressing in the blood vessels against my temples. “So what is to become of me?” I growled.
“You are to stand by for orders,” Raley answered. “Forget all that has transpired here and take your leave.”
I scowled back at the two officers.
“As you require,” I responded. “Will that be all?”
The general nodded. “Go.”
With nothing else to say, I left them to their scheming.
17
The stars all looked the same now. I was seated in an observation deck, spinning the mission data card between my thumb and middle finger. What were they thinking, sealing the details of the mission on the ice world? As my thoughts bounced around, they came to rest on the odd devices we uncovered in the tunnel.
I didn’t want to think the flag officers would steer me wrong, but I could not shake the feeling that they had erred in their judgment. My mind worked through more scenarios as I waited for some elusive inspiration.
A few of our ships glided silently through the darkness outside, and I gave them a casual glance. They slowly drifted in and out of the solar shadow while the light illuminated the deep scores and battle scars on their hulls. Several were closing in to dock with our ship, and given their condition, I imagined they needed extensive repairs.
Thoughts spun through my head. So many losses. So much energy wasted. How many people died who really didn’t have to? I asked myself rhetorically. Again and again, my thoughts landed on the soldier in the tunnel.
Snipers I had met in training talked about the final wars on Earth, how it was different on the ground. Whereas a battleship could make a city disappear without a thought, a rifleman had a moment of connection with his victim. They could tell if their target’s equipment was serviceable and if they had shaved that morning. From their expressions, they could see anguish, exhaustion, fear and pain.
I wondered if any of them ever seen a look of terror like I had seen. What forced its way into my mind was not that the soldier was afraid of the aliens ahead, but that he was just as afraid of me. Knowing that one of my men was that fearful of me was deeply disconcerting, almost as much as understanding that I proved him right seconds later by putting a slug through his face.
I should have felt ashamed. In fact, I almost did. Maybe I wasn’t a heartless machine after all. Maybe not.
I spun the card one more time and heard footsteps approaching from the hallway to my right. Still looking out the window, I saw the reflection of Sergeant Lash’s face in the glass. He saw mine as well.
“Hey, Grant. I heard you might be back here,” Lash stated as he approached.
“I’ll bet,” I replied. “What do you need?”
“Did you hear about Command’s decision to seal the record of our mission? We were just briefed about it.”
“Yeah, I just got the same song and dance from the generals. What a gaddamn waste.” Although Lash didn’t make a move nor utter a sound, I could tell he agreed.
“We can’t just forget about it. Can we?” he asked.
“There’s not much of a choice,” I replied.
Lash saw the card in my hand. “What’s that?”
I pretended not to hear him while I immersed myself in my own thoughts. A moment later, the light went on in my head. “Actually, where’s our intel group? I need to do some research.”
Lash paused. “They’re on the top deck, right below the main collector array. They’ve got a hall that’s a straight shot into command.” He shook his head. “I don’t see what that matters—“
I nodded and cut him off. “Then that’s where we’re going.”
“What are you thinking?”
I looked back at him. “We need to take a look at this,” I said, and flashed the card while standing up. “There’s work to be done.”
“Is that the mission data card?” Lash asked as he called the elevator. “That should have been destroyed.”
“Yeah. I don’t think you saw this, but it could be important.” The elevator arrived and we took positions within. “I led a company of soldiers on an assault that took us through an access tunnel underground. In the middle of it, we found a storage room full of strange artifacts. Strange, even by our standards.”
I paused. “We took notes on everything before we sealed the area for good. It should be in this file.”
“You’re looking for any record of them?”
“That’s right. The objects or the writing on them. I’ve never seen anything similar to them in our reports. Not the objects and not the writing
.”
The doors hissed open and we were standing before the intelligence group’s office.
Lash led the way. “Records are preserved and accessed over here,” he stated as we entered a smaller room containing dozens of vacant terminals, behind which stood multiple large racks of equipment.
I took a seat before one. “If this sets off an alarm, we might need to get out of here fast,” I said, and cautiously inserted the card into the reader. The file opened instantly with no blinking lights or wailing sirens.
The screen arranged all logged events as a waterfall sorted by time and location. Brief maintenance entries were listed for all the vehicles, weapons loadouts and troop strengths at the left, which then flowed into the initial assault, locations of squads, and destruction of equipment, all the way to the damage to the battleship and its blind leap.
“Here,” Lash announced, and took the controls. “We can change the sorting method.”
He hit a few buttons and brought up a map of the battlefield. Icons flipped on all over indicating our forces, and he played it forward in time.
I recognized my location immediately and zoomed in on it. I fast-forwarded up until I saw my squad moving underground away from the dome.
“It’ll be right here,” I stated. Seconds later, multiple entries were logged by my squad.
Lash opened the files, revealing multiple lines of text and dozens of pictures. “What the hell . . . is this what you were looking for?”
The same dark crates/blocks/obelisks covered with strange alien runes.
“Yeah, that’s it,” I replied. “Can you find any other reference to them?”
“I can try. I’ll see if I can match the descriptions of their composition and then optically isolate the etchings,” he said, looking over my shoulder. “There’s a guard watching us from the door.”
“I know. He’s been there since we came in. Don’t worry; I’ll take care of him.”
I stood up and approached the soldier peering around the corner at us. He straightened up as I got closer.
“Hey, you need something?” I snapped.
MissionSRX: Confessions of the First War Page 13