“That’s an earlier model,” Ethan replied, a twinge of jovial pride in his own knowledge overruling the stony presence that was growing in his gut. He presented the toy in his own hand. “This is the one you want.” He pointed to a few absent features on its tiny hull. “If he’s serious about it, he’ll want to rearrange the flight deck and add the strut grips. It’s not a great replica.” He paused, running his finger along the thruster shroud. “If he really wants Voyager Dawn, this part actually angles into vectoring flaps. Dawn was the last Enterprise-class ship, when they were experimenting with those. Only colony ship to have them, because it turned out they made it handle like scutch in atmo.” Ethan chuckled to himself. “The helmsman always joked he’d pay us a year’s salary to blast the things off with a DRAC. After watching the landing on Dawn Five, I was about ready to.” Slowly, he handed the model to her.
The woman graciously accepted it from him. “I’m sure he’ll figure it out,” she said, shooting him a smile. “He loves these things. He’d join the Navy now if he was old enough.”
Ethan felt compelled to tell her the navy was the last place anyone she loved should be, but he fought the urge down. “It’s an experience,” he said instead.
“I’ll bet. Anyway, thank you.” She paused. “And not just for this. I know you’re probably sick of hearing it, but you’re a hero.”
An image of a nearly identical meeting just a few days prior flashed through Ethan’s mind. “Thanks,” he said simply. There were a lot of heroes on that ship, he thought as she departed, but I’m not one of them anymore.
The Ambush
To Imperator Raam, Core,
The Vengeance is almost ready for launch. If you still want to go through with the hubbub, we’re ready on this end. And don’t bug Mr. Walker about it. He’s done enough and you’ve got Buckley’s chance of convincing him anyway.
Sincerely,
Andre Briggs, Vice President
Briggs Starship Industrial
The convoy had crossed the bridge, though its hasty construction meant that repairs were perpetually underway as it was traversed, and it collapsed shortly after the last vehicle had trundled over it. Nevertheless, in his fanatical enthusiasm for the task at hand, Clay declared the operation a success. No one was willing to point out to him that they were now trapped between the canyon and an army of entrenched Naldím.
Progress was slow – even slower than before – as the foe took it upon themselves to launch guerilla attacks at every available opportunity, causing entire sections of the convoy to halt in order to fight and make repairs before moving on. Two days of harassment later, Clay assigned a permanent perimeter guard, five marines deep and numbering hundreds along its circumference. Without more urgent matters to assign to them, he included Rebecca and Eve in the vanguard.
The former found herself amongst a particularly chatty squad of marines, most of whom were almost as cavalier about the situation as the captain.
“Why do we even need all this stuff?” one of them wondered loudly during a brief respite. The other soldiers followed his waving gun back to the trundling caravan. “I mean,” he went on to explain, “half of us are walking, so we don’t need the transports. All the scutch in the back is just supplies, which we wouldn’t be using if it wasn’t taking so damn long to blow the Nellies to hell. We should’ve just brought a few big guns. Boom. Gone.”
“Nah, man,” another marine interjected, absentmindedly forming a snowball, his rifle slung lazily over his shoulder. “You can’t blow up these tunnels. There’s, like, endangered species down here or something.”
“I ain’t seen anything.”
“That’s ‘cause they’re endangered. What are the chances you’re going to run into one?”
“They dug these holes, right? We’re literally in their crib. We should’ve seen one by now.”
“What?” a third soldier exclaimed. “These tunnels are burrows?”
The first marine shrugged. “That’s what they said.”
“There’s nothing that big,” the third countered. “These tunnels are huge.”
“Yeah? What about the Titan? On Abraxas,” the second argued.
“The Titan’s a myth.”
“Oh, right, because thousands of tourists and scientists and everyone else in the galaxy are all part of a giant conspiracy against you.”
“What, are you stupid?”
“It was sarcasm, dumbass.”
Rebecca drew out a sigh and closed the audio filters on her helmet. Suddenly there was nothing except the sound of her own mechanically-enhanced heart, pumping a cocktail blend of chemicals and blood through her system at twenty beats per minute. It sounded like the low, slow thrum of a ship’s reactor. That’s what it is, after all, she thought morosely, what I am. A machine.
The latent pounding of blood in her ears quickly got to her, and she reopened the filter. The marines were still arguing.
“No, no, no. It goes patriarch, birther, buzzard, hunter.”
“Hunters don’t come from buzzards. They’re in the same class. What school did you go to?”
“I went to the Shoehorn, thank you, so I know more than you do. Where’d you go, anyway? Ass-backwards-ville?”
“Oh, the Shoehorn.” The marine threw up his hands in mock praise. “Well, excuse me mister high-and-mighty. Not all of us went to Preppy-McPrep Camp for military training. Centaur Station. That’s where real soldiers go.”
“Centaur’s for hippy dipwads. If you want a real military camp-”
“For the love of Einstein!” Rebecca lashed out. “Will you shut up?”
The marines instantly fell silent, each throwing their gaze elsewhere. Rebecca hung her head slightly, just as keen on avoiding contact. In that instant, she could not feel the usual disconnect she harbored toward the grunts; she could only feel them judging her.
The light crunch of snow announcing a new arrival gave Rebecca a brief respite from her sudden-onset misery. “Blizzard,” Eve intoned, her voice cold and robotic through her helmet, “Captain wants us forward.”
Rebecca cleared her throat. “Good.” She matched pace as Eve passed at a brisk jaunt, and the marines were left in their wake.
Quickly, they reached a levee in the tunnel where tectonic drift had split the smooth bore in a remarkably clean break. It was not so high that the carriers and their nine-meter high treads could not smash through it, but it gave the Wraiths pause. The ridge presented a massive blind spot that, no doubt, the Naldím would exploit. Its sheared face too steep and too slippery to climb without equipment, Rebecca led the way over to the side of the cavern, the slope there being much easier to navigate.
Rebecca dug a spiked boot into the ice and lifted off, grasping at a slight deformity in the ice that vaguely passed for a handhold. The cave’s surface not keen on giving purchase, she extracted her karambit knife and dug it into the wall above her, smashing through the frost and into…
“There’s an air pocket here,” she called down to Eve.
“And?” Eve did not sound particularly enthused.
“And there shouldn’t be.” Rebecca hauled herself up to the knife’s height. Even from the outside, the pocket was clearly visible through the ice, a dark hole that burrowed deep into the planet, away from its more cavernous kin. Rebecca reared back and flung her fist at the barrier between her and the hole. It shattered like glass and she clambered in feet-first.
“Where are you going?” Eve shouted up to her.
“The briefing said smaller tunnels were never mapped,” she responded. “If there’s one here, either they’re wrong, which seems unlikely, or-”
“Or something’s digging through,” Eve finished. “Naldím?”
“Maybe.” Rebecca trailed off, instead focusing her attention on maintaining her footing as she crawled through the narrow, winding shaft. She switched on her comm as Eve fell out of earshot.
Every sense was working overtime, heightened even further by the suite of electronics
lodged in her brain, and she found herself attuned to even the slightest disturbance. No tremor, whisper of wind, or aberration in the cold, clean smell of the air escaped her.
Then, the stench hit Rebecca like a truck. Eye-wateringly rotten as fresh vomit, it was instantly recognizable, and it put a fear in Rebecca’s heart that little else could. She let out a slow breath. “Shit.”
From out of the shadows crawled an unnaturally massive nexacor, its leathery wings scraping against the walls and its bony claws gouging out trenches in the ground. Four white eyes zeroed in on Rebecca’s center.
There was no room to turn around. Rebecca’s feet skidded on the ice as she tried to backpedal away from the beast. Instinctively she brought her rifle up and fired, showering the nexacor’s plated skull with lead.
The monster screeched and lunged, driving her backward. Her foot caught in its mandibles, and as they both struggled to free themselves, something snapped. Bloody white pus splattered across Rebecca’s visor, her other senses immediately taking hold.
Even her superior awareness was no match for the fully able creature, however. Slowly, it advanced, jabbing with razor claws and scrambling forward to pin her down. Her suit informed her of several breaches, each made larger every time she twisted to free herself from the flailing mass of limbs. The gun went off again, this time unintentionally. With a banshee-like scream, the nexacor bucked, and suddenly Rebecca was falling.
Soaring on an adrenaline high, the ground seemed a long time coming. Then, with a crack, she slammed into the ice. Rebecca struggled to her feet, still blinded but sure she had been pushed out the way she came. She only hoped Eve could handle the nexacor until she was back in the fight.
A quick tattoo sounded, answered with a warbling cry from the nexacor. Rebecca wiped the blood from her helmet just as the creature hit the floor, its abdomen plugged with holes.
Eve kicked the thing’s corpse. “What’s this doing here?”
“I don’t know.” Rebecca started back toward the wall of the tunnel, bypassing the cadaver. “Go tell Clay.”
“You’re not coming? Not in the best of shape there.” Eve motioned at Rebecca’s numerous open wounds.
Rebecca pointed toward the convoy. “That’s an order, Xeno. I need to plug this tunnel.”
Eve spared her one final glance, then set off at a trot. Rebecca watched her go for a moment before slithering back into the tunnel.
The ice was even slicker than before, now caked in blood, and the stench that had dissipated in the wide open space of the main tunnel had returned with a vengeance. A new stillness hung over the place; it was one Rebecca knew well. It was the calm before the storm. Where there was one nexacor, there were many more, and the smooth bore of the tunnel suggested that this particular nest had been present for some time. They had to be dealt with, and quickly. Caught in a crossfire between a hive and the Naldím, the Imperial forces would be torn apart.
Ahead, the burrow split, one path delving deeper into the crust, while the other veered right, returning to the main tunnel network. It was as good a place as any Rebecca had a hope of finding to collapse the ceiling. She slid into the intersection and planted a charge on a crack in the ice. About to extract another explosive from her belt, Rebecca paused. In the distance, reverberating through the exit tunnel, were voices, distinctly Naldím.
Rebecca glanced over her shoulder. There was no sign of nexacor reinforcements. She placed the charge and crawled toward the voices, slinging her gun under her arm so she could reach it at a moment’s notice.
As the voices grew clearer, her helmet’s translator picked up on them.
“The Primitives? Do they venture this far?”
“Apparently, though not by choice. First Nac’halon believes the gas pockets brought them here.”
“A fine feast, then, if we find their nest.”
The Naldím came into view, standing with their backs slightly turned against the cave’s entrance. Rebecca dropped, bringing her rifle to bear. With a quick double-tap the Naldím’s heads erupted in short spurts of blood.
She inched into the threshold, keeping her weapon close. Beyond were more Naldím than Rebecca had ever seen, hidden from the convoy’s view by the sharp edge of the ridge and a gentle downward slope on their side. A dozen weapon emplacements were arrayed across the flat terrain, and more guard posts dotted the more unnavigable portions of ice.
The angle of the tunnel prevented her from seeing further, but the Naldím’s strength was plain, and Clay had to be told. Yanking the bodies of the slain Naldím into the tunnel with her, Rebecca started back the way she came.
The Call
Dear Liam,
This whole thing is getting old. We make a move and the Naldím turn it on its head like they’re not even trying. Now it’s just day after day of shooting at them and hoping at some point they’ll cave, and they never will.
And now I can’t even write to you as often because comms are a “security risk”. Sorry if my handwriting’s messy – I’m using an ammo crate as a table and it’s sitting on really rocky sand. This place is a hellhole. Hopefully next time I write you it’ll be on a more cheerful note. I just really needed to vent.
See you soon,
Ashley
A gentle chime sounded as Ethan sat down to breakfast, reverberating through the apartment with surprising resonance. The computer explained.
“Sir, a news item has appeared with your requested alert parameters.”
“Play it.”
The television across the room sprang to life. On its screen, Prime Imperator Smith stood behind a podium, overlooking a crowd of thousands. Behind him there was a blank grey canvas a hundred meters high, held by a fleet of drones. Ethan read the headline splashed across the bottom of the frame – “IMS Vengeance Premiere”.
He couldn’t imagine what ship could warrant the PI’s personal introduction. The Imperium was the last to do so, at the start of the Frontier Disputes, and even then its coverage was not as spectacular. I suppose we all agree with the war this time, Ethan thought. He upped the volume and listened to Smith.
“This war will not be won easily,” he was saying, bent casually over the podium in his signature style. “The Vengeance is not the key, not the deciding factor. We will only win through the strength and the bravery of our men and women fighting on the front lines. What this ship represents, however… that is its power. This ship has been restored, brought to the forefront of technology, to send a message to the Naldím that we do not surrender. We will not go quietly.”
The heavy, churning feeling that Ethan’s gut had become home to was beginning to return. He had a distinct hunch what was about to happen, but he couldn’t be sure. He could only wait and see.
“Behold,” the Imperator said, waving his hand at the gargantuan cover behind him, “the IMS Vengeance.” The drones relinquished their grip and the cloth fell languidly away to reveal a juggernaut of a warship. It looked nothing like it had before, save the smallest details, but Ethan knew what he was looking at – from the strut grips now covered in guns to the mounts where once vectoring flaps were held, it was undeniably…
“Voyager Dawn,” Smith shouted over the applause of his audience. “Voyager Dawn has been restored to strike at the heart of the Naldím war machine. This is not a shield, but a sword, built to instill fear in every foe we face. Since its liberation from the hands of the Naldím three months ago, Dawn’s name has been a rallying cry for our brave soldiers. Now, it will be a symbol they can see and touch and follow into battle, and to victory!”
The crowd’s enthusiasm crescendoed, swelling to unprecedented magnitudes, and Ethan felt the sickness in his gut rise with it. Suddenly, he knew what it was: longing. A need to fly again, and to do his part in the most important effort since the dawn of the Empire. He needed to return to Voyager Dawn. He needed to go home.
But there was no chance. A moment later, the newly-christened Vengeance leaned back on its launch pad, flared its th
rusters, and began the slow ascent into the heavens. The monumental roar of the engines tugged at Ethan’s heartstrings, re-instilling the desperate need that had plagued him since his return to Mars, and then it was gone. The ship, the hope – they were gone.
His comm buzzed, sending a jarring tremor through his body. The caller ID was blocked, but he answered, struggling to find his voice as he raised the comm to his ear.
“Hello?”
“Walker.” It was Ford. “You saw the launch?”
Ethan turned away from the TV, muting it with a wave of his hand. “Yeah. I did.”
“Didn’t know what ship it was when I signed on. Would’ve told you, otherwise.”
“It’s fine. It doesn’t matter,” Ethan lied.
Ford scoffed. “The hell it doesn’t. I’m a hardass, not an idiot. You know this is big for you.”
Ethan sighed and began to walk in a slow circle, trying to center himself. “What’s your point, Ford?”
“Vengeance’s stopping at the Uranian Web before it leaves the sector. You’ve still got a chance to come along.”
“How would I-” Ethan paused, gears turning. “I’ll call you back,” he said quickly, hammering the line shut and opening a new one.
“This is Hannan.”
“Doctor Hannan. It’s Ethan Walker.”
There was silence on the other end for a second. “I presume you saw the launch.”
“Yeah.”
“Do you need to talk about it? I have open hours.”
“Can you get me on that ship?”
Silence again. “Mister Walker, are you sure about this? I’m sure many people in PR would love to have you on that ship, but we need to consider your emotional well-being.”
“My emotional well-being depends on me getting on board the Vengeance,” Ethan said, snapping slightly more than he intended. “Please. I need to do this.”
Hannan let out a slow breath. Ethan could hear him shuffling papers around on his desk. “Alright then, Ethan. Go to Olympus Mons Airfield. I’ll arrange to have you picked up there.” He paused, then added, “This actually might work out for the best.”
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