by Allen Ivers
That endless rolling field had been scraped off the ground, plowed under by hellfire, leaving smoldering ashes every few dozen feet. The young Drone lay toppled over next to him, what few bones left recognizable were charred and fused with the earth.
The bombers had laid it all to waste, paving it over to make way for the Aurora Colony ship most assuredly waiting in orbit. It was the first strike in a war they had no idea they had started. Simple, efficient, and brutal.
Memory. This was her memory, and their memories were hers -- the summation of an entire species’ physical pain wracking her in a single moment.
Eden looked down at him, her glowing eyes boring through him, “We would share of our story, ak’thun, that you know what we know. And we know too much of pain.”
The wasteland faded away, returning them once again to the gloomy shadows of the magma chamber. It felt claustrophobic by comparison, the air stale and heavy. Yet, it was rank with the same burning smell from the field that had once been so sustaining. The moss fields below must still be smoldering.
Eden lowered her head, and the shrouded alien behind her mimed the same, “Make it stop. Please.”
15
Riley
They looked drained, like acrid water at the bottom of a tapped out well. The Capitals were dragging their feet, shoulders slumped, and gasping for a moment’s breath. Whole platoons stopped their marches to redistribute loads. They even traded words with their instructors.
They’d gone soft at the edge of a softer hand.
Riley hadn’t held out any hope to see grand success stories, but in his wildest dreams, he had not predicted such extensive deterioration. Their fortitude paled against the most basic expectations. And with the casualties mounting, the failing Capitals were tasked with tighter and tighter rotations. By the grace of God, the alien attacks had lessened in the last week, but field accidents -- and even some friendly fire -- continued to sap their numbers.
The day seemed particularly gray, even before this depressing discovery. The Thumpers laid by the deep recon returned a nightmare scenario. The compacted slate of the mountains might have spelled doom for the locals, but after an epoch of dead tectonics, the stone had fused into one solid block.
That mountain was a literal fortress and any sufficient orbital bombardment from the Thor’s Hammer satellites risked fallout on the civilian population. Enough kinetic breakers might do the damage, but there wasn’t a proper battlefleet orbiting the planet. And there wasn’t enough nerve gas in three systems to dose a chamber the size described. Those creatures were dug in like ticks, and nothing short of a manned assault was going to remove them.
Conservative casualty estimates ran in the thousands -- Riley had less than two hundred good men.
These Capitals weren’t going to break the margin, even if they stood up to muster. The only hope was to last long enough for the cavalry to show up.
And arrest him.
No. Worry about that time when it comes.
Sergeant Bray trudged from his barracks, a reluctant answer to a rather stern summons. The grizzled veteran looked more salty than usual, with heavy bags under his eyes and puffy cheeks, like he was hiding the rest of his mounting failures from view. His sickly look didn’t stop him from snapping a crisp salute to his commander.
“What do you have to say for yourself, Sergeant?” Riley asked, in no mood for delays as his eyes scanned over the pathetic excuse of a regiment.
The Sergeant’s eyes narrowed, as if to close the gates on any treasonous thoughts that might deign to show themselves, “They’re Capitals, sir.”
“So this culture of hugs comes from the Mining Pits, does it?”
Bray glanced over at the heavy-feet of a passing platoon. Despite keeping time, their feet scuffed the pavement with each step, grating on the ears. “Soldiers have to fight for something, sir.”
“Soldiers, sure,” Riley pointed at stumbling Capital at the rear of a formation, “They’re not soldiers, Gunny. Not yet, they’re not.”
“They bleed like soldiers, Colonel.”
Riley raised an eyebrow, “You gone native on us, Bray?”
“I bleed Blue and White, sir,” the Gunnery Sergeant retorted with a bit heavier grain than he should have, and he began to follow with an even sterner salvo, “And it was my understanding that disciplinary action was--”
Riley pivoted hard to come face to face with Bray. The veteran shut right the Hell up, stiffening like someone had jammed a rod down his back, “Mind your tone, Sergeant.”
It was the age gap again. This career man thought he knew better than his betters. Don’t tolerate that, his instructors had warned. He is older, not smarter.
Bray had been well trained. He stood at attention, awaiting permission to pull oxygen again.
Riley didn’t owe him anything, but a stern hand worked best when coupled with paternal love, “Your Capital spoke when his voice had nothing to add. He needed to listen, and his fellows needed an example. If you draw aim on the King… best not miss.”
“My days are devoted to the glory and the service of the Empire, sir.” Hardly a pledge of fealty.
“I have to ask: what do you do with the nights?” Bray remained stoic, eyes up and away, focused on nothing. Riley wasn’t going to let him off that easily, “Perhaps you need time to adjust your thinking?”
Bray blinked but remained still. “Shall I take up my rifle, sir?”
Riley leaned back, picturing the old man operating a Repeater on a Wall prefecture, his weathered hands shaking with age and arthritis. “For death and glory?”
“For the Empire.”
“A minor refresher for you, Sergeant: out here....” Riley sneered, “I am the Empire.”
Bray twitched.
Finally. Of course, the Gunnery Sergeant didn’t respect Riley’s authority.
Age and experience had a way of cementing opinions and locking up the mind. Tradition and procedure and repetition was their morning gruel and their evening bed. The youth pushed out of the Naval Command Academy had been a hundred-year practice, but human bias could not be so easily reprogrammed.
It wasn’t his fault; it was evolutionary.
It was Riley’s responsibility to confound that instinct. Talent, knowledge, and strategic thinking were not granted by virtue of surviving longer than the rest; they could be instilled, like writing to a drive. Riley was ten times the tactician Bray was on his best day.
This relic needed an object lesson.
Riley turned towards his waiting car, waving Bray to follow, “Your orders stand. Give me a fighting force that can save lives and kill bugs. Do you think you can do that?”
“Zu Gloriam,” Bray blurted from reflex.
For glory. They were all so fixated on glory and honor and legend and high-minded principles. They lacked pragmatism.
Maybe that was the problem.
“Effective immediately, the regiment is to resume Hell Week schedules.”
Bray stopped, “Due respect, sir--”
“I feel whenever someone says ‘due respect,’ they never actually mean it.”
Bray took that hit to the chin before continuing right on down this stupid path, “Due respect, sir… You don’t get better soldiers by breaking their legs.”
Riley sighed, leaning against the side of the car, “Gunny, for the last time… If they make it out of this alive, that is nothing short of a miracle. It is not your Command Operative to keep them alive. They’re not soldiers. You are not a drill master. That is not a barracks.” He pointed at the structure to their right, the boxy warehouse disgorging bands of malcontents playing at discipline, “Do you know what that is?”
Bray shook his head. Riley sneered, “It’s a tomb.”
Bray said no more, only saluting as Riley climbed in his cruiser and zipped away. He could only hope the words stuck with the Sergeant. It was far past time to cut the brakes off and get to real work.
The military base was a few miles short of th
e Wall, so it would be a brief ride back to the City’s warehouse district, with nothing but the back of a Corporal’s head and blurry sprigs of depressed grass to stare at.
The hovering cruiser’s vinyl seating did little to cushion the metal structure underneath and the vibrating rig was numbing his hips. These junkers were fuel efficient and light, but hardly built for the comforts he ached for. Perhaps he could have one of the Corporals rustle up some padding, or even just a thick blanket.
Maybe then he could get a solid night’s sleep.
But Riley would have no rest. His wrist tablet chirped with an incoming call.
Riley keyed his pin code into the surface, calling up a familiar scrunched forehead. Riley could feel the bile pushing up his chest, burning and warm.
“Lieutenant Holmst, you bring me the very best of the nightly news.”
It must’ve been a sour connection, as Holmst’s lips were out of sync with the audio, and the amber projection flickered with every skipped data packet, “Talania Dedria issued a public declaration, calling for the reinstallation of the Statesmen.”
“What is this, the third time?”
“Kids these days, I tell ya.”
Riley rolled his eyes, “And she’s calling me a sadist and a fascist, I suppose?”
“She stays away from the pronouns, sir.,” Holmst said, pulling his lips tight.
“I’m running out of reasons not to arrest her, Ilern.”
“It’s what she wants you to do.”
“We can carve out a special block for her, even make room for her precious cameras.” Riley could see it now -- the Dark Room Morning Report, about that time when we remembered what sunlight was and how it felt and how sorry we are
“We need her quiet, not martyred,” Holmst said, expectant.
Riley nodded his head, “Agreed: Pull her transponder, requisition it for a forward outpost. Make sure that makes it into the daily: ‘Colony Security.’ Make sure we snag at least two others, so it’s not so targeted. And extend the curfew to include radio broadcasts outside of emergency channels. She wants to slander me, she can do it in the privacy of her own home. Her father might even listen to her wail and moan. But public challenges in the body politic? Just sows discord.”
“Yes sir,” Holmst swallowed the rest of what he wanted to say.
Riley glowered at the floating amber head on his wrist, “Spit it out.”
“Due respect, sir...” There’s that phrase again, “If we act like despots, we only prove her point.”
The cruiser dropped to a low hum, slowing as it entered the city limits.
A crowd had blocked the path, pushing on a nearby warehouse like an unseemly growth, ebbing and rippling as their tiny fingers ought entry.
The driver clapped the horn, but all this did was get their attention.
“Lieutenant, if I were to be a despot, I’d be a damn good one.” Riley’s focus had shifted from the call to some of the crowd now advancing on the cruiser. A few more determined than others. “Apologies, Ilern, but I’ll have to call you back.” Riley pushed the display closed, directing his full attention to the oncoming storm.
The corporal thumbed the strap off his hip holster. He was young, only a few years older than Riley, with a jittery look about him.
“Stand easy, Corporal. No need for blood today.”
The words did little to calm his nerves, as the advancing few were gathering followers — a new object for their ire. One colonist pointed a meaty finger, “You’re feeding those criminals?! While my wife goes hungry?!”
“Hungry men don’t keep your wife alive, and if you think I’m feeding them well…”
Wrong answer. It rippled through the crowd, as they all shouted objections on moral grounds. They lived better lives, more just lives, honest lives. Why are the criminals rewarded while they sit at home hungry?
It’s like these people forgot what the other half of the equation was.
“Let me fight!” “They’re criminals!” “You’re a monster!”
The first man shivered, his thin jowls quivering while the others spouted. Riley’s driver stopped himself from turning fully back to face his commander. Does he drive on, back away?
Push through?
“My boy’s sick,” the man’s quiet voice somehow picked over all the other shouts, “If he don’t eat regular… he gets bad.”
Face one mob, or twenty people. A mob is just rage. People are many things, least of all strong.
“What’s your boy’s name, sir?” Riley said with all of the smooth demeanor of a viper.
“Wynd.”
“Wynd…a good name.” Riley studied the man’s… well-built frame, “And how many meals are you missing, sir, while your son goes hungry?”
That quiver was an earthquake now, fists clenched and jaw tight. He was going to jump into the cruiser and beat Riley with his own two hands.
The heads-up display flashed across his eyes, diagnostics and interface options in the blink of an eye.
And Riley was out of the car, fast, suddenly behind him before the man could speak up. The crowd jumped back, away from the unnatural display, afraid maybe that they might be churned to mash if caught in the path.
The man froze, his senses telling him the impossible, that the officer from the car was now behind him. Riley pressed his palm into the man’s lower back, “It’s either a cruel father, or a terrible liar. Your boy starves… and look at you.”
Eyes darted from the cruiser to Riley to the accused. Their focus broken and with it, their will to resist. Without a drop of blood.
Pathetic.
16
Aaron
It wasn’t a foul taste, but it clung to the sides of his mouth, cementing with the moisture and refusing to vacate. He could no longer taste anything else: a grainy paste, bitter, with tiny flecks that lodged between his teeth, scraping against the gums.
It was surprisingly hardy stuff. He never thought he'd be able to go full vegan, but the stuff did, in fact, satiate the grumbling in his gut.
It was, however, full of fiber. And he had little privacy. It was a tight race, but after his first escapade with no bathroom, he decided he preferred what remained of his rations to this cleanse.
At least the smell from the fires had abated, replaced by the rank leathery sweat of the beasts. None had approached him, or even stopped by with even modest interest. They lumbered about with maddening focus, completing a single task before moving to the next.
Whether they were tending to the moss paddies, ferrying supplies, or fortifying the cavern -- they had sealed the window Holmst had attacked through with that strange cement -- they handled their challenges with precision and efficiency.
If they gossiped to each other, drew satisfaction or enjoyment from their work, they weren't showing much of it to him.
He had been in prison before. This was all too familiar.
The only reaction he was able to draw from them came on the third day when he dared to leave the platform. Scar emerged from nowhere, stepping out from a pocket dimension to herd him back. Without his weapons, he was no real threat to the big guy, his protestations drawing no distinguished response. It walked forward, and he had to retreat or be trampled.
Once, he planted his feet, halfway wanting them to trample him underfoot. Instead, Scar barked and gingerly picked him with its claws -- careful not to squeeze hard enough to harm him -- and set him down back at the center of the platform, before retreating to his unseen post.
Well, at least this iso cell had a view.
There were a half dozen tunnels in the cavern, spiraling off to God knows where. Perhaps there were other nests around the mountains, or those were the highways toward Vanguard -- there was no way to no know for sure. With time, Aaron might be bored enough to tally the incoming and outgoing traffic to draw some conclusions.
He could feel her arrival, as his ears popped and his jaw clicked, like a hand squeezed on his skull. He glanced over his shoulder at the bu
lbous shadow and the blue-eyed form of Talania.
She studied him in silence for a time, head tilted to one side. Aaron stood up and advanced on her, confident strides, a touch too fast to be considered peaceful.
She simply watched him walk up and past her toward the shadowy form, his outstretched hand finding nothing at all, his fingers grasping at an image that always seemed far away. No matter how close he got, it was always a city block from him.
He chuckled, “So what? You’re just a figment of my imagination?”
“We are a projection to your senses, to aid in communication.”
Aaron pursed his lips, looking back at his captor, “I don’t get how that works. If you wanted to negotiate, why not just ‘project’ yourself to all one million of my friends back in Vanguard?”
“You are sixty thousand,” she corrected, “With a mere handful of fighters in your ranks.”
Interesting. She may not be arrogant, but she is eager to share what she knows.
Aaron made a show of a big sigh, “You didn’t answer my question. Why not talk to someone in charge?”
“They are not you, ak’thun.”
“And I’m special, am I?” He said wryly, “Is ‘ak’thun’ some kind of momentous title? Am I some prophesied hero that’s been spoken of in a thousand years of oral history?” He was just about done with this pomp and circumstance. He’d been eating moss alone in the dark for nearly a week.
She turned to face him, those soft blue eyes looking right through him. If they focused on anything in particular, he would never know it, and to be studied by that empty space unsettled him, “It means ‘without height’.”
Alright then, she’s calling him short. Everybody’s in on it now.
“We do not entirely understand what binds us to you, ak’thun, but one can only seize on opportunities when they present themselves.”
“‘We’ meaning…” Aaron paused, trying to parse out her strange syntax, “You and me, or just you-you seize on the...?”
She stared aback at him, blank and expectant.