Michael Cobley - Humanity's Fire book 1

by Seeds of Earth

  SEEDS OF EARTH

  BOOK 1 OF

  HUMANITY'S FIRE

  MICHAEL COBLEY

  orbit

  www.orbitbooks.net

  First published in Great Britain in 2009 by Orbit

  This edition published in 2010 by Orbit

  Reprinted 2010 (twice)

  Copyright © Michael Cobley 2009

  Excerpt from Dark Space by Marianne de Pierres

  Copyright © 2007 by Marianne de Pierres

  The moral right of the author has been asserted.

  All characters and events in this publication, other than those

  clearly in the public domain, are fictitious and any resemblance

  to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

  All rights reserved.

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  the prior permission in writing of the publisher, nor be otherwise circulated

  in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published

  and without a similar condition including this condition being

  imposed on the subsequent purchaser.

  A CIP catalogue record for this book

  is available from the British Library.

  ISBN 978-1-84149-631-3

  Typeset in Sabon by M Rules

  Printed in the UK by CPI Mackays, Chatham ME5 8TD

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  PROLOGUE

  DARIEN INSTITUTE: HYPERION DATA

  RECOVERY PROJECT

  Cluster Location - Subsidiary Hardmem Substrate Deck

  9 quarters)

  Tranche - 298

  Decryption Status - 9th pass, 26 video files recovered

  File 15 - The Battle of Mars (Swarm War)

  Veracity - Virtual Re-enactment

  Original Time Log - 16:09:24, 23 November 2126

  »»» «««

  FADE IN:

  CAPTION:

  MARS

  THE CRATER PLAIN: OLYMPUS MONS

  19 MARCH 2126

  The Sergeant was on the carrier's command deck,

  checking and rechecking the engineering console's mod-

  ifications, when voices began clamouring over his

  helmet comm.

  'Marine force stragglers incoming with enemy units

  in pursuit . . .'

  '. . . eight, nine Swarmers, maybe ten . .

  The Sergeant cursed, grabbed his heavy carbine and

  left the command deck as quickly as his combat armour

  would allow. The clatter of his boots echoed down the

  vessel's spinal corridor while he issued a string of terse

  orders. By the time he reached the wrecked and gaping

  doors of the rear deployment hold, the stragglers had

  arrived. Five wounded and unconscious, all from the

  Indonesia regiment, going by their helmet flashes. As

  the last was being carried up the ramp, the leading

  Swarmers came into view over the brow of a rocky ridge

  about 80 metres away.

  A first glimpse revealed a nightmare jumble of claws,

  spikes and gleaming black eye-clusters. Swarm biology

  had many reptilian similarities yet their appearance was

  unavoidably insectoid. With six, eight, ten or more

  limbs, they could be as small as a pony or as big as a

  whale, depending on their specialisation. These were

  bull-sized skirmishers, eleven black-and-green monsters

  that were unlimbering tine-snouted weapons as they

  rushed down towards the crippled carrier.

  'Hold your fire,' the Sergeant said, glancing at the six

  marines crouched behind the improvised barricade of

  ammo cases and deck plating. These were all that were left

  to him after the Colonel and the rest had left in the hov-

  ermags a few hours ago, heading for the caldera and the

  Swarm's main hive. One of them hunched his shoulders a

  little, head tilting to aim down his carbine's sights ...

  'I said wait,' said the Sergeant, gauging the diminishing

  distance. 'Ready aft turrets ... acquire targets ... fire!'

  Streams of heavy-calibre shells converged on the lead-

  ing Swarmers, knocking them off their spidery legs.

  Then the Sergeant cursed when he saw them right them-

  selves, protected by the bio-armour which had

  confounded Earth's military ever since the beginning of

  the invasion two years ago.

  'Pulse rounds,' the Sergeant shouted. 'Now!'

  Bright bolts began to pound the Swarmers, dense

  knots of energised matter designed to simultaneously

  heat and corrode their armour. The enemy returned

  fire, their weapons delivering repeating arcs of long,

  thin black rounds, but as the turret jockeys focused

  their targeting the Swarmers broke off and scattered.

  The Sergeant then ordered his men to open up, joining

  in with his own carbine, and the withering crossfire

  tore into the weakened, confused enemies. In less than

  a minute, nothing was left alive or in one piece out on

  the rocky slope.

  The defending marines exchanged laughs and grins,

  and knocked gauntleted knuckles together. The Sergeant

  barely had time to draw breath and reload his carbine

  when the consoleman's urgent voice came over the comm:

  'Sergeant! - airborne contact, three klicks and closing!'

  Immediately, he swung round and made for the star-

  board companionway, shouldering his carbine as he

  climbed. 'What's their profile, soldier?'

  'Hard to tell - half the sensor suite is junk

  'Get me something and quick!'

  He then ordered all four turrets to target the

  approaching craft and was clambering out of the car -

  rier's topside hatch when the consoleman came back to

  him.

  'IFF confirms it's a friendly, Sergeant - it's a vorti-

  wing, and the pilot is asking for you.'

  'Patch him through.'

  One of his helmet's miniscreens blinked suddenly and

  showed the vortiwing pilot. He was possibly German,

  going by the instructions on the bulkhead behind him.

  'Sergeant, I've not much time,' the pilot said in

  accented English. 'I'm to evacuate you and your men up

  to orbit

  'Sorry, Lieutenant, but. . . my commanding officer is

  down in that caldera, engaging in combat! Look, the

  brink of the caldera is less than half a klick away - you

  could airlift m
e and my men over there before returning

  to—'

  'Request denied. My orders are specific. Besides,

  every unit that made it down there has been over-

  whelmed and destroyed, whole regiments and brigades,

  Sergeant. I'm sorry . . .' The pilot reached up to adjust

  controls. 'ETD in less than five minutes, Sergeant. Please

  have your men ready.'

  The miniscreen went dead. The Sergeant leaned on

  the topside rail and stared bitterly at the kilometre-long

  furrow which the carrier had gouged in the sloping flank

  of Olympus Mons. Then he gave the order to abandon

  ship.

  In the shroud-like Martian sky overhead, the vorti-

  wing transport grew from a speck to a broad-built craft

  descending on four gimbal-mounted spinjets. Landing

  struts found purchase on the carrier's upper hull, and

  amid the howling blast of the engines the walking

  wounded and the stretcher cases were lifted into the

  transport's belly hold. The turret jockeys, the consoleman

  and his half-dozen marines were following suit when the

  German pilot's voice spoke suddenly.

  'Large number of flying Swarmers heading our way,

  Sergeant. Suggest you get aboard fast.'

  As the last of his men climbed up into the vortiwing,

  the Sergeant turned to face the caldera of Olympus

  Mons. Through a haze of windblown dust and the thin

  black fumes of battle, he saw a dense cloud of dark

  motes rising just a few klicks away. It took only a

  moment to realise how quickly they would be here, and

  for him to decide what to do.

  'Best you button up and get going, Lieutenant,' he

  said as he leaped back into the carrier and sealed the

  hatch behind him. 'I can keep them busy with our tur-

  rets, give you time to make orbit.'

  'Nein Sergeant, I order you—'

  'Apologies, sir, but you'd never get away otherwise,

  so my task is clear.'

  He cut the link as he rushed back along to the com-

  mand deck, closing hatches as he went. True, the

  Colonel's science officer had slaved all four of the turrets

  to the engineering console, but that wasn't the only

  modification he had carried out . . .

  The roar of the vortiwing's spinjets grew to a shriek,

  landing struts loosened their grip and the transport

  lurched free. Moments later, the fourfold angled thrust

  was driving it upwards on a steep trajectory. Some or the

  Swarm outriders were already leading the flying host on

  an intercept course, until the carrier's turrets opened fire

  upon them. Yet they would still have kept on after the

  ascending prey, had not the carrier itself now shifted like

  a great wounded beast and risen slowly from the long

  gouge it had made in the ground. Curtains of dust and

  grit fell from its underside, along with shattered frag-

  ments of hull plating and exterior sensors, and when the

  carrier turned its battered prow towards the centre of the

  caldera the Swarm host altered its course.

  On the command deck, the Sergeant sweated and

  swore as he struggled to coax every last erg from

  protesting engines. Damage sustained during the atmos-

  pheric descent had left the carrier unable to make a safe

  landing on the caldera floor, hence the Colonel's deci-

  sion to continue in the hovermags. However, a safe

  landing was not what the Sergeant had in mind.

  As the ship headed into the caldera, steadily gaining

  height, the groan of overloaded substructures came up

  through the deck. Even as he glanced at the glowing

  panels, red telltales started to flicker, warnings that some

  of the port suspensors were close to operational toler-

  ance. But most of his attention was focused on the host

  of Swarmers now converging on the Earth vessel.

  Suddenly the carrier was enfolded in a swirling cloud

  of the creatures, some of which landed on the hull,

  scrabbling for hold points, seeking entrance. Almost at

  the same time, two suspensors failed and the ship listed

  to port. The Sergeant boosted power to the port burn-

  ers, ignoring the beeping alarms and the crashing,

  hammering sounds coming from somewhere amidships.

  The carrier straightened up as it reached the zenith of its

  trajectory, a huge missile that the Sergeant was aiming

  directly at the Swarm Hive.

  Ten seconds into the dive the clangorous hammering

  came nearer, perhaps a hatch or two away from the

  command deck.

  Twenty seconds into the dive, with the pitted, grey-

  brown spires of the Hive looming in the louvred

  viewport, the starboard aft burner blew. The Sergeant

  cut power to the port aft engine and boosted the star-

  board for'ard into the red.

  Thirty seconds into the dive, amid the deafening

  cacophony of metallic hammering and the roar of the

  engines, the hatch to the command deck finally burst

  open. A grotesque creature that was half-wasp, half-

  alligator, struggled to squeeze through the gap. It froze

  for a second when it saw the structures of the Hive rush-

  ing up to meet the carrier head-on, then frantically

  reversed direction and was gone. The Sergeant tossed a

  thermite grenade after it and turned to face the view*

  port, arms spread wide, laughing . . .

  CUT TO:

  VIEW OF OLYMPUS MONS FROM ORBIT

  Visible within its attendant cloud of Swarmers, the

  brigade carrier leaves a trail of leaking gases and fluids

  in its wake as it plummets towards the Hive complex.

  The perspective suddenly zooms out, showing much of

  the wreckage-strewn, battle-scarred caldera as the car

  rier impacts. For a moment there is only an outburst of

  debris from the collision, then three bright explosions in

  quick succession obscure the outlines of the hive . . .

  VOICE OVER:

  In the first phase of the Battle of Mars, a number of pur-

  pose-built heavy boosters were used to send a flotilla of

  asteroids against the Swarm Armada, thus drawing key

  vessels away from Mars orbit. The main battle, and

  ground offensive, cost Earth over 400,000 dead and the

  loss of seventy-nine major warships as well as scores of

  support craft. This act of sacrifice did not destroy all the

  Overminds of the Swarm or deter them from their pur-

  pose. Yet vast stores of bioweapons, like the missiles

  that devastated cities in China, Europe and America,

  were destroyed along with several hatching chambers,

  thus halting the production of fresh Swarm warriors

  and delaying the expected assault on Earth.

  That battle brought grief and sorrow to all of

  Humanity, yet it also bought us a breathing space, five

  crucial months during which the construction of three

  interstellar colony ships was completed, three out of the

  original fifteen. The last of them, the Tenebrosa, was

  launched from the high-orbit Poseidon Docks just four

  days ago, following its sister ships, the Hyperion and the

  Forresta
l, on a trajectory away from the enemy's main

  forces. All three vessels are fitted with a revolutionary

  new translight drive, allowing them to cross vast dis-

  tances via the strange subreality of hyperspace. First to

  make the translight jump was the Hyperion, then two

  days later the Forrestal, and the Tenebrosa will be the

  last. Their journeys will be determined by custodian AIs

  programmed to evade pursuit with random course

  changes, and thereafter to search for Earthlike worlds

  suitable for colonisation.

  And so they depart, three arks bearing Humanity's

  hope for survival, three seeds of Earth flying out into the

  vast and starry night. Now we must turn our attention

  and all our strength to the onslaught that will soon be

  upon us. In twelve days, spearhead formations of the

  Swarm will land on the Moon and at once attack our

  civilian and military outposts there. We know what to

  expect. The Swarm's strategy of slaughter and obliterate

  has never wavered, so we know that there will be no

  pity, no mercy and no quarter when, at last, they enter

  the skies above Earth.

  Yet for all that the Swarm soldiers are regimented

  drones, their leaders, the Overminds, must themselves

  be sentient and able to learn, otherwise they would not

  have developed space travel. So if the Overminds can

  learn, let us be their teachers - let us teach them what it

  means to attack the cradle of Humanity . . .

  »»» «««

  END OF FILE . . .

  PART ONE

  GREG

  Dusk was creeping in over the sea from the east as Greg

  Cameron walked Chel down to the zep station. The

  great mass of Giant's Shoulder loomed on the right side

  of the path, its shadowy darkness speckled with the tiny

  blue glows of ineka beetles, while a fenced-off sheer

  drop fell away to the left. The sky was cloudless, laying

  bare the starmist which swirled for ever through the

  upper atmosphere of Darien. Tonight it was a soft

  purple tinged with threads of roseate, a restful, slow-

  shifting ghost sky.

  But Greg knew that his companion was anything but

  restful. In the light of the pathway lamps, the Uvovo

  stalked along with head down and bony, four-fingered

  hands gripping the chest straps of his harness. They

  were a slender, diminutive race with a bony frame, and

  large amber eyes set in a small face. Glancing at him,

  Greg smiled.

  'Chel, don't worry - you'll be fine.'