Skeat turned to enter the tunnel, his three fire-teams already working their way down the long hallway. “We don’t have anything like that.” He stepped on what looked like a Gray torso, the ribs cracking from the weight.
“Neither did we,” the heavy rifleman admitted. “It’s pretty new.”
“Huh,” Skeat grunted. New wasn’t a word you heard much in the Imperial military.
A familiar pattern of three thumps sounded from outside the tunnel mouth and he smiled. The assault shuttles were already picking up platoons who’d been balked at other bunkers and they were feeding them into the facility at this point.
His smile froze. A bunker cracked by unarmored colonials rather than by his Marines. “Oh well,” he said, mostly to himself.
At least they’d be back aboard in time for shepherd’s pie.
But first, they had a facility to pacify and, more importantly, the facility’s scientific staff to capture. “Remember,” he warned over the prox net, “we don’t want to hurt the little darlings. Command wants the staff seized intact.”
“What if they’re shooting at us, Sarge?”
“Frizzel, if they’re being kind enough to shoot at us, you can go ahead and return the favor. Otherwise, you secure ’em and move on. We gotta move fast. The enemy is likely to pull back from the other bunkers to help defend the interior, and I want the labs secured before they do.”
“Well, they’re only shooting a little and it’s just 8mm rounds on low charge,” Frizzel admitted, the sound of small-arms fire crackling from Skeat’s helmet speakers. “I’ll just go knock ’em down.”
“Sounds like you’ve got yourself a well-led fire-team, Sergeant.” The new voice drew Skeat’s gaze around to the left. Someone in light dragoon armor had caught up with him.
The man retracted his helmet, extending a hand. “Ap Rhys, 1st Gliessan Dragoons.”
“Skeat,” he grunted in reply, “488.” He squinted at Daffyd. “You the fella that invented that wormhole generator?”
“Sure, why not?” Daffyd replied negligently.
A chuckle. “So it’s like that, huh?”
“Yep. A thin veneer of tauran shit spread over something even more unpalatable.” Ap Rhys closed up his helmet as they neared the end of the corridor. The sounds of firing came from just around the corner but it stopped abruptly.
They rounded the corner to find a Marine in HMA kneeling to restrain three Grays. A fourth enemy had a badly broken arm.
“There’s a lab!” ap Rhys exclaimed, running past the kneeling Marine before Skeat could stop him. A hail of rounds bounced off Daffyd’s armor as he entered the room and he picked up a small chair. “Knock it off,” he shouted, hurling the seat at the offending Gray.
Skeat had made it halfway to the door before the firing had ceased. He stepped into the lab to find the unconscious enemy laying on the floor, his rifle a few meters away. Holo screens projected along three of the four walls while the fourth wall was a sheet of dark glazing. A hallway led to more labs on the left side.
Another armored dragoon, four privateers and one of those creepy, insectoid monks flooded into the room. One of the privateers pulled off a backpack and opened it to remove a data module.
“Over there,” ap Rhys pointed. “Those nodules can pull information from the entire complex. Get a copy made and get it back to the ship before some trigger-happy captain tries to give us orbital fire-support or something.”
Several groups, each consisting of fifteen or twenty more men, passed through the room, a mix of Marines, dragoons and privateers.
The monk moved to a holo panel and activated the controls. A few quick gestures and the large dark window cleared, showing a chamber containing three huge, circular rings.
“Tamade!” Daffyd turned from his friend with the data module. He stepped over to stand next to the monk looking through the glass. “Let’s hope this is a recent development.”
Beyond the rings was a tunnel, exactly the same diameter as the middle ring, and its inner surface gleamed as though the rock had been polished to a perfect gloss.
“They cut that hole with the generator,” Daffyd said, looking back to Skeat. “Opened up a short wormhole and slid the far end out to slice away at the rock. When they collapse the hole, the rock goes tianxiaode where, but it goes.”
“They have managed to replicate their research,” the Monk croaked. “We’ll need to talk to the staff of this facility, one at a time. We need to find out how much is known only to the teams working here and how much the Quorum knows.”
Ap Rhys nodded. “We can’t let them have this technology again. Give the Grays an advantage and they’ll beat you to death with it.” He subvocalized a command to his suit. “All call-signs, this is ‘Welshman’. Initiate ‘Paper Clip’ immediately. I say again – initiate ‘Paper Clip’.”
Skeat could hear small-arms fire coming from the corridor on his left. The enemy manning the other bunkers were starting to run into resistance from the Humans. His HUD showed him a three-dimensional map built by the scanners carried on the Marine armor, and the defenders coming back from the outer defenses were being stopped well away from the labs.
He could tell the fight was all but won by the Humans and something about ap Rhys’ odd statement had him concerned. “What’s ‘Paper Clip’?”
Dragoons and privateers began coming back now, each carrying a Gray prisoner. They passed through the large lab and headed out toward the exit.
Ap Rhys waved a hand at the rings. “We’ll get around to exploiting their research soon enough,” he explained, “but first we need to get all of the staff separated and locked down. We need to find out just how far this knowledge has spread from here. We hammered their last research site flat but, here they are, building these goucaode engines again.
“We’ll take ’em up to our ships and have the Brotherhood work them over. They have a way with the Grays.”
Before Skeat could say anything in return, a red icon began to blink in his HUD. “We’re being recalled,” he said in mild surprise.
It wasn’t as though he didn’t think the local Human troops could finish mopping up. Hells, it had even been the privateers who got them all inside the complex in the first place. Still, it felt wrong, leaving the fight when there were still shots being fired.
He collected his team, pulling Rhodes away from the Gray corpse he was searching for souvenirs. They assembled in a flat area outside the smashed bunker and waited for the other two fire-teams to arrive.
Four shuttles approached. Three of them were Gray export models and they went into a holding pattern while the Marine assault shuttle began its descent. He cast another glance up at the other three shuttles and it struck him that it wasn’t just his reluctance to walk away from an unfinished fight that troubled him.
This facility represented a strategic advantage. Why were the Marines being pulled out while the local forces were still pouring in? He checked his withdrawal order and saw that General Urbica had her name on it.
He hoped she knew what she was doing.
Anyway – shepherd’s pie…
The Attack is the Message
“How many ships?” Julia demanded.
“At least a hundred, but we’re just picking up reflections at this distance,” the tactical officer of the Sucker Punch replied, turning to look back at her holographic projection. “They’re probably just now hearing about the defeat at Govi Darkhan, so they wouldn’t have had time to pull in forces to defend their home world.”
Julia looked around at the circle of holographic captains, her eyes coming to rest on Paul, the only non-holographic presence in the circle. With Dmitry captaining the Mictlan, Eddie had insisted on returning to the fighter squadrons, leaving Paul to command the Sucker Punch.
Paul was far from comfortable in the role as he was no deck officer. He’d been stuck with the job because the dragoons had tended to follow his lead in the past and he had an eye on the big picture.
“Let their sense of duty kill them,” Paul offered.
She nodded. “The Mictlan. Those captains defending their home world know what happens if they try to dodge the rounds from the Mictlan.”
“They’re sworn to protect the Quorum,” Tony added. “As long as the Quorum is down there, they’ll have no choice but to sit in the path of the incoming rounds and try to destroy them with defensive fire.”
“Are we sure of that?” Dmitry asked from the bridge of the Mictlan. “They’ll know a single round from us isn’t going to wipe them out. It must take at least a couple hundred rounds before we make the place uninhabitable.”
“If they do start evading the rounds,” Ava warned, “then we lose the element of surprise.”
“To an extent,” Julia conceded, “but we can still open a wormhole at close range and wipe them out, one at a time. Let’s try this first; test their resolve…”
N’Zim, standing next to Julia aboard the Dark Star, turned to her. “And how far will you take this assault? Once you have them at your mercy, what will you do?”
“As I said…” Julia turned to meet his gaze, “… we’ll test their resolve.”
“Our gunnery officer has her solutions resolved for all hostile targets,” Dmitry advised. “We can have the first sixty rounds away in less than a centiday, but we’ll need another half-centi to get the next magazine into position and cool the launch rails. Just move this end of the hole and give us the word.”
Less than two hundredths of a day to wipe out a defensive fleet.
Or to wipe out a world.
It was frightening to think the Grays had gone to the effort of building these ships, but it was even more chilling to be in command of them. “Sucker Punch, have the wormhole adjusted for the Mictlan.” She turned to Dmitry. “Mictlan, you are clear to open fire on the defensive fleet as soon as you have a clear shot.”
***
NGark and his Master-At-Arms led a picked security team of thirty clones down the long corridor to the Quorum’s main chamber. It was at least a hundred cubits beneath ground level and he had a sneaking suspicion its placement had been more a precaution against rebellion than alien assault.
Still, it had proved to be a sensible choice. He could hear the occasional distant thunder of a heavy round striking the surface, the shock wave sometimes taking a very long time to shake the subterranean corridor. Some of his brother captains were shirking their duty in the interest of prolonging their own monotonous existence.
He reached the blast door and stepped up to breathe on the sensor plate in the center. The massive circle rolled out of the way and he led his team down a short hallway and through a smaller, automated blast door to enter the main chamber of the Quorum.
He strode out into the large circular space in the center. On tiered benches, rising away from the center, forty faces looked down in surprise. One of the ruling members stood and gave NGark a condescending tilt of his head. “You were supposed to be relieved of your command…”
“Point of order,” NGark cut him off. “As a Grand Ballista, I have the right to rise to a point of order.” He looked to the chairman who, slightly dark with annoyance, gave a curt nod of approval.
“I am still a Grand Ballista,” NGark continued, “because the fool you sent to relieve me lost his planet killer to the Humans, who are currently using it to bombard our home world.” He pointed at the councillor who’d first spoken and forty heads tilted back in shock at the rude gesture.
“He has no business meddling in defense matters, not even to comment on them while in chambers.” He turned and waved a hand at all of the councillors, an extravagant gesture and they shifted backwards in their seats in alarm.
“Your incompetent scheming has brought this war upon us and I move that we make changes in order to preserve what remains of our way of life.” He let them mutter among themselves for a brief moment.
“All approved?” he called out.
Shots rang out from his security forces and the councillors of the Quorum were cut down in a matter of heartbeats. There were no guards, for they had not been needed in centuries.
NGark walked through the chlorine stench of the assault rifles to stand beside the slumped body of the chairman whose coppery blood was slowly turning a green, oxidizing as it spilled out onto his chest and ran down onto the floor.
“All those opposed?” he asked, looking around at the dead assembly. He put a hand on the chairman’s neck and tipped the corpse into the stairs where he slid down to the central space.
“Motion carried.” He sat on the chairman’s couch.
***
“Move the other end in closer,” Julia ordered. “Just outside the atmosphere.”
Paul, nodded to the engineering station where Edrich shrugged and turned to his controls.
“Gray Home World,” She began. “This is Brigadier General Julia Urbica of the Imperial Marines.”
A Gray shimmered into view. He was in a seated positon but he stood and gave them what passed for a polite nod.
The Humans shared glances. Nobody had ever seen a Gray nod before.
“I am Chancellor NGark,” the Gray announced. “On behalf of the Quorum, which is currently indisposed at the moment, I welcome you.”
“We are here,” Julia replied, “because your crimes against the Imperium, the Free Colonies and their people have left us with no choice but to respond in force.”
“It would seem I’ve been hasty,” NGark admitted. He reached up to activate a menu and the view enlarged to show him, much smaller, standing in the middle of a large round chamber strewn with Gray corpses. “As you can see, I’ve already called them to answer for their inept leadership.”
He returned the projection to the standard setting, showing him at full scale. “If you would like, I can have their patterns re-animated in new bodies. They should have transmitted into storage when I had them shot. You can punish them as you wish. Otherwise, I’d planned on emptying the buffer.
“As to their crimes, I apologize for the incursions into your space. They were unwarranted and poorly executed. It was an insult to you, assuming that such shoddy work would be sufficient to cripple your societies.” He tilted his head back slightly.
“Regarding the treatment of your citizens, can you honestly say your own Imperium hasn’t subjected them to far worse?”
“Stand by.” Julia cut the link. Such words were inflammatory. If a copy of this conversation ever made it back to the Imperium, it could spark any number of revolts among the lower classes.
Humans could toil their entire lives in squalor and submission, but it only took one person to call it misery and a world would go into chaos. Chancellor NGark might even have known that when he said it.
“We should destroy the bastards,” Tony urged. “They’ve come at us too many times. They’ve been on the brink of destroying us too many times. Will we let them keep trying?”
Julia shook her head. “Do you really think they can try again, Tony? Every asset they built for the effort has fallen into our hands. They’ll be too afraid of our response to risk attacking you again. I won’t be cursed through history as the person who destroyed an entire species.”
N’Zim let out a creaky laugh of relief.
Tony frowned at the monk, then turned to Julia. “When you say our response, you don’t mean the Imperium, do you? You mean the colonies.”
“Sucker Punch,” she said, turning to Paul, who reluctantly nodded.
The wormhole to the Gray home world closed.
A new one opened to the Imperial home world.
“Is that all we have to say to the Gray chancellor?” Tony asked, though his tone indicated that his true concern lay elsewhere.
“The cat doesn’t waste time telling the mouse that she’s too full to chase it,” Julia told him. “I’m sure the Senate is anxiously waiting for a report from their Praetor. It’s time for you to go home.”
“And what about Govi Darkhan?” he asked. “My M
arines helped seize that research station.”
“It’s ours,” she told him flatly. “If we allow the Imperium a toehold in our territory, there’ll be no end of trouble. You wouldn’t stop until you’d annexed every single colony.”
She smiled sadly. “For centuries, the Grays let the colonies live because they feared Imperial retribution, even though the administration preferred to pretend no Humans lived out here.”
“Not worth the time and effort,” Ava put in.
“And the great irony,” Julia continued, “is that, now, when we’ve proven how valuable we’d be to the Imperium, we no longer need its help.”
“But the Imperium needs us,” Ava added, gesturing to the tactical holo that hung between the projected captains. It showed a wormhole opened above the Imperial palace on Home World. The Mictlan held station near the opening, her potential threat obvious.
“Now we are the counterbalance to Gray aggression but, if the Imperium tries to annex us…” Ava let the threat hang unspoken.
“Sorry, Tony.” Paul gave his old friend a sad smile. “But the way of life they’ve built out here is worth fighting for. If you’d had a chance to see for yourself, you’d understand.”
A sigh. “It think I do understand.”
“Then make sure the Senate does as well,” Julia said forcefully, “because, if you don’t, it’ll mean war and it’s a war you’re not equipped to win.”
Tony looked away, his expression troubled. Finally, he looked back at his friends. “I think you may be right.”
Without another word, his image disappeared from the group projected in front of Paul.
“Xipe Totec and her escorts are moving to the wormhole,” the tactical officer said.
Paul watched as the Marine ships passed through the opening and disappeared. He knew how hard it would be to convince CentCom and the Senate that the mighty Imperium was no longer the big kid on the block, but there was nothing he could do about that. His old friend was on his own.
“Restore normal geometry and secure the reactor,” he ordered.
The Gray Matter (Rebels and Patriots Book 3) Page 30