The Far Field: A Military Science Fiction Epic (Seedlings Book 1)

by Richard Sosa

  Iris sat up and rocked in pain holding her arm. Reinforcements slid into the trench and braced on the barrier ignoring her and the dead troopers around them. She banged her head on the trench wall in frustration. “Damn it. I don’t want to live anymore.” She stood up and walked toward the front of the trench as soldiers retreated running past her. She raised her weapon and started shooting. Three droids dropped into the trench only to be cut into pieces by her weapon’s lasers. Three other droids crested the trench and ran along the top with their turrets ready, but her continuous firing followed them until they tumbled into the trench destroyed. “Die. Just die.” A Spipeculas bounded through the smoke and lasers bounced around Iris’ feet but she was already firing directly at it. The creature fell backward. Her weapon clicked with no more charges. She rejected the spent charger and snapped in another and before her weapon was fully online put the barrel into the face of the dead creature and fired at it until it was a wet mass of tissue and dirt.

  Her eyes drifted to the night sky above and she saw the bright star. A tear rolled down her cheek and her face scrunched and contorted as she struggled not to completely break down crying. Iris sat down hard and then rolled over with her face a few inches from the ground to weep silently.

  Chapter Forty-seven

  Dask stepped out of the Communications Command trench and walked with a determined stride moving quickly across the compound. “Transferring field command to General Pertson Granm-jek,” he authorized from his wrist unit, “I am needed at SD Line Seven.” He moved at a near running pace to the armory. A gunnery Tech was caught off guard and saluted him quickly. Dask moved into the secure area and said, “I need a pulse rifle, load it up and grenades lots of them.”

  The Tech looked out to the compound frightened. “Are we under attack?”

  “No, I am going to Line Seven. You’re reporting to Pertson while I am gone. Quickly now.”

  “Yes, Sir.”

  Dask grabbed three straps of tube grenades and hung his pulse rifle on its carabiner and headed out. A troop transport was lifting off and Dask raced toward it, waving them down, then climbed on board. The pilot was surprised. “Sir. Your orders?”

  “Where’s this thing headed?”

  “We’re reinforcing Line Seven and Troy Sector.”

  “Then let’s get moving son.”

  When it’s time to exit the transport, Dask was the first to move out of the transport and went to cover with the familiar feeling of being in someone’s sights. He spent more time than he wanted, ordering the ‘kids’ to say low and get settled in. Once in the trench, he moved toward the Forward Operating Base.

  A Sergeant was surprised to see him alone. “Sergeant, priority one, I am looking for Captian JaensAt.”

  “She’s leading the Bravo and 89 Cannons,” the Sergeant said and pointed, “they’re holding that line,” his finger moved along the ridge in the distance, “I can contact her from here.”

  “What’s the quickest way there?”

  “I can have a transport jumper up and with some cover fire, we’ll get you there in less than two.”

  “On foot.”

  The Sergeant regarded him and said, “I’ll pull a detail together and –”

  “No, I have to go alone.”

  The Sergeant wanted to say something else but decided to shut up. He pointed, “Along the trench and then over two trench lines to the wash but we are evacuating that area. Be careful.”

  “Thanks.”

  Dask raced for cover as the hail of lasers clipped through the shot-up barriers and sparks bounced into the trench. Marines were already returning fire with hundreds of droids rushing them. He looked at the fading outline of the hill where Iris was fighting as well. Waves of lasers laid over them, like a breeze in a wheat field, instantly killing and wounding soldiers and Dask dropped to the ground. The position on the ridge returned fire gallantly and Dask noted the night sky above as lasers ricocheted and traces arced overhead. Droids leaped over the barriers and spilled themselves into the trenches. Dask fired at them turning them into junk metal but he began to move back. He threw multiple grenades into the clutch of droids before they got orientated. The explosions provided cover to retreat to another cover. They repeated the fight as the droids began to overwhelm their position again and each time Dask retreated further from his goal with fewer soldiers.

  The sensation of twisting in the air took his breath away and a thought flashed in his mind, how light I am. Flying and floating. The explosion was massive and the rockets from the Scythes flying in low formation continued to explode down the line on the advancing droids. Dask’s body slammed into the top of one trench and flipped over into the next one where he slid headfirst to the bottom. Corpses tumbled into the trench around him. He had no vision, he couldn’t feel any part of his body, no hearing, only the sensation of floating in a warm pool of water and he fell into a deep sleep.

  ***

  Marine Corporal Terin shook him, “Come on soldier get up. You’re not hurt.” Dask thought, ‘no one gave you a chance to prove yourself’. Terin pushed her face close to him, “That simulation is a piece of shit, it’s no match for a real-life and death firefighting,’ then she leaned into him again and nudged his arm, “against a people who were willing to die in battle for their belief, right? Zealots. Right?” Dask tried to move. Terin looked at him and smiled but looked away as if in thought somewhere else. “Gods this place is messed up bad. Well, doesn’t matter. Let’s just keep at our job and keep your damn gun clean. Mostly stop whining.” Dask mumbled but his words could not come out of his mouth. Terin said as if she understood him, “Yeah, that’s what I said, ‘Grizath Provence can go f-themselves,” she scooted closer to the wall and looked up toward something, “Dask, there’s a number of them on the ridge, let’s cut them off in Grouta Canyon.”

  Dask pushed a breath with a word. “No.”

  Terin held her hand on her stomach and then stared at the blood covering it. Dask heard himself say again in his mind, ‘you’re going to be fine, soldier,’ Dask struggled to wake up and said, “No.” His body felt like it was sinking into the ground and looked over at the dead soldier next to him. He breathed out. “Terin.”

  ***

  Then, Terin was leaning over him again and said. “You’re going to be fine, soldier. Lots of broken bones and you took one in the leg.” Dask felt a warm hand holding his wrist checking his pulse, Terin’s face faded and the female medic crouched over him as lasers chirred into the trench, pounding on the walls like a jackhammer. The only word Dask could say was. “Terin.”

  Chapter Forty-eight

  Rik looked up from his canopy and watched the Raptors overhead appearing as fast-moving pinpoints of light. They continued past and disappeared into the blackness of space. Rik tapped his COM. “May Day, May Day, we are directly below you. Do a slow vector bank of thirty-five degrees and you should see us,” he smiled as the specks of light reappeared as the Raptors banked thirty-five degrees but stayed on course and moved further away, “What the hell.”

  “They don’t see us,” Robec-3 reported, “our beacon is sending a signal, but I don’t have ‘navs’ or complete power so maybe it's not reaching them. We’re dead in space,” Robec-3 crushed her hands on her face, “I don’t understand this. We are moving 305889 rad-piaks-per. If that reading is correct, they can’t see us,” she tapped a calculator and checks a log, “that’s faster than this machine was designed to travel.”

  “Analysis Ro, what’s happening?”

  Robec-3 used her wrist calculator again and completed rapid math. “It’s a huge guess but I think we’re trapped in some type of gravity wake and it’s not related to any natural object, there’s nothing big enough out here to do this to us. It’s a singularity event.”

  “We pasted close to the Orb and we went through its back propulsion you think that did something to our systems? Is that a reasonable assumption?”

  “More than something, Sir. We are offline. Ever
ything is down including tracking and ‘navs’ not connecting, that’s an issue because they are connected to the array, propulsion and firing computer are uncoupled, stabilizing and attitude are offline. This is strange,” she typed on her calculator and added, “I expect at this degrading rate we are going to break apart in less than 20 gaml-ites.”

  They both stared into the black void. Silence

  “We should be dead now,” Robec-3 broke the silence.

  “Oh, that’s an encouraging thought,” Rik felt the Flyer drifting sideways and glanced out the cockpit, “Ro, where are the stars? Look there are no stars what’s up with that?”

  Robec-3 was busy typing. “I have some controls returning and I have one reading that doesn’t make any sense. We are spinning about 4589 RPMs per gaml, right now.”

  “What? That reading is shit.”

  “No Sir, this calculation is spot on. We’re experiencing something not reported. I have recorders set to auto and voice and if we get power back online, we’ll get other readings as well.”

  Rik looked out into the void around them. “Any indication where we are. Let me know if you get any location readings.”

  “Roger that.”

  The Flyer turned sideways again as if pointing downstream and began to move up and down like a boat in choppy waters and then it violently tumbled repeatedly and slide sideways from the wake. Rik and Robec-3 vomited and choked struggling to maintain the ship and breath.

  “We’re going down, Gods,” Rik shouted. The control panel lit up and the engines hummed then they turned over and the Flyer stabilized. It jerked as if deaccelerating and vibrated from the forces on its haul.

  “Unbelievable, we’re slowing down and dropping from 381958 to 111546 gav-clicks and now 91346 to 51054,” Robec-3 shouted, “hold on, we’re stabilizing almost to a dead stop. Can’t be right.” The ship violently rattled as if busting apart.

  The Flyer responded to Rik’s efforts to control it and he was getting data, “Ro can you tell me where we are?” he tapped navigation and thruster control to auto-pilot as the ship begin to coast, “what the hell?”

  “Working on it. We are… Gods, 85498 Terth-lt from our last point. At max acceleration, we are ten trems-hours away from grid 487 by 264. Checking fuel sources.” She read through her Flyer dashboard, smiled with relief, “Yeah, we got it.”

  Rik checked his navigation systems again. “Hold on, I am going to punch this thing back home.” The Flyer rocketed toward Aoife. After a few tense moments passed Rik was gaining confidence in his controls and began to feel comfortable with the Flyer. “Ro, you know what?”

  “That you should use my proper name and not shorten it?”

  “What? My system is trying to reboot our communication system. Rik saw the monitor blinking and tapped it, “Dask, don't let the CS start harrowing. If it lands. Stop it at all costs. Use the surface Rockets.” The communication monitor went dead and kept cycling to reconnect.

  “We’re still too far out,” Robec-3 said, “If Ra can get any of this data, he can figure out what just happened. Sir, I am seeing something that is not making any sense also, the reading as we entered the wake or whatever, it was stronger at first and weaker when we exited. This is not something permanent in space. It has to be related to the primary Orb we killed.”

  “Whatever happened it made me sick,” Rik said.

  “Yeah, I wanted to barf the whole time, but I feel better now, thanks for asking.”

  Rik’s tone was serious. “By the way Ra is dead.” Rik could hear Robec-3 typing and recalculating. He waited and said. “You copy Ro?”

  “Sorry to hear that, Sir.”

  After having the sensation of drifting four trems, Rik felt like sleeping then his COM lit up and they heard a faint voice from a squad leader. “Captain Rik? This is Lieutenant Gerim-je 748, are you O.K.? What happened?”

  Rik struggled to listen to his COM. “Good to hear someone. We were trapped in some type of gravity wake or something and lost all contact and systems. We’re back up and running.”

  “You disappeared off the screen and visually. It looked like a major system malfunction and scanned for debris. I am the furthest out.” The squad leader typed in his confirmation location on his flight recorder, “I will report you back in the fight to Central when my connection comes back online.”

  “We are still too far out to send direct messages can you relay two messages. I am sending the data we collected while we were out of contact and a coded message to Iris JaensAt code 25974A. We are still about five or six trems out,” Rik tapped on his controls and submitted his long-range message, “hope this works.” He waited for the transmission while Flyer 748’s orbit came closest to them and finally a long-range connection was made.

  “Got it. I will relay it as soon as I get a connection. We’ll link up with you on grid 378486, Section Seven, location seven three by six-four in approximately six trems.”

  After flying for three trems Rik monitored the static chatter on the same link from his new Flyer. He tried to connect to Dask on COM, but only received more static. He said. “Ro ETA when we might be able to connect to the COM.”

  She checked her monitor. “Spotty but if the alignment happens to be perfect, we should be getting through now, but there’s a lot of activity on the surface, plus I think we have a lot of communications assets down.”

  Chapter forty-nine

  Dask lifted his Wrist unit closer to his face hearing something familiar but nothing was coming through anymore. Then he heard it again, ‘don't let the (breaking up) ... land. Stop…at...’ Dask sat up from his cot, “Rik? Say again.” There was silence on his COM. “Rik?”

  A nurse came in and gave him another pain treatment and then checked his vitals with his virtual screen. She put her hand on his shoulder to get him to focus. “General, your droid monitor is Seven-eight Baker, just speak to it if you need something.” Dask fell asleep.

  Dask heard the familiar tone on his wrist unit and sat up waking up slowly. Every muscle in his body ached and his head pounded with a massive headache. He checked his time unit thinking, ‘been out for a long time, he lifted his wrist unit to his face and listened. ‘Dask are you there? Dask are you there?’ He was surprised by his joy. “Gods, you’re alive. I thought I lost you, son. I think you must be a hard man to kill. Last, we heard you were in medical and then lost MIA. Everything alright?”

  Rik came in clear on Dask’s large wrist unit. “Yes, just mad as hell. I’ve lost a lot of my pilots and a good friend.”

  Dask responded. “Roger that. We’re taking a beating here. I am getting ready to go back out.”

  Rik reported too late. “One CS got through along with a lot of SS’s. How’s that going?”

  “Old news, we’re in the fight for our lives here. All the defenses are compromised and before I forget I need to let Iris know you’re O.K., She thinks you’re dead.” Dask listened to the silence and said. “Do you copy, Rik?”

  “How did she take it?”

  “Not well.”

  “Oh, I am sorry I put her through that.”

  “Yeah, me too.”

  “I sent a coded message to her.”

  Dask studied his monitor. “Rik, I have incoming intel from Dawg.”

  Dask motioned for a Tech to help him stand and he hobbled to his console and connected all of them, “Go ahead Dawg, I have Rik connected also.”

  Dawg on COM to Dask and Rik began with a breathless voice, “Parts of Line Seven overrun. We'll fight those machine things at Silo 74. Rik, glad you’re back with us. The black tar-like shit we designed with nano disrupters is working, they can't smell their way out of it, disrupting their links to the primary Capital Ship and each other. Line Seven is in the thick of it. There are multiple breaches and high casualties. Moving to defense 74. I am glad we have the 7’s up there. We are on the move now. Dawg out.”

  After a moment of silence, Dask said. “Rik, that intel is a bit behind, Dawg can’t make it to where
the 7’s are. I couldn’t either. I can see the reports, they are fighting hard there, no backup defenders remain, multiple breaches, high casualties. Should I evacuate? You know...”

  Rik took a long beat as he pondered and struggled with his answer. “No.”

  “Thanks, she's commanding what’s probably left of our strongest fighting force, I need her there. Dask out.”

  Dask turned his COM to all. “Marines on line 74, continue to engage and destroy the enemy on the ground. Priority one, you must hold them at 74. There is no one else behind you.”

  High in the atmosphere, Rik spoke to himself silently. “Shit.” He looked over at Robec-3 but she already read his mind.

  “Sir, I am busting this thing wide open as fast as possible. I am working out the fastest translation without burning us up. If we can get close with a corrected entry, let's light them up.”

  “Thanks, Ro.”

  Chapter Fifty

  Iris regarded her rifle as it smoked, in the distance neutron bombs were dropping in layered patterns across the ground, and then she noticed the neighborhood where she lived was engulfed in raging fires. “Shit, all my stuff is gone,” she sat back against the trench wall, wiped the hair from her face and noticed her hands trembling, silently to herself she said, “everything is shit, ‘everyone I give a shit about dies’, now I get it. I wish you had never come here you Korpe bastard. I could wring your damn neck.” She fought back a sob that choked her, and she looked away at nothing in the distance.

  Her wrist unit blinked with a message, ‘coded text message 25974A’ she entered her unit passcode, the message read, ‘We were lost in a gravity wake or something, heading back in, need to talk, I saw something strange, BTY would you consider marrying me someday?’