Five by Five

by Aaron Allston

  A quick hesitation of surprise, then a round of cheers …

  Later, as the assault fighter closed in on the targeted Jaxxan hatching base, Rader checked his weapon, his suit, his med kit, his backup power pack. He pretended to relax. Waiting … gearing up … waiting … joking … waiting. Typical Earth League operation: hurry up and wait.

  Voices grew louder in the spacecraft as the conversation became edgier, more rushed. He and his buddies talked about what they would do on their next R&R, reminisced about their homes, their families, their sweethearts. Although his squadmates were not a particularly handsome lot, each man claimed to have a gorgeous girlfriend who put porn holostars to shame and yet was entirely loyal and head-over-heels in love.

  After the massacre on Cephei Outpost, he’d been too young by a month when the first call went out. But his best friend, Cody, was two months older and just barely squeaked into the Earth League military, ready to go after the Jaxxans. Before he left for basic training, Cody said goodbye to Rader with a quick embrace and then a studiously practiced League handshake. “There’ll be plenty of roaches for both of us to kill, don’t worry! Get your ass in the League as soon as you can sign up, and I’ll meet you out there.” He gestured vaguely toward the sky. Rader promised, waving … but wishing his friend had waited, just a couple of months.

  His parents and his sister worried about Rader going off to war, but it was the patriotic thing to do. All healthy young men were pressured to join up, and he was anxious to follow in Cody’s footsteps. A month later, on his birthday, he filled out the forms.

  One week into basic training at the lunar military base, Rader received word that Cody and his entire squad had been wiped out by an equipment malfunction. An airlock hatch blew open when the troop transport was approaching a space station. Explosive decompression killed all personnel, sucked them out into space. Simple mechanical failure, bad luck—nothing that could be blamed on the enemy.

  Rader had joined wanting to fight alongside Cody. They had always been a team, and he had hoped they could support each other, stand together against the Jaxxans. But the Earth League had him now, and he couldn’t change his mind. His squadmates were his comrades now, his new best friends.…

  As soon as the assault shuttle landed on the Jaxxan nesting asteroid, explosive bolts would blast the hatch open so that the soldiers could storm out in a howling rush. His companions whooped, winding themselves up during the final approach, and Rader joined in. But as he looked warily at the hatch, suited up and holding his laser rifle, he thought of Cody’s last moments … willing to die in a blaze of glory out on the battlefield, not from a stupid malfunction.

  Sitting wordless on an empty bench, the Deathguard in their team was an ominous, armored form, like a knight in shining armor. Rader respected the powerful cyborgs—resuscitated, revamped, and restructured to become perfect fighting machines—though he wondered what thoughts kept them going. Did they focus on the mission, even knowing what had happened to them, and what would happen to them? He supposed it was better than being declared dead. All Deathguards got an honorable funeral, and their families received full pensions; no one knew the former identity of any individual Deathguard. Rader hadn’t thought twice about it when he enlisted in the League. He’d signed up body and soul.

  Huff leaned over and whispered to him, “I can’t wait to see that Deathguard go bonkers on the roach nest.”

  “So long as he doesn’t go all Werewolf on us before it’s time,” Rajid said.

  Rader found himself staring at the silent cyborg. “Not going to happen. They’re too sophisticated for that.” The Deathguard made no comment, one way or another.

  Through the small windowport on his side of the craft, Rader could see the potato-shaped asteroid as they closed in. The large craters were covered over with domes like large blisters, as if the space rock had reacted with an outbreak of boils to the alien presence.

  Sergeant Blunt walked in heavy boots from the front bulkhead and stood before them in full uniform armor. “Listen up. Based on the small number of roach military ships stationed at the asteroid, looks like the enemy has no major defenses here. We have no intel on the interior of the base, so you’ll have to find your way. Get to the main hatching chamber and destroy it. Clear enough? Your job is simple—point and shoot.”

  On the way in, the assault ship’s pulsed lasers disabled the four Jaxxan ships stationed at the nest asteroid. Even though the nest asteroid sent emergency calls for Jaxxan reinforcements, Sergeant Blunt had expected it. The plan was to strike fast and finish the operation before alien backup vessels could fly in.

  “All right, children,” the Sarge said. “Saddle up, take your toys, and let’s go scramble some eggs. Just don’t let them scramble you. We’re coming in hot, going to blow through one of their entrance domes. Do I need to remind you that this is not a prisoner capturing mission?”

  “No, Sarge!” they all chimed in.

  “Good, I was hoping you weren’t all as dense as you looked. Now let’s move it.” The Sergeant fitted a breathing mask over his face; Rader and his companions did the same. The Deathguard sat waiting, like a missile prepped for launch.

  Once the assault shuttle careened up against the largest blister dome and a shaped-charge explosion blasted open the hatch to let them loose, Rader’s squadmates boiled out, swinging their laser rifles and yelling; they exercised just enough restraint to keep from shooting one another.

  The alarms inside the hatching base sounded like staccato clacking beetles. Rader bolted forward and used his laser rifle to cut down any aliens he encountered. It wasn’t his place to decide whether the roaches were civilians, politicians, medical personnel, or soldiers.

  In the back of his mind, he wondered if the Jaxxan assault squad on Cephei Outpost had operated under similar orders.

  As they rounded a corner into the main base, a Jaxxan in front of them raised his thin forearms and wove a deadly psychic energy-web. Gonzalez let out a cry more of surprise than pain, then the incandescent green lines disintegrated him.

  Astonished, Rader used the sudden jolt of shock and fired. He blasted the Jaxxan before he could move his angular arms again.

  Behind the main squad, the Deathguard lurched into the fray, mowing down targets, yet never coming close to hitting one of his human comrades. The cyborg blew open door hatches, thrust his armored body into well-lit research chambers, annihilated any aliens he found working in their labs. Then the Deathguard pushed forward, leading the way along skewed corridors and through angled intersections, deeper into the hatching base.

  Still off-balance and angry from the loss of Gonzalez, Rader ran headlong with four of his comrades into a chamber of horrors—a nursery. Five Jaxxan attendants had lined up to protect more than a dozen fat, squirming grubs, white segmented things like maggots the size of alligators.

  Coleman said, “That’s just wrong!” He opened fire, and the grubs spilled open like fleshy sacs filled with entrails and ichor.

  Frantic, one of the Jaxxan caretakers cried out in English, “No! Not the offspring.” The alien’s comprehensible words were so startling that Rader hesitated. But it was just a ruse: other aliens nearby worked together to weave a sparkling energy-web, filling the air with a mesh of green that they cast toward the human soldiers.

  Rader focused and shot one of the roaches, then the next, working his way down the line, just like in the simulation. Huff knocked out the other two, and their incomplete energy-web dispersed. The rest of the Earth League soldiers made swift work of the remaining grubs in the nursery, chopping them into chunks of meat.

  The Deathguard, who wasn’t part of the formal operation, had already moved ahead on his own, continuing his rampage. Apparently, the cyborg soldier wanted to make the most of his second chance.

  Over the implanted radio, Rader heard Sergeant Blunt yelling from a different sector of the asteroid, “Just woke up a hundred roach warriors in the deep tunnels! And they look angry. Called Base
for reinforcements. Another ship should be here in an hour or two, so hold the roaches off till then.”

  “Roger that, Sarge,” came a chorus of responses.

  The Sarge added, “We know they sent off a distress signal too. It’ll be a race to see who gets here first.”

  Rader said with genuine bravado, “Won’t leave anything for them to rescue, Sarge.”

  As the squad pushed into the asteroid’s most secure chambers, desperate Jaxxans fought harder and harder. Energy-webs rippled down the angled corridors, ricocheting off stone walls and frying several more human soldiers. Rader kept a rough score in the back of his mind, tried not to name his friends who lay dead. Concentrate on the operation, on the objective.

  So far, he thought the humans were taking a greater toll.

  Explosions rippled through the nesting base, and overpressure waves made his ears pop. Sergeant Blunt shouted over the implanted radio, “Heavy resistance—fresh warriors from below.” He paused, as if to listen to a report. “Ah, crap—there’s a roach ship coming in! Don’t know if we can hold ‘em off long enough.” Rader heard another explosion, a sizzling sound, then a cry of pain from the Sarge—a high-pitched yelp that did not at all sound like the gruff, hardboiled man—then only static on the comline.

  Rader shoved aside his alarm and dismay, not sure how the survivors of his squad were going to get out of here, but they would keep pushing toward the objective.

  He, Coleman, and Huff fought their way into a large guarded chamber where the roaches made their last stand. The entrance hatch was sealed, so the three soldiers used their laser rifles to melt an entrance through the putty-like polymer metal wall.

  “This must be the place,” Coleman said.

  Inside the protected chamber, Rader and his comrades discovered row after row of polished black casings the size of coffins.

  “Giant eggs,” Huff said. “Look at all of them!”

  The soldiers opened fire on the casings, cracking them open and spilling out white and slippery humanoid forms with backward-jointed arms and legs, ovoid heads, and giant black eyes that were covered with a milky caul.

  So they were chrysalises, not eggs.

  With a high-pitched chitter, three Jaxxans lunged out from between the rows of black casings. When they hurled half-formed energy-webs, Rader dove out of the way, but Coleman was too busy shooting the chrysalises. The energy-web snared him, killed him.

  Huff began firing wildly at the Jaxxans. From their cover, the aliens formed another energy-web that shimmered in the air and came toward them. Rader dropped to the floor and took cover, rolling up against one of the tall black casings. He yelled a warning, but Huff kept firing even as the web encircled and disintegrated him.

  From his position of dubious shelter, Rader shot the two Jaxxans, then waited, listening.

  Moving in a scramble of excessively jointed arms and legs, another alien skittered forward to a split chrysalis and caught the albino, mostly formed creature as it slumped out of the cracked shell. Like a soldier holding a wounded comrade, the roach cradled the dying, half-formed creature in segmented arms.

  Rader rose to his feet, and the Jaxxan swiveled its head toward him, showing those large, black eyes like pools of sorrow. “Look what you have done!” Though the creature’s chitinous faceplates showed no emotions, Rader felt that the Jaxxan was giving him an accusatory glare.

  A red spot appeared on the Jaxxan’s forehead, and a laser blast cooked his encased head, exploding his entire skull.

  The Deathguard strode into the chrysalis chamber. From behind the helmet, which was no more readable than the alien’s face, the Deathguard looked at Rader, then turned back to the black cases. He began shooting them one by one.

  Rader’s implanted radio burst to life again. “This is Lieutenant Nolan with the reinforcement ship, closing in on the nesting asteroid. Two roach defenders got here before us. The asteroid’s overrun, but we’ll take ’em on! We don’t leave men behind.”

  Rader didn’t cheer the speech. He and the Deathguard were trapped in the chrysalis chamber. In the corridors outside, he could hear the ominous sound of hundreds of skittering legs—warriors that had been hiding deep inside the asteroid, and were now closing in on the chrysalis chamber. Rader joined the Deathguard, standing together as they shot the rest of the casings, knowing they didn’t have much time … knowing they weren’t likely to get out alive.

  At least he had a chance for some payback for his lost comrades. It was the only thread of hope he had to cling to. He wished he and Cody could have been here together doing this.

  The armored and silent Deathguard turned around and opened fire on the Jaxxan warriors that surged into the chamber. Sergeant Blunt had counted more than a hundred of them; to Rader, it seemed like a thousand. Sergeant Nolan’s reinforcements would never get here in time. The radio channel remained silent, no transmissions from the rest of his squadmates.

  Backing deeper into the chrysalis chamber, the Deathguard worked his way in among the black casings. Rader thought their position by the door was more defensible, but then he realized that the Deathguard was making a calculated move to lure the roaches inside.

  The Deathguard turned his unreadable helmet toward Rader again, expecting him to understand. From his armored casing, he removed a thermal-impulse grenade.

  Rader’s heart froze. The cyborg had nothing to lose. Rader could have made the same calculation as the Deathguard, but he was unwilling to come to the obvious conclusion. Nevertheless, the Deathguard was going to do it.

  When all of the roach warriors charged into the chrysalis chamber and tried to corner the two remaining humans, the Deathguard lifted his grenade and depressed the activation button.

  Rader dove among the cocoon casings in an instinctive, but futile gesture. The flash of dazzling white light was the last thing he ever expected to see.

  * * *

  But it wasn’t.

  The quality of light that came into focus had a harsh, sterile quality, and the surrounding brightness resolved itself into clean ceramic-plate walls—the Base’s medical center. He could hear diagnostic scanners, medical machinery, a respirator breathing for him like a gasping schoolgirl. He felt no pain … he felt nothing at all.

  Rader couldn’t move his head, only his eyes—one eye, actually—which limited his field of view. He tried to move, but could barely twitch his head … in fact, he could feel nothing but his head. The rest of his body remained numb. Maybe he’d been paralyzed. Maybe he’d lost limbs. Maybe he’d lost everything.

  A worried-looking orderly appeared in his field of view, staring down with brown, clinical eyes. Even in his condition, he didn’t consider her pretty. “You’re awake, aren’t you?” she said. “Don’t try to move. You’re not ready for that yet. We haven’t connected all the necessary pieces, still waiting for one part to be modified.” She fiddled with one of the tubes hanging at his side. “There. Give it a few seconds.”

  Tranquilizers flooded into him, and he dropped back out of consciousness.

  When Rader awoke again, a smiling man stood over him, a face that looked oddly familiar—not from personal experience, but from images on the news broadcasts. “Congratulations, soldier!”

  Rader placed him as Commissioner Sobel, the man in charge of the Earth League forces in the Fixion Belt.

  “The rest of your squadmates gave their lives to destroy the Jaxxan nesting asteroid. You fought bravely and kept yourself alive … just barely, but it was enough. Your mission isn’t over—not yet.”

  Rader tried to talk, but only croaking noises came out. He still had tubes in his throat.

  Commissioner Sobel continued, “I’m congratulating you, soldier, because you have a second chance. A chance to join an elite group. Every one of your comrades gave their lives in service to the war, but you have an opportunity to keep fighting. Don’t you want to hurt the enemy that did this to you?” He smiled. “We’re offering you a position as our newest Deathguard.”

/>   Propped in the med-center bed, paralyzed in place, Rader couldn’t see how much damage he had suffered from the explosion … how much of him actually remained. Once they hooked him up to the cyborg components and encased him in his permanent armor, he doubted he would ever know.

  Did it really matter?

  A little extra time to carry on the fight. At the moment, he didn’t quite see why that should be his priority; he would rather go home, say his farewells to his family, see Earth one more time. That second chance seemed more important.

  “You’re a hero and will be remembered as such, soldier. We’re declaring the mission a success, now that we’ve looked at the cost-benefit ratio in detail. We did lose your Sergeant and your entire squad, but we successfully wiped out the Jaxxan nesting base. And you can honor them by replacing the Deathguard who died in the operation.”

  Rader was trying to speak, but no words came out. Sobel patted him on the shoulder—so, at least he had a shoulder. “We’ll hook up your vocal cords in time for the official announcement, and then we’ll turn you loose as a one-man army on the main Fixion battlefield. That’s where you’ll be most useful. Singlehandedly, you can create a hell of a lot of trouble. You’ll have weeks, maybe even months before the interface breaks down. Cherish every moment of it—I know you’ll accomplish as much as you can. We’re all proud of you.”

  Sobel smiled again and then left. Rader hadn’t been able to say a word.

  –3–

  Commissioner Sobel scowled at the insignia on his collar, still shiny from his recent transfer here. He was a dark-haired man, thirty pounds past good-looking: the kind whose face turned red very easily, and lately his face was turning red more than usual. He brushed off a few specks of dust and leaned back in the seat of his shuttle taking him from the Base to the Détente Asteroid. After six months, the useless embassy there was just beginning to feel familiar, though he doubted he would ever get used to Fixion.