“I know.”
“You should message her.”
“I know.”
“Are you going to?”
“I don’t know.”
It sounded like she huffed in frustration and he found himself wondering when she learned to simulate sounds other than a voice so well. He turned to the armory door and began to walk through the ship. It would still be a while before they arrived at Earth.
“Are you registering the changes?” Burke asked. “You can replay the video if you need to.”
“I’m going through them now,” she answered. “We’ll need to set up the triggers Natalie mentioned for the blades.”
“Later,” he said. “But before we go onto the planet.”
He spent an hour walking around the ship, fully acclimating to the weight and response time of the armor. He climbed up and down the stairs in the cargo hold several times before he was satisfied. It was the most extensive preparation with the aegis he had done in years; the time spent stranded had left him intimately familiar with operating it. Still, he wanted to risk nothing to chance or complacency when the dross were involved. Nothing else had nearly killed him as often.
He was resting at the helm when they neared Earth. From orbit it looked bare to Burke. There were no space stations around it like other planets of its type. Although they had been untouched by the alien infestation, the sight of the lost planet below them proved too much for the populated stations and they were moved elsewhere in the system. Even then, most people moved on to more populated systems, untarnished by the dross.
The planet looked dead. The lush green that had accompanied the planet’s blue when Burke had been a child was gone. The aliens had not discriminated in the life they consumed while they ravaged the planet. The forests and wildlife were gone. Beneath the sprawling white clouds there was nothing but blue water and brown land. The planet looked pale to him.
He kept the ship orbiting with the side of the planet that faced the sun as Cass narrowed down the drone’s position. He didn’t want to witness the darkness of Earth in its night cycle. During the war, the lights from the cities diminishing looked like a void that consumed more of the surface each night. Now, as he was readying for a battle, he wisely avoided seeing that again.
Cass changed the ship’s screen to display the information from the planet in real time. The planet was spread flat, like a map, on the screen and a blur of numbers and letters swam over the continents as she sorted through the data. Burke was capable of reading the information in a different format, but Cass was faster and able to draw directly from the satellites that still remained in orbit. She connected to them and pinpointed where the drone had crashed.
A warning shot across the screen a moment after she finished, blaring that the planet was under quarantine and that any attempt at landing would result in a forceful reaction from warships still in the system. Havard’s information had warned about the quarantine and had included pass codes to bypass it. However, when Cass transmitted them and they were given authorization, another message popped up to replace it.
“Someone is contacting us,” Cass explained.
“Geoff? Havard?”
“No. There’s no name. It’s coming from within the system. I can’t tell anymore than that. I think we should answer it.”
Burke nodded and the screen changed to display a man sitting in a large room, looking similar to a command room but of a larger ship. He was alone and did not speak until Burke released the faceplate of his armor. It was only when their eyes could meet that he opened his mouth.
“Jack Porter,” he said slowly, lingering on each syllable. “The Jack Porter that I knew died on the planet below you. Many of the bodies of dead soldiers were never found during the war. It was out of respect that they went down as missing rather than deceased. A mistake, I think, seeing as how their names crop up with new faces now. Jack Porter, returning to his grave.”
The man was older than Burke by at least a decade. There was something familiar about the man’s face that he couldn’t place.
“Did you fight here?” Burke asked.
“Yes,” the man answered. “I am Admiral Viscard, and I never stopped fighting here. Jack Porter, along with many others, served under my command. Tell me, how do you feel matching up with his name? Are you worthy of it?”
Viscard, Burke thought. He had seen him a few times during his years fighting on Earth but never interacted with the man. The name gnawed at him still, another connection in his memory that he was forgetting. It was Cass that reminded him of it.
“We had a contract with you,” she said, her voice filling the room and transmitting as Burke’s did. “A few months ago. You wanted Frank Copper.”
“I also wanted him alive,” Viscard said with distaste. “But you saw to that, didn’t you?”
“He killed himself after we captured him out of fear of being delivered to you,” Burke said. “It’s not like we did it on purpose.”
“Of course,” Viscard let out a short, dry laugh. “An entirely plausible story that I should believe from a man with a fake name and ties to ACU, the organization I had Copper investigating before he went rogue? Please.”
Burke straightened in his chair. He had let the conversation continue out of respect for a man he once fought with, even if remotely. Now he was getting angry.
“I fought here too,” Burke snapped. “I saw as many soldiers die as you did, probably more since I was down on the surface nearly dying with them. I may not be Jack Porter but I bled as much as those who fought with him. If I could tell you my real name I wouldn’t be sporting the fake one, but I was down there. I fought when the dross breached Boston and Toronto. I was there for both the massacre of Geneva and Warsaw, and their following bombardments into dust as part of the latest strategy that fucks like you developed.
“I saw Tehran burn and collapse when we forced the dross underground. The city fell so quickly that we couldn’t evacuate anyone. Should we reminisce about the fall of Busan and Daegu? Should we talk about the stunning success of collapsing the dross tunnel networks in northern China, with strategically placed bombs that merely drove them further inland for the low, low cost of ten thousand soldiers? Nothing worked. Nothing stopped them. I bled and I fought and you can save your sanctimonious bullshit about my name for someone who gives a fuck.”
Viscard’s forehead was creased as he stared at Burke with surprise. The older man’s face was worn and weathered but he looked like he was trying to solve some problem or puzzle in front of him.
“Did you message me just to gloat?” Burke spat. “What do you want?”
Viscard shook his head. “I’ve been keeping an eye on you since you delivered Copper’s body. Now you’re at Earth and, judging by how your signal was gone for a few days, I’m going to guess you’re here for something for ACU. I want a copy of whatever it is they’ve sent you here for.”
“Why? What do you want with it?”
“Maybe nothing. I don’t even know why they sent you,” Viscard leaned back in his chair. “I’m not following any orders from the military. This is my own investigation. I can’t offer you anything in return for it except that I’d owe you a favor.”
Burke closed his eyes. Natalie had wanted to speak to him about ACU, something that she couldn’t talk about in a recording. Havard was being vague about the drone’s purpose and the new weapon he showed seemed too good to be true. He wished he had a moment to speak with Cass about it all. He wasn’t certain if his doubts were justified. He opened his eyes and looked at Viscard.
“I’ll review the information myself when I get back from the planet. I’ll decide then if I’ll give you a copy.”
“Really?”Viscard said, again with his forehead creased. “That’s not the answer I expected.”
“Really.”
“Hm. I’ll wait for your return then, Jack,” he said with a tight smile. “And in case you’re lying about your time in the war, don’t land during the da
y.”
The screen went blank as he cut the connection and returned to displaying Earth below them. Burke shifted in his seat and found that he had been tensing his shoulders. He took a deep breath and exhaled slowly before resealing the faceplate of his armor.
“What did he mean by that?” Cass asked. “Don’t land during the day?”
“You’ll see,” he said as he lowered the ship down toward the planet.
* * *
Cass had located the drone in what had previously been eastern Europe. Burke brought the ship down over the remains of Germany and wondered if those names meant anything anymore. Even if the planet was retaken one day, would those distinctions and imaginary lines drawn on the maps be lost forever? He didn’t like the thought but it was better than the view of the planet below him.
The dross covered the surface like a fungus. From a kilometer up, they looked like a mess of yellow and green grass. Most of them were stationary, absorbing the sunlight during the day and then burrowing underground at night. Other groups moved like great herds of animals over the ruined landscape, swarming over derelict cities and demolished forests like they were one and the same. Some groups fought with each other. After fighting in the war, it seemed like insanity to Burke for the same species to quarrel over land they could share.
The closer they got to the drone, the darker it got outside and the alien numbers lessened below them. Their target had crashed in a city that he had never visited in his time fighting, and he didn’t ask Cass for its name. The land was littered with the wreckage of ships and tanks, shattered pieces of concrete from orbital bombardments that all meshed together like they were all part of one big battle, rather than isolated fights around major cities. To Burke, that’s what Earth was to him now: a massive, infested graveyard with too many dead names to care about learning a new one. He pressed the ship forward without asking any questions.
“Where did the dross come from?” Cass asked as they neared the drone’s signal.
“There are other planets that have been discovered with them on it, but no signs of how they moved between them. They’re like animals. They can’t reason or communicate. ACU was quiet about their existence until Earth was infested. No one knows how they got here. All it took was one crashed ship to lose Mars during the war. Maybe that’s what happened here.”
“Where did you live on Earth?”
“Many places. I moved a lot. I was born in the United States and it was one of the first places they took.”
“I’m sorry.”
“Yeah,” he muttered. “Me too.”
Burke settled the ship directly over the drone’s signal and Cass displayed a feed from below them. There was no sign of the drone and the ground was intact. They flew around the surrounding area and found several dross tunnels near the signal, sloping downward in its location. He had been hoping that Cass could have steadied the ship while he quickly hopped down to the drone and then back up again without a fight. Now that hope seemed naive. Havard had said that he had sent others before him who never returned.
They flew deeper into the devastated city and looked for the nearest intact building to the drone. It was early into the night and already the streets had been emptied of most of the aliens. There were a rare few lingering in the dark, immobile and appearing to be sleeping. Burke didn’t trust what he saw and wouldn’t risk landing on the ground directly. He landed on an apartment building. It was only a few storeys but it was wide enough to fit the ship’s size. He waited a few minutes with the engines ready to thrust if the building collapsed under the ship’s weight.
He went down to the armory for an assault rifle and Cass magnetized it on the back of their armor. He put extra ammunition into the compartment on his left hip and then walked to the ship’s exit. The doors parted from a command from Cass and it was only when the fresh air from the planet wafted into the ship that it really hit Burke that he was back on Earth. He released his faceplate and inhaled the air deeply.
He walked to the end of the building’s roof before he turned around to look at the ship. There were no lights in any direction and he could barely make out the ship in front of him, save for the dim lights coming through the open doorway. The air was cold and felt like it grazed his throat with each breath but he kept the faceplate off until Cass was finished testing her remote connection to the ship. She started and then stopped the ship’s engines, flickered the lights on and off, and then closed the door so nothing could get in while they were away.
“Make sure you’re ready to lift off if the building gives way,” he said as he stamped his foot on the roof.
“I will. Are you okay?”
“Of course,” he murmured and sealed the faceplate into the helmet. The filtered air of the aegis felt soothing in his lungs but he missed the bite of the planet’s, as if he deserved it. Cass similarly filtered the visor’s display, adjusting to the low light around them until he could see his surroundings in a dull, dark green. He walked to the edge of the building and looked down.
Three target reticules immediately popped up in front of his eyes. Cass was quick to pick the dross out in the darkness and marked each of them for him. Each were separated in the wrecked street below. The road was bloated and broken as if it had died in an earthquake. Parts jutted awkwardly up into the air and then dropped abruptly like a cliff. There was no pattern or logic to the destruction, and he saw at least two places from the roof where a mortar round had cratered part of the city. One of the dross was sleeping in the center of one of the craters.
Burke reached for the rifle on his back but stopped himself. The aliens were sleeping and the sound of gunfire might wake them up or, worse, wake up the dozens that were undoubtedly below ground. He couldn’t see any of their tunnels nearby but he knew that wouldn’t stop them from digging directly up if they heard a threat. He kept the rifle on his back and then stepped off the building.
He landed smoothly on both feet and stayed hunched on the ground from the fall. He raised his head to see if anything moved from the sound of his landing. Cass marked two new targets from their new perspective on the street: two dross that were amongst the rubble of the collapsed building across from them. Neither of them moved.
From orbit he thought the planet looked dead. As he walked the streets now, he felt like he was disturbing a mass grave. None of the buildings had fared well in the battle. No windows had survived the fighting and every room he saw had been torn to pieces, most likely from dross scraping their way inside to feast on the people hiding behind closed doors. He saw no bodies or remains, not even bones. The aliens ate everything, even the corpses of each other, and he was the invader now. Despite what humans had left behind he couldn’t shake the feeling that the planet now belonged to the dross.
He stopped at the end of each building that he passed and leaned his head around the corners. They had flown nine kilometers from the drone’s signal before finding a landing spot but Burke still took it slowly when he could be potentially blindsided. Each time he would stop and wait, sometimes pointing out dross that Cass missed, other times surprised at the ones she could find that he wouldn’t have noticed. The only movement they saw were around the entrances to the alien’s tunnel network. They gave those a wide berth, even if it meant backtracking and going around a collapsed building. Burke didn’t want to risk being caught while climbing over rubble.
They were on the outskirts of the city when he had to kill one. They were three kilometers from the drone and he looked around the corner of a relatively intact house to see a dross propped up against the wall. He knew that the sound of his armor walking had been too loud for the alien to remain asleep and he whipped around the corner and twisted his right forearm quickly, ejecting the blade and stabbing it into the creature.
The dross let out a low hiss and its bunched tails began to writhe. He jerked the blade out and then punched both fists into the alien’s head. He twisted his arms the opposite way, triggering the new direction of the blades. Bo
th pierced cleanly into its head and it twitched for a few seconds before stopping for good. He twisted his arms once more and the bloodied blades retracted back into the armor.
“This one was small,” Burke whispered despite the helmet blocking his voice.
“They’re smaller than you remember?”
“No,” he said. “This one looks like a runt. Maybe they force the smaller ones to sleep outside at night. I don’t know. There wasn’t much time for studies of the fucking things.”
“Maybe that’s what the drone was for?” she offered.
“Maybe. Something isn’t sitting right with me about this.”
He pushed on, growing more tense as the density of tunnel entrances increased as he walked further out of the city. Less than a kilometer from the drone, he stopped at a sudden drop in the street. The road must have been built on a hill and the alien’s tunnelling had disturbed enough of the ground below it to cause a collapse. He leaned over and saw a descending slope of concrete chunks, rebar mesh, and upheaved earth. There was a row of holes where the ground levelled off and he couldn’t tell how many were occupied by the dross.
Burke was high enough to see the location of the drone on his visor. He looked down again and considered the drop. The slope looked steep but not enough that he couldn’t climb it. He didn’t like the tunnels waiting at the bottom. He readied himself to jump instead: he swung an arm around to secure the rifle still magnetized to his back, leaned forward, and tensed his legs. He triggered the mechanisms and launched himself from the top of the ridge.
He was used to the height of his augmented leg’s jump alone, not combined with the new function of his armor. He was propelled further into the air than he expected and felt his stomach lurch as he fell for longer than he anticipated. Cass fortified his lower armor to the fall as he landed cleanly over the dross tunnels. His feet hit the road with a loud thud and left indents in the asphalt. He built up more momentum than he planned in the fall and knew that he made too much noise. He whipped around immediately, ready to snatch the rifle from his back if many aliens heard him.
The Bounty Hunter: Into The Swarm Page 5