An aperture opened in one of the rebel’s shoulder bulges and a stream of fire streaked down the corridor, exploding in a ball of energy.
Rocket attack!
The shockwave took hold of Arun while he was still falling back behind cover. It tossed him onto the floor.
He heard a human cry of pain and suddenly remembered that it wasn’t just him and the enemy. There were other people here too.
Barney understood his new concern and showed him the cadet casualties out in the corridor. No one in the central control room had been wounded so far. The rockets must be set to low yield, the enemy unwilling as yet to obliterate the equipment in the control room.
Another rocket strike rocked the corridor.
“Aim for the skirt.”
A third rocket hit.
“Aim for the skirt!”
By the time Arun had scrambled back onto his feet, Barney had marked the Marines stationed out in the corridor with a red cross. All dead.
“We’re hurting him!”
It occurred to Arun that he was hearing Corporal Majanita’s words. She was important and he was supposed to pay attention. Battle was so much easier when it was just him, Barney, and the enemy. But Barney had betrayed him, raising the volume of Majanita’s words until his helmet rang like a bell.
Damn those combat drugs.
Damn reality without the drugs even more.
Arun gasped, stumbling backward. It felt like waking up suddenly from a nightmare. He shook his head. He felt normal again.
“Aim for the skirt on the lead rebel,” Majanita shouted.
Standard doctrine said he should shift to a new firing position after each burst of fire to frustrate enemy counter fire. But the room was too full of Marines to offer opportunities for new cover, and the enemy fire was wild anyway.
More importantly, his urge to kill would not wait.
Arun jumped up from behind cover and ordered Barney to hold his position, hovering a meter above the ground. He aimed through the thickening cloud of smoke, dust, and armor fragments, at the feet of the rebel, who had now advanced about another four paces toward their room.
Majanita must be right. Behind the blob of armor was a monkey with two legs on the ground and slowly walking the bulky armor their way. There must be at least some space cut away from the armor in front of the monkey’s legs or else he would trip over. Which meant the armor was thinner there. Probably.
It was the best plan Arun could think of.
Just before he put his first shot into the skirt, he heard a screaming hum of power rise to a crescendo and unleash in a deafening whine. Barney selectively dampened the noise, which Arun recognized as a heavy duty linear accelerator powering up and then spitting out a hellfire of spinning rounds. It was his brother opening up.
Arun fired too. Rapid blasts at the enemy’s skirt. He left Barney to continue firing while he looked at the other rebels. There were five in total. Two had advanced several more paces toward the room, weathering the hail of fire, uninjured so far. The three at the back were not carrying blasters. They didn’t seem to be carrying anything. Other than the low-yield rockets — which he suspected were being used as a distraction — none of the rebels were firing.
“What are they up to?” he asked.
“Don’t know. Don’t care,” replied Majanita. “Just kill them.”
And they were. The skirt armor of the first rebel gave way, splitting into a dozen fragments that spun away under the firestorm coming from the humans.
The veterans put grenades into the gap that had opened in the armor. Arun figured that was one enemy down and was shifting aim to the next rebel. His brother beat him to it, hammering the rebel with a stream of bullets aimed at his head. The rebel had no faceplate or helmet. Or if he did, it was hidden inside the mound of protective armor that offered no obvious weak spot.
No weakness, except perhaps simple physics and the concept of levers. The rebel either tripped, or the kinetic push from Fraser’s fire toppled him over backward.
Arun heard a roar of shared hatred go around LBNet. He didn’t join in. He was readying to aim at the three rebels who stood in a line at the rear.
But they had readied their own attack. As one, the rebels were using their dexterous tails sheltered behind their back to throw metal objects.
Was this a grenade attack? Nerve gas?
Neither held any fear for Arun but the three round disks of metal they’d thrown hadn’t been aimed at the Marines. Instead, one flew at the ceiling and two on the wall to either side.
Fraser fired on one of the rebels at the rear. Most of the humans were shooting at the rebel who had just fallen onto his back. Arun aimed at the thing on the ceiling.
An instant before his finger squeezed the trigger, a curtain of shimmering purple fell across the corridor, a force shield emitted from the devices on the walls.
Anything touching the energy barrier flashed instantly into plasma. Arun’s round gave a flicker when the energy barrier disintegrated it. Fraser’s machine gun rounds gave a ferocious light display but could not punch through.
The fragments of blasted armor flared. So too did the body of the second rebel who had fallen across the path of the energy field. A fist-sized swathe of the Hardit’s body, running from shoulder to shoulder, had simply ceased to exist.
Arun was about to shoot through the force shield at the rebels behind, but stopped himself. He’d put such a hail of railgun darts into the armored rebels that his ammo was running low.
“Switch to laser,” Brandt ordered. “Concentrate fire on the upper shield generator.”
“Negative,” countered Sergeant Rathanjani. “That’s a 37-P tactical force shield. Save your power, we’ve nothing that can punch through that.”
“At least there is one advantage,” added Fraser. “The barrier is unidirectional. We can’t fire at them. But they can’t fire at us either.”
“Unless they switch it off,” added the sergeant cheerfully.
This was turning into a disaster.
Arun perched atop the equipment bank he had used for cover. His armored body sank into the deep pile of spent sabots. He watched the surviving rebels shuffle slowly backward and out of sight. With no shots firing into it, the energy curtain calmed. Coils of gold and crimson snaked along its surface until settling into a standing wave. Arun stared entranced at the shimmering energy field, which was framed by a corridor blackened with scorch marks and littered with the ruined corpses of his comrades. The way the rebel bodies lay amid heaps of armor dust on the ground, pointing toward the force shield, looked as if they were abasing themselves in worship of the shield’s majesty. It was a horrifically beautiful sight and Arun registered a high fidelity static recording of the image, to appreciate later if he should survive this day.
What was this? he thought. Are the drugs exciting my sense of artistic appreciation now?
“Get a squad south,” said Thunderclaws through his voicebox. “Their armor is the BA-2-G ground assault model. I know it well. Good frontal armor. Much weaker at the back. Get behind them and take them out.
“Fraser, Beder, with me,” ordered Rathanjani. “Brandt, give me your best fire team.”
Before Brandt could reply, Barney flashed a new threat alert. This time from the southern approach to the control room.
It was too much for Arun. Something inside him broke.
What are those disgusting three-eyed monkeys up to now? If I could just pry those frakking cowards out of their frakking armor, I’d rip their stinking fur off. And they do stink, I know them. I hate them. I wanna kill them all. Medical alert. Come here! Let me kill the frakking… frakking… Emergency cognitive sequester… Pound them! Pound ’em! How do you like that, eh? Smash the monkey bitch vecks. Every… single… last… frakking… Sequestering NOW!
Arun was alone.
He was nowhere.
He’d been angry. Yes, that was it. Run straight into the Hardit troops and beat the life-force out of them
with his bare hands.
Or had he imagined that?
If he’d been running then he should have remembered seeing the room speed by. He remembered nothing. Couldn’t remember his fists pounding alien flesh. Couldn’t recall anything except anger… and argument. With Barney?
Barney, are you there?
He was a Marine — at home in the vacuum. But this was true void.
He had no existence.
Only a memory.
He clung to that memory and held on tight. He didn’t want to die.
He was Arun McEwan. If he forgot that, there was no one else to remember he had ever been. There would be nothing left to rescue.
Minutes turned to months. Years stretched and thinned to become pale decades of oblivion.
Once there had been a universe and he had lived within. Time had passed there in a way he could comprehend. Night had followed day. Cause led to effect.
Now he was cast adrift in a time-like infinity. He told stories of himself, desperate to keep his memory alive because memory was all he was. For a long time he told stories about others too, but then he realized the cold truth. Those others… he’d only dreamed them.
Relentless eons of time eroded his stories, leaving weathered husks, mere rumors of a physical existence: color, heat, life. Love.
Finally, even those last nubs of memory wore away and he drifted in the nothingness. He just was.
Then… a change.
Still there was nothing here. No sounds. No sights. The utter void. And yet the void was bounded in a way he could not fully describe, except that boundary was shrinking.
Time had no measure here. A second. A century. They were the same. But time had gained one property. Time had a direction now, and it was running backward. Effect led to cause. Day preceded night.
Time was accelerating in its backward surge.
Light returned. He was moving from darkness to light. He remembered color and searched for it, but there was none.
Then taste returned.
Oblivion was hurtling at breakneck speed and tasted of bitterness and spit.
He sped through the barrier of light and out into the physical universe.
He sucked in stale air and felt it chill his teeth as he drew it in and breathed!
“Corporal! It’s McEwan.”
“What the hell’s up with him now?”
“Dunno. He just, shuddered.”
There was movement nearby.
“Arun! Arun, can you hear me?”
Arun opened his eyes and looked through Springer’s blanked visor and onto her face. Her eyes gleamed with concern. He had seen this sight before. Did that mean he was still dreaming? It had been such a long dream.
“Arun, it’s me.”
“Springer?”
“Yes. Oh, yes. You’ve been acting weird for about ten minutes. I thought I’d lost you for good.”
“I’m sorry.”
“Shhh!” Springer nudged her faceplate against Arun’s to speak in private. “Del thinks your suit AI shut down your consciousness and took control. We didn’t want to ask the veterans if that was possible because…” She whispered. “It wouldn’t look good on your record.”
Arun backed away from his comrade. “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.”
“Shut up, McEwan,” snapped Madge.
“Don’t be sorry,” added Springer, irritated but not without sympathy. “I’ve forgiven you.”
“I know,” said Arun. “I’m not saying sorry to you, violet eyes, but to all of you. To my family, the Corps. I worry too much. You know I do. I feel too much. I can’t shut out my humanity and become a combat machine. Hortez should’ve had my place in the Corps. LaSalle. Even Adrienne Miller or the lowest Aux. I don’t deserve to carry this SA-71. I’m not a Marine.”
It was only when Brandt and the veterans turned to stare at him that Arun realized he’d spoken out loud. His secrets spilling out from his gut because something had torn and he couldn’t hold them in. He was overwhelmed by the emotions of love and loyalty and the sense that he had betrayed himself and everyone around him. If only he’d not given into his obsession with Xin. If only he’d loved Springer back as she deserved.
Arun sobbed. Thoughts of what should and could have been grew heavier until the burden was too great for his shoulders. He shrank into a clumsy fetal ball, cowering on the floor.
People were trying to talk to him but he couldn’t understand. Someone peered into his face but he shut his eyes.
A little lucidity returned. Enough to hear what Sergeant Rathanjani was saying. “I don’t care whether his mind’s been sequestered. I’ve heard enough,” said the sergeant. “Shoot this cadet. I’m sorry, Fraser. I don’t know whether its cowardice in the face of the enemy or combat shock. Either way, he’s a liability.”
“Understood.”
“I don’t want that cadet dead,” said Thunderclaws.
Even Arun could feel the charge of surprise explode through the room. Why would a Jotun waste time with a single, unimportant cadet?
“It’s his combat meds,” said Fraser, “They used to do the same to me before my implants took. I know what to do. I’ll make sure he’s never a problem again. Come here, brother. This won’t hurt.”
“Quickly!” snapped Thunderclaws. “We’re wasting time.”
Arun stood before his brother.
“Take off your helmet,” said Fraser.
Arun did as he was told. Frakk! It was cold. He took a breath. The air tasted tainted with poisons and burned his lungs with its chill.
Meanwhile Fraser had removed his gauntlet and was sneaking his hand inside Arun’s clothing until he could press his palm against Arun’s bare neck.
“They told you I was your brother, didn’t they?” asked Fraser, using a speaker mounted in his helmet to communicate.
Arun nodded.
“Knowing the Jotuns, they never told you I am you twin brother.”
Did that matter at this point? wondered Arun. The question seemed to consume Arun in a recursive spiral until, when his legs buckled and he slipped out of consciousness, he barely noticed.
—— Chapter 62 ——
Arun had no clear idea of what the afterlife would be like. Some Marines claimed to have preserved religious teachings from Old Earth, but he was suspicious of anything claimed to be from the home planet. The Jotuns freely provided what they said were copies of religious texts from Earth. He was doubly suspicious of that.
Soon after he’d first witnessed an execution, Arun found himself drawn to the array of temples to be found in Detroit, curious about religion for the first time.
Now he found himself floating in a sky of gold and crimson swirls. Was this purgatory? He tried to remember his religious teachings.
The memories of those visits to the temples came easily to him. He was thinking… his mind spinning furiously like a freewheeling supercomputer searching for a problem to solve.
That didn’t sound like purgatory. Maybe this was bardo — the in-between state.
Then a bright light came into being in front of his eyes. It seemed to beckon him. A destiny awaited Arun, some problem that he knew only he could solve.
He opened his eyes but immediately squeezed them shut. The light was blinding.
“And he’s back.”
The words used his brother’s voice. The light dimmed and Arun opened his eyes cautiously.
He was still in the control room of the mining base, his feet dangling helplessly in the air and held in his brother’s arms. His brother was hovering near the ceiling.
Alongside, Stopcock was cradling a captured drilling machine in his arms as if he were hugging a pet quadruped. The device looked like a miniature tank with four stubby legs and a conical drill for a head.
Arun’s helmet was back on, pressure seals locked.
“Welcome back, Cadet Prong,” laughed Madge.
“I think he had to come back to us because he was missing his Troggie boyfriend,” suggeste
d Del-Marie. “In any case, Corporal McEwan assures me you won’t keep winking out on us. No more swooning for you, boy. You’re fixed”
“Not quite,” said Fraser. “You may need to ask your suit AI to remind you of orders because your short-term memory is going to be shot to crap while my nanites fix you. Other than that, you’ll function fine but you won’t remember a thing.”
“But don’t expect us to forget what you said while you were delirious,” added Del-Marie.
“Or what you do next,” said Madge.
Springer, Arun noticed, said nothing.
“If you’ve quite finished,” growled Sergeant Rathanjani – though Arun sensed amusement in his voice – “All teams ready to execute on my mark… Go!”
At ground level, the sergeant led his team in a decoy attack to the south.
Fraser counted to five and then pointed to Stopcock, who activated his drill. The cutting teeth on its nose cone whirled into a blur and a pale blue lance of light erupted from its tip, the distinctive color of a Fermi beam operating in atmosphere. At the focus point of the beam, the laws of sub-atomic physics were thrown out of the airlock. The matter in the ceiling was reduced to a squirming mess, easily gouged away by the drill teeth in a shower of trailings.
Four seconds later, the roof was breached and all the air in the room was racing to escape out into vacuum outside, trying to suck Arun out with it.
That was all Arun could remember.
——
Fraser McEwan, it transpired, had experimental augmentations. Hormonal factories had been implanted subcutaneously, intended to solve the problems with combat drugs by making them self-administered and tuned by bio-feedback.
There was a secondary purpose too. Human Marines and crewmembers could go for tours of decades or even centuries without leaving their ships. Troopships were not spacious. Depression, violence and other psychoses grew commonplace as lengthy tours outstripped anything evolution had prepared humans for in terms of living together in cramped conditions. The implants aimed to upgrade the very nature of human society by allowing a direct communication of moods and simple information between individuals by touching implants to the skin of another human, and using the hormonal nano-transporters to travel into the other person’s system
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