by Lucas Bale
Neilssen knew why—the truth behind the corralling of the people of Herse. That they were to be used as bait to attract the enemy—a way to lure the invaders in and give the Peacekeepers a tactical advantage. An opportunity to engage the enemy on favourable terms. His hand tightened on the grip of his heavy rifle and, not for the first time in the last few years, he felt something he’d once believed he’d never feel again: regret. It was an emotion he now welcomed, despite the pain it caused him.
A voice came over his comms line. One of his squad snipers positioned on a ridge, a woman called Dayton. ‘Sir, there’s no one here. The town is clear. The buildings we need are all laser-marked.’
‘Doors left unsealed?’
‘Yes, sir. There’ll be no delay when the times comes.’
‘Go back to Sigma with the rest of the squad.’
‘Sir.’
Neilssen opened another channel. ‘Carrel?’
‘Sir?’ came the familiar voice in answer.
‘I’m on the main street. Come meet me.’
‘Sir.’
It had taken less than four days to construct Sigma, the battalion’s principal compound. Star carriers had burned away vast swaths of forest, and the battalion’s engineers had ridden out on heavy machinery to dig the compound deep into the ground. Armoured bunkers were sunk into those trenches, every single one with automated AI-driven heavy artillery. Ten mechanised platoons, each with four tanks, patrolled the perimeter—a fence that measured two thousand metres on each of its five sides.
Seven hundred Peacekeepers operated out of Sigma. Three more compounds, forward encampments, had been quickly constructed in key tactical areas—two in the forest, one in the mountains. Each housed one hundred Peacekeepers, split into four advance reconnaissance platoons with five squads each.
In low orbit, what remained of the Consul’s guard, a single frigate, monitored the tunnel. Phased arrays on floating platforms bucked on the rough sea; more had been hammered into the snow on mountain summits. All of that data, collected and parsed, was then conveyed to the tactical unit in the helmet of every Peacekeeper. A tight web of eyes around the planet. Ready. Waiting.
The rest of the brigade, and the Consul’s Guard with it, had left for Gamma-Layer System G-437, ‘Mari’, two days earlier. The brigade was spread thin, Neilssen knew, but entry points into the Republic’s territory were too many to cover with the deployment of any more than a single battalion.
Neilssen had been instructed to remain by his insurgent commanders in the Core, so he had manoeuvred his reconnaissance platoon into a position where that was possible. Whatever was coming, Neilssen thought, they wanted him here when it arrived. Once his platoon had rested at Sigma—or at least gotten what little rest they would be able to scrounge—they would continue into the mountains and on to Recon One.
Carrel turned on to the main street, his weapon slung low across his chest, one hand resting on the grip. He scanned the street as he walked, even though he knew by now that it was empty. Neilssen watched him, and for a moment, he allowed himself to consider how often Carrel, who was almost as old as he was now, perceived those moments of emotion that had begun to come to them both.
Neilssen removed his helmet, and Carrel did the same. If they opened a comms channel, even a close-proximity channel, there was the chance the helmet might record their conversation. The snow and bitter wind stung Neilssen’s cheeks, but he welcomed the coldness of the air on his skin.
‘Everyone gone?’ Neilssen asked.
‘Yes. They’re all in a warehouse by the hydroelectric plant.’
‘Are you ready for this?’
Carrel didn’t hesitate. ‘You know I’ll follow you, whatever you decide.’
‘That wasn’t what I asked.’
‘Yes, I’m ready.’
Neilssen paused before he spoke again. ‘Do you believe in it?’
Carrel looked up and down the main street, and his eyes narrowed. ‘Am I supposed to? Does it matter?’
‘Treason matters. Heresy matters.’
Carrel’s expression didn’t change. ‘What they’re going to do with those people is more of a heresy to me.’
‘Why now?’ Neilssen asked. ‘Why now do we feel? After all these years?’
‘Is it really new to you? Hasn’t it been coming for a while?’
‘Perhaps.’
‘We’ve had this discussion,’ Carrel said. ‘Some time ago. Before we were posted here.’
‘Am I in danger of repeating myself?’
‘No,’ Carrel said flatly. ‘But you know we haven’t been blind for some time.’
Blind. That was what Carrel called it, the dampening of Peacekeeper emotions. As though he had been stripped of his ability to see what had been done to him, and was therefore blameless for his actions before that blindfold was removed. A way of coping with it, as the guilt began slowly to take hold.
‘We did this to ourselves,’ Neilssen said.
‘No, time did it. We got old, and the implant got old with us. It was inevitable. We just let it.’
Neilssen grunted. ‘Too late to change anything now.’
‘Even if we wanted to.’
Neilssen nodded absently. Do I want to? Do I want to change how I feel? To go back, and not feel? If I could lose these ephemeral memories of a time I thought had gone—and lose the pain they cause me—would I? When that pain is the only thing that reminds me I was once human? It had been a conscious choice to allow the guilt to roam freely; to feel that pain. He had hidden it, as Carrel had done, clinging to it in the knowledge that the regret beginning to build inside him was real. That it might mean he was becoming whole again. Yet he hadn’t been able to hide it from everyone. When an old friend had approached him, had told him he understood what was happening to him and could help, Neilssen had accepted. He had been given new orders, a mission he believed in. And Carrel had come with him.
‘Anything from Orchid?’ Carrel asked. Since they had placed the WTP transmitters in the mountains, from the moment Neilssen had killed Jon Versalis and taken his implant to cover his own tracks, there had been no further communications from Orchid—the code name they had been given for the commanders of the insurgency. They were waiting, Neilssen supposed. They knew no more than the Magistratus did.
‘No, nothing yet. Do we have the whole platoon?’ Neilssen asked.
‘There’s always a risk with that many Peacekeepers,’ Carrel said. Neilssen turned to him and stared. Eventually, Carrel shook his head in defeat. ‘Not all of them, no. They’ll all fight, when it starts, but there are some we couldn’t reach. Younger ones. As soon as they realise, we may have to put them down.’
‘We are soon to engage with an unknown enemy who is probably much stronger than us,’ Neilssen said. ‘And yet here we are, forced to kill our own. If only they knew.’ How the enemy would laugh at us, he thought. If they even laugh. He looked at Carrel. How different are you and I from them? When did we last laugh?
The hike to Recon One meant a long, technical climb high into the mountains. The wind picked up and the temperature dropped as they climbed. Their armoured suits protected them from the harsh conditions, but the climb took its toll even so.
A summary of everyone’s vitals scrolled down one side of Neilssen’s vision. All fit, strong and competent, but all in need of a break when they reached Recon One. They had covered hundreds of kilometres over the last week, surveying the remote landscape and planting beacons. He needed them at full capacity, and a break was the only way to achieve that.
Neilssen refused to take a gunship, preferring instead to be in touch with the landscape he might have to fight on. By being on foot—despite how tired his men might be when they reached Recon One—they would miss nothing. Reconnaissance could not be done properly from the air.
He spread the platoon out over several hours, keeping each squad contained but reachable. He led the first, with Carrel and four other Peacekeepers he knew were scrupulously loyal.
>
The first sign of movement up ahead surprised Neilssen. For a moment, he considered it was more likely a snow flurry rather than something substantial and worth investigating. He knew there was no Peacekeeper presence up here, this high—all of the recon squads were either out on the other side of the massif, or at rest. And nothing showed on the proximity sensors from his own suit, or from any of the phased arrays.
But something nagged at him, an instinct he had learned never to ignore. He stopped his squad and dropped to a knee, shifting the heavy rifle into a low-ready position. ‘Carrel, come up here.’
As he waited for Carrel, Neilssen stared at the ridge ahead. Are you losing it? Is that what’s happening to you? Are you imagining things now?
‘You see something?’
‘I’m not sure.’
‘Nothing showing on any of the arrays, I just checked. No one else is up here.’
‘I know.’
‘I can send one of squad ahead…’
‘No, it’s probably… there.’ A subtle movement amid the swirling snow. Barely noticeable. ‘You see it?’
Carrel nodded. ‘Yes,’ he said slowly. ‘I saw it. Stay here.’
‘No. You stay with the men. I want to take a closer look. Bring the squad up here and hold.’ Far enough so he would still be visible to Carrel in the lead when he went to investigate.
Neilssen moved slowly along the ridge, his weapon now tight against his shoulder and directed in front of him. He kept his finger flat against the lower receiver above the trigger. He was hunkered down as much against the wind as to keep his profile as small as he could.
The movement was more easily discernible through the fog of snow as he approached. He now realised that whatever it was, it was moving away from him, creeping slowly along the knife-edge line of the ridge. Why is my suit’s proximity sensor not picking this up?
He moved more quickly now, tapping his finger softly against the frame of his weapon. The spikes on his boots dug into the snow, supporting him on the narrow ridge. He glanced down at the sheer drop on either side. No time for caution; he knew that, though he couldn’t say how, or what it was that drove him suddenly. It shouldn’t be here, he thought. Whatever it is, it’s not one of ours.
The wind dropped for a moment, and there was a fleeting break in the blizzard. On the ridge, he could now make out a shape, vaguely oval but with bulbous protrusions across its dorsal spine. It seemed to hover above the ridge, a shimmering haze kicking up the snow beneath it. A machine, rather than something living.
Nothing he had ever seen before.
His finger slid onto the trigger.
He considered alerting his squad, but instead he waited. He continued to move, more slowly now, keeping pace with the machine as it blew snow off the ridge beneath it. There were no lights guiding it. It seemed to have neither front nor back. Nor, that he could see, anything that might be a weapon system. Don’t get complacent.
It stopped and hovered. Behind the howl of the wind, he could feel a throbbing hum reverberating along his jaw and teeth. ‘Squad, move up fifteen metres. Possible contact.’ They would know now that he had seen a potential threat. They would be ready.
The curiosity continued to hover. Neilssen waited and watched. The reverberation in his teeth crawled upward across his face and began to press on his temples. The snow around the base of the machine, if that’s what it was, flurried more vigorously.
They weren’t ready, Neilssen knew suddenly. They would never be ready.
The pulse came abruptly. Like a tight, rolling storm, it swept along the ridge. Snow and ice were snatched from the mountain and flung away as it surged towards him. A cyclone that engulfed and overwhelmed him. The pure force of it, an invisible barrage that slammed into him and threw him backwards. It dizzied him, pressing into his brain, crushing it. The only thing that saved him from its full power was that he had seen it coming.
‘Contact!’ he screamed, then rolled away, off the edge of the mountain.
Falling. Too fast.
He clawed at the ice, letting his weapon slide away on its strapping. He kicked hard into snow and ice to slow his fall. Above him he heard weapons fire, and the storm clouds around him were bathed in white flashes.
A second pulse came, and Neilssen saw one of his men spinning away, bouncing off the rock and ice—falling and dying. Bannar. His vitals flatlined almost instantly. More weapons fire and more white flashes.
Neilssen kept kicking and clawing until the he slowed and found something to hold on to. He looked up and saw the machine traversing the ridge smoothly, effortlessly. He felt it send another pulse and saw another of his men roll off the ridge, hardly conscious, and fall away into the mist beneath him. Rodeyn. Dead.
All their vitals fluctuated wildly. But still they fired. Still they fought back. From his position he had line of sight, but the fire from his weapon might kick him off the mountain.
He slid a piolet from its loop and hammered it into the ice. Then he levered his heavy rifle up, resting it against the rock. He gripped it hard, and fired. Every muscle in his augmented arms and legs fought to clamp him to the rock and ice, to hold the rifle steady as it poured a hail of fire into the hazy shape hovering on the ridge. The shimmering blur beneath it flickered as it bucked wildly, hundreds of rounds thumping into it, seemingly punching through its metal skin.
The pulsing stopped. There was more sporadic fire, and then suddenly, there was silence.
Neilssen couldn’t see through the mist what result their combined firestorm had achieved. He began to climb, one-handed, sliding the rifle upwards along the rock to keep it focused on the ridge above.
He edged upwards. Carrel was alive, his vitals spiking, but in the green. Injured maybe, but still breathing. Bannar and Rodeyn were both dead—fallen off the ridge. Hobbes and Eldridge were injured.
Still the silence persisted.
‘Squad, report,’ he said.
‘Can’t see it.’ Carrel’s voice came over the comms line. ‘Can’t say if we hit anything at all. Looked like it was armoured. Maybe some sort of field generator. I don’t know. But it’s… gone.’
Neilssen pulled himself over the ridge and stared along its length. The blizzard made it impossible to see. He knelt and examined the snow where the machine had hovered. It was wet, melted away, presumably by intense heat.
‘What was it?’ he muttered, as much to himself as to the rest of the squad.
‘I don’t know,’ Carrel said. ‘Not anything I’ve ever seen before. Not one of ours.’
‘Which means it has begun,’ Neilssen said as he stood. ‘They’re coming here.’
C H A P T E R 35
SHEPHERD STOOD alone in the centre of the hold, listening to the familiar, distant drone of the ion drives. A long while passed before he could bring himself to speak, and even then he found his voice was low and uncertain.
‘Can you actually hear me?’ he said. He looked almost furtively around at old storage lockers and bare walls, and felt foolish speaking the words aloud. But he’d been thinking exactly that for days now, so what difference did it make actually saying it out loud? In the silence that followed, he reckoned it made a great deal of difference—thoughts were ephemeral, yet words wore a spoken permanence. Speaking them somehow made all of this real to him.
Because it is real.
‘Is that how it works? Do I just talk and you’ll listen?’ He tensed and rubbed his eyes. ‘Nearly twenty years, and I thought I was just talking to myself,’ he muttered. Then, a little louder, ‘I never really thought you could hear me. Never thought that you might be able to… understand me. I just pretended, mostly so I had some company.’ He shook his head and balled his fists. ‘Sometimes I thought I was going mad.’
On some level, you’ve always known, he told himself. There were signs, but you just wouldn’t believe them.
Because it’s crazy! his mind screamed. But it wasn’t crazy, was it? It made perfect sense to him now. The defensive syste
ms in the mountains of Herse; what the mouse, Connor, had said on FN-1657. Like old gears shifting in place and suddenly turning.
She’s here now, he thought. Not a stranger to you. She never has been. What’s changed?
He gazed down at the steel floor of the hold and saw the familiar crimson ghost staring back at him.
‘Did he know about you, all those years?’ he said, remembering his father, a tightness drawing across his chest. Something caught in his throat and made it difficult to speak. ‘Did you see what I did?’ He lowered his head and closed his eyes. ‘What did you think of that, watching me clean his blood off this floor?’
You had no choice, he told himself. It was you or him, and he knew that too.
Pain balled in his gut. It might have been guilt.
‘I didn’t want any of this,’ he said finally, when he was able to speak again. ‘Putting you at risk, like this.’ But no answer came from the empty shadows in the hold, even if he had been expecting one. ‘If they’re right, we have to run. I don’t see that we have any choice. I’m sorry.’ He gave an ironic half-laugh. ‘At least I got you fixed.’
He left the hold for his quarters and made himself a mug of hotleaf. Almost in a daze, he sat at his desk, curls of steam rising from the mug beside him. He stared out of the small window, trying to think clearly, but failing. Get on with the job, Raine. Always focus on the job. They would soon breach the tunnel into Samarkand’s system, where the preacher had business, although of course he hadn’t said what. Another secret, another lie. Then they would head for the Core.
The Core.
Each time Shepherd was forced to return to the Core, to renew his freight licences or pick up legitimate contracts, he was uneasy amid the densely packed tavara—he felt trapped and claustrophobic as though the glass and steel were bearing down on him. The gunships and Peacekeeper patrols, the cameras, even the way the Conduit determined where a citizen could travel and where he couldn’t—all of it tightened around him, imprisoning him. Eating in refectories at certain times and with certain companions. The garish dress, to his eyes, of the affluent elite in the higher castes, and the endless seething bustle of citizens that overflowed on the polished walkways and galleries in the city of Theia. Even though Jieshou had been abandoned and was as lawless now as any place in the Republic could be, he still preferred it to the Core. Whatever was left of it, anyway, if what he had heard was true.