by TJ Ryan
“We’re military,” Tara reminded him.
He gave her a look that said she was military in the same way that his pinky toe was part of his body. There, but hardly essential. Tara felt heat rising up within her at the implication he was making. The Defense Engineers had been keeping the planet safe for generations now. Nobody questioned their resolve, or their importance.
Or maybe that was just what she wanted to believe. The way Danvers was acting, they weren’t just unimportant, they were expendable. And this was the man she was supposed to turn over the destructive power of fission weaponry to. Yeah, right.
“Come along,” he called back over his shoulder, already heading out of the medical section, into the plain antechamber. “The other two are waiting for us. We should have been there already but your girlfriend—sorry, your not-girlfriend—delayed us by insisting you come along, Engineer Gypsum.”
“Thanks for that, by the way,” Tyrese whispered to her as they stepped back out into the hallway with the security soldiers in their faceless helmets.
“If you want to back out…”
He found her hand again, and held it tightly. “I have a feeling you’re going to need a friend. Besides, this is history. Can’t turn down history in the making.”
“Perish the thought,” she said drily, holding his hand fast. “You know who ends up in history data files, right? Dead people.”
“Dead people,” he agreed, “and living legends.”
She could almost smile at that. “You going to be a living legend are you, Tyrese?”
“Not me.” He slowed his steps more, the clump, clump becoming softer as they fell back from Danvers. “I was thinking of you.”
“Me?”
“Yes, you. You’ve been here barely over a solar month and already you’ve done more than most Defense Engineers do their entire career. You had me blow up your own Defense Pod, and afterwards you proved it was because your AI went insane which was supposedly impossible. You participated in a secret mission from the brass at the Academy. You found…” He dropped his voice even lower. “Something that I don’t quite understand, but that I hope to, soon. And now, you’re going to be the first human being in a thousand years to put her feet on homeworld. You think I’m going to stay behind and learn to run marathons with my new legs while you do all that?”
Tara didn’t know what to say. She hadn’t been looking at it that way, but Tyrese was right. For the most part Defense Engineers just fought battles with invading alien species in an effort to keep them from claiming whatever was left of the Earth’s resources. She knew from her studies at the Academy that there were even some Defense Engineers who had spent their entire three year tour stationed in orbit and never once engaging in a battle. She’d been in two so far.
Her life as an Engineer had certainly not been boring so far.
And it was only just getting started.
CHAPTER FOUR
Tara wasn’t sure if she was more nervous for the descent into Earth, or for seeing who they were sending with her.
Lieutenant Danvers brought them across the complex by way of several service corridors that were guarded at both ends by more of the silent security soldiers. They never moved, and for all Tara knew they were mannequins put in place to scare people into thinking that they were being watched when they really weren’t. Although, the wide-beam particle dispersal pistols they each wore on their hips were real enough, as were the stun sticks and boom grenades. She was happy to let them stand there silently without bothering them.
She heard the hum of the solar generators change in pitch the closer they got to their destination, which is how she knew they were moving towards the docking port. Here the power was being shunted towards a forcefield barrier that left the docking port open to space, allowing ships to pass through while maintaining an atmosphere on this side. A one-sided barrier. It was technology that humans had borrowed from other alien species and claimed for their own. Most of what they had now was exactly that, although humanity preferred to pat themselves on the back and talk about how smart they were to adapt the technology for their own.
Before they got all the way to where the ships used by Overwatch were lined up and ready for launch, Danvers took them into another room. Placing his hand on the scanner, he waited, flashing a smile at Tara.
When the voice of Elaine, the AI program, spoke to them, Tara understood his smarmy little grin.
“Welcome, Lieutenant Danvers,” Elaine said. “Everything is ready within.”
Tara kept her face neutral. Danvers was looking for a response from her and she wasn’t going to give him the satisfaction. Still, she could see in his eyes that he knew how much it cost her to stay still, with her face kept carefully forward and her hands pressed against her thighs to keep them from shaking.
Then it got worse.
“Hello Elaine,” Claire’s voice, from Tyrese’s halo, greeted the other AI. “I am symbiotic to meet you again.”
“As am I, Claire. I wish to interface with you later to discuss this endeavor.”
“That sounds fascinating.” Elaine’s voice rose in pitch, programmed to mimic a human’s enthusiasm. “I was hoping to discuss this matter with you. Your vantage point is unique, being the Overwatch AI.”
“Yes,” Elaine answered in a supercilious tone, like she was superior to Claire in every way.
Tara finally leaned in to mutter to Tyrese. “Can’t you shut that thing up?”
He shrugged. “AIs have feelings, too.”
She knew her opinion on that showed on her face, and Danvers confirmed it by laughing sharply before telling Elaine she could open the door now.
Inside was some sort of meeting room, long and narrow, the entire middle taken up by the length of shiny black table and several gray-padded chairs. The walls were still the same plain white composite that the rest of the complex was made up of. It was a very sharp contrast.
So were the two soldiers waiting inside.
Both of them snapped to attention when they saw it was Danvers entering. One was a woman in her middle years with her golden hair pulled back into a tight short braid and eyes that flashed to each of the visitors in turn with a look that weighed and sorted them and took their measure in just a few seconds. She had been leaning back against the wall, her arms folded under her breasts, her black and gray uniform bulky with protective shock plating and equipment pouches. A long-barreled rifle with an extended power pack was leaning next to her, close to hand.
The other was a man who seemed to fill up the room with the width of his shoulders and the girth of his arms and legs. His suit must have been custom made, because Tara was fairly certain that the military didn’t make combat uniforms in extra, extra, extra large. When he stood, she could hear his gear and the protective plating shift and creak as the material strained around him. He was darker skinned than even Tyrese was, like the color of midnight, whereas the female soldier had skin the color of a morning sunrise. Reddish, which Tara knew was a variation of human evolution that had happened after they reached the stars. The Kenta system had a sun that shone red. The skin of the people living there now had adapted over generations, and now they all looked like walking roses. She was beautiful.
“At ease,” Danvers told the four of them, although it had only been the soldiers who had stood at attention for him. “Why don’t we all take a seat so we can get started.”
“Nothing to start,” the female soldier said, picking up her rifle and holding it like a favorite lover, in a loose but steady grip that told Tara she was very familiar with the feel of it in her hands. “Let’s just board ship and get down there. What’s the wait, Lieutenant?”
Danvers smiled at her like a father with a favorite child. “Steady down, Sergeant. You’ll have your chance to die soon enough.”
She smiled at him, her eyelids lowering as she slung the rifle over a shoulder. “I don’t die that easily. You know that.”
Ignoring the back and forth on that side
of the room, the other soldier lowered his massive frame into one of the chairs at the table, nodding with his head at Tyrese. “Sweet hardware you got there. Exotech at its finest. You tried them out yet? How enhanced are they?”
Tyrese patted the side of his exotech utility belt. “I can run faster than forty-five miles an hour. I can jump twice my own height. There’s other stuff too… they didn’t just fix me, they made me better.”
Leaning forward over the table, the soldier opened up the wrist plates on his suit and then turned his arm over. Pushing down a spot on his skin opened up a concealed panel in his flesh made of synthetics. Inside was a cylinder of pistons and wires. Flexing his fingers made the intricate gears inside move. “This is endotech. Next wave. ‘Course, it’s only for soldiers and the higher-ups in the military.”
“Of course,” Tyrese said, stroking fingers across the upper thigh plates of his new hardware, as if he just realized his shiny new toy wasn’t all that after all.
“All right, enough,” Danvers said, taking the chair at the head of the table. In front of him a control grid lit up, inlaid in the table’s surface, and he pushed a series of buttons as it did. Behind him a screen lowered from the ceiling. Images began to display. “What I’m telling you now is for this room only. It does not leave here, unless you’re tired of living and would like Overwatch to send you to whatever Hell you happen to believe in.”
“Earth?” the large man across the table smirked. Danvers ignored him.
On the screen, an image of the Earth appeared, with the roiling black particle clouds obscuring the entire orb. The image zoomed in, closer and closer, into the clouds, deeper, and deeper.
“This is a recording from one of our probes,” Danvers explained.
“What are we seeing?” the female soldier asked.
“We’ve sent exactly five scan and recon probes to the surface. Just watch.” He turned in his seat, waving his arm around the table as he suddenly remembered he hadn’t done introductions. “This is Engineer Tyrese Gypsum. Sergeant Enverly, twenty years with the Academy, now working with us here at Overwatch.” He pointed to the woman soldier. “And Sergeant Crestin. One of our strongest military asset.” The big bear of a soldier nodded to his name.
Tara looked around at everyone, memorizing the names of the two new additions to their impromptu crew as the image on the screen continued to drift through poisonous gas clouds and fine particulate in the atmosphere. She waited for Danvers to introduce her. It didn’t happen.
“Don’t worry,” added Sergeant Enverly. Her lips curled at the edges as she said it. “We all know who you are, Engineer Tara Royce. You’re the troublemaker.”
Tara felt her muscles all along her back tense up. Like she was getting ready to defend herself from an attack. That was silly, she told herself. These two might be strangers, but they were all being told to do the same thing. Go into the poisonous atmosphere of Earth and survive. Nobody would be stupid enough to start any hard feelings before they went into that mess.
On the screen the image thinned and grew lighter as the probe dropped below the lower levels of the dark clouds covering the planet. It hurdled toward a landscape of cracked rock and thundering ocean waves. The water was black. Lightning flashed. The image focused and blurred with the speed the probe was dropping.
“So that’s what it looks like,” Tyrese said in a reverent whisper. “I never thought I’d ever see it. No Defense Engineer thinks they ever will.”
I glanced toward Tyrese. He must not have seen the glimpse through the atmosphere while we were back on-duty six weeks ago. Maybe I had imagined it, after all.
Sergeant Enverly snorted. “That’s the difference between you Engineers with all your sciency learning and us military lifers. We know we’ll see Earth eventually. We train every day for the moment we get called to go down to the surface.”
“Yeah?” I asked. “And how many of you lifers have been down, then?” I knew the answer was zero. This woman may prove to be difficult to get along with, after all.
“Stow it, Enverly,” Lieutenant Danvers told her. “And you, Royce. I don’t want to hear that again. The soldiers of Overwatch are here for invasions involving base ships or large destroyers that need to be boarded and taken down from the inside. That is all you are here for. That crap about training for the surface is all myth and I don’t want to hear it again!”
Enverly’s full lips parted to say something, and then she closed her mouth again, turning her attention back to the screen with a dark expression. Whatever she had been about to say she wasn’t willing to actually come out with it in front of the Lieutenant.
“So,” Sergeant Crestin said slowly, easing his way into the uncomfortable tension. “This is Earth. If you know what’s down there why do you need us?”
“Keep watching,” was Danvers’ response.
They all concentrated on the image as the probe swooped down and adjusted course toward the nearest area of land. The image cleared again, and at the edges they saw the extension of landing gear as it slowed, and prepared for a landing with bursts of repulser jets, and—
The scene fell into an uncontrolled spin. The image went to static as the probe exploded or broke up or suffered some fatal error.
“And that,” Danvers explained, “is the whole reason why we’re sending people down for this mission. Every probe we have sent down hasn’t even reached the surface. This one made it the furthest. We don’t know what happened to them. We don’t know what issues they ran into but there’s no way for us to remote drive one down. It needs a hands-on approach.”
“Why not just use the AIs?” Enverly asked.
“The second probe had an AI onboard.” The lieutenant pressed more buttons, and the screen retracted back into its alcove. “She stopped transmitting halfway through the black cloud mass. We never recovered any images from her.”
“Great,” Crestin groused. “First mission off Overwatch I get assigned to and it’s a suicide trip.”
“You die down there,” Danvers told him, “your family gets compensated. I kill you up here for summary judgment of failure to perform your duty, they get billed for your funeral. You pick.”
The big man raised his hands with a friendly, easy smile. “No worries, Lieutenant. No worries. I’m eager to serve.”
“Sure you are. Remember when you and your squad fought off the alien encroachment from the other side of the moon?”
“Sure do.”
“You still owe us for replacing your hand.”
Crestin flexed his hand again. “Sure do,” he repeated, but something flashed through his eyes that Tara couldn’t read.
“Fine, then.” Danvers stood up from the table and paced behind it as he spoke. “The drop spot is programmed into your ship’s computer. This location has not been scanned, and has not been scouted. It was our best guess for where to find what we needed, based on certain insider intel.” Enverly smirked as he nodded at her.
Tara eyed her. What else did she know?
“Turns out, as Engineer Royce already knows,” Danvers the blockheads at the Academy tried to retrieve a piece of very important equipment that has remained on the planet since its destruction. They did this without out knowledge, and who knows what they had in mind for it. They would have succeeded, too, if she didn’t blow up her own Defense Pod and then crash land on our base in another with the very prize they tried to collect.”
“Part of the prize,” Tara reminded him. “You still need us. All of us.” She hoped.
Danvers stopped pacing to turn his gaze on her. “Don’t worry, Tara. Nobody’s going to die today, or tomorrow either, as long as you all do what we’ve asked.”
The fact that Danvers just admitted that the Academy was acting on their own accord, without approval or knowledge of Overwatch, suggested to her that he didn’t actually expect them to live. She never would have been given access to that information if they ran the risk of her spreading the story. She frowned, hoping she was reading
too much into this.
Crestin and Enverly were both glaring at her, telling her very clearly not to make waves, without ever once saying a word. She shrank back in her seat a little. She had been trying to remind Danvers that he still needed them, that was true, but she was starting to see just how much of a stranglehold the military had on everyone’s lives here. They hadn’t told her that part back at the Academy when they were preparing her to be stationed here in defense of homeworld. This was something new.
At least, to her it was. It was clear that Crestin and Enverly already knew how thin the ice was that they were walking on. Now she understood the look she had seen in Crestin’s big brown eyes a moment ago. Fear. He was afraid. Afraid of going down to Earth, sure, but even more afraid of what Lieutenant Danvers was going to do to him if they failed to bring back the tech to fix the fission fuel cell. If what she suspected was true – that they were in fact looking for more of those cells in secret – she didn’t even want to try to imagine what the repercussions of her destroying them would be.
“Don’t let me down,” Danvers glowered after the room fell silent for a moment. “We must succeed. Overwatch must succeed.”
Apparently the Academy and the Overwatch military weren’t one big happy family. She wondered if General Ashton knew what was going on, as he was meant to be head of both Overwatch and the Academy. Not for the first time, Tara wished she could have just spent her tour of three years safe in her Defense Pod, oblivious of anything but her mission to keep Earth safe.
But, here she was.
“…enviro suits,” Danvers was saying. She had tuned out for a moment but she caught on now. The specially constructed suits they would use for this mission had their own sealed breathing apparatus, molecular coating to protect against hostile elements, and an array of built-in tools and equipment. They’d had something similar at the Academy during training, but this was an advanced prototype. From what Danvers was explaining, they worked the same way. Seal yourself in, check the gauges, and do not under any circumstances pop the seals on the face mask unless you want to die.