Titan's Fall

by Zachary Brown

  Yet. I had Smalley take Alpha squad around our perimeter and start mining it.

  We were keyed up, looking around, waiting for another wave of ground assault. But so far, it wasn’t coming.

  “Incoming,” Amira muttered. The slopes behind us lit up. My helmet struggled to compensate as the anti-ship ­weapons from orbit reached down to the ground. The alien energy weapons under the beams of energy exploded, tortured matte-black and green shards flying across the basin.

  No one had to be told to get low as debris larger than a jumpship struck icy gravel.

  The light faded. “They’re recharging,” Amira said. “But that’s a third of their capacity, easy.”

  The jagged tips of the hills were now soft and runny.

  “Anais gives us ten minutes before he gets up the neutralized hill,” Amira said. “Titan’s cold enough, a crust will already be formed on the top. We’ll have backup shortly.”

  “And we’re going to need it,” Zhao reported from cover against a ravine in one of the hills they’d dug into instead of coming back. “They’re coming out of the ground.”

  I turned. Shielded covers were being blown off tunnel access points. Raptors moved out quickly to establish fields of fire. Then behind them . . . humans in surface suits. Hundreds of them boiled out.

  “They’re not in armor,” Tony Chin said mournfully over the command channel. “All they have to fight with are small arms.”

  They were going to get slaughtered. I got on Shangri-La’s civilian common channel. “This is Lieutenant Devlin Hart,” I sent. “Please, you are unprotected and barely armed. Get back into the tunnels. The Colonial Protection Forces have come to ground to rescue you and take back Shangri-La. Remain below.”

  “The last thing we want is to go back to sitting under the thumb of Arvani lackeys,” the response came. “Shangri-La is a free zone for humans. We’ve held elections, we’ve built a militia. Now we’re going to make a stand.”

  “What is all that about?” one of Cunningham’s soldiers asked.

  “Conglomerate propaganda,” Ken said with distaste.

  “They’re willing to die for it,” I said. “Look.” A wave of blue surface suits ran toward us.

  “Lieutenant?” Cunningham asked on the common channel.

  “Wait,” I said.

  The blue line grew larger. Bullets started to smack and splinter nearby rock. One pinged off my shoulder pad.

  Someone, Rockhopper or First Charlie—it didn’t matter—fired back. A clean shot, center mass. Blood exploded out of the back of one of the many blue suits and hung in the air as the figure stumbled and fell forward. The line continued to run right at us, more and more figures dropping, until they hit the mines.

  Dirt fountained up, the ground thudded, and the wall of blue shattered. The dust settled to reveal them taking cover or turning back. Sixty bodies lay still in the scree between us and the main body of blue.

  “Do you see that they’re willing to die for freedom?” a familiar synthesized voice said on the common channel. “Do you understand what you can all get from the Conglomer­ation? Something the Accordance will never give you. Self-determination. Which means they’re willing to face thugs like you to fight and keep it.”

  “Zeus,” Ken said, voice dripping acid.

  “I am willing,” Zeus said, “to negotiate with the Conglom­eration on your behalves. You can end further bloodshed. You don’t have to keep cutting down so many, when you should all be sharing a common cause. The freedom of your kind.”

  “Where’s the asshole?” I asked. “Zhao? What do you see? Do you see any Arvani out on the surface?”

  “Spot five raptors, one Arvani in the mix at the center of all the blue. They’re hanging close to the tunnels,” Zhao reported. “Need us to punch in from the side?”

  The moment they did, that I had a feeling Zeus would rabbit down into the tunnels. Somewhere, there’d be a plan to hole up for a siege. “No, this is an opportunity,” I said. I looked around. “We need to lure him farther out.”

  I looked at the hole with the cricket boring machine slumped half out of it. A few of us could cram down in there with armor, right down the damn thing’s gullet. “I have an idea,” I said on the command channel. “To kill Zeus. But it will take just a few of us and leave us pretty vulnerable.”

  “I’m in,” Ken said quickly.

  “Me, too,” Amira said.

  “Okay, Zhao,” I said. “I need a distraction to keep them looking your way while we get up to no good. Don’t push too hard, just get Zeus’s attention and then get holed up somewhere. Got it?”

  “Yes sir!” she said enthusiastically.

  24

  We ripped our way through the heart of the cricket worm, wriggled our way deep inside, and then pulled the mechanical guts in after ourselves. Zhao was busy moving her squad around the back side of the attack, gaining their attention as she, Li, Chen, and Vorhis leapfrogged around, trying to get in a shot at Zeus or his raptor bodyguards.

  “See the solar system,” Amira said. “Visit exotic moons. Dig your way into the heart of a giant mechanical worm.”

  “Zhao? Break it off and get to safety,” I ordered. “Smalley, tell Cunningham we’re go.”

  “You sure?” Smalley asked.

  “Do it,” Ken snapped.

  We listened to thuds as Cunningham and the rest of the Rockhoppers moved around the mines to engage. “You’re right,” Chin reported quickly. “Zeus is rushing us and moving them around behind us through the mines.”

  “Fall back,” I ordered. “Don’t forget to pass through the jumpship.”

  “We got it.”

  More thudding from around us as the two platoons stampeded back to their bolthole. Then more as they abandoned it and began to slowly retreat back toward the slagged hill. The sound of the firefight lessened as it moved away from us.

  “Yeah, several of the raptors are clearing the jumpship,” Zhao said. “He’s not going to go himself, but he’s moved farther away from the tunnel entrance. Think I spooked him.”

  “That’s okay,” I said. “We have the tunnel coordinates fixed. The moment Amira calls in the strike, we go all out for Zeus, okay, Zhao?”

  “We’re ready.”

  “Okay, Amira,” I bit my lip. “Now.”

  I kicked clear and broke out of the cricket worm, pieces flying out as we ripped the entire thing apart in our haste. A nearby woman in blue fell to the ground writhing, a metal shard in her stomach. The blazing beam of light we’d called down from the sky was just fading away, and a puddle of lava boiled where the tunnel Zeus walked out of had been.

  “There!” Ken shouted. I followed his armored finger and saw the scuttling form of the Arvani in armor running all out for the next nearest tunnel and then pulling up short as Zeus saw Zhao’s squad cutting the escape off.

  Amira and Ken were off, and I followed a second behind. Long arcing leaps through Titan’s misty air, ignoring Zeus’s hasty shots in our direction. The energy rifle could melt through our armor, but there were too many of us, moving too quickly, for Zeus to target. It sizzled and spat energy near me, but scored no direct hit.

  “Ah, shit,” Amira gasped.

  “You okay?” I shouted. We were all locked on, firing in quick bursts. There was satisfaction in seeing the bullets strike and spark against Zeus’s armor as we closed in, both squads converging. One of his legs cracked and leaked fluids, dragging behind him. Then another. Zeus slowed.

  “I surrender,” Zeus shouted on the common channel.

  “Anais says capture only. No kill. We cannot kill Zeus,” Amira said. “Direct order.”

  “I surrender!” Zeus shouted again on the common channel.

  Ken slammed into Zeus, knocking the energy rifle away. Another shot and more of the alien’s legs were immobilized.

 
“Raptors,” Zhao said, sprinting right through us in the other direction.

  But they too were skidding to a halt. They threw their weapons to the ground and froze. “They surrender as well,” Zeus said.

  Up at the top of the slagged hill, an entire company of CPF had crested and was pouring down the slope toward Shangri-La’s basin. Over near the foothills, the blue surface-­suit army straggled along but lost momentum as it saw the CPF numbers.

  Two minutes later, it was done. The battle was over.

  Ken dropped to his knees.

  I couldn’t hear anything; he’d cut his mic.

  He started punching the ground, turning rock into gravel, and then gravel into dust.

  + + +

  “This,” I said seven hours later, “is utterly ridiculous.”

  I was in an untouched jumpship just down from orbit. Ken, Amira, and I had gotten on; now it was flying a very quick thirty-second loop around the basin and coming right back toward where we had taken off. All the while, it was pursued by spherical camera drones.

  “Cunningham should be in here. Chin, Zhao, and Smalley should be here,” I muttered.

  The jumpship flared out, smacked dirt, and someone kicked the side door open.

  “Do it smartly,” Anais ordered.

  The three of us stepped up together and then hopped down to the ground. Our boots smacked Titan soil, and we marched toward the cloud of drones. The jumpship took off rapidly, mimicking clearing out of a hot LZ. Much like Gennadiy had just hours ago.

  We burst out of the cloud, and Anais held up a hand. “Okay, that’s all we need. The heroes of the Darkside War have done it again.”

  He walked with us down into the tunnels and cycled through. We all flipped our helmets back. “They’re still going room to room down there,” I said. “Couldn’t this have waited?”

  “No. Ninety percent of the base is cleared. And because we’re going to run that clip out, with an announcement to those hiding in the rest of the base. They’ll know who’s arrived. And they’re going to think twice, Devlin. This’ll save lives.”

  “And boost recruitment back on Earth,” Ken said.

  And raise Anais’s profile in the CPF, I thought.

  “We’ve taken the corridor leading to the destroyed entrance of the weapons foundry,” Anais said, switching the subject away. “The Conglomeration was drilling through the debris we left in the way to get to it. Another half a day and they would have broken in and been able to arm people here against us. That attack on the surface would have gone a lot differently. These people might even have been showing up as our enemies elsewhere in the solar system, maybe even Earth. There are a hundred thousand people, here, Devlin. This was a great victory. We’ve retaken Shangri-La.”

  “And what are we doing with all those people?” I asked. “They were willing to die for the Conglomeration up there.”

  “Not all of them volunteered to go topside. We detained those who did. The hostility is under control. Everyone else, we will have to monitor and build new understandings with,” Anais said. “But we did it. We’re back. We’re here. Now, level three has a mess set up and some food dropped. Get fed, rejoin your platoon, and go get some rest. We have a lot of work ahead of us, Devlin. You and I will be talking to a lot of the leaders and people here. Regaining their trust.”

  Anais clapped me on the shoulder, armor smacking armor, and then turned down a corridor.

  “I should have accidentally shot Zeus,” Amira said. “Think Anais would be this cheerful if I’d done that?”

  “PR wins the war,” I said to her. “And he has his PR win, right? Let’s go eat. And sleep.”

  + + +

  I snapped out of my half-sleep and reached for my rifle. The distant explosion still echoed through the corridors, bouncing from wall to wall. Small arms fire chattered for a few seconds and then fell silent. My armor was on its back, ribs splayed, maw wide and patiently waiting. I lay next to it, head on a blanket against the armpit.

  “What is it?” I asked, rubbing my eyes.

  “Bomb.” Amira was standing by the door in armor, on watch with Delta. “Good to know ‘the hostility is under control’ still,” she said.

  “We abandoned them here. The Conglomeration promised them freedom and seemed to give it. Then we came back. I don’t think this is going to be easy,” I said, voice scratchy from exhaustion.

  “We’re the assholes,” Amira said.

  “We’re the assholes.” I lay my head back down. Two more hours off watch. Then I’d be at the door by the bulkhead in full armor, waiting for something to happen.

  “This is what they do,” Shriek said, speaking up.

  “What?” I asked.

  “Divide you. Get you to fight against each other. Give some of you freedom and riches beyond imagination to turn on yourselves. You’ll still lose it all. They’ll take it. Just like they did my world. You won’t rest until it’s time to flee between the worlds again. It’s nice out there in the dark. Quiet.”

  “Like the Accordance did when they took Earth?” I asked.

  “Shut up,” Amira said. “We can argue about which group of aliens is worse when we’ve had some sleep.”

  25

  Several squads had been tasked with clearing out the burned-out command center. The debris had been dragged out. Teams had scrubbed everything down. Techs were underneath stations hanging cables; someone with an arc welder occasionally lit the room up with sharp searing white light, their exaggerated shadows dancing along the walls. There were bustle and determined hurry everywhere I looked.

  “Good to see us back up,” Jun Chen muttered, looking around. We’d been called up to command. I’d picked Chen and Vorhis from Bravo squad to run with me.

  Anais dwelled at the center of it all, the eye of the CPF hurricane.

  But he didn’t look all that calm.

  In fact, for the first time since I’d ever met him, Anais looked flustered, exhausted, and worried.

  “I didn’t know you were in command of the operation,” I said, joining him at the center of the calm. “I thought General Song would be here.”

  “The general didn’t make it to ground,” Anais said. “I ended up being the highest-ranked to land.”

  I searched my mind for something appropriate to say and came up blank. Instead, I half shrugged in my armor and grunted something vague.

  Anais looked at me in the full armor. “Rockhoppers never shuck, right?”

  “Yeah.”

  “I’m thinking that should go company-wide. Everyone in Shangri-La.”

  “Bombs got under your skin?” I asked. “Not enough people turn out waving flags to welcome the CPF back?”

  Anais brushed that aside. “It’s not people I’m worried about.” He took a deep breath and then rubbed his forehead. Then he looked around as if worrying about anyone hearing him. Decided not to say anything. Then changed his mind again.

  I’d never seen such an uncertain Anais before.

  “Alien problem?” I prompted.

  “The engineers and Zeus set charges in the heavy weaponry. We’re vulnerable from above,” Anais finally told me.

  “We have orbit. Four carriers and their anti-ship weapons.”

  “What if we lose them?” Anais responded quickly. “I’m asking for replacements, my superiors are saying they won’t be able to bring anything in.”

  Trouble in paradise. I suddenly realized that Anais was in the dark with the rest of us. “You don’t know why the Accordance all left us in orbit, do you? They’re shrooming you like the rest of us?”

  “Shrooming?”

  Too long spent with his tongue up Arvani assholes. I shook my head. “Putting you in the dark, feeding you shit? Like a mushroom.”

  “Oh.” Anais nodded. “I wouldn’t say I don’t know what’s happening. Come.”<
br />
  We walked across the control center to one of the old officers’ cubicles. It had been quickly reinforced with heavy rebar welded into place to create a makeshift jail cell. Zeus sat inside, still in full armor. But his armored tentacles were all manacled to the walls.

  “He has enough working environmental equipment to last a week or so if we give him some food here and there,” Anais said. “He’s talking to us.”

  “Talking?” I had to bite my lip. I wanted to shoot the Arvani in the faceplate, over and over again until it cracked and his water ran out and he choked in the air.

  “They’re not going to drop in any equipment to Titan,” Zeus said, stirring to stand awkwardly despite the chains holding him in place. “Because they’ve already written off everything down here. No sense in throwing good after bad.”

  I whirled on Anais. “By putting this traitor piece of shit here in your command center, you’re letting the enemy sit and whisper in your ear.”

  “You accused me of not knowing where the rest of the fleet went,” Anais said. “Here’s what I do know. Everything is on a fast burn for Saturn.”

  “Saturn?”

  “But that’s not the target. It’s a fast burn and then a skip. They’re going to whip around and keep going. Not coming back,” Anais said.

  “They’re just going to leave us here?” I asked. “You truly believe that?”

  That weight he’d been carrying. I could see what it was. “I think we were a diversion,” Anais said wearily.

  “You were,” Zeus boomed. “There are too many Con­glomeration even on Titan for you to do more than hold Shangri-La for a while before being overrun. They are underground, in other Conglomerate bases. Once the humans here agreed to terms, most of the invasion forces left. I was enough, with my bodyguards.”

  I glanced over scornfully. “What, you’re telling us this out of a desire to help?”

  “To assist myself, yes,” Zeus said, large octopus-like eyes wide behind the watery glass. “If what Anais says is true, nothing else matters other than my need to get off Titan.”

  “So, it is self-preservation?” I raised an eyebrow, dubious.