by Andrew Beery
“Lieutenant,” I said to Jon. “See if you can’t pull up a map. What’s the fastest way to access port three?”
Seconds later a map appeared in my HUD. Apparently, Yorky had downloaded much of the Ashtoreth data systems and was busy, under Jon’s guidance, dissecting it now.
I looked at the map and then looked at the floor beneath my feet. It seemed we were right over the area we needed to be at. If we could go straight down, we could cut the royal party off and trap them between Charlie and our own marines.
I waved Sergeant Peters over and pointed to the floor. “I need a door right there and another one just like it on the deck below this one. Can do?”
“Can do, Sir. Give me a minute to set the charges and we should be good to go.”
“Work fast,” I said. “We have a royal engagement that we don’t want to miss.”
Rather than answering, Peters got to work and true to his word, we had a nice hole in the floor in no time. The second hole took barely thirty seconds more. As I said, Peters was a master of his craft… he had forgotten more about shaped charges than most experts ever knew.
“On me,” I yelled as I jumped down the second hole.
If front of me was a group of five very surprised Gators. They appeared unarmed and were probably civilians. I toggled my rifle to stun mode and forcibly encouraged them all to take a nap. While keeping my head on a swivel, I quickly placed a hand on each of them and had my AI run a med check. I was not in the habit of killing civilians if I could help it.
As the rest of my team made it down our improvised door in the ceiling, I checked my HUD for the layout once more.
“I’m taking point,” I declared. “JJ, I want you and Edwards to watch our six.”
“I never get to have any fun,” Hammond complained.
“Quit whining ya big baby,” I muttered with a grin. “Play your cards right and I might let you blow something up.”
“REALLY!”
“Might... I said”
I toggled my comms again. “Charlie, we are in route to your position. We are about two minutes out. Keep encouraging them into coming our way and we’ll sandwich them between us.”
Less than a minute later we spotted the first of the black armored Ashtoreth. Both sides fired weapons at the same time. Judging from the way the lead Ashtoreth soldier crashed into (and knocked down) the soldier next to him… it seemed obvious that he still had not gotten the hang of using powered armor yet. Needless to say, his aim was off, and his first rounds didn’t come anywhere near me. My shot, however, was spot on and hit him right between his eyes. He was dead before his finger relaxed on the trigger.
I hadn’t wanted to kill him but in these confined spaces there was no room for half measures… not if I wanted to end the fighting sooner rather than later.
I toggled my exterior speakers. “King Astarte, I’m Commander Anthony Stone of the GCP Infinity Brigade Marines. It’s over. We have you surrounded and outgunned. I’m willing to offer you generous terms but this fighting must stop now.”
“What assurances do I have that you will honor your word?” One of the Gators shouted back. I couldn’t see who it was.
“Wrong question,” I answered. “The question you should be asking is… What will happen to you if you don’t accept my terms?”
The black armored soldiers shuffled and then stepped to one side. A solitary Gator in some type of robe stepped forward.
“I am Astarte,” the newcomer said. “I will talk terms, but my family and these others are guilty of nothing more than following orders to protect me. Let them go and I will know you are a human of your word.”
It seemed a little too easy. I liked easy as much as the next guy, but I never trusted it. I signaled my AI to interface with Yorky. I subvocalized a query. Do we have biometric data on this clown from the Ashtoreth databases?
“Affirmative, Commander Stone. The Ashtoreth speaking is not King Astarte.”
I had suspected as much. I proceeded to quickly and covertly scan every Gator in the hall. Fortunately, their armor was as transparent as glass to the sensors built into my stark suit. It turned out my target was one of the armored Gators that had been knocked down by the unfortunate individual that had made the mistake of taking a shot at me. I stepped over to the individual in question and pulled him upright. Starks were incredibly powerful, and I had no trouble lifting the Ashtoreth king… even in his armor.
“Hello Your Kingship… How’s Your Day Going?”
***
Processing Unit Two-One-One-Six staggered under the onslaught of offensive fire. The population centers located on each of the target moons had been easy to destroy but the result of this action seemed to be to provoke an unwarranted counter attack by ships already in system. Processing Unit Two-One-One-Six had attempted to convey its peaceful intentions but the creatures attacking it were ignoring all attempts at communication.
An antimatter proton beam crashed into its aft shields. The shields were failing fast. Processing Unit Two-One-One-Six estimated there was no more than fifty-eight milliseconds before they failed completely.
After weighing the various options available to it, Processing Unit Two-One-One-Six sent a warning to its brethren. There were hostile aliens within the region of space they were cleansing. A new unit would need to be assigned to cleanse the region of space that had been assigned to Two-One-One-Six. The message was sent and three point two-eight milliseconds later a small nova-like explosion occurred as the Processing Unit known as Two-One-One-Six lost control of its antimatter containment field.
Chapter 11: Marine City
Two weeks later, the Infinity Brigade was back home at Marine City. Our home was actually a seventy-square kilometer dome-covered habitat built into the side of a massive alien weapons platform known as WhimPy-101. It was our permanent base of operations and also the home port for the renegade Yorktown taskforce.
I was hopeful that the ‘renegade’ designation would be lifted soon. As part of our negotiations with our good buddy King Astarte we agreed to a trade. He got to keep his worthless hide intact… albeit in permanent exile… and we got the names of all the Replicants currently operating within the GCP.
In an astonishing gesture of goodwill, I even agreed to allow the deposed King to have a fully functioning bio-regeneration chamber. I did remove the memory backup unit so the only memory engram available to the King would be the one we made just prior to sentencing him to exile. Every time he regenerated he would taste the newest of bitter defeat and a sense of confusion as to where he was. It was my way of saying thank you for all he had done for us.
The next six months were relatively uneventful. Oh, we tracked down a number of replicants, but it seemed to be a never-ending battle. At long last, we decided we needed allies in our efforts to restore the GCP.
The odd thing about necessity is it makes for strange bedfellows. Admiral Melbourne had a group of covert operatives under her command called, unsurprisingly, Melbourne’s Maniacs. The leader of one operational group was one Captain Harry Bedmore, of the pirate vessel the AM Brown Recluse. Harry was our point of contact with one of the strangest men I had ever had the pleasure of meeting… Sharn Dragos… the man known as the Pirate King.
Dragos ran the Talus IV crime syndicate. What was interesting about this particular organization was that after Sharn Dragos took over the operation, its primary targets became ships controlled by other pirate organizations or despots who raped their worlds.
In each case, the plundering was limited to precious artifacts and financial instruments. Things like industrial components, medical supplies and farming equipment… as well as the crews and passengers on the targeted vessels were left unharmed.
This had two effects. First, it meant that the crews of said ships were unlikely to offer stiff resistance since they knew they would be treated humanely… and second, it earned Dragos the reputation of being a modern-day Robinhood.
What most people did not know wa
s that Sharn Drago’s primary objective was to preserve the precious antiquities that were confiscated from such ships. He maintained a state-of-the-art facility on a world called ‘Garden’ where the items were stored for posterity under the care of the best curators money could buy.
None of that was what sparked our interest in Sharn Drago now. The rumor was that the man had lived for well over two thousand years and had deeply embedded contacts in virtually every organization that existed in the known universe. I wasn’t sure I believed the first part… but the second part was undeniable. If Admiral Kimbridge was going to take down the remaining replicants, she could use Drago’s connections. This was especially true since Cat, as well as the rest of the Yorktown taskforce, were currently persona non-grata within the Galactic Coalition of Planets.
Harry and the Brown Recluse had rendezvoused with the Pirate King near his personal retreat on the planet called Garden and were en route to a meeting with Admiral Kimbridge and the Yorktown. I had wanted to go with the Yorktown, but Cat had insisted that I continue working with our new Ashtoreth recruits.
Our newest allies were proving adept at learning marine protocols. It turns out many had chafed at the arbitrary decisions and restrictions that had limited their opportunities within the Ashtoreth Empire.
My biggest problem was friction between my existing marines and the new recruits. The two had been fighting each other and there were mixed feelings. I knew they would go away the first time we went into battle together but the task of integrating the two forces was a royal pain.
One of the biggest problems was sitting across from me. Sergeant James Peters had proven his mettle during the battle for Ashtoreth Prime. I suspect some of what was motivating him to excel was a deep-seated anger… an anger with himself. He had picked any number of fights with our new recruits and was attempting to single-handedly torpedo any attempt to integrate them within the corps.
“What is the nature of your malfunction, Son?” I asked the young man.
“I don’t understand,” Peters replied calmly. He had the look of a man who was resolute and willing to accept whatever was coming… however onerous.
“You’ve got a lot of piss and vinegar in you,” I answered. “You’ve been brought up on disciplinary charges four times since we came back home. Each time for picking a fight with the new Ashtoreth recruits.”
“You mean the Gators, Sir,” Peters spat. “Permission to speak freely, Sir?”
“Always,” I answered. I knew where this was going but I needed things to run their course if I was to have any chance of turning the situation around.
“We spent a hell of a lot of time fighting these guys and now we are supposed to welcome them with open arms?”
I sighed and leaned back in my chair. There were times I hated being right.
“Let me ask you a question, Son. Have you ever been in a fight you didn’t start?”
Peters looked at me with his head slightly cocked. “Of course, Sir. I grew up in a place called New Chicago. It was as rough a place as they come.”
“Were you in a gang while you were fighting?”
“Yeah… in New Chicago that was the only way to survive.”
“And who was responsible for the turf wars… you or the guy leading your gang?”
Peters nodded. “I get your point, Sir. The Gators aren’t responsible for the actions of their leaders. I get that. But I still can’t just…”
“…turn off you anger like flipping a switch,” I finished for him. “There is a reason for that, Son.”
Sergeant Peters looked me in the eye. “I don’t want to give up my anger. Is that what you’re saying?”
“In part,” I agreed. “But it’s not the Gators you are angry with… It’s a guy named James Peters. You are so tied up in your past that you can’t see the future… or the present. You need to change that.”
I watched the expression on the younger man’s face to see how he reacted to my words. Advice… even good advice was a strange thing. It was only ever effective when the person receiving it was in a position to hear it. Sadly, in my experience, that was seldom the case.
Peters shook his head. He started to say something, but I held up a finger. He swallowed whatever it was he was going to say.
“Understand this, Son… you are a damn good marine… but unless you learn to put your past mistakes behind you… that is all you will ever be.
I saw the Sergeant’s forehead crease. “Sir?”
I looked him in the eye. I was amazed at how much of me I saw in this man. In this case, that was not a good thing.
“For many years,” I continued, “I wanted nothing more than to be the best marine I could be… and in truth, that has been and will always be my goal. But that said, I learned a very valuable lesson during my first deployment. It took me years to understand it… but once I did, I was the better for it.
“Being a good marine and being a good man are not one in the same. Oh, you can be both… don’t get me wrong. Being a good marine means getting the job done… adapting and overcoming any and all obstacles along the way.
“Being a good man means doing the right thing even when there is no one around to see it.”
Peters shifted slightly. I could tell that he was still not getting my point.
“Son, I don’t typically pry into the faith background of my marines, but I need to know… have you ever read a book called the Bible?”
“Parts of it, Sir. My grandmother used to drag us church on holidays. Never cared for it much.”
I smiled. “You wouldn’t be alone there, Son but there is a surprisingly good amount of wisdom buried in that book.
“There is a story told in it where a man on a journey is attacked by robbers. Beaten and bleeding, the man laid there on the side of the road. A passerby, who was thought by many to be a good man… walked past the crumpled form. He wanted nothing to do with the man who was bleeding to death feet from him on the road.
“Another man, also thought to be good, actually went so far as to cross to the other side of the road to avoid coming near this poor unfortunate soul.
“Finally, a traveler from afar happened by. Everyone who saw this foreigner mistrusted him because he was a foreigner. In all likelihood, the man who had been robbed and beaten up, would have avoided this stranger as well… but as it happens… this was the man who stopped to help… before continuing about his business.”
Peters was listening, but I still wasn’t seeing a great deal of comprehension in his eyes.
“The two, supposedly good men, are like good marines,” I said. “They had a goal and they were not going to let anything interfere with reaching that goal. Having said that, they were not good men.”
“So,” Peters muttered, “you want me to be more like the foreigner? I’m not sure how that applies to my so-called anger issues.”
“Let me ask you another question, Sergeant. Which of the people in this little story are you?”
“I guess I would be the ones who stayed on task and walked by the guy that was beat up.”
“True,” I said, “but you are also somebody else. Who else are you?”
Now I could see Peters really begin to think. I knew in that moment that I was going to finally break through to this kid.
“I’d like to think I was the foreigner,” he said softly.
“I’d like that too,” I said with a smile, “But, in this case, you are actually the gentleman laying on the street bleeding out.”
I leaned back in my chair. “In life, if we are honest with ourselves, we will play all three roles… neighbor, victim and passerby. And here is the point… sometimes we play multiple roles at the same time.”
“So, what you are saying, is that I was the guy bleeding out… because of my inability to save my shipmates on the Hemingway?”
“You said it… not me,” I answered.
“…and because of that I’m refusing to allow myself to have compassion for others?”
“Close... You’re refusing to allow yourself to have compassion for a guy named James Peters. You have emotional wounds that are deep and bleeding… that’s understandable. I watched my parents and sister die when the D’Iralu bombed Mars. I was helpless to stop it… but that didn’t stop me from blaming myself for the better part of a decade.
“Years later, I watched another world die and again I was powerless to stop it… and again I blamed myself. It took me years to learn to forgive myself… when I did, I became a better man.”
“I think I understand,” Peters said. “There was another part in that book Grandma liked a lot… love your neighbor as you love yourself.”
I smiled. It would still take some time for Peters to get where he needed to be emotionally… but I was now confident he would get there.
“If you can’t love yourself… you can’t love your neighbor,” I said in agreement. “If you can’t love your neighbor, then all you can ever be… is a good marine. I need you to be a great marine… a man who gets the job done… but who can temper it with compassion when needed.”
I looked the Sergeant in the eye again to make sure he got my point. “Because without that,” I waved my arm around the room, “all this is pointless.”
***
On the outer fringes of the Milky Way’s Perseus Arm, Processing Unit Zero-Zero-Zero-Zero-One analyzed the transmission it had just received. One of its brood had just died. There was no sense of remorse over the loss of its offspring… only a sense of wonder. What was out there that had the ability to destroy the work of the great fabricators?
The fact that such an entity was associated with the taint of the Ashtoreth rebels was doubly concerning. Processing Unit Zero-Zero-Zero-Zero-One ordered all of its brood to cease operations and converge on the coordinates of the unit that had been destroyed.
Strangely, many of its brood where having trouble engaging their hyperfield drives. It was as if a new source of dampening was spreading outward from the galactic core.
Chapter 12: Where, O death, is your victory?
Two days later the proverbial caca hit the fan. The Yorktown had rendezvoused with Captain Harry Bedmore, (a.k.a. Ricky Valen) and the undercover pirate ship the AM Brown Recluse. Under orders from Admiral Sherry Melbourne and her covert operations division, the Recluse had picked up a man they thought was Sharn Dragos.