Shadows of the Gods: Crimson Worlds Refugees II

by Jay Allan

  He’d been in more than one fight where his crews had been forced to rush from the tanks to their posts under battle conditions. It was one of the least glamorous experiences in space travel, sitting at a workstation in deadly danger, enduring the stress of battle and the discomfort of slowly-drying goo all over your body, your clothes plastered to your skin. But there wasn’t an enemy ship in sight, indeed nowhere in the X48 system that Midway’s scanners could detect…and the nav computers could position his ships in and around planetary orbit. That gave his people a few extra minutes.

  “At least the enemy is giving us a chance for a shower.” James Horace was standing next to the admiral, the two of them buck naked and covered in slime, just like everyone else in the large chamber. The Superpowers had varying cultural standards and moral codes…and nudity taboos varied from nation to nation. But those choosing a career in the Powers’ respective navies got over them quickly. Spaceships were cramped affairs, even the big battleships were always short of free space. And you went into the tanks naked. You floated there naked in the slop that filled them. And you climbed out naked and, if the tactical situation offered, you showered and dressed, surrounded by your comrades, men and women. There was no place in space war for the bashful.

  Compton nodded and walked over to the showers, closing his eyes as the hot water jets sprayed all over him, washing him clean in an instant. A few seconds later a blast of hot air dried him just as quickly. He felt immediately better, and with the increased physical comfort, his mind started to clear. He was still sluggish…the drugs remained in his system, and the ones the med unit had injected to counteract them were only partially effective. It would be at least an hour before he was truly back to normal. Still, he was much sharper than he’d been in the tank, and for now he’d take that.

  “I want scanners on max, James. I mean max. I don’t trust this, not for a minute. The enemy didn’t chase us here just to let us go. If they’re not here hiding, then they’re coming.”

  “I agree, sir. I’d like to launch some fighters…to do a longer-ranged sweep. There are asteroids and particulate clouds all over this system. Lots of places enemy ships could hide from our long-ranged scanners.”

  “You’re right,” Compton said, as he squeezed into the survival suit he wore under his combat uniform. “I’ll order Hurley to launch one of her wings. That will leave the rest of her squadrons in reserve. Just in case.”

  Horace nodded, zipping up his uniform. “With your permission, Admiral, I’ll get back to the bridge.”

  Compton nodded, wondering to himself how his flag captain had dressed himself so quickly. He was still putting on his pants himself. “You go,” he said, standing up and reaching for his shirt. I’ll be on the flag bridge.

  Horace stepped back and snapped off a quick salute. Then he trotted toward the central lifts. Compton sat down on a small bench and slipped his feet into one of his boots. He looked around, over his shoulder. It looked like two thirds of his people were already dressed, gone or on their way out the door.

  Maybe Horace isn’t so quick after all. Maybe it’s just me who’s slow. Getting old, I guess.

  He let out a quick sigh and shoved his foot in the other boot. Then he hopped up, following the wave of hurriedly reassembled spacers to the transport tubes.

  * * *

  “Orbit established, Admiral. Scanning the surface now.”

  The response stuck in Compton’s throat, and he just nodded silently. His face was a mask, impervious, unshakable, but inside he was mourning for his friends. He knew many of his spacers were trying to be hopeful, expecting to find the expedition unharmed and ready to evac. But Compton’s mind was fixed on Wolverine. The ship had been attacked, that much was certain. And that meant First Imperium ships had been to X48 II.

  He stifled a sigh. Max Harmon was dead, that was almost certain. Captain Montcliff’s report had been clear, and it left no room for doubt, or for hope. Harmon had been in a shuttle, under attack by a First Imperium Gremlin. He’d had no chance.

  He’d briefly latched on to the belief that it hadn’t been a Gremlin, that Wolverine and Harmon’s shuttle had run into some vestigial part of the planet’s defensive grid, a satellite or something similar. That probably wouldn’t have increased Harmon’s chances, but at least it left a possibility that the expedition had remained undetected. But a review of Wolverine’s scanner records killed that hope. There was no question. They’d been attacked by a Gremlin. And where one First Imperium vessel visited, others would have followed.

  Compton had been over and over things in his mind, but he kept coming back to the same bleak place. It had been almost five Earth weeks since Wolverine had made its escape…more than enough for that Gremlin to have called for help.

  Which makes it even more inexplicable why there are no forces in this system…at least forces that we know of…

  Compton stared at the main display, at the blue and white globe beneath them. The planet was beautiful, there was no question of that. But Compton saw only death. Sophie, Hieronymus, Ana…everyone he’d sent down there. He’d believed they were dead for weeks, but it was different now. Before, there had been at least some uncertainty, some spark his mind could cling to. But in a few seconds it would be confirmed. The doubts would be…

  “Sir, I’m picking up energy readings. And the optical scanners are getting images of what appear to be cultivated areas.” Cortez spun around. “Admiral we’re definitely getting movement down there…and low level energy emissions.”

  Compton felt a jolt go through his body. Could it be? “I want all that confirmed, Commander.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  Compton punched at the controls of his workstation, bringing up the images on his personal screen. My God, how is it possible, he thought, still unwilling to allow himself to accept what he was seeing.

  “All scans confirmed, Admiral. The landing party is definitely down there…at least some of it.”

  Compton felt the adrenalin flowing through his system. He hadn’t expected to find anyone alive, but if he had people still down there, he was damned sure going to get them back to the fleet.

  “We’re two weeks early, so they’ll still be on short range com only, keeping a low profile. Send a shuttle down to base camp, Commander. Advise Colonel Preston…” He thought, but didn’t say, ‘or his replacement.’ “…that the fleet has arrived. He is to prepare for immediate evac. Tell him to salvage what he can, but he is to start sending his people up immediately. We’ll have to abandon the crops. Time is of the essence.” He looked around the flag bridge, almost as if he felt someone was sneaking up behind him. “I don’t know why there are no enemy ships here, but I’m damned sure that won’t last. We’ve got to get the hell out of here. As quickly as possible.”

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Research Notes of Hieronymus Cutter

  Almeerhan’s final battle has begun. He was correct. The Regent’s forces appear to have assembled from all over the planet, converging on the city we dubbed New York. While I am still uncertain how I feel about what he and his comrades did on Earth so long ago, I cannot help but feel that we should try to help him. It feels wrong somehow to sit here waiting, leaving him to his fate while the enemy completely ignores us. Yet, to involve ourselves in the battle would be to put at greater risk all he worked so long to achieve. I must remember that Almeerhan is ready to meet his fate, perhaps even eager. He is a remnant from a time long past, and he has done far more than his share.

  The battle that rages is fierce, and I do not know how long he will be able to hold against the forces arrayed against him. The fleet is not due back for two more weeks, and I fear Almeerhan will be defeated long before then. Which brings up a final question…how long will we be able to hold out if the enemy attacks us after it destroys him?

  X48 System – Planet II

  Base Camp – “Plymouth Rock”

  The Fleet: 100 ships, 26075 crew

  “Keep your eyes open, all
of you. I don’t care how quiet it seems, they’ll come eventually. And if that’s when you chose to zone out, they’ll blow your pretty little asses to dust before you know what hit you.” Kyle Bruce was walking along the trench his Marines had dug, one eye almost constantly fixed on his display. His people had scanners set up out ten kilometers, and he had a drone in the air as often as he could spare one from his dwindling stock. His people had finished building their defensive positions two weeks before, and they’d been nervously manning them ever since.

  He had the rest of his platoon, plus half a company Colonel Preston had attached to him to beef up his forces. It was a captain’s billet, not a lieutenant’s but Major Frasier had as good as promised him his bars, assuming they managed to get the hell off this Godforsaken planet.

  He’d rushed out to set up the defensive line almost immediately after he and the others got back to base camp. The position was about four klicks from Plymouth Rock and directly between it and New York. He’d had people in place and dug in within a few hours, and they’d been there ever since.

  They’d practically fled from Camp Alpha as the enemy assault moved in on the city. For a few minutes, Bruce—and most of the others—figured they were dead, caught unprepared and in the open by the First Imperium attack force. But the enemy bots had ignored them completely, and thrown themselves into the city, firing away at anything there that moved…or even looked like it might move. And the ruins fought back. At least something in the ruins did. Whatever Cutter had run into down there, it was real. There was no doubt about that. And it was pissed too.

  Bruce had been dispatched to set up the defensive line while Colonel Preston and Major Frasier met with Sophie Barcomme and Hieronymus and Ana to discuss what to do. Bruce didn’t know what they talked about or any strategies they agreed upon, but the next day he’d gotten his reinforcements…and Barcomme’s people took to the fields, beginning a hurried harvest of their crops. Bruce wasn’t a botanist, or even a farmer, but it didn’t take an expert to realize they were moving up the timetable considerably. That had to affect the crop yields, but he guessed some food was better than none. And if they stuck around here too long…and those First Imperium warbots turned their attention to base camp, nothing was what they were likely to get.

  He looked out across the rolling plains, in the direction of the city. There were dense columns of thick black smoke rising up over the intervening ridge. The high ground between blocked most of the sounds of combat, but every now and again one of the scanners picked up the rumble of an explosion. The fight had been going on for days now, and it showed no signs of letting up. Indeed, his people had spotted new convoys of First Imperium bots moving toward the battle.

  How many of those are still on this planet? Still functional?

  He’d faced the enemy ground forces on X18 too, but there hadn’t been nearly as many there as he was seeing here. The forces still active on this planet were ten or twenty times as large.

  Or even larger. You don’t know they’ve deployed everything yet.

  Clearly there was a fight here eons before, one that caused the First Imperium to send vast armies to this world. And both sides have survivors…still, after all the millennia. And they’re fighting the final battle, even now.

  He tried to imagine a conflict surviving for so long, a dispute so profound, even half a million years was insufficient to wear it down. Of forces that could lose contact with each other for eons and then immediately resume their combat when they rediscovered each other.

  The same thought went through his head, for what seemed like the millionth time.

  What Hieronymus Cutter had found down there. Was it an ally? Or at least an enemy of our enemy?

  * * *

  “Fuuuuuck.” McCloud drew out the word as he stared across the plain toward the city. Whole sections were flattened, the ruins that had stood there, which had lasted half a million years, mostly gone, pounded to dust by the savage back and forth fighting.

  The enemy warbots surged forward, only to be driven back by withering fire from hidden emplacements. And massive explosions swept away dozens of First Imperium units, leaving nothing but charred ground in their wake.

  “No wonder they’ve been leaving us alone. They’ve got their hands full right here.” Cutter was crouched down behind a boulder, perhaps a meter and a half from McCloud. He had a heavy breastplate on, and thigh and arm guards…as much body armor as a man could manage without a powered suit. And his assault rifle, the one the Marines had given him in the tunnels, was strapped across his back.

  The decision to send a scouting party back to New York to get a close look at the fight raging there had been controversial enough. But when Hieronymus Cutter stood up and declared he was going along, the room erupted like a volcano. No one else thought it was a good idea. Colonel Preston ordered him to stay behind. Frasier tried to rationalize, to talk him out of it. And Ana Zhukov begged him to stay in camp, not hesitating to throw in a strong helping of tears to back her pleas. But none of it made a difference. Cutter insisted on going, on having one last look at the city. He knew more than the rest of them about what was truly there…and he felt almost as if a friend was fighting this terrible battle, one that would surely be his last. He had to go and see with his own eyes. One last time.

  Cutter scrambled around the rock he was using for cover, trying to get a view toward the direction his people had gone when they’d first entered the catacombs. That’s where the Regent’s forces were heading. To the secret underground complex. To destroy Almeerhan and the machinery that kept him…he wasn’t sure ‘alive’ was the right word. Functional? Preserved?

  The Regent’s forces…that’s how’d he’d begun to think of them, no longer as First Imperium, as he’d identified them for years now. His mind was still awash with confusion, and he still felt resentment against Almeerhan and his people. For what they had done on Earth…and for their own mistakes in unleashing something like the Regent on the galaxy. But he couldn’t bring himself to hate the strange alien presence. Indeed, he’d been wondering almost since he’d left what it must have been like to wait for such an unimaginably long time. Alone.

  Almeerhan and his comrades had given up their fight long before, poured their remaining resources into preparing to aid those who came after them. If they’d created the danger, they’d also done all they could to aid in its eventual destruction. And one hundred of them had locked themselves away, deep in the ground, first to spend thousands of years in stasis, and later tens of thousands as disembodied data. Their race deserved some anger, some resentment, he knew. But also some understanding and respect. Certainly, Almeerhan and his comrades had done all they could to atone for their race’s failing.

  “We’d better get out of here, Duff.” He glanced over at the giant Marine. McCloud had a fearsome reputation, as a discipline problem and a hothead. He was the last person anyone would have expected Hieronymus Cutter to bond with…but the two fit somehow.

  “I’m with you, Doc.” Then, on the unitwide com, “We’re pulling out. I want everybody formed up over here. We’re moving out in two minutes, so unless you want to hang out here alone…”.

  * * *

  Colonel Preston was sitting in the camp’s command post. It was small, spare, just a standard portable shelter with some communications equipment jammed inside. He was watching the harvesting operation, and he couldn’t help but feel a certain amount of quiet admiration. The Marines considered themselves an elite outfit, one that conducted their operations with a certain level of efficiency. But watching Sophie Barcomme’s people in action had impressed him in a way he’d hardly expected.

  They’d only started three days before, but they’d loaded the shuttles with thousands of tons of grains and legumes. The output had been lower than expected, but that was because they were harvesting two weeks early, not through any failure of theirs. Indeed, the fact that they were able to glean so much useful food from the fields this early was a testament to th
e job they had done.

  Preston didn’t know if there was any point to moving up the schedule. The expedition couldn’t go anywhere until the fleet got back…and that was still two weeks out. But he’d done it anyway. He’d order the shuttles to launch if he had to…to wait in orbit, safe at least from the combat raging on the surface. There weren’t enough ships to hold everybody, but at least he could get the scientists and some of the food the fleet so desperately needed off-planet. His Marines would stay. They would dig in and hold on until the fleet returned, and the shuttles came back to retrieve them. He didn’t fool himself…two weeks was a long time, and if the First Imperium forces defeated the mysterious force under New York, his people would have their hands full. But they were Marines, that’s what they were made for. And at least they would be able to focus on the fight itself, without civilians to protect or farmlands to look after.

  He leaned back, trying to stretch as much as he could in his armor. He’d ordered the Marines into combat conditions, and that meant fighting suits around the clock. For most of the time since they’d landed, he’d only had his people suited up when they were on patrol duty. But now he knew the fight could come at any time.

  He’d sent Lieutenant Bruce and his people to set up defensive line between the city and the camp. He felt a little guilty about sending Bruce back so soon after he’d returned, but he was one of the few officers who’d seen at least some of what he might face there. Beyond that, Bruce was rapidly becoming one of his “go to” officers…one he was going to make him Captain Bruce the instant they returned to the fleet.