by Scott Moon
The Forever Siren
SMC Marauders: Book 3
Scott Moon
For my the readers who keep me going when times get tough. Thank you.
Contents
1. Rock Bottom
2. Master and Servant
3. Go For Help
4. Cracked
5. Lacy’s Secret
6. The Escaping Doctor
7. Bad Faith
8. Soldottir
9. Space Pirates
10. Interview
11. Cronin and Eigon
12. Visions and Nightmares
13. Sun Killers
14. Cassandra
15. Void Battle
16. Space Walk
17. Hanax Attacks
18. Hunger and Desperation
19. Roosevelt Falls
20. Nix Ship
21. The Burner Queen’s Ultimatum
22. Attitude
23. Mutiny
24. The Siren Camp
25. Kneel and Obey
26. Danzig’s Fight
27. Jeda’s Fight
28. The Connelly Twins
29. Kimberly and Tion
30. Change of Plans
31. Kimberly’s Argument
32. Defying the Burner Queen
33. The Red Nebula
34. Away from Earth
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1
Rock Bottom
Kevin sat with his feet apart, leaning his elbows on his knees and hanging his head low in a kind of half sleep while his armor recharged from one of the camp generators. The SMC Marauder base was dark in the center and surrounded by flashes of light. On the perimeter, UNA rocket batteries ripped the air like the sound of God’s velcro. Kevin couldn’t see which enemy they were fighting now.
Every muscle in his body ached. His bones felt broken apart and mended back together. None of these post-combat sensations were new. What amazed him were the little things—skin rashes and jammed toenails. His thirst persisted no matter how much water he consumed. The unit medic, Kingsley, said they were saving IV bags for the next round of casualties.
UNA and CWF forces bivouacked on the best ground available, none of it good. Low hills flanked the area on three sides and a waterway blocked the fourth.
An easy pistol shot beyond the western hillcrest was a system of canyons no one liked. It led straight to their position. The Burners didn’t seem to trust it either or weren’t using it yet.
At the moment, the UNA and CWF forces held the hillside perimeter. Everyone understood the colossal disaster it would be when they were overrun. Fighting from low ground with enemies above them in three directions while the lake blocked them was a nightmare scenario.
Better than being dead, but not by much.
Just over the horizon was the glow of the Ignari Burners. Like the Siren and the Siren-nix, they stored up power throughout the day and guarded them at night. Every general, unit commander, and grunt expected a night attack that never came.
Kevin stared at the armor stacked in front of him. Not long ago, it had made him feel powerful. Now it was bolted back together for the fourth or fifth time and took hours to recharge.
Looking at it exhausted him as he thought of the strength it took to drive it. Unlike movie armor, it amplified the wearer’s strength rather than granting magic-like super powers. It was awesome technology but seemed insignificant compared to the creatures he’d faced on this planet.
“Kevin, I’m turning in,” Peter Foster said, walking toward a camouflage pup tent.
“Do it.”
“Chaf and Edwards have watch. You should sleep,” Foster said.
“Sure. In a bit. I’m too tired to sleep,” Kevin said.
He waited for the sound of snoring then headed west for the canyons. He saluted or ignored other insomniacs as was appropriate to their rank. Fewer Marines suffered the affliction as the Ignari Burner siege wore on. Exhaustion had its benefits. Unconsciousness took everyone down in time.
Getting out of the camp was easier than getting back in. He knew every step of every guard on watch tonight. Slipping past Chaf and Edwards was easy because he knew them well. They had survived Basic Training Facility 029 together and Advanced Infantry Training after that.
He walked normally, always checking for his friends or other Marines out to watch the rockets lash out at Burners or Siren-nix who came too near the perimeter.
The most important item he carried was an identifier tag that prevented the automated defenses from blowing him to pieces before a human eye detected he was there. He would have to answer questions and be searched, but he could get back inside the camp if caught.
Confident he was alone, he ducked into a draw that cut through a hill and ended in a canyon.
“What the fuck are you doing?”
Kevin pulled his combat knife from his belt and spun around at the sound of Foster’s voice. “Don’t sneak up on me out here!”
His friend was short, wiry, and annoying. From the first day they met, Foster had said the wrong thing at the wrong time and become a regular nuisance.
“Never mind that. Where are you going?”
Kevin sheathed his blade and reviewed a mental map of the area, trying to understand how Foster had ambushed him. “This isn’t your style, Fos. You sleep like the dead.”
“Not when one of my friends has made a habit of trying to get killed and/or court-martialed.” He shivered against the cold and looked around as though realizing he might be also in trouble if they were found. “I hate this planet.”
“Thanks for reminding me where we are,” Kevin said. “The old Forever Siren still has Ace and Amanda. I can’t sleep until I look for them.”
“You know they’re not hunkered down in the wilderness. They’re in that messed-up ziggurat city or someplace. What would they be doing creeping around our camp perimeter?”
“Looking for me.”
Foster swore under his breath. “Fine. I’m going with you.”
“Just give me some space. I need to think.”
“You wouldn’t lie to me?” Foster asked.
“I just want to get them back. You know me, Fos.”
“You promise me, you swear to God you’re not giving information to that Siren bitch who jacked you up in the chamber thingy,” Foster said.
Kevin raised his left hand palm outward. “Swear.”
Foster held his gaze. “All right. If you’re not back in fifteen minutes, I’m telling Lovejoy.”
“Whatever. I’ll be back in two hours,” Kevin said. “What am I supposed to do in fifteen minutes? I’d never get into the canyons in twice that.”
Foster spread his hands. “Exactly. Just come back with me. Get some sleep. You look like shit.”
“Can’t until I do this.”
“I’ll go with you.”
“Fuck, Fos, do I have to kick your ass just to get a little peace?”
“I’m telling Lovejoy you’re on another of your wild goose chases.”
“In two hours, tell him anything you want.”
“Fifteen minutes.”
“Might as well tell him now because I won’t be back in fifteen minutes.” Kevin turned toward the canyons and walked away. The first rocket tower was twenty meters out. He avoided it and jogged into a canyon where even the best technology would lose him.
The canyon followed no logical pattern. Kevin found swift rivers and streams that had caused millions of years of erosion. He observed evidence of past earthquakes. What seemed the wrath of an angry god made the plac
e a deep maze that stretched for hundreds of miles, according to a recent situation briefing.
Bombardments to ensure no enemies approached through the maze exacerbated the random damage. Artillery shells left craters. Orbital bombardment from the early days of the invasion had shattered rock towers and created new lakes in the more expansive parts of the maze.
He stopped to watch a moon through a fifty-meter-wide hole in one of the thousand-meter-high towers far from the UNA base camp.
The glow of enemy positions seemed distant. Veins of luminescent minerals twisted in horizontal patterns that reminded him of poorly planned wiring or the throbbing veins of an alien leviathan.
He rarely saw animals. Night birds sang in the distance. Monsters growled from cave openings high and low.
The night sky above Siris was full of a red nebula that seemed ready to eat the stars. He looked for evidence of UNA or CWF ships orbiting the planet but saw nothing. The official briefing from Captain Kingstar, acting commander of all ground forces, coincided with everything coming out of the rumor mill.
Red and Blue Fleets had been decimated with few survivors scattering to nearby systems. Black Fleet, the long-absent rogues of the service, never showed up and never would. Foster and Chaf speculated they were destroyed by the Burners long before the war began and thus couldn’t have answered the rallying cry of the UNA fleets if they wanted to. None of the official reports contradicted them.
Kevin put one hand on the wall then pulled it back. He checked the gravel beneath his feet and found it hot as the dark stone around him. Several heartbeats later, he saw a glow coming from around the bend in the canyon passageway.
“Stay where you are, Kevin Connelly,” the voice of the previous Forever Siren said, voice distorting like a brush fire. She was something else now, no longer the guardian of this planet, but a creature who had made some kind of deal with the Ignari Burners. “I do not intend to immolate you.”
“You promised to show me Ace and Amanda.” Kevin gripped the handle of his knife and braced for action.
Her appearance drove thought from his mind. Suddenly too weak to run, he stood his ground against a many-armed woman wreathed in fire.
Her form was in many ways female perfection. Like other Sirens he’d met, she held her accessory arms on her back and covered them with flowing, waist-length hair. In her case, the spiraling curls were golden flames. Her body heat distorted the air and her eyes were like nuclear fusion.
“I came alone and I have no weapons,” she said.
Kevin kept his mouth shut. There was a sense if he spoke out of turn, his tongue would be scorched from his mouth. Connellys weren’t made to resist sarcasm or foolhardy displays of bravado. Kevin was no exception.
“I brought a combat knife. You better watch yourself,” he said.
He waited for laughter that never materialized.
“Did Chrysalis make you a Burner, or was that a separate betrayal?” he asked.
“You were part of my transformation,” she said, ignoring his accusation.
Kevin shuddered. Fear as black as the void of space cut into his soul. “Which is another reason you should give me the twins.”
“I don’t follow,” she said, staring him down as she swayed forward step by slow step.
“You couldn’t have made this transformation without me. So I’m a threat to you.”
She burned with a sound. Looking at her was like staring into a flame for too long. “I think not.”
“You promised to let me see them,” he said, wanting to back up and escape the growing heat.
“They are too weak to make the journey. I might have brought them, killed them in the process, and showed you twisted corpses,” she said. “Would that have pleased you? I think not.”
Kevin gripped the handle of his knife until the tendons across his knuckles and along his fingers ached. Jaw locked, body trembling, he was about to do something stupid. This was a hundred times worse than the moments before he fought with his brother Arthur.
“I can only free them by destroying the Chrysalis chamber. The Siren are still my people, in a way. I cannot doom them by denying their chance for the final ascendancy,” she said. “The Guide escaped with the matrix for another Chrysalis chamber. The Nix rebels seem to believe Chrysalis chambers can be found elsewhere. That is why they have broken away and desire to use your home world to leave this galaxy.”
“What are you saying?” Kevin asked.
She smiled, and it was beautiful and horrible at the same time. “I will release your twin siblings. They are the only humans to survive Chrysalis. But first, you must kill the Guide called Guidis and recover the Chrysalis Matrix so that my people may find a new world that has not been devoured as this one has.”
“Maybe I’ll just take them back and let you and your people die.”
Another of her strange burning pauses unnerved him. “They spend their days writhing in the power washing through them. Without my help, it will kill them soon.”
“I survived Chrysalis,” Kevin said.
“Ah,” she said, then laughed softly.
Kevin stood defiant. His brother Arthur would negotiate a better deal if he were here, make demands and enforce his will.
“Do you feel... changed?” she asked.
Kevin stepped back.
The Burner Queen loomed over him. “I am greater than the Ignari and the Noctari combined, thanks to you.”
2
Master and Servant
Hanax lounged sideways on a chair in the Darkness. His horns curved from his head, reaching down his back until the tips thrust forward under his arms. Black fibers twisted across his skin like armor. He lowered his powerful hands to the armrests and aimed his gaze like he was the event horizon of a black hole and all sentient creatures should fear him.
Guidis entered at the far end of the chamber and began his walk of shame. A human would not comprehend the size of this place, Hanax thought.
The ancient sphere was more than a ship, more than a world, more than the greatest achievement of his race. It was the ultimate tool to resist their ancient enemies. The Ignari had inspired Hanax and his people to create the most dangerous fortress in this galaxy. Anything more powerful would draw enough energy to start a chain of destruction that might reach into neighboring galaxies.
The walkway leading to his control chair was long. Dim sidelights led straight through the chamber, revealing the slight concavity of the floor. Some of his people had forgotten they lived inside a sphere.
He watched Guidis approach for an hour. His former protégé walked with his back straight, his massive form expressing the confidence of a titan despite his failure. Unlike the minions he spawned, Guidis stood on legs as thick with muscle as his torso. His true form showed an over-reliance on physical strength.
Hanax narrowed his gaze. “Shall I grovel?”
“You mock me, Hanax.”
Stripped of his armor, Guidis was a foot shorter than Hanax. His caste lacked horns but possessed nonfunctioning tentacles that hung down their powerful backs. Like most of his caste, he tied them down to avoid looking like the hated Siren creatures.
“Do I?” He paused then made a show of considering his memory. “No, I’m certain you warned me you would return and force me to submit. Something about your glorious ascension to power and my worthless carcass.”
Guidis didn’t respond.
Hanax lifted an object from the armrest of his throne. He looked at the item in his palm, small and delicate as it was, and thought of his offspring and his mate. He smiled but did not allow Guidis to see the expression. Such tranquility would only make the wretched traveler’s own misery seem worse by comparison.
Hanax leaned forward and glared at the ambitious innovator. “Tell me what happened.”
Guidis flared his nostrils and constricted his pupils. Black veins twisted through his eyes and skin.
“Are you reaching for your servants? Only a fool would bring such vulnera
ble creatures here,” Hanax said. “I’m referring to the minions you created, not the troublesome new race.”
“I tried to steer the humans away from our home system. They think they know what and where the Darkness is, but they are fools.”
“Fools? Easy to defeat and master, then?”
“I am tired of your mockery!” Guidis shouted.
Hanax sprang from his throne, crossing the distance before Guidis could defend himself. A powerful backhand sent his former student sprawling on the black alloy floor.
Guidis scrambled backward before staggering to his feet, one holding his face and the other raised defensively. “I’ve done nothing wrong!”
“Then prostrate yourself,” Hanax grunted.
Guidis lay flat on his stomach, hands reaching forward with his palms up. “Lord Hanax, Master of the Darkness and wisest of our leaders, forgive me. I kept the humans away. They would have found our home system. Each time they crossed space, I diverted them. The risk I took was great. They are a violent and warlike race.”
Hanax snorted. “Can a race be non-violent and warlike?”
Guidis made sounds less than words, but more than sobbing grunts.
“Why should I keep you alive? What have you done to pay to preserve your children?” Hanax asked.
“Please, Lord Hanax!”
Hanax sat in his chair and dragged one of his long fingers across buttons and screens on the armrest of his chair. He growled a tuneless melody under his breath, then raised his hands and put them together.