As he pressed the control, the exit panel emitted several clicking sounds and then popped audibly inwards, followed moments later by the exterior armor plate as it hinged outwards.
Deadhand had been right. It only became another world when seen with one’s own eyes.
Although he found himself mostly in the shadow of an overhanging tree, Kaiser could still feel the burn of the red sun above. Gliese 667C, he had been informed. Although only a sixth of its light was in the visible spectrum, the red dwarf nevertheless exerted an astonishing effect at infrared wavelengths, keeping the precious planet warm beyond what one might otherwise have expected. The star’s power was prodigious but there was another reason for its present strength. Kaiser’s landing had taken place on the eve of summer. Within fifteen days, the satellite’s continuing orbit would take it more than twenty five million kilometers away from the star, depriving it of almost half its precious warmth.
How Earthly life had managed to take root so deeply was a mystery to him.
Kaiser was forced to use his flashlight to search for the heavy uniform, and he found it neatly folded and sealed in a bottom pocket of the Suit’s tactical vest. The mobile Suit hulked over him as he removed the garments, watching silently as its driver turned away and jogged at a brisk pace towards its kneeling twin.
Lippard was already waiting for him with a coy smile on her face, her aristocratic beauty not in the least bit lessened by the bulky armor of her exoskeleton. As usual, her silver hair was rolled into a tight bun, giving her a somewhat severe look that contrasted greatly with what he already knew about her. Kaiser pecked her lightly on the lips, their maraging steel sternums clashing noisily in the act, and the two drivers set off quickly towards the waterline below.
*****
Over the following ten minutes, Lippard was forced to gently defeat two amorous advances from her superior, who seemed unable to simply watch as she washed herself in the cold, clear stream. Kaiser’s demeanor when they were alone was something others who only knew him professionally would perhaps never guess, she thought with amusement. The Bavarian’s worry lines disappeared almost entirely, to be replaced by gentle crinkles around his eyes. His playfulness was almost puppy-like sometimes, although she was quite sure his order for their teammates to return to the meeting point had not been so innocent.
“If I didn’t know better, mein fuhrer, I would think you intend to achieve another first for the Earth Federation Forces.” She laughed playfully as he began to snuggle against her for a third time.
“Uhumm ... meine liebe, you are entirely wrong, such a thought has never passed through my mind. Wha – what are you doing?!”
“Why, putting on my uniform, of course. Since you are so intent on being noble.” She sighed sadly, secretly delighting in his disappointed expression.
“Kaiser, Deadhand here. Moose is recovered and the beacon signal is strong. Umm, coming any time soon?” An inquisitive voice squawked from his discarded earpiece on the ground.
Kaiser snatched up the earpiece and answered as Lippard continued to re-suit.
“Kaiser here. We will arrive in five mikes. You may both begin clearing operations, Over.”
“Only five mikes? Why the hurry?” There was a hint of humor in Deadhand’s voice.
“That is all. Over and out.” The commander replied levelly enough, an embarrassed smile momentarily present on his face.
Deadhand had spoken the truth, she thought. Re-encasing herself in the exoskeleton with Kaiser’s assistance, she noticed how much more snug the fit was, and found herself feeling more at ease as she moved around. Donned his own skeleton, the commander kept up his indignant expression as they returned to their larger halves, petulantly warning her not to be surprised if he didn’t power up immediately, as he’d possibly be satisfying himself in the PS over the following few minutes. Lippard laughed at that, mostly because the chances of her commander doing such a thing were about as high as the planet spontaneously combusting. Kaiser was not the sort. Even his advances towards her moments before had been nothing more than light flirtation. He certainly knew Lippard would never have yielded.
As they were approaching the Suits, he turned to her, curious.
“Come with me, Lippie, I want to show you something.” He said, and he set off briskly towards his kneeling Suit.
The commander leaped athletically onto its massive right thigh and proceeded to search the enormous tactical vest, removing what looked like a cluster of green grapes from one of its pockets. From another such pocket he removed a handful of dirt, and began to studiously sift through it, pecking at objects in the pile with his thumb and forefinger.
Apparently satisfied, Kaiser discarded the remaining soil and, dropping back to the ground, his skeleton absorbing the impact with as much ease as it would on Mars, he sat casually on the titan’s left foot, working one of the bone-white objects with an articulated pair of pliers he carried with him.
“What is it?” She asked.
Curiosity caught hold of her, knowing well that few things merited so much attention from him. The officer did not answer immediately, but instead appeared to be trying to crush the seed-like object with the pliers, and apparently with great difficulty since, despite the strength augmentation provided by his exoskeleton, he hadn’t yet succeeded. With an audible crack and to Kaiser’s pleased exclamations, the seed finally succumbed, revealing a rich red core inside. Rubbing the interior vigorously with his gloved thumb, he touched it to his tongue.
“Nein!” Lippard exclaimed, suddenly alarmed at his behavior.
Disregarding her reaction, he held one of the halves towards her.
“It is quite safe,” he added as she hesitated.
Feeling foolish and slightly nervous, Lippard brought the rustred core to her lips and licked it lightly. The taste caught her by surprise.
“Blood. It tastes a little like blood.” She commented, staring distrustfully at the object in her hand.
“Not blood. ferrous oxide, meine liebe. This place is all an enormous mine. See?” Kaiser exclaimed, breaking one of the green clustered seeds open with much greater ease. Its core was a somewhat paler red color, just shy of pink.
“The seeds store the mineral in them as they develop, and when they are mature, they are cultivated. My landing site was full of the ripe white seeds on the ground. That is why they would have a plantation so far from their cities. This location must have enormous iron deposits, and by collecting these resources using specially engineered trees, there would be no need for the locals to remain here in any number. They must be using the clearings to collect the seeds before transportation, I think. I knew that Command was up to something. And I was right, wasn’t I, Lippie?” He finished with a sly grin.
“Have we just captured an iron mine?” She asked as she looked around her with a new interest.
He nodded enthusiastically.
“And perhaps not only iron, Lippie. There are other plantations near this one, and I expect they might have hybrid species of trees collecting other minerals from the soil.”
“But how can this be used?”
“Simple, I think. The seed’s oil and organic materials must all be quite flammable. The seeds need only be incinerated in a foundry, with the bonus of the organics supplying some of the carbon for steel production. We have seen this before on Mars, remember? Although the colonists there were unable to fully address the low light conditions found so far from the sun. These locals seem to have solved that problem. Don’t you see, Lippie? Most of what we need to get started presently surrounds us.” Kaiser explained admiringly, slapping his armored thigh in enthusiasm and producing a stiff clang in the act.
Lippard felt momentarily awkward as she wondered whether the local population would put up with that, or whether they would consider the capture cause for war. She quickly put the thought out of her mind; Command had certainly made its decision for very valid reasons. The EFF Leviathan had, after all, just completed its first inter
stellar voyage, despite having originally only been designed for interplanetary jaunts. No matter how many refits a vessel was subjected to, its end product would never be quite as successful as with a specifically designed ship. In the Leviathan’s case its current military payload for an IS mission barely exceeded four hundred tons. And how did one occupy an entire planet with so little hardware? Why, the answer was hanging on the trees around her, and she realized suddenly that the advantage the plantation afforded them could not be overlooked. She had unconsciously known that such extreme measures might be necessary, now that she thought about it.
Duly re-Suited, both officers returned to the meeting point to find that the sergeants were well into clearing operations. Having apparently given up on using the tactical knife as an improvised axe, the pilots were setting their Suits’ weight against the trees, uprooting them easily before dragging them out to the plantation and emplacing them amidst a rapidly growing abatis wall. As Lippard went to assist her comrades, Kaiser approached the beacon and repositioned it carefully at coordinates previously extrapolated from orbital images. Having done that, he joined his teammates in the freshly booming business of knocking down trees.
A full twenty minutes before crunch time, the reconnaissance team had effectively cleared a circular area with a radius of forty meters around the radar beacon. As the minutes ticked away, the mobile Suits took up guard positions at the four cardinal points of the circle, facing outwards from behind the abattis as they awaited Ground Command’s descent to the planet’s surface.
Peering silently over the tortured roots of an uprooted tree she had personally emplaced, Lippard found herself hating the delay. It left her too much time to think.
For the first time she wondered at the kind of people who lived there. Were they the sort to fight, or did they have the wisdom to know a lost cause when they saw one? If they fought, would they fight honorably, or would they fall into the vicious coward routine? Lippard knew herself very well; Mars had taught her a lot about what she could expect from herself in a fight. Her gauntlets tightened around her laser platform as she thought of that planet. Her conclusions over the conflict’s origins had been about the only subject she’d ever disagreed with Kaiser over, but then again he could be strange about such things. Lippard knew that if the last was to prove true for those people, she would kill them all if she was given the chance.
An enormous sonic boom suddenly shook the forest’s limbs free of its avian inhabitants, announcing the imminent arrival of a behemoth. Moments later her OS motion alert warned her of a significant airborne signature above and behind her. She did not bother to look; a countdown had appeared in a foreground overlay and read thirty seconds to touchdown. She did not require instructions for what was to happen next. The mounting roar of retrorockets firing tore at her ears and she put her Suit’s kneepad against the tree’s root, lowering her profile as she began to key up for a potential assault. This was the most critical part of the mission; if they failed several hundred deaths would be on their heads, and the four would then find themselves stranded in a hostile environment. The roar began to intensify until it was screaming into her skull. A yellow alert appeared before her display, warning her that, due to the outside sound presently being above the tolerance of human ears, it was unsafe to exit her Suit. Still the roar intensified, since despite her OS having capped any increase in volume to her earphones, the vibrations were still somehow penetrating the armor. A powerful wind began to blow vegetation and all manner of wildlife beyond her, and entire clouds of flying creatures took to the sky in even greater numbers than before. Despite the protection her armor conferred, Lippard instinctively began to squint as great clouds of dust rushed past her, obscuring her surroundings as it scattered an intensifying blue light.
The roar suddenly died away, leaving her surroundings hidden in a dark haze, and a fluttering relief passed through her as she realized that the descent had been completed. Hazarding a look over her pauldron, she could barely make out a massive silhouette rising above the dust cloud like a titan’s monolith. It was Kaiser who broke the silence.
“Well done, RecOp chain. Ebony Tower has landed. Rejoice, for we shall all be having lunch in a refectory today.”
CHAPTER FOUR
MEWAC Headquarters, 11H35, 17th of January, 2771
Toni was unceremoniously ushered into the dimly lit interview room, confident that he had committed all possible contingencies to memory. Then he laid his eyes on the interview team.
Oh Gods, no.
Sitting nonchalantly behind an impeccable beige table, supporting his weight on his elbows as he closely inspected his fingernails, was the Screamer himself. Lifting his eyes heavily towards the newcomer, a ghost of a smile played across the sergeant’s face as he appraised the recruit’s expression. To his right sat a perky female Lieutenant. Blood drained slowly from Toni’s face. Mason gestured with a careless hand for Toni to take a seat. Suddenly very self-conscious, the recruit quickly took it, trying very hard to relax his facial muscles as he did so.
“So. Mister Tardy. How are we doing today?” Mason asked pleasantly.
Surprised by the lack of venom, Toni replied with honesty.
“I guess I’m a little nervous, Sergeant.”
“I think so too. Boy, do you realize that, as you were waiting in the corridor a few minutes ago, you were talking to yourself? Moments ago a member of the administration came in here and warned me. Apparently he was quite concerned about your emotional health. Tell me, boy, how long have we been holding conversations with ourselves?” He asked with mock concern.
The Lieutenant beside him pressed a palm against her mouth to hide the smile beneath. The smile was a dagger in his heart.
Toni found himself momentarily unable to articulate words. Hastily he opted to forget all rehearsed answers and hazarded a wild foray into honesty.
“Well, sir, I honestly wasn’t aware I was doing that. As I said, I’m a little nervous and, since I have never been interviewed before, I was trying to think up answers for some questions I thought might come up, that was all. I just didn’t realize I was mouthing the answers.” He answered carefully, watching closely as a comprehending and benign expression began to present itself on the sergeant’s face. He decided to ignore the woman; her reactions to the swordplay were beginning to fray his nerves, and his previously drained face had begun to suffer a rapid influx of blood.
“Yes, I see. I see. And why do you need to memorize your answers, boy? Is the truth not enough for me? What I’m trying to say is, why would you need to deceive the Army?” He inquired politely.
Bastard, Toni thought. The man’s face did not betray his intentions, yet Toni could see uncompromising hostility hidden behind his half-smile.
“Sir, I understand my mistake. It’s simply that, since I joined against my family’s wishes, I thought there would be some questions regarding that. This is important to me, sir. Maybe I was trying too hard.” He replied.
Toni was saying much more that he had ever planned to, and he hated himself for it.
“Yes, I see. Trying too hard, yes. Well, shouldn’t you perhaps have followed your family’s wishes?”
It was not a question. He had stated it as a question, but it had been meant as a statement of fact.
The sergeant looked pointedly over Toni’s shoulder to the door behind him, and then back to him, and then held his hands outwards in an apologetic gesture. Toni realized what he was trying to say. The Lieutenant beside him was no longer smiling.
Toni reminded himself of every single mistake he had made dealing with the man. And he understood, finally, how it all had come to that moment. Mason wasn’t a man to be dealt with; he fancied himself the dealer, maker and breaker of men, and he would never have forgiven Toni’s flaws any more than Toni could forgive him for what he was doing now. He accepted that fact with the sad recognition of someone who had just discovered an important secret too late for it to make any difference.
An
d yet he found himself unable to stand and leave.
“Sir, was that a question?” He asked innocently.
“No, son, it was not. It was a statement. A statement you have no need to comment on. The door is over there.”
“I apologize, sir. I mean, I wasn’t aware you required a comment, sir. My father’s advice to me was to forget about the Capicuan Defense Force. His opinion is that an institution that hasn’t waged a single war in two hundred years is unable to justify its existence, and that it should be disbanded.
“I simply don’t agree with him, sir. I think that the defense force is here to prevent wars, first and foremost. And as I see it, the best argument in favor of the CDF is the fact that there have been no wars up until today. Very few people consider that, I think. I’m here because I believe in the CDF, and because I believe I can be useful here. I only need the chance to prove that, sir.” He finished.
For the life of him Toni couldn’t imagine from where he had conjured the words. He had never considered himself to be articulate, but damned he was if he hadn’t seen a sudden spark of interest in the lieutenant’s eyes.
“I see,” Mason exhaled, “So your family’s pro-abolition, and you’re a rebel. A sort of anti-hippie, perhaps? Boy, oh boy, if you want to serve, then by all means serve. But tell me why you can’t serve in the foot infantry. Or in the Command and Services Companies, for that matter. Do you have any compelling reason to justify being handed a hundred and twenty thousand Credit war machine?” Mason asked, his face expressionless, his tone reasonable.
Son-of-a-bitch, Toni thought.
He decided to give insane honesty one last try.
“No sir, I don’t, except for the fact that I want this.” He said.
Descent into Mayhem (Capicua Chronicles Book 1) Page 7