Live Echoes

by Henry V. O'Neil

  All over the brigade sector, units were in motion. The independence of thought cultivated by Colonel Watt was making itself known in his rescue, and Mortas felt excitement starting to rise in his limbs. Shutting down his handheld, he tucked it into a cargo pocket and stood. Fully armored, helmeted and goggled, carrying as many magazines and grenades as possible, he walked toward the first dart with his rifle in hand.

  “It’s time,” he said to Sergeant Leoni. “Keep firing ’em, even if the roof is jammed up with the empties. This is not going to be pretty.”

  Leoni took the Scorpion from him and handed it to one of the troops preparing the missile. He then shook hands with Mortas. “Once we’ve got the relay going, I’ll be coming in behind you. Be alive when I get there, sir.”

  “I will do my best.”

  He looked across the first row of darts to be launched, leaning against the hog moat’s walls at a forty-five-degree angle. Trimmer and six other similarly pugnacious FITCO drivers gave him a variety of nods and waves, and they all started climbing inside the tubes. Upside down now, his head toward the fins and the engines, squeezing his long legs between two canvas bags containing enough explosives to tear through a reinforced door. Hands began strapping him in while he checked the releases holding his rifle against the hull.

  “Here’s the latch, sir.” A familiar voice echoed inside the dart, and he looked up to see Easterbrook pointing at the handle that would free him from the tube. She cracked a wide smile, reminding him of the grime-covered face on the morning after the Flock attacked the Mound. “You didn’t think you FITCO types were gonna have this all to yourselves, did you?”

  “You help us, they’ll lock you up for the rest of your life.”

  “Help you? I’m in the third salvo, sir. Leave some of those green sonsabitches for us, okay?”

  “I make no promises.”

  Figures loomed up next to the dart, pouring boxes of transparent bags around him. Half gallon in size and only three-quarters full, the water containers would hopefully buttress the shock of landing on the Ministry’s roof. More hands stuffed them in around him, and then an additional box was added. The curved door came down, and he was looking out through the chest-sized observation window.

  “All the life support stuff had been yanked out of these things when Captain Follett got them, sir.” Sergeant Strickland spoke on the radio, his nose almost touching the window. He pointed at several circular holes in the transparent covering. “We drilled these so you can breathe. Can’t say what it’s gonna do to the flight characteristics.”

  “We’ll find out in a moment.” Strickland gave him a thumbs-up, and Mortas called up the imagery of the target on his goggles. Fortuna Aeternum was its usual depressing self, but neither the SOA nor the slums around it showed any sign of alert. No one was on the roof of the Ministry, and the streets around the building were empty except for some foot traffic. “Assault Team, this is Mortas. I will launch first. Once you’re on the roof, don’t forget your breaching charges. Blow any doors they block, then throw grenades. You know where Asterlit’s throne room is—that’s the target.”

  The imagery showed several new markers in addition to Wolf’s platoon hustling down the irrigation ditch and DeNapoli’s column almost at the outskirts of the city. Orphan elements, some of them as small as squad level, finding ways to secretly close the distance between their sector and the city. He called the support units of Second and Third Battalions, confirming they were ready to launch their darts.

  “Lieutenant Mortas, sir?” Trimmer called in a happy singsong.

  “Go ahead.”

  “You forgot to tell us to enjoy the ride.”

  The net filled with laughter, and he was too busy joining in to respond. The countdown in his goggles reached zero, and then a giant shot-putted him into the sky.

  The engines below his head roared and rattled, but the sound was deadened by the water bags. They’d slammed downward at launch, pinning his head and filling his vision with sloshing water. Mortas struggled to get his arms up among them, but finally realized that he wouldn’t be able to push them back into position. Sliding a hand across the ammo pouches on his armor, he found the long knife that had once belonged to Corporal Tel Cranther. Careful not to cut himself, Jander started bursting the water bags.

  Cool liquid flowed over him, but he could finally move again. A brilliant blue sky filled the observation window, and he felt the vibration as the finned tube sailed through the air. He flipped the goggle view, seeing the same tranquil scene at the target and now feeling the adrenaline. Colonel Watt was somewhere inside that building, and a bizarre chain of events and machinations had put Mortas in the perfect position to free him. He was leading an assault force riding unexpected, undetectable, unstoppable missiles, they were going to land directly on top of the headquarters of everything that was wrong on the entire planet, and they were going to kill the evil men and women who worked there. It was just the Red House writ large, and the comparison fueled his excitement. He wondered where Sergeant Drayton and the platoon from C Company were at that moment, and then remembered he was still holding Cranther’s knife.

  Sliding it back into its sheath, he thought of an odd comment the jaded Spartacan had once spoken to him. You just wait until the real story gets out. How we’ve been used out here.

  Its appropriateness for their current situation seemed to reach all the way from the barren planet Roanum where it had all begun. Cranther had been speaking of the abuses he’d suffered at Command’s hands, but Mortas saw how it fit his own reactions to this depraved world of Celestia. He heard the words of different troops, grumbling about having joined to fight the Sims, not to prop up a civilian government. That by so doing, they were aiding the same regime that had enslaved the very people they were fighting. That their mere presence was a crime in itself, in that Force commanders were not allowed to bring their troops across the CHOP Line.

  A digital countdown appeared in one corner of his goggle view, the dart’s Doppler getting a pingback from the tall structures of the city. He switched to the cameras on the missile’s nose, marveling to see the dirty ground racing by and knowing it was below him. After that, a scattered set of small houses and then the river, brown and ugly. The rocket sailed over the slums, over the barricades and checkpoints manned by Asterlit’s foul followers, and nothing was coming up to meet them—no fire, no missiles, not even a warning.

  The engine grunted, dropping to a lower speed, and the water bags slid toward the nose. The tiny flight passed over the wall surrounding the SOA, and Jander’s ears filled with the whoops of rage and relief from the other seven darts. Pulling his eyes from the goggle view, he looked through the window at the bright sky in an effort to burn it into his memory. A tiny crack had pushed all the way across the windshield, but it wasn’t important, because regardless of how hard he landed, or who might try to stop them, he was going to fight his way into that giant hall, hold Cranther’s blade against Damon Asterlit’s throat, and demand his surrender.

  Unfastening the harness as the engines died completely, only hearing the wail of the wind, remembering that the Spartacan Scout had been an orphan on this very planet, a runaway from the certain fate of being sent to the mines, and feeling a mystic rush at the way it was all coming full circle, it was all coming together, it was meant to happen, and so it was going to work.

  The goggle view showed the long roof only a hundred yards ahead, the missile’s flight was almost perfect, the dart was going to land on its side with its momentum spent, and then the latch would release him. The cameras showed the hard surface rushing up, and he braced his arms against the wall.

  “This one’s for you, Tel!” he shouted, somehow sure the dead man was hearing him and laughing in righteous delight.

  The dart slammed into the roof so hard that his helmet bounced off the hull and his goggles went dark. The entire tube went up in the air, still flying, still moving with incredible speed, and then it touched down again but
kept racing along as if on ice. The goggles came back to life, the nose cameras showing him the ornate railing, short pillars of gray stone, fifty yards away and then only ten and then none.

  The cracked window exploded into a thousand pieces that disappeared in a howling wind, and Mortas’s dart went straight through the railing and over the side.

  Chapter 16

  The invasion of the planet code-named Omega started in an unusual fashion. Instead of HDF warships materializing from the Step in a tight siege ring, a large number of small robot spacecraft entered Omega’s atmosphere after a prolonged, stealthy approach. They didn’t descend very far, and instead began a series of zigzagging movements that allowed them to seed the thin air with thousands of much smaller aerobots.

  These in turn maintained their anonymity by falling for miles, gracefully swaying with the eddies and gusts, until they were well dispersed. Their systems activated not far from the surface, wings spreading, and then they too began serpentine circuits that photographed and scanned the ground beneath them. The feed went to their parent vessels high above, who relayed them to waiting satellites that then fed the data to the fleet.

  Their small size, coupled with their many tasks, caused the low-level aerobots to run out of fuel not long after that. The ’bots that were closest to the craters and the buried ruins were the first to break off, heading for untraveled sectors where they set down and expired. Not long after that, their mechanical siblings working quieter zones did the same. Their parents continued to cruise at high altitude while the first fruits of their labors were examined on the distant ships of the slowly constricting cordon. Data collected directly from the planet Omega, believed to be the origin of the Sims and the home world of the shapeshifting aliens.

  “There’s been no response, Madame Chairwoman.” General Merkit sat with Reena inside a busy operations room deep inside the flagship Aurora. “Either the aliens are extraordinarily well disciplined, or they don’t know we’re watching them.”

  “Is that the consensus opinion of the commanders?” the Chairwoman asked quietly. Although she oversaw everything in the HDF, Reena was leaving the actual management of the operation to the admirals and generals she’d hand-picked for the operation.

  “It is. We’re gaining valuable data, everything from the limited flora and fauna to the composition of the soil, and it’s still being processed. However, the important information is inside those craters. If we have tipped our hand, every moment we delay gives them that much more time to hunker down—or initiate their escape plan, if they have one.”

  “If they try something like that, do we have redundancy on the cordon line? Even if they flood one spot?”

  “Yes. We war gamed it to death, and then gave it to the computers. Everything says we’re ready to stop any breakout.”

  “What is the next phase?”

  “Another seeding of low-level robots, this time overflying the craters themselves. The commanders recommend that we have the ground troops ready to launch before that.”

  “Give the order.”

  On the warship carrying Ayliss’s Banshee company, the cavernous compartment holding the armored suits shifted into high gear with little folderol. Having rehearsed the mission until it was second nature, and then having spent several days waiting on the word, the signal to don suits came as a release. Technicians swarmed the conveyor belts the Banshees would ride while being sealed inside their suits, and armorers carefully loaded the Fasces with their special ammunition. Considering the shapeshifters’ moth-like characteristics and their susceptibility to fire, three of the rifles’ six barrels had been switched to flame configuration. Two of the remaining barrels fired standard rounds, while the last remained a grenade launcher. More mission-specific ordnance and equipment was loaded into the shuttles, including the ground monitors and a wide range of incendiary explosives.

  “Whatever you do, don’t strike a match.” Legacy spoke to the squad while pointing at the squat fire bombs. They’d just entered the bay, and were still wearing fatigues or flight suits. They’d shaved their heads bald, and Tin called them together for one last word before the suit-donning began.

  “Circle up.” The short woman gazed across their faces, a warm smile spreading. “I know we’re just a perimeter team, but I wouldn’t be anywhere else, or with anyone else, for this mission. I have total confidence in each and every one of you. Follow the plan until it goes to shit, and then kill everything that isn’t human.

  “Take a good look at each other.” Hands reached up all around, arms across shoulders, the eight women tightening the circle in a special ritual they’d chosen for this mission. “When this is over, we will stand here again. All of us.”

  “Or none of us.” the squad answered.

  “I will kill for you.” Cusabrina took up the litany.

  “I will kill for you.” Ayliss recited with the others.

  “I will die for you.” Dellmore continued.

  “I will die for you.” The hands slid down, allowing the circle to contract until their bald heads were all touching. The words were now a low hiss, the arms contracting hard across the torsos to right and left.

  “Live for me. Live for me. Live for me.”

  Sealed in, communications checks completed, data arrays on her face shield, Ayliss followed Dellmore toward the ramp leading into the shuttle. All over the launch bay, double ranks of Banshees were lumbering onto the war chariots that would take them to the surface. Two shuttles over, a bizarre file of shrunken suits entering a standard-sized shuttle caught her eye. Mottled in gray and black, the recon rigs worn by the Spartacan Scouts attached to Breverton’s company were terrifying in their minimalism. Life support, communications, gel rations, water, and a modest selection of hand tools, all built into a suit that had little armor. The scouts would be the first ones into the crater, and might need to worm their way through tight spaces.

  “And you thought you had a tough job.” Blocker’s jovial words entered her helmet, and she turned to see him wearing a headset, combat goggles, and fatigues.

  “Bear.” Ayliss reached out with an armored glove that could easily crush the man’s bones, gently running the outer fabric down his cheek. Realizing he couldn’t see her face, she activated the interior cameras so that the image appeared in the goggles. “Wait for me, Bear.”

  “Wait? In three hours I’ll be down there with you.”

  “How?”

  “You asked me to make sure nobody got left behind, right?”

  “You piloting one of the shuttles?”

  “Better than that. You know those extravehicular bubbles the repair folks ride?”

  “Yeah, but they use those in space.”

  “They’re designed to work in atmosphere as well.”

  “That’s not the point. They got no armor at all.”

  “Well then I better stay away from the shooting.” Blocker gave her a crazy grin. “Listen. Those bubbles have two strong pincer arms, and they can fly really fast with a load. When Command gives the signal to run for the evacuation points, you just know some squads are gonna be too far away to make it in time. Me and my people will be swooping and scooping, and dropping ’em at the shuttles. Everybody comes back from this one.”

  “I wish you’d told me this sooner, Bear.”

  “Hey.” The word was stern. “I did two full tours out here before you ever got across the CHOP Line. I earned my invitation to this party.”

  “I’m sorry. I forgot.”

  “Silly rookie.” The grin was back. “Look at it this way. Now you can concentrate on your job. No matter where they send you, you will get out of there before we torch this place.”

  “Me and my squad. My entire squad.”

  “Count on it. Every wrench-turner and wire-router volunteered to fly the bubbles.” Blocker’s face came close. “I promised I would never leave you again, Little Bear.”

  “I love you, Dom.”

  “I love you, Ayliss. Now go kick ass.”r />
  In a small compartment many decks away from the busy launch bay, Christian Ewing came awake when a low buzzing rose from the console. Dozing in his seat while waiting for the latest data from Omega, he rubbed tired eyes before tapping buttons on the panel. Imagery of the planet surface rolled across the screens, while different views showed heat and soil readouts from the most recent wave of reconnaissance robots.

  Initiating a filtering protocol of his own making, Ewing concentrated on the information deemed unimportant by the anonymous analysts and countless computers evaluating the data stream. As the steadily descending surveillance patrols failed to attract attention, and the launch hour for the Banshees approached, the focus had shifted almost entirely to the craters and their environs.

  Ignoring the giant apertures in the ground, Ewing directed his efforts toward the ruins buried not far from them. The moth-creatures’ arcane ritual had intrigued and disturbed him, and he’d found it impossible to stop thinking about their aerial dance. Various theories had been offered by intelligence officers eager to dismiss the mysterious flights that had so closely followed the dimensions of the underground structures. Ewing had found their surmises absurd.

  Yawning, he applied a new layer of filtering. The latest reconnaissance flights had estimated the dimensions of the ruins beneath the soil, and he straightened up in alarm when the results appeared. The dead city closest to the crater assigned to Ayliss’s squad was believed to be concentric circles of stone foundations radiating from an empty center. The new scans showed that to be wrong, and Ewing squinted at what was unquestionably a spiral shape. The ruins formed a single, curved line that looped around its origin and continued outward for miles.