by Weston Ochse
“The distances in space are too vast,” the pilot added, “for us to have anything close to families or social relationships. During the long chase, we live aboard our Kaleidoscope Ships with three versions of ourselves in varying degrees of age acceleration. When it’s time for one of us to age out, we download additional memories to the stored consciousness, enabling the new version to know what has gone on from the inception of Prime to the most recent version.”
“So your memory can span thousands of years.”
“It does span thousands of years, but between final contact with the Umi and newest contact with the Umi, all versions are in stasis.”
“So none of you were alive—by that I mean walking around, breathing and eating—until we were invaded?”
“We missed the invasion. My age in date began three months ago,” the pilot said.
“And when this is all over, you’re going to age out?”
“Some of us might elect to stay on Earth and live out a normal life, but that’s after we download consciousness. Your world might still be habitable and many of the Khron would like to find a home again.”
“And you? Jarn? What about you?”
“Your planet is intriguing. It takes the Home twenty-five hundred years to circle our sun, which means the ideas of seasons is a mythology to us. To live through the change of four seasons sounds like a miraculous concept. I might do that just to see snow fall.”
I tried to imagine a year that was twenty-five hundred years long and couldn’t. As if all the recorded time were encapsulated in a single cycle. The perspective that must give someone was incredible.
I laughed a little. I didn’t mean to, but the observation I’d unintentionally made was too ironic not to.
“What is it?” Jarn asked.
“What’s so funny?” Alpha asked.
“It’s nothing,” I said.
Alpha raised an eyebrow. “No, please tell us.”
“Well, it’s just ironic, you know?” I spoke slowly and carefully because I was feeling like Captain Obvious and I hated being that guy. “It’s just that the Umi have succeeded in making you task made as well as purpose made. The Cray were made for a task. The Sirens were made for a task. The Spore was made for a task. Now you, their aggressor, the Khron—they have forced you to completely abandon your way of life in order to fight them. You don’t even live anymore. All you do is create new versions of your old selves when it’s time to fight, then kill the version of yourself when it’s time to chase.”
Both Jarn and Alpha were silent for a time. It was Jarn who broke the silence.
“Selected elements of your species will be invited to join the chase. If you survive what’s coming, you can decide whether you want revenge, whether you want to stop the Umi once and for all, or whether you want to live a pastoral life on your own ruined planet.”
I noticed that Alpha stared straight ahead and didn’t say a thing.
“You make it sound so romantic,” I murmured, realizing that I might soon be just like them.
None of us said another word until Odessa came into view. What I saw then made my jaw drop farther than anything else I’d ever seen.
Molon Labe.
King Leonidas of Sparta
CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN
AN IMMENSE SPACECRAFT perched in the middle of what used to be an oilfield, the derricks now dilapidated, metal remembrances of what used to drive the planet. Or at least I thought it was a spaceship—hundreds of meters high, it bristled with dozens of long, thin sharp objects. I wasn’t sure if they were antenna or weapons or both. Narrow to the point of looking brittle, the ship squatted menacingly in the center of chaotic action. The air swarmed with Vipers coming and going. I could make out thousands of EXOs of various shapes and sizes on the ground. The vast majority were either older model OMBRA EXOs or my newer model. I even spotted the occasional EXO that was appreciably taller than even mine, but seemed to lack much of the bulk.
“It’s a drop ship,” said the pilot. “It was built en route to provide a logistics base for our weapons systems and to assist you Earthlings in obtaining the necessary war supplies you need to stop the Umi.”
“You’re going to fight alongside us, right?”
“Definitely,” Alpha said. “But all the fights you’ve had before will be nothing compared to what’s about to happen.”
“Is the drop ship coming with us? Those look like serious weapons.”
“It will never leave this spot. It was designed to ferry supplies from orbit to the planet’s surface. Once in place, it becomes the base of operations. Five of these have landed on Earth. There’s this one. There’s one in Kursk, Russia; Sify, Congo; Haixi, China; and Primovera de Leste, Brazil. Each is designed to focus and attract friendly forces so that we can create an organized, aggressive, and focused force.”
“Do we know where the Umi offspring have congregated?” I asked.
“We’re following a large concentration in Sydney Harbor, and we’re still searching. There may be more. Your planet has so much water we can’t be sure.”
Jarn landed the Viper.
Alpha stood. “Time for us to leave.” He climbed into the EXO he’d worn.
I climbed into my own.
Then the wall slid aside and we descended the ramp.
It was absolute chaos at ground level, but it was my kind of chaos. EXOs ran in groups and as singletons back and forth across the space. Here and there an immense three meter tall EXO stalked ponderously. These were the much lauded Thinnies who required the EXOs not for combat but for sheer survival, the metal and silicon construct allowing their bodies to survive the gravity of our planet. Meanwhile Vipers flew unknown missions above us, sometimes disgorging other EXOs, sometimes uniformed soldiers.
I tracked down the rest of Hero Squad and sent them a message to form on me.
Ohirra and Stranz came first, followed by Olivares, Chance, and Charlemagne.
“This eez not ze Alamo,” the former legionnaire said.
“No, it’s not,” I said. “This is Odessa. The middle of Texas nowhere. But as out of the way as it is, it’s allowing us to prepare to defeat the Umi before they can scurry off.”
Stranz nodded as he grinned, his gaze wandering across all the activity. “This is what I’m talking about.”
Alpha was still standing with us.
“I have nowhere else to go. All the other functions are handled so I thought I might fight with you, if you don’t mind.”
I didn’t mind, but I had to ask the team. They assented and we gave Alpha a brief welcome.
“Now what?” Olivares said.
I literally had no idea, but a moment later, I received a broadcast.
Move to Log Point Fourteen for retrofit.
A map packet downloaded, marking our target with a glowing red dot.
“Follow me,” I said, breaking into a jog. “Looks like we’re going to get retrofitted.”
“What are they going to do, Alpha?” asked Stranz. “Give us laser beams for eyes?”
“Or pulse cannons for arms?” Chance added.
“I’m a watcher. I have no memory of fighting or of even wearing an EXO, so this is as new to me as it is to you.”
We had to weave through several throngs of EXOs. I recognized some of the markings—Europe and Dallas. I also saw quite a few patches from the Kilimanjaro mission, and was glad to see that so many of my comrades in arms had survived to fight the end game. We finally came to Log Point Fourteen. An array of giant metal boxes akin to CONEXs were lined back to back, forming a field-expedient assembly line. I watched as an EXO marched into the first box where robotic arms removed the ammo packs and the suit’s two main weapons systems. I held up a hand and walked to the other end. My squad watched me as I waited to see what would come out. It took about five minutes, but when the EXO finally appeared, it had an immense magazine attached to its back which fed into tubes that ran the length of the suit’s arms. He had the named Franklin stencile
d over his left chest like it was a uniform.
“What’d they do to you?” I asked the man in the suit.
“Flechette cannons. Five thousand rounds. Light as hell.”
“Break it down Barney style,” I said.
He gave me a look. “Hadn’t heard that one in a while. You from Bragg?”
I shook my head. “173rd out of Vincenza.”
Franklin held out a fist and we bumped. “Had a friend named Hammond in the 173rd.”
“I knew old Chuck. Laziest sergeant I’ve ever met until it’s time for mission, then he’s aces.”
Franklin laughed. “Sounds like him. Never liked to clean his clothes either.”
“Smelled like old socks and vomit half the time.”
“All the time.”
We laughed as we reminisced about a guy we both knew. Such a small world. Then I sobered. “He hit an IED heading back home for R & R.”
“Isn’t that just stupid. Guy gets killed going home but survives Taliban.” Franklin shook his head. “Hamilton would have been good about now.”
I nodded. “Aces.”
“Anyway, breaking it down Barney style for you.” He drew in a breath. “They’re equipping us with five thousand moly-coated flechette rounds.” He straightened out an arm and fired a single round into the ground. It disappeared in the dirt, but he used his metallic hands to dig it free. He held it up and I saw that it was the size of ball point pen but twice as thick. He handed it to me. “To fire you have to straighten your arms and gaze-flick firing sequence. You can fire one or both arms at the same time. A new nav packet allows me to assign priority targets and the EXO will do all the work for me. Rate of fire is five thousand rounds a minute, so conceivably you could empty it all out in one shot.”
“How is it powered?”
He shrugged. “Alien battery. Also replaced the suit battery. Power meter now shows I have one-hundred and seventeen days of power.”
“Holy smokes,” I said.
“Right? So the EXO is now about twenty percent lighter, which you can really feel.” He jogged in place and waved his arms above his head to demonstrate.
“What about the Hydra?”
“They say we don’t need them. I heard that the Vipers have some kind of missile system they’re going to use for close air support.” He held up a hand and paused for a moment. “Shit, gotta go.” He waved. “See you on the other side.” He took off at a run.
I watched him for a moment, then went back and briefed my team.
We filed into the assembly line. First step was to remove our weapons systems. Then they added additional electronics to the back of the suit and directly into the back of the helmet. At one point I felt a tickle, but let it go. I was afraid to move. Something robotic and sharp might accidentally peel back my head if I did. Next came affixing of the flechette ammo pack, the firing tubes and the actuators. This was followed by more electronics, then the final stop was the removal and replacement of the battery. For seven brief moments I was locked without power and without air inside the EXO, much like I had been on the plains before Mount Kilimanjaro when I’d almost suffocated to death. But as the eighth second ticked, the EXO powered back up and I departed the assembly line leaner and meaner than when I’d entered.
The first one through, I stood and watched as each of my men and women went through the process. It almost felt like I was at one of L.A.’s hundreds of car washes, waiting for my car to show up so a fleet of low paid Mexicans could dry and shine it to get a tip, the only cash that allowed them to scrape by and feed their families. Back when there was an L.A.... and cars... and car washes... and families who barely scraped by.
I sighed and pushed the melancholy thoughts aside as Stranz appeared, flexing his arms, flechette barrels resting on the EXO skeleton just above each fist. By the time the others had made it through, I’d gotten a message to head towards another Log Point.
More messages flicked across my HUD about the necessity to contact Relocation Specialists prior to combat to ensure we had a place on outgoing vessels. Someone claiming to be an Information Tender sent me a packet with contact information and promised the ability to incentivize my ability to join the Chase. Yet another message offered to provide a Predictive Logic Solutions packet if I aligned myself with a group called the Greens. There was so much more going on behind the scenes than I could even know. When things slowed down, if they slowed down, I vowed to pigeon-hole Alpha and get to the bottom of things. The Greens? If there was one group, then there had to be more.
When we arrived, we were sprayed down with a liquid that covered the outsides of our EXOs with a noticeable but thin film which my HUD identified as ionic field dispersion spray. When I queried, I was informed that it would substantially reduce our signatures, allowing for greater stealth.
Finally we were assigned a rally point. I spotted it from a kilometer away, resting on the outskirts of the large circle of activity surrounding the drop ship. Before we joined the larger group, I took a moment to brief my squad.
“Gather round,” I said, putting one knee on the dry dirt of central Texas. Above, the sky was an impossible blue with no clouds in sight. With the team now kneeling around me, I addressed them. “This could be it. I don’t know if I’ll be able to talk to you again once we join the larger group. TACON, OPCON and ADCON are all a mystery at this point.”
“If you’re going to get all smushy, we can skip this part,” Olivares said.
“I’ll take that under advisement, Francis,” I said, revealing his first name.
Chance snickered.
“You mean, Frank,” he said, his voice a timbre lower than it had been.
“No, I mean Francis, Francis.” I cleared my voice. “Back to what I was going to say before Francis interrupted me.” A packet arrived in my HUD. I opened it to see a picture of Olivares flipping the bird in a mirrored surface. I don’t know when he took it, but the sentiment was clear. “Back atcha, Francis. And no, Stranz, this isn’t going to be a St. Crispin’s speech.”
“Thank God,” he said, probably remembering the speech I gave just prior to the mission where I removed his arm.
“We’ve been strung along and forcibly placed in the middle of a million year war between two species,” I said. “Not only are we in the middle, we’ve been asked to be the grunts to end it once and for all. Us. Not Americans and the English, and not French, and not the Japanese. When I say us, I mean humans. Earthlings. We people of Earth who once thought we were the only sentient beings in the universe. Then the Umi came and intractably changed our minds. But we are not the first this has happened to. Everyone has seen 300, right? The movie about King Leonidas and his three hundred loyal Spartans? During the Battle of Thermopylae in 480 BCE. Seven thousand Greeks were asked to hold off more than one hundred thousand Persians. The rear guard was a force of three hundred Spartans and they held the only road the Persians could get to. And let’s face it, they knew the math. They saw how the strength of the enemy compared to their own. They knew they were going to die. But they didn’t care. They fought. When asked to surrender by a representative of the Persian King Xerses, Leonidas said to them, Molon Labe. Anyone know what that means?”
“Come and take it,” Stranz said. “My uncle had a bumper sticker that said that. It came from the NRA. Said you want my guns, Molon Labe.”
“Exactly. Molon Labe. Used by many people. Texas used it in their revolution. The National Rifle Association used it. Anyone who had anything they didn’t want taken away used it as a daring insult. Molon Labe means come and take it but it’s essentially the ancient Greek equivalent of Fuck You, Eat Shit and Die, and Up Yours. Texas never became a nation and Leonidas and his men were killed, but they shouted Molon Labe to the very end and died a proud representative of their peoples.
“So to you grunts I say, Molon Labe. This is our world until the end. Molon Labe our planet. When we fight and everything starts to seem hopeless, I want you to shout Molon Labe. When one of us die
s, I want everyone to shout Molon Labe. I want each and every one of us to channel that ancient Spartan King Leonidas and every warrior in history who ever uttered the words Molon Labe. For as certain as this planet belonged to us, it also belonged to them, so their memory should be invoked.
“Remember, we were minding our own business, sitting out here in our lonely solar system, doing our own fine job of killing each other when the Umi decided to include us in their reproductive cycle. Molon Labe is a reason for fighting. Molon Labe is a reason for dying. Molon Labe is a reason for winning. So I want every one of you to go out there and take it to the enemy. You don’t have to do it for me, you don’t have to do it for yourselves, and you don’t have to do it for good old King Leonidas. I want you to go out there and avenge the death of someone you loved, someone who deserved to live and not die at the hands of an alien fertility program.
“Olivares, who are you fighting for?”
“My sister, Louis and her three daughters, Gloria, Epifina, and Grace.”
“Molon Labe,” I said, clapping him on the shoulder. “Stranz, who are you fighting for?”
“My father, who taught me that being a soldier was the most honorable thing a man can do.”
“Molon Labe, “I said again. “Chance, what about you?” I put my hand on her shoulder.
“Mr. Courtney Brown, who ran the tea shop on the corner across from my house and who would make fresh Madeleine cookies for me every day. He made them for ten years until he died, then put it in his will that I could have free Madeleines at the store for life as part of its condition of sale.” A tear formed in her eye. “He did it because he said that if he’d had children, he imagined that they would have been exactly like me.”
I laughed softly. “Molon Labe to Mr. Courtney Brown.”
Everyone else repeated.
“And you, mon frére, Charlemagne. Who are you fighting for?”
He was so choked up he could barely speak. “I fight for the spirit of Jean Danjou. He was our Leonidas and fought with sixty-four legionnaires against the Mexican military in the Battle of Camarón.” He put a hand on my shoulder just as I had mine on his and shouted, “Molan Labe to Jean Danjou! Molon Labe!”