Renegade

by Joel Shepherd

  “PH-4,” said Trace, watching their position as the two shuttles drew up to Eve’s colossal side. “Hold off and keep those chah'nas gun turrets in view. We’ll do this one at a time.”

  “PH-4 copies.” Combat shuttles had armament enough to make a serious mess of anything at this range, warships included. Now PH-1 continued to the dock, while her sister hung back, training every bristling missile on the chah'nas vessel alongside. Chah'nas didn’t write their ship names on the hull, and this one was playing possum. Phoenix database suggested it could have been any one of a hundred chah'nas ships of the class. The databases updated themselves automatically upon arrival in every new system, querying and exchanging data with all friendly vessels. But the Spiral was large, the chah'nas fleet was large, and a lot of its ships went unseen by humans for long periods, sometimes indefinite.

  Ahead, the shuttle’s forward scan showed a minor dock beside the huge starship docks, all unmoving against the cylinder’s rotating bulk. This entire endplate was counter-rotating, to hold it steady for docking ships. No way had that mechanism remained functioning for fifty thousand years — the tavalai had occupied this system for the past ten thousand years, had lived on Eve, fixed her, operated her, revered her. No doubt most of them had only just left, ten thousand years of constant habitation coming to an end. They’d thought they were surrendering to the humans. Trace wondered if the tavalai who’d remained here to welcome the conquerors had yet had that chance. Or if these chah'nas vessels had been the first of the victorious Triumvirate to arrive.

  The tavalai wouldn’t have liked that. Tavalai had overthrown the last Chah'nas Empire precisely because they’d grown sick and tired of their former masters. Chah'nas had never forgiven them for it. The Captain had always said, in quiet tones when only officers he absolutely trusted were around to hear it, that most of the reason the tavalai continued to fight so hard, was to avoid returning to the bad old days of subjugation under the chah'nas. He’d even gone so far as to suggest that in some ways, the chah'nas part of the alliance was a liability — chah'nas were often strategically unwise bordering on incompetent, and had the certain effect of motivating the tavalai to fight to the death. But the chah'nas alliance was the rock upon which human security had rested since the destruction of Earth. It was no propaganda to suggest that chah'nas were the entire reason humanity still existed — it was simple historical fact. Even now Trace felt uncomfortable with what they’d done to Tek-to-thi, and at the chah'nas prisoner held in the Phoenix ‘brig’… no question Tek-to-thi had been asking for it by all the established rules of behaviour, but even so. ‘Ally’, the prisoner had said. That was something a lot of humans, and a lot of chah'nas, felt in their bones. And this current situation, whatever the chah'nas’s obvious wrongdoings here and in Argitori, was… uncomfortable.

  Dock was an internal bay, rectangular and enfolding PH-1 in a total embrace. Grapples crashed, then a thud as the dorsal hatch engaged. Then a seal. “Go,” said Trace, and her people closest to the hatch lifted restraints and floated in an orderly, heavily armed cluster to ready positions. Inside the inner hatch, plugger junior, a smaller version of the big Phoenix Docking Assault Clearance Unit, came to life and was thrust into the airlock like a big, heavily armed ice hockey puck.

  “Echo Platoon, standing by,” came Lieutenant Zhi’s voice.

  “Copy Echo,” Trace said calmly. “Go hard.”

  Outer airlock opened and Echo cleared the space with professional speed, unhooking in turn and filing patiently to the dorsal hatch, hands on the walls, overheads and each other to keep everyone together. No shooting came, and finally Trace unhooked, and fell in behind Staff Sergeant Kono as Command Squad followed the last of Echo Platoon out of the shuttle. Suit sensors showed abruptly plunging temperature, then recovering slowly.

  The zero-G corridors were pressurised but no one was trusting the air. Echo Platoon moved fast through tight corners, Squads quickly capturing the docking bridge, which gained them a view of PH-1 quickly departing to make way for PH-4 with Bravo Platoon aboard. They wanted the dock of the chah'nas ship, but had to secure Eve’s end-cap first, jetting along corridors leading to cargo storage, leading in turn to personnel access to the huge, mechanised systems that fed the neighbouring starship docks with fuel, air and cargo. Lieutenant Zhi took First Squad into those mechanisms while Trace headed with the rest toward main habitat, through multiple airlock controls, everything spotless and modern with that familiar tavalai touch — abstract artworks on the walls, much potted greenery with leafy fronds that sprawled across entire corridors, and suit sensors reading an extra half-atmosphere pressure and humidity thick enough to drink.

  And finally they arrived at an observation lounge, with huge, wide windows looking up Eve’s entire fifteen kilometre length, like looking up a great, green tube. It circled slowly, five kilometres wide and slowly revolving about the stationary central spine, with five wide spoke arms protruding from a central collar at regular intervals. That was how you got down to the rotating surface — out along the spine, then down elevators in the arms. To one side of her position, Trace could see the near-seamless join where the stationary end-cap met the rotating cylinder, and what should have been several billion tonnes of friction floated smoothly on magnetic rails that ensured no actual contact at all. Reactors powered it all, and the spine conducted it through the cylinder. Trace was sure most if not all of the subsystems were recent replacements, surely anything fifty thousand years old wasn’t going to be working in any shape or form, even if the tech had been good. But the old shell, with all its incredible scale, had been here longer than humanity had been farming.

  With Echo holding all the end-cap strategic points, Trace sent Bravo to go and get the chah'nas ship at dock. Even as she did it, tacnet was identifying scattered gunfire across the vast expanse of the cylinder. Third Squad up at the spine got some people out an access hatch into clear air, and they could hear the gunfire, mostly near, up this end of the cylinder. Then came the reports, sightings of chah'nas in the ancient streets below, with guns.

  “What the hell are they shooting at?” muttered Sergeant Kunoz of Second Squad.

  “Tavalai,” said Lance Corporal Raif. “My guess.”

  Fair guess, thought Trace. Eve was clearly deserted save for whatever remnants of tavalai remained. Operation Urchirimala, Kaspowitz had said. Scientists, academics. Not soldiers — when the tavalai mounted a defensive operation it was obvious. And if they were, there’d be a lot of chah'nas dying down there. Tavalai were not equal to chah'nas one-on-one, but combat was rarely that, and tavalai were smart and disciplined. For all the chah'nas’s martial boasts, they rarely broke better than even against tavalai. UF marines had a better record, and Phoenix marines better still.

  Trace flipped channels. “LC, you getting this?”

  “I see it Major. Looks like this ship of chah'nas was left behind to finish a job.”

  “It’s looking like the ship itself is empty. What are your orders?” A few days ago she’d have pretty much decided her next course of action alone, and dared him to stop her. But this was different. He was different. What she saw here had no obvious cause, and no obvious solution. Here, it seemed entirely possible that Erik Debogande might have a better idea what to do than her.

  “We signed a peace treaty with the tavalai,” came Erik’s voice in her ear. “I’m pretty sure it didn’t involve their civilians getting slaughtered. We let this continue, we are in violation of our oath as Fleet officers.”

  “Right now our job is to defend Phoenix,” Trace replied. Near one of the close support arms, tacnet identified a burst of heavy gunfire, multiple sources. It lasted five seconds, then stopped, as though by command. It wasn’t a firefight, this was far too orderly. All of the gunfire seemed to be from one side.

  “Major, we came here to find out why the Captain was murdered. The Captain’s clues appear to point us here. I think this is what he wanted us to see.”

  Trace looked sidew
ays at Staff Sergeant Kono. His return look was wary, and she could read it like a book — Kono didn’t want to get into some nasty firefight to save a bunch of tavalai. They’d all lost so many friends to the tavalai over the years. Chah'nas shooting up tavalai civilians was bad and sad, but it happened. The chah'nas alliance was important, tavalai weren’t. If you wanted to emerge from the war with your sanity intact, you ignored it and moved on.

  “LC, if we go down there in strength, we’re likely to end up in a big-ass firefight. I can’t guarantee what happens from there.”

  “Well it’s your call Major. I can’t tell you how to do it. But chah'nas actions here aren’t in the script that any of us were sold. Fleet HQ’s running a different script, and my bet is that different script is the reason the Captain was killed. We have to find out what’s going on. How you do that, I’ll leave up to you.”

  It wasn’t a cop out. It was what captains always did — give general orders, and leave it to the marine commander to figure out how to implement them. She was the grunt, ground combat operations were her speciality, not his, and if he’d started giving her tactical directions, she was well entitled to ignore him.

  “Major,” came Lieutenant Alomaim’s voice. “I’m at the chah'nas ship’s dock. No sign of activity, no guards, nothing. The dock’s not even active, it’s not taking on fuel or air. Given the activity we see in the cylinder, my guess is they’ve left the ship empty to carry on their business down there.”

  Erik was right, Trace realised. They’d come here to find out what the hell was going on with the chah'nas in particular. This was information. Like it or not, they were going to have to go down there. And the only way to go anywhere, with bullets flying, was in force.

  “Okay, we’re not just going to wander into a firefight as dumbfuck peacekeepers. If we go in, we go in to enforce situational dominance, as far as we can spread it. So I’m requesting that Phoenix back us up for situational dominance on Eve.”

  “You won’t be able to enforce that very far with a few platoons in this monster.”

  “I don’t care what happens elsewhere on Eve, I just need to control what happens near me. I’m going to try and carve out a safe zone around one of those support arms, stop everyone from shooting and try and get some sense from them. So I’ll want some translation assistance for a loudspeaker announcement, and maybe some technical assistance too for the speakers if we don’t have that expertise. Coms and Engineering could help see if we can talk to anyone directly, but given the chah'nas haven’t replied to hails, I’ll bet they know we’re human and are ignoring us.”

  “Coms and Engineering are listening in, I’ll get them on it.”

  “Good. Next I will need Delta to get in here and take that chah'nas ship, we can’t have the risk it’ll do something. Alpha and Charlie will remain as backup.”

  “Phoenix is so notified.”

  * * *

  Eve’s central spine was a huge structure of steel girders in interlocking triangles. They formed a tube through which rail cars ran, but Phoenix marines ignored the cars and jetted in formation up the enormous shafts between the girders. The spine was two-and-a-half kilometres from the habitation rim, and suit sensors here read the air a little less dense, like regular altitude on a planet, and centrifugal force pushed denser air outward to the habitation rim. Between the flashing girders, Trace could see great avenue layouts, wide roads and flat, wide buildings in oddly geometrical patterns.

  The Fathers had lived here in their millions… or at least, Eve had that much capacity. Little historical record of actual settlement remained, as the Fathers were the only previous, known intelligent species to have met total extinction at the hands of another. The hacksaws had finished them, in a vastly earlier incarnation, destroying their own creators in order to take their place atop the galactic food chain. But the AIs had never had any interest in Merakis. Trace wasn’t aware if humans even knew what had driven the Fathers from this place — hacksaw attack, or something else entirely.

  Nearly a kilometre out along the spine, the shaft met five equally enormous support pylons, spreading out across the habitation tube like a colossal pentagram. Here her externals picked up the fizz of generators powering the magnetic rims, huge circular collars to support the frictionless rotation of those support arms about the spine. Sleek rail cars blocked the shaft ahead, and Trace’s marines jetted to brake and slow themselves. They picked their way between girders, then out to the spinning rims, avoiding the capture nets and hand rails about the railcars that civilians would use in more peaceful times to enter and exit those cars.

  Trace didn’t particularly like descending by elevator, it made them easy targets for anyone on the ground with weapons heavy enough to penetrate the hard carbon. But jetting out to the gravitational rim independently was impossible without a hard collision — armour suits had enough thrust to push in zero-G but nowhere near enough to lift off from one-G. She put Echo First and Second Squads on two different elevator arms, then took two later cars for Third, Heavy and Command Squads. Gravity slowly increased as they zoomed down the arm, the ancient habitation rim approaching fast, then arriving in a rush as the doors circled open and they all rushed out and down the steps of the biggest engineering support collar Trace had ever seen.

  Echo First Squad already had position about the open space. It was paved, surrounded by trees and gardens like any pleasant, public space in a civilised, planetary city. Only now, looking up, the horizon bent all the way around overhead, and it was the central spine that appeared to rotate, not the rim. ‘The things you will see first,’, Trace recalled her Siksaka’s words. The O’Neil cylinders she’d been in before had been nothing like this big. The oldest had been a meagre two hundred years. What an infant species we are, she thought.

  “Major, we’ve got a patch on those speakers,” said Lieutenant Alomaim with Bravo First Squad in the spine overhead, as Trace took a knee at a building corner for cover. “We’re trying frequencies but everything’s jammed except for UF frequencies. It’s like they’ve left them open for us.” Trace caught the note of hope in his voice. We might not have to shoot at chah'nas on the ground, that meant. Tek-to-thi was one thing, because Tek-to-thi had been abusing humans. This would be something else.

  “Give me translation on coms.” A light blinked as her suit did that. “All residents of this facility, this is United Forces Ship Phoenix, human fleet.” That last for aliens who knew them by that name rather than the first one. “Phoenix marines are establishing a safe zone around the base of the fourth support arm, section O. I repeat, marines are establishing a safe zone around the base of the fourth support arm, section O. All individuals seeking safety must proceed there. Phoenix marines will not allow any individuals to be harmed within the safe zone.

  “Should any individual seek to harm another individual within the safe zone, Phoenix marines shall fire on them, irrespective of species. I repeat, individuals harming other individuals within the safe zone will be fired upon. Phoenix claims command authority over this facility in the interim, and all individuals shall accept this authority or face consequences. Message ends.”

  “Got it,” said Alomaim. “We’ll put it out in Togiri and Gaida, and hope the translators don’t ask them for directions to the nearest massage bar.” It was a Phoenix in-joke, having happened once in a distant sector of chah'nas space with an obscure dialect.

  On tacnet, Trace could see Delta Platoon, having arrived by the Debogande civilian shuttle, flown by Lieutenant Dufresne of second-shift bridge crew, as they were now short of shuttle pilots. They were moving rapidly through the end-cap toward the chah'nas ship’s dock. She was quite sure Lieutenant Crozier could take a single chah'nas warship without supervision, occupied or otherwise. If there was going to be resistance, a fight on the docks would tell the story.

  “All squads,” she said, noting their positions on tacnet display. “Let’s clear the zone. You have permission to fire only if you are fired upon, or if you see
someone else being fired upon. I do not care if that someone else is chah'nas or tavalai, a safe zone is safe, and we shall enforce it.”

  She could have come in here and wandered around in peacekeeper mode. She knew a few commanders who would have done that, and was damn glad she’d never had to serve under any of them. Marines existed to enforce situational dominance, and were poorly suited to any other role. The best way to stop people dying was to stop people shooting. And the best way to stop people shooting was to shoot them.

  They fanned out, down adjoining roads between trees and low, wide buildings. Trace moved behind Sergeant Ong and Third Squad for a street, then took a left to spread the line further, and take them looping around the support arm. Four of Echo’s Heavy Squad came with Command Squad, usual procedure in this formation to keep Command’s numbers at a dozen. Buildings here had much less glass than in human cities. Humans needed windows and light, but these, while not unattractive, seemed almost to resemble brick or stone paving. Like the dwellings found in a desert town, she thought — lots of ceramic and mud for insulation.

  “So were the Fathers dry desert critters or not?” Private Terez wondered at low volume as they moved at a steady walk along the street. It did not look made for vehicular traffic, but rather for pedestrians, with no markings nor sign of traffic coordination. Trace wondered if that was by original design, or what the tavalai had done to it since.

  “Sure feels like Serena where I grew up,” said Arime. “Everything’s brown, save the trees.”