by M. D. Cooper
It was bad, not quite 10,000 times the x-ray level of Sol, but close. A major flare. Plasma detection from the probe indicated that the flare went two million miles out into space, well beyond where the Intrepid would have been.
No one spoke for several minutes. Tanis forced the thoughts of the colony ship’s destruction down, refusing to consider them. She could tell that Joe was doing the same, while Angela was running math on possible alternate vectors the Intrepid could have possibly taken.
Everyone followed her example and helped in the search. Signals were sent out and the probe was set to orbit the star in ever-widening circles. Tanis prepared a meal after a few hours and brought it back to the bridge where she and Joe only picked at it.
So many people. There were two and a half million colonists on the Intrepid who went into stasis with the sure expectation that they would awaken to their new world, their new system, ready for them to shape and to create the future they always dreamed of.
An anomaly signaled on her interface and she focused the low-band radio antenna on a section of the search grid that seemed to have a bit more noise than expected. Then she heard it.
“Static…Say again…static…Excelsior, do you read? This is the…static…trepid. Do you read?”
Tanis’s heart leapt into her throat and she waved at Joe, putting the feed on the bridge audio.
“Intrepid. This is the Excelsior. We read you, and boy are we glad to hear your transmission.”
Joe let out a whoop as he brought up the trajectory that matched the Intrepid at the position the signal had revealed. The main display shifted to show the new outsystem path of the colony ship.
Tanis glanced at the distance and saw that the Excelsior was one hundred-thirty light minutes from the Intrepid. It would take over four hours to hear back. In the meantime variations on the initial message continued to come in.
“I suddenly have a bit more of an appetite,” Joe said as he reached down and picked up his BLT. He polished it off in two bites and then took a long gulp of water.
Tanis set the probe to intercept the Intrepid before she devoured her food as well.
“That’s the great thing about a BLT; they don’t get any worse for sitting for an hour or so.”
“Well, the tomatoes get a bit soggy.”
“Adds to the texture,” Tanis grinned.
The pair sat in silence for several minutes, the adrenaline surge wearing off, leaving them slightly heady and still just a bit anxious.
“I’d like to know more about you, Tanis,” Joe said at last. “I mean, I know you pretty well, but I don’t really know much about how you got to be you.”
His timing seemed odd to Tanis, but maybe it was the relief in finding the Intrepid that caused him to ask—and she knew what he was asking about.
“Outside of work I don’t have a lot to tell. I enlisted when I was twenty-two. When the Intrepid left Sol I had just passed fifty years in the TSF.”
Joe nodded slowly. “It’s your work I find myself wondering about. I’ve been through the shit with you more than once and you’ve had my back and I’ve had yours. The Tanis I know doesn’t match the one I heard about back in Sol.”
Tanis didn’t respond immediately. This was one of the reasons she hadn’t wanted to get back into a relationship, she knew she would have to explain Toro.
“You want to know about Toro.” The leaden words dropped off her lips.
Joe nodded. “I know you don’t want to talk about it, but I need to reconcile the two Tanises.”
“You don’t need to apologize,” Tanis said after a long pause then took a deep breath. “It’s about time I told the story.”
THE BUTCHER OF TORO
STELLAR DATE: 3223427 / 05.05.4113 (Adjusted Gregorian)
LOCATION: TSS Arcturus, stealth approach to asteroid 1685 Toro
REGION: InnerSol Stellar Space, Sol Space Federation
Lieutenant Colonel Tanis Richards reviewed the intel and the plan. She didn’t really need to; both the plan and the intel were hers, but this mission felt like one of those—one of the ones where something would go sideways.
The TSF surveillance drones had made several passes near the asteroid, passively pulling readings that gave clues as to what was going on in the interior of the asteroid.
Toro was one of several bodies in the inner Sol system that orbited Sol in resonance with Earth and Venus. From each of those world’s point of view it appeared that Toro was orbiting them. This meant at certain times cargo could be ‘dropped’ from stations near either of those worlds and Toro would appear to accelerate to pick it up. At other times Toro could ‘drop’ cargo and it would fall into the outer solar system.
The asteroids also had a well-placed elliptical orbit. Perihelion brought it almost to Venus, and at aphelion it went beyond the orbit of Mars. Because of this, Toro had extensive docking and cargo transfer systems built around its three kilometer length, but those facilities told just a part of the asteroid’s history.
High concentrations of Olivine crystal had drawn prospectors to the asteroid in the twenty-third century and its interior was riddled with mines and processing facilities. At one point, when both the mines were at their peak and cargo flowed through the station, it had a population of over a hundred thousand.
Over time, the valuable minerals had all been extracted and less cargo came through as Ceres’s massive spaceport had been constructed.
Eventually, only a few caretakers and robotic cargo handlers were left; that’s when John Cardid came into the picture. Thirty years ago he rented space on the asteroid for an undisclosed purpose. The Terran Bureau of Investigations suspected that he was involved in illegal human trafficking in addition to paramilitary activity. Over the years he had built up his presence and it was now estimated that there were over ten-thousand people on Toro.
Five years before, he bought the entire asteroid and had halted its cargo-handling operations.
The fact that the asteroid passed near many InnerSol worlds was far more concerning than the loss of its meager cargo transfer facilities. The TBI stepped up its intelligence gathering in concert with the TSF’s counter-insurgency division.
It was slow work because John Cardid was very secretive and Toro was difficult to scan due to high concentrations of ferric crystals and iron oxide. This only served to increase suspicion.
Tanis had been involved with the investigation into Toro for several years. The TSF knew that several shipments of military weapons had found their way to the asteroid, which was reason enough for her to go in, but until things escalated the TBI had maintained jurisdiction.
Now things had escalated.
Four months ago, a group of highly public figures had, apparently of their own will, taken a transport to Toro for a visit. They never returned and only a few transmissions indicating that they intended to stay had been sent out.
Amongst those now considered to be abducted were several actors, sports professionals as well as two former senators and one sitting senator.
Tanis knew it was going to be a mess.
The TSF strike force didn’t have enough intel to make a clean, surgical strike, but the public and political pressure had forced the brass to make a move.
The TBI had ceded jurisdiction and Tanis, as the lead investigator on the TSF side, had been sent in.
She had done her share of tours and often took a very active role in the field operations that resulted from her investigations, so this was not new territory. Given more time and intel, she would have been more than happy to run the mission, but this rush-job was going to be trouble.
She re
viewed the packet containing the orders for the TSF Arcturus. It granted her broad discretionary powers and, in matters regarding the mission, Captain Arsenal was under her command.
She prayed she wouldn’t need to issue those types of orders.
Closing the packet, she flipped to the entry points the Marines would take, as well as the sectors each platoon would clear when the TBI agent assigned as liaison entered the ready room.
“Going over this shit show one last time?” Bremen asked.
Tanis nodded. “Looking for whatever it is that I missed; we just don’t know enough about what we’re getting into and there has to be some clue that can help.”
“We just have to clear a few dozen square kilometers of station with one battalion of Marines, kill the bad guys, save the good guys and pray no one who isn’t supposed to gets hurt,” Bremen grimaced. “What could go wrong?”
“I’d prefer more than just a battalion,” Tanis said without looking up from her holo projections.
“I hear you. Three hundred and eighty Marines is nothing to sneeze at, but for all we know we’re up against ten thousand humans and who knows how many bots? I wouldn’t mind a different assignment right about now.”
Tanis glanced up from her notes, casting a harsh look at the TBI agent. That wasn’t the sort of attitude that got the job done. She was happy he’d be staying back on the Arcturus.
Several minutes before the briefing was to begin the battalion commanders were all present and talking quietly amongst themselves. She was pleased, a lot of Marines would not be happy to have a battalion commander who was not a Marine as well. Punctuality showed respect.
The battalion’s 2IC, Major Ender, was sitting in the front and gave her a crisp nod. Tanis had talked with Major Ender a few times to get a feel for the battalion and how they would react to a new temporary commander. It was a relatively good arrangement, the 242 was well respected, and their former commander, a Colonel Chen, had recently been promoted to general. Since the TSF had unified all branches, it was possible for her, a lieutenant colonel in the intelligence branch, to be put in direct command of a Marine battalion.
The rest of the room was filled with the company and platoon commanders as well as their sergeants. Tanis looked them over slowly, they were all veterans of at least one significant engagement; they had all seen the dark underside of humanity.
If Tanis’s intel was right they’d see that underbelly’s underbelly today.
“Thank you for all reading the pre-briefing docs. This meeting is really just a formality. You’ve seen the vids and know that something is rotten on Toro. We’re going in to clean it up.
“Try not to kill the good guys, cover your sectors and keep your eyes out for Cardid. Use non-lethal force if possible, as much as possible.”
Tanis stood, arms akimbo. “Questions?”
A platoon sergeant named Williams raised a hand. “What’s not in the packet? It’s light on what is likely going on in there and I bet you have a hunch.”
“I don’t have solid intel, but I think they’re doing illegal genetic hybridization research.”
“That warrants a visit from Force Recon Marines?” Williams asked.
“That’s not the whole of it… I think something darker is going on, but all I have are crazy whispers about it being ‘true evil’.”
“They’re in for it, then,” a Lieutenant named Anderson said. “Because we all know that Williams is God’s own right hand.”
The comment raised some chuckles, but Williams didn’t look pleased.
Tanis nodded to the major who proceeded to run over each company and platoon’s assignments. When it was done, the group broke up to brief their men.
Tanis took the ship’s dorsal maglev to the bridge. The Arcturus was one of the TSF’s newer destroyers. It measured just over three hundred meters long and seventy wide. What it lacked in size it made up for with speed and stealth. The ship’s antimatter engines could boost it to over a quarter the speed of light and the output from the engines could be focused, making the ship difficult to detect.
Toro was speeding through space at this phase of its orbit and the Arcturus was running a 1.3g burn. As a result, the trip to the bridge felt more like an elevator ride with the maglev’s seats rotating ninety degrees to put ‘down’ below Tanis.
The Arcturus could accelerate in any direction: forward, backward, or spinning on either axis. As a result, just about any surface on the ship could be down at any given time. Most of the time, however, it moved forward so the decks were all perpendicular to the length of the ship, making it feel more like a tower than a wet navy ship.
The bridge was in the center of the vessel and the trip was short. Tanis stepped onto the command deck, noting the navigation holo, which confirmed that the Arcturus was only two hours from reaching the asteroid. Toro was near perihelion, its closest approach to Sol, and the Arcturus was approaching in the asteroid’s shadow, all but creeping up on it.
The holo showed Toro spinning on its long axis, several docking stations and cargo facilities forming a ring around its center. When humans first settled on Toro, it spun at a sedate speed of roughly eight centimeters per second. To provide more significant gravity, close to 0.5g, it was accelerated to fifty meters per second.
The complicated burns needed to match the rotation of the station would give away the Arcturus and ruin the element of surprise. Tanis and Captain Arsenal had agreed to a plan where the TSF cruiser would move to a position ten thousand miles behind the station and Marine assault transports would close the distance.
“Ready for action?” asked the captain.
“Everything seems to be in order,” Tanis replied. “I don’t know about ready. This will be some messy action, are you prepared to provide supporting fire?”
“The composition of the asteroid may cause a few issues with targeted laser strikes, but we think we have the solutions to work around those.”
Tanis nodded. “Let’s hope you don’t need to test those solutions, there’s still enough crystal in there that refractions could be messy.”
“Finer beams and higher power should do the trick—we’ll melt anything we come in contact with rather than letting the light bleed out. The Arcturus has enough reserve power to turn Toro into Swiss cheese if needs be.”
“Well, if everything is good on your end, I’m going to head down to the hangars and gear up.”
“Godspeed,” the captain replied in parting.
Tanis took a short series of corridors and ladders down to the hangar level where the Marines were suiting up into their powered armor. She approached the 4th Platoon of Bravo Company. The lieutenant, an overly slender man—odd for an orbital drop Marine—named Tippin, rose from inspecting his weapon and saluted her.
“Glad to have you in the ‘toon, Colonel Richards.”
Tanis returned the salute. “I hear you’re the best in the outfit.”
“Damn straight we are, if you don’t mind my saying it. The boys and girls of the 4th Bravo have seen more action than the—” Tippin said before stopping himself, uncertain of how casual he could be with a CO who was an MICI and not a Marine.
“I believe the current joke involves the president’s mother?” Tanis asked.
Tippin coughed. “Yeah, I think it does.”
Tanis chuckled. “Why don’t you show me to my armor?”
“Williams, hook Colonel Richards up with her gear,” Tippin called out to the sergeant who had asked several questions during the briefing.
The sergeant trotted up and looked Tanis over. “I warrant I’ve got some that will fit you without too much adjustment. D
o you have any load-out or weapons prefs?” he asked.
“I prefer to take tactical shots, what do you have for rifles?”
“The 242 issues M948 concussive pulse rifles for station combat, but those aren’t terribly accurate. A lot of the boys and girls use MIV particle rifles so long as the proton beam cartridges stay behind for on-station missions,” Williams said, raising his voice and casting a hard glare at a Marine who was checking his gear.
“The MIV is a nice weapon,” Tanis said while nodding agreement about the proton cartridges being left behind. “Do you have any of the MIV6 model? I can live with the electron beam.”
“Sure do.” Williams selected a weapon from the company’s armory and handed it to Tanis who looked it over, approving of its maintenance.
“Do you have any ballistic weapons as well?” Tanis asked. I find that bullet fragments make for some of the best suppression.”
Williams grinned. “I sure do, how’s a S901 suit you? We have the recoil dampeners on them as well as the flechette or ballistic rounds.”
“Excellent,” Tanis said, slinging the MIV6 over her shoulder and taking the S901 from the sergeant.
“Do you need any close range weapons?”
Tanis patted the duffle she had slung over her shoulder. “I have that taken care of.”
Armoring up took over thirty minutes to complete. Because there was the very real possibility that the Marines would be exposed to vacuum on station entry and possibly later if combat breached any pressure seals, full EVA armor was the order of the day.
The Marines armored up co-ed style right on the hangar deck. This meant stripping down to nothing and starting with the base thermal layer, which also provided compression against vacuum. Tanis had brought her own and had it on in a few minutes, fighting a grimace when the suit’s plumbing attachments hooked up to her body.
The actual armor Williams had selected for her was a scout style that started with a second tight-fitting ballistic and thermally refractive mesh. From there the armor’s plating was applied, hooking together to form a partially assisted exoskeleton. She pulled the helmet on, first attaching the back to her suit and then snapping the face-plate on.