Metal Monsters

by G. D. Stark

  “But-” Jones said.

  “No more,” Squid said, standing. “This discussion is over. We’ll take another ship to Terentulus.”

  Ten hours later we boarded the Concordia II, a budget system-hopper that only serviced the Rhysalan-Terentulus route. The seats were uncomfortable and the coffee was bad. Multiple Wardogs bitched me and Zelag out over the cut-rate accommodations, but we made it to Terentulus without mishap. As we waited in the spaceport for Squid to finalize our tickets on the next ship, a few of us sat on a bench watching ships come and go, trying to name the manufacturers. I had a thought and nudged Edgerton awake. “Sarge, wake up,” I said.

  “Tommy? What’s up?” he said, blinking and trying not to yawn in my face.

  “Hey, is your augment hooked into the station net?”

  “Of course,” he confirmed.

  “Can you look up Gondola.”

  Jones leaned in. “Please tell us she made it here a day ago so we can all mock Tommy and Cyborg.”

  Edgerton’s eyes unfocused, then refocused a few moments later. “No way,” he said. “No way…”

  “What?” Jones asked.

  “She didn’t… it never…”

  “Gondola didn’t make it here?” Ward asked, looking up from a wrap he was demolishing.

  Edgerton shook his head. “She never showed up. The notice says her arrival is ‘delayed’ and Terran Spaceways has launched an inquest. A request has been submitted to the TA and two system navies for a rescue ship. There are lots of families posting requests for news about missing family members, too. Babbage is going through the news now. Possible pirates, maybe systems failure, no wreckage or black box found yet. Last known location was before the jump point out of Rhysalan.”

  “Whoa,” Jones said. “You don’t think…” He trailed off, then cursed.

  I was shocked. It’s one thing to play it careful, but it’s another to discover that you’re not paranoid, they really are out to get you. I have to admit, I almost didn’t back up Zelag on the change of transport. Damn good thing I did, though.

  “That means Zelag was right,” Ward commented. “I mean, about the Unity.”

  “How do you figure that?”

  Ward paused and stared at his wrap reflectively for a moment. When he looked up at me, his eyes were dark with foreboding.

  “Because they’re not human anymore. They don’t give a damn about human life and they damn sure don’t fuck around.”

  Chapter 4

  Pyrrha looks pretty rough from the sky. It’s full of mountains, ridges, and rocks, cities scattered about the valleys, lots of dry, brown terrain with some green areas around lakes.

  I had done my research and learned that the Dom Sevru system has two habitable planets, Epimetheus, the first planet, and Pyrrha with its two moons. Due to its toxic atmosphere and extreme temperature, Epimetheus is mostly unpopulated except for some mining colonies and the techs at a huge solar array that beam-powered cargo transports. Prometheus, the dark red sun around which our beleaguered clients orbited, was a real scorcher. We were informed that the UV load on Pyrrha, though nothing like that of Epimetheus, meant going outside for more than a few minutes without sunscreen wasn’t advisable. The locals had a UV-blocking gene sequence that went back to the original colonists but we Wardogs weren’t going to be catching rays on the surface.

  Of course, we would probably be in our battlesuits anyhow, so it was hardly a problem.

  We disembarked from the Concordia II at the small Sfodrian orbital spaceport and took a lander down to the capital city of Nepolon, the so-called City of Lords that was known as the ancestral meeting place of the Five Hundred. Who now, apparently, were more accurately described as the Four Hundred Seventy Five. We didn’t land in Nepolon as I thought we would, but coasted another 40 clicks past the city to a fortified base surrounded by shooting ranges on one side and a town on the other. There was a parking area with some aged military transports, a broadcast tower, water and fuel storage tanks and a generator building, rows of barracks, a big hangar with a WDI flag hanging over the front next to a local flag.

  Outside the base was a severe little company town of maybe five thousand people. Everything was straight, clean lines and right angles. The place was too sharp, severe, orderly, organized and too stripped down to look welcoming, but to my eye, it indicated something even better. It indicated competence.

  “Welcome to Pyrrha, boys,” we heard an unexpectedly cheerful voice as we stepped off the lander and blinked in the hot red sun. I looked to see a broad-shouldered guy in his fifties with a big mustache, wearing a floppy campaign hat. “Come on in the hanger. I’ve already got your stuff all squared away.”

  I liked him already. Zelag was so relieved, he looked like a man on death row given a reprieve.

  “Garvin Pitt,” Squid said with a grin, slapping the man on the back. “So this is where you ended up. You’re our logistics?”

  “Yes indeed, Lieutenant!” Pitt said, pumping Squid’s hand. “Short-term gig, kind of surprised I took it myself. But it’s not bad. Sfodria is a serious little place, but I like the order of it all. No one spits on the sidewalk here and there isn’t any litter or graffiti to be seen anywhere.” He looked at Cole’s purple polo shirt, then around at a few other guys who were wearing theirs as well. “Team Galaxy Fitness? This some sort of new division or something?”

  “The brass’s idea of sneaking about. It didn’t work,” Squid said, pulling a cigar from his shirt pocket. “Never mind that. You really got our stuff?”

  “Of course,” Pitt said, waving towards a big mess of assorted containers. “Who’s got your back, buddy?”

  “All of our stuff?” Squid pressed, lighting his smoke.

  “Armor, rifles, frags, everything on the manifest. Hixton Freight dropped it off a day ago. They’re doing better than Upperfield. Though that doesn’t take much. Upperfield once sent a pair of our pulse howitzers to a daycare center-”

  “What the hell?” Squid said.

  “On the wrong planet too. But I’ll bet the kiddies were all excited with their funny new teeter totters. Hey, before we get started, why don’t you guys help yourself to what’s in the cooler there,” he gestured to a silver cooler on the ground by one of the buses. “Local brew isn’t bad, once you get used to it.”

  “Took me a whole week to figure out they’d gotten our howitzers,” Pitt continued, sitting down on a bench. “I was too busy trying to figure out who had sent all the rainbow-colored child-size chairs. UF’s tracking system is a clusterfutastrophe.” He cracked open a strange green can and laughed. “So hey, tell me about your life. Lungs are good, obviously.”

  “No rejection issues since they’re artificial,” Squid said, blowing a fat smoke ring in the still air of the hangar. “Still feel a little weird in my ribs sometimes. I think they inflate a little farther than my old set.”

  “No doubt,” Pitt said. “Hey, you weren’t in on that Ulixis thing were you?”

  “No, dammit,” Squid said. “Tech restrictions.”

  “We don’t have to worry much about those here,” Pitt said, taking a slug of his drink. “TA regulations don’t apply and the League doesn’t even try to interfere. What specifically kept you from going, though?”

  “No implants allowed. Not even medically approved ones.”

  “Strict,” Pitt commented. “So I guess you weren’t there for the famous incident everyone was talking about?”

  “Incident?”

  “You know, the thing with Marks!”

  “Ask Park or Tommy or Jock here. Actually, about half these guys were there, I think.”

  Pitt turned to me. “So, is it true?”

  “Is what true?” I said.

  He leaned forward in a conspiratorial manner. “Did Captain Marks really glass an entire city to take out a royal family?

  I shrugged. “Nuclear technology was not prohibited….”

  “I knew it!” he said triumphantly. “You know, I heard he once
rammed a big shipping transport with a space-to-ground lander because they wouldn’t move out of the way. Put a gun to the captain’s head, told him to crank up the shields and goose the engines. Blew a hole right through the middle!”

  “Really?” I said, not believing a word of it. I wasn’t an expert on ship architecture, but it sounded highly improbable.

  “Total truth,” Pitt said. “Guy I served with heard it from a lieutenant whose brother was on the ship. Marks’s ship, that is, not the one he wrecked. The man is a legend!” He turned to the rest of us. “Hey, you guys want something to eat? I think we could scrounge up some edibles in the office if you give me a hectasec or two.”

  “Go for it,” Squid said. “Team Galaxy Fitness is devoutly committed to proper nutrition.”

  Pitt whistled to a couple of local contractors unpacking a container. “These men need food, so go out and grab whatever you can find. And put on some coffee from my private stash.” The men nodded and disappeared.

  “You got a schedule for us yet?” Squid asked.

  “Actually, yeah,” Pitt said, pulling out a chunky old Spekker all-weather field tablet. “Off to our private barracks—which is really a motel just on the other side of the road past the base fence, we just rented the whole thing out—and then you’ve got an appointment with Captain Herevos and Lord General Landros at 1600.”

  “I have no idea what time it is now,” Squid said. “We need to sync to local. Should have done it on the transport.”

  “It’s 1190. A day is just shy of 76 kilosecs here. They use hours, each about three kaysecs. You can sync to Jimbo in the office there if you scan in, he’ll reset you.”

  “Jimbo?”

  “AI in a box. Over twenty years old but he’s good on tracking stuff for me. More stable than the emo-enhanced models coming out these days.”

  “Stay with what works,” Squid said, blowing a smoke ring. “I keep telling people that. What’s the situation on the ground here?”

  “I can fill you all in with what I know. It’s not pretty.”

  “Men, Pitt here’s gonna give us a briefing,” Squid said, calling in those of us that were farther away. “Come on over.”

  We gathered around and Pitt laid out the local situation.

  “Sfodria is really in a bind,” Pitt said. “Axios has never been able to whip them like they’re getting whipped now. It’s the mercenaries; they are taking out the knights, and that is unthinkable. No one’s ever knocked out more than one or two in the past, and we’re up to twenty-seven down now. Lost another two this week.”

  “So who are the mercs?” Zelag asked.

  Pitt shrugged and threw his empty drink can towards a trash chute, missing completely. “No outfit we ever dealt with before. We know almost nothing but I’ve been able to surmise a few things. Cloaking tech, good weapons, and man, they’re seriously bold. They came in with these little ships, right past the cruiser—I’m sure you heard about that, they smashed it into Owannis—then the militia responds and they take ’em out like nothing, then they meld right into the Axiosi infantry like they was born to it. Since then, the combined Axiosi and mercs have nailed the Sfodrian militia multiple times. Granted, those boys are close to useless, but even when the knights show up, these guys are beating them now.

  And the knights aren’t bad. The knights are scary. 20' tall suits, like giant killer robots from some low budget flick, rolling and cutting and dodging, throwing plasma from their swords, rockets, all that—and they’re getting beat. I mean, these boys got armor like a space cruiser and they know all the tricks. Decent mercs with top of the line stuff shouldn’t be able to take them out. Even a squad of Wardogs would have some serious trouble on their hands if one of these knights came a-knocking.”

  Pitt’s report was cut short when the pair of contract guys showed up with a rolling cart overflowing with food. Fruit, sandwiches, hot coffee, soydeens, pastries, Ocean Octaves, hard candy, all sorts of good stuff.

  “Not bad at all,” Squid said, taking a pastry and a cup of black coffee. “If this is you just throwing together some snacks, my hat’s off.”

  “We do what we can,” Pitt said, tearing open a bag of chips. “They stuck me in logistics for a reason.”

  “Wish we’d had you on a few dozen other missions I could rattle off,” Squid said. “So, these mysterious mercenaries are good, then. No leads on the outfit? SecSec, maybe? Thompson’s?”

  “Nope,” Pitt said. “None of the regulars. Or irregulars, for that matter. You ask me, I’d say they were from out there somewhere.” He waved his hand towards the scarlet sky. “Way out there.”

  “Aliens?” Ward said.

  “It’s as good a guess as any,” Pitt said. “Whispers are all over, you know. Darned if I know what they want here or what they’re getting paid, but they’re giving Axios an edge it’s never had before, and the Sfodrian military is shook like soda pop in a dropship.”

  Lord General Landros was a hulking man with a vented metal neck brace and a puckered white scar across most of the left side of his face, directly across the eye socket. The eye on that side was a blank silver sphere that looked more like a full-spectrum sensor rather than a conventional syntheye. His upper lip was notched into a sneer where the scar crossed it—and his attitude pretty well matched the expression on his face.

  “So you’re it?” he asked as he looked us over. We’d changed into our armor, all polished and impersonal. Our mirrored visors made identification impossible. Only Yost wasn’t suited up.

  “Yes, this is it,” Captain Yost said. “The best money can buy. Did you want us to send for more men? I can certainly have our sales liaison draw up a contract.” The captain had been sent ahead of us by two weeks. He’d commanded Red Skull company for a decade before becoming what you might call a circuit captain, working a variety front-line gigs outside the Ascendancy to “get some fresh air,” as he told us before our meeting. Yost had a good reputation, although in my opinion no one was up to Marks’s caliber.

  “We prefer to invest in our own men,” Landros said, his sneer becoming more pronounced. “Sfodria has a reputation to keep up.”

  “Of course,” Yost said. “Your knights are most impressive.”

  “‘Unlike the militia,’ I expect you are thinking.”

  “I said nothing of the sort,” Yost replied.

  “And yet it is true,” the Lord General said, thumping his fist on the steel wall of the chamber. There were no chairs in this conference room, which I assumed was some sort of local custom. No items of comfort at all, in fact. Not even carpeting. The floor was a tessellation of red and black tiles and there were some stylized tapestries of battle scenes hanging on the wall, but no furniture. “The militia is of the common people, and the common people are not the nation.”

  Yost waited silently as the Lord General thumped the wall again for emphasis. “Our knights are the nation. And they are failing, which has led us to realize the weakness of our position. We have plenty of manpower upon which we can draw, but that manpower is common, undertrained, and poorly equipped.” He looked us over again, moving up to Park and tapping on his visor with his knuckles. Park didn’t move and the Lord General grunted his approval. “Your man doesn’t even flinch. I have asked in the past for a proper force of men, men who will kill and die without fear, but the knights have borne everything on their shoulders.”

  “We are willing to train your men to be what you request,” Yost said mildly.

  “As much as it pains me, it seems our polity needs the commoners to play a more active role. My family has agreed, as have the knights.”

  “You are of the Oukiton bloodline,” Yost said. “I have read your history. It is an impressive military tradition.”

  The Lord General gave him a look that appeared almost approving. “You did your research. I myself would still be a knight if it were not for certain medical impediments. Unfortunately, our traditional methods of war have been crafted for the knighthood, not for commone
rs. Hence our need for commoners to teach them.”

  Captain Yost smiled slightly. “We’ll shape them up. Has the government approved a budget?”

  “Yes,” Landros said, producing a circular tablet from an interior pocket of his slate-gray uniform. “Look at these numbers.”

  Yost took the tablet and scanned through. He raised an eyebrow. “This is three times the budget we discussed, Lord General.”

  The Lord General nodded. “It has become apparent to the Stratocracy that the problem has become more urgent in recent weeks. We will also add a ten percent bonus to the agreed-upon contract. I will expect you to begin your review tomorrow. You are dismissed.”

  Yost nodded, looking thoughtful. He knew, as we all did, that this was not going to be a cakewalk. Only a truly desperate client would ever TRIPLE his budget.

  The motel smelled like boiled cabbage but it was cleaner than a lot of places we’ve bivouacked in the past. We tried to order meals but the kitchen staff shook their heads. “We don’t do made-to-order meals,” explained a young man as the older guy in the kitchen muttered and cursed to himself. “We only serve communal meals here.”

  “Communal?” Jock said. “You guys some sort of utopian nutcases? I require a special diet for medical reasons. Write this down, bud: I want a half a roasted chicken and a bottle of red wine, even if you need to go rob a farm.”

  “Cool it,” Squid said, taking Jock’s arm. “When in Rhysalan, as they say.”

  “We’re not in Rhysalan,” Jock said.

  “Enough,” Squid said, then turned to the kitchen guy. “Listen, kid. Feed us whatever’s back there and I’ll try to make sure the boys don’t beat you to death.”

  The guy swallowed hard and went back to the kitchen, then came out again shortly with metal bowls filled with some sort of gruel.

  “Oh, hell no,” Jones said, sniffing the stuff. “This smells like catfish vomit.”

  “It’s a fish-and-grain porridge,” Yost said, speaking for the first time since the meeting with the Lord General. “I’ve been eating it for weeks. Nutritious.”

  “We have plenty of funds now,” Ward said around a mouthful of gruel. “Can’t we see about maybe having at least an autochef sent over and stocked. Or maybe some decent MREs? We get some of those with our stuff, Squid?”