by Jay Allan
Stanton.
“I’m okay, Major,” he said, as he pushed himself over to his side and then stood up without any help, just the way he’d been taught in basic training so many years before. “What’s your status?”
“We’ve got eight still in action, sir. Five dead…two others badly wounded.” He turned and gestured behind him, and Cameron caught the glimpse of two armored Marines lying against the wall. Neither one of them was moving at all, and the general had an idea how badly wounded they had to be completely out of the action in a situation as desperate the current one.
“I’ve got twelve with me,” he said, looking back as he did, watching as two of his aides repeated his desperate lunge across the tiny sliver of no-man’s land. They both made it, more gracefully that he had…but the third Marine—Corporal Josten, Cameron told himself, beating the AI to it—wasn’t so lucky. He made it about half way before a stream of projectiles hit him and sent him flying back the way he had come.
Cameron told himself Josten might still be alive, but he’d gotten too good of a view of the whole thing to believe that, especially when his readout confirmed the Marine was dead. Then, he got a good glimpse at the torn and blood-soaked wreckage that was all that remained of the man’s armored chest, and all doubt was gone.
He glanced back across to the others, concerned for a moment Josten’s fate might unnerve the rest of his small column. But, two more of his people jumped out as he was watching, and the others followed, without any noticeable delay…despite the fact that two more went down trying.
One of those, at least survived. Sergeant Polk had taken a hit to the midsection, but his trauma control system managed to treat the wound and patch the breach in his armor before the noxious atmosphere or dangerously high temperature did him in. Cameron was still worried about radiation, and how big a dose the sergeant had gotten when his suit was holed, but he didn’t have time to obsess about a single casualty, especially not one who still seemed reasonably mobile.
“Sir…”
“Yes, Major…I know.” He turned back toward Stanton, more out of habit that necessity.
“This has got to be part of the production facility…maybe we should be setting charges. If we can’t get any farther, perhaps we can…”
“No, Major. We didn’t come here to knock out a small part of their production…we came here to take it all.” Cameron was far from as certain as he sounded. In theory, what he said was correct. Realistically, though, his Marines were scattered to hell, cut off from each other, with minimal comms. And, he had no idea how many warbots the enemy still had down the in tunnels. If he pushed too far, his people might not inflict any meaningful damage at all.
He turned and looked back at the small cluster of Marines behind him. Warrick was there, and Tolbert, too. They both had atomic charges. They weren’t heavy thermonuclear jobs, just twenty-five kiloton fission bombs, but that was still a healthy blast, especially underground in confined quarters. He had no idea where the rest of the acceleration chambers were, if they were close enough that charges set off there would take them all out.
He was pretty sure of one thing, though. If he started popping off nukes, he was basically giving up on any of his people getting out. He’d already decided he would do that, sacrifice himself and every Marine he’d brought down to the planet, if that’s what it took to really hurt the enemy. But, he wanted to be damned sure he got a lot more than some peripheral damage in return for that.
And, he wasn’t sure. Not yet.
That meant there was only one choice…pushing forward.
“Alright, Major. We’ve got to see what is ahead of our position, and that means taking these bots out.” He paused, looking at the armored forms surrounding him. “Okay, let’s take an inventory and see what we’ve got…and we’ll come up with an attack plan. I’ve got four hypersonic rockets, and two dozen grenades…”
* * *
“The beacon’s out, but the warbook says it’s definitely a Torrance-class cruiser. She looks like she’s been through hell, Admiral.” Hercule paused. “It’s got to be Vaughn.”
Strand had been thinking the same thing…she suspected everyone on Midway had been. But she wasn’t one to be comfortable with unconfirmed assumptions.
Vaughn had been in the system, of course, and she was the only recently-active Torrance-class ship missing. There had been two other vessels of the class lost in its history, but the most recent had been nearly four years before, and its last report position was nowhere near to G48. Strand worked through her doubts, realizing that the derelict ship her scanners had picked up was, in fact, Vaughn. It had to be. She was still edgy, though, troubled in some way she couldn’t quite pinpoint.
“Okay…well, we’ll soon know for sure. Launch the rescue shuttle.” It was pointless, at least to her way of thinking. There was no way she could see that Captain Graham or any of his people could possibly have survived…not with the number of First Imperium ships that had been present in the system.
But, the navy looked after its own, and she couldn’t leave the wreck to simply drift through space, not without confirming absolutely there were no survivors in its tortured hull.
“Very well, Admiral. Rescue shuttle launching now.”
Strand leaned to the side of her chair, placing her weight on the right armrest. She was exhausted, the fatigue of days of stress and combat finally threatening to overtake her. It took some considerable effort to stay awake over the twenty minutes or so it took the shuttle to reach its destination.
“Admiral…shuttle one has docked with the ship.” A few seconds passed, perhaps half a minute. “Lieutenant Glynn reports the vessel is Vaughn. He has confirmed with the airlock registry.”
That wasn’t any real surprise, though Strand appreciated the confirmation. Her nerves had been working on her the entire time the shuttle made its way to the ship, all kinds of bizarre thoughts that it was some kind of enemy trick, that they had built a replica of an Earth Two ship, and a few other equally crazy ideas. She realized it was all insane conspiracy stuff, but the intensity of the battle, and the days of waiting, hoping no new enemy ships came pouring through one of the warp gates while the Marines were still down on the planet, had worn her to a nub. She was ready to believe just about any nightmare that worked its way into her mind.
“Very well, Commander. Advise Lieutenant Glynn she may proceed.”
Strand watched on the main screen, as the view from Glynn’s helmet cam was relayed and displayed for all on the bridge to see. The airlock appeared to be functional…though Glynn and her people would keep their suits on no matter what conditions they found. Strand wasn’t about to allow anyone to get careless…especially since the mission was most likely a grim one, its likeliest purpose to find some bodies and confirm that Vaughn’s crew had all died with the rest of their fleet.
“We’re through the airlock. The ship appears to have minimal life support. My scanners read low oxygen levels, but within survivable parameters. Temperature two-eighty-two Kelvin…chilly, but also in the habitable range.”
Strand could hear the hope in the lieutenant’s voice, but she didn’t share it. She waited calmly, sadly, for the report that Glynn had found dead crew members. She just hoped they had died quickly, and not agonizingly, crawling through shattered corridors as they bled to death from wounds or writhed in agony from radiation sickness.
“Ship status?” Strand couldn’t understand why the enemy forces hadn’t finished off the vessel. Vaughn appeared to be pretty badly beaten up, but she’d never have left an enemy ship still floating through space, no matter how dead it looked. She didn’t think a First Imperium Intelligence would either.
Maybe they just missed it…
That was the only answer, but she still couldn’t quite accept it.
The ship’s trajectory was odd as well. Vaughn was heading slowly in system, along roughly a trajectory leading in from one of the uncharted warp gates. She could understand the ship desper
ately escaping into unexplored space, through a warp gate leading out of the system…but how did it end up moving back toward the inner system?
“Admiral!” She could hear the excitement in Glynn’s voice. She knew instantly what the tone meant…but it still took her some time to accept what she was hearing. “There are survivors! We’ve got at least four…” There was a pause, then: “No, seven!”
Strand was stunned. She was still suspicious, her mind picking at the inconsistencies she couldn’t explain, even as the bridge erupted into applause.
She turned and looked at her people, at the raw joy they felt at finding a few survivors after a fight that had cost the lives of hundreds of their comrades. Then, she let herself feel it, too. She realized she might have ignored the wreck of Vaughn if regulations hadn’t required her to investigate. And, the idea that she might have left survivors behind to die slowly…it was too much to take.
She drove the cynicism and suspicion from her mind, and let a smile slip onto her lips. “Search that ship from top to bottom, Lieutenant…and get any survivors back here as soon as possible.”
Another round of cheers swept the bridge, and Strand participated herself this time.
But, deep in the back of her mind, shoved aside, her unease remained, the sensation that the whole thing was some kind of trap.
“I want a fresh spread of probes launched, Commander. We’re going to make absolutely sure there’s nothing out there but Vaughn.”
She could celebrate and be cautious, too.
* * *
Cameron dove forward, even as the spray of automatic fire opened up, ripping through the space he’d occupied a second before. He landed hard, but the cushioning of his suit absorbed most of the impact. He was a little winded, but between the combat stims and the natural adrenalin, he barely noticed.
The combat had been heavy, the entire advance a series of leapfrogs forward, the Marines wiping out a cluster of warbots and then regrouping for the next advance. They’d paid heavily for every meter of ground, but now they were deep in the center of the facility.
They’d been through four acceleration chambers, each one of them a vast tunnel stretching far into the distant darkness. Cameron didn’t know much about antimatter production, but what knowledge he did have told him the accelerators were kilometers long, and that when they were active, they produced antimatter continuously.
The ones his Marines had discovered so far had all been shut down, as he suspected the entire facility was. Ongoing production would make the complex too difficult to defend…and even a small amount of loose antimatter could lead to a catastrophic explosion.
The whole operation was still in disarray, though things were a little better than they’d been. Captain Ness and his team had managed to cut the power to the enemy’s jamming setup. Communications were still far from ideal, but Cameron had been able to reach about half his people. Several groups of them were moving deeper into the facility, but his own small cluster of Marines seemed to have gotten the farthest.
“How many of these chambers do you think there are?” Major Stanton spoke slowly, and it was clear to Cameron that every word was a struggle. The major—and his second in command now that he’d been able to confirm Colonel Desmond’s death—had been wounded twice, and Cameron wasn’t sure what it was besides pure stubbornness keeping the Marine going.
“A lot, probably. I don’t know how much antimatter one of these produces when its operating, but it doesn’t seem like the Regent to do anything in half measures.”
“No, I guess not.” A pause, and a couple of gasps it sounded like Stanton had tried to hide. “Where do you think we should plant the charges? We can’t just keep pushing forward…you know we don’t have the strength for that. This complex could go on for a hundred kilometers…even more.”
“You’re right…” Cameron knew his officer was correct…but he was just as aware that a few small nuclear charges weren’t going to do the job the Marines had come there to do. “There’s only one way to take out this entire complex.”
“The entire complex?” Stanton took a deep breath, one noticeably more ragged than the last few.
“We’ve got to take it all out, Mike. Nothing less is going to be enough. Look at this place…the Regent doesn’t need all this antimatter to defeat Earth Two. If we knock out half the production here, even three-quarters, is that going to make a difference?”
Stanton didn’t respond right away, but Cameron didn’t need an answer. He knew already. And, he could only think of one way to destroy the entire factory.
“We’ve got to find the storage units. That’s the only way. A couple nukes here will do some damage, knock out sections of the base. But, one well-placed bomb next to a storage facility…”
Stanton coughed, trying to clear his throat, and then he said, “Do you realize what kind of explosion you’re going to let loose?”
Cameron knew, well enough, at least. He was just as glad Hieronymus Cutter or one of the Mules wasn’t there to give him gory details about exactly what unleashing that kind of energy would do to the planet. He was just as happy without knowing how many millions of cubic meters of rock would be vaporized, or whether the atmosphere would be torn away in the cataclysm.
He didn’t care about any of that. He only cared about two things. First, if he could get the charge in the right place, he could take out the Regent’s antimatter production and supply in one fell swoop.
And, two…any of his Marines who were going to escape had to be not only out of the underground complex, but well on their way into orbit before he blew the charges.
Chapter Thirty-Two
Compton Square
Victory City, Earth Two
Earth Two Date 02.26.43
“Are you sure about this, Max?” Ana Zhukov stood next to Harmon, one of the dignitaries invited to watch the spectacle from the comfort and security of the Presidential Box, and a member of the select group that called Earth Two’s dictator by his first name. Harmon was one of her closest friends, and she loved and respected him…but she thought what he was about to do was wrong…and she wasn’t afraid to tell him.
“I don’t want to do this, Ana. I have to.” Harmon’s tone was grim, morose. It was clear he didn’t like what was about to happen, but just as evident he wasn’t about to change his mind.
“I’m not saying you don’t have to execute the real perpetrators, but there are sixty-four people waiting down there. Some of them are just kids.”
Harmon turned toward her, the pain in his expression mixing with anger and determination. “Kids who were perfectly capable of plotting to murder their fellow citizens, Ana. I don’t find the fact that they are a few years below legal adulthood all that compelling an argument for mercy, not considering what they did.” The cadence of his voice suggested he did feel that way, actually, at least on some level. But, he still didn’t budge.
“Ana…you have to understand. This is not just a matter of a terrible crime, or even of terrorist groups plotting against the government.” Mariko Fujin was standing on the other side of her husband, and her voice lacked the doubt his still carried. “Erika West is not here. Neither is Cooper McDaid, Josie Strand, Raj Chandra, Devon Cameron. They are all out somewhere in deep space, fighting what is at best a desperate struggle…and, at worst a trap that will see them all lost. We are not only a new civilization, facing a hundred challenges to securing a future…we are still a group of refugees being pursued by a murderous power that would destroy us all given the chance.”
She turned and gestured toward the square, where even then, Marines were leading the condemned to the scaffold the work crews had hastily assembled during the night. “Given different circumstances, we could debate endlessly how a just society should handle such situations. We could argue the points of view calling for mercy against those of the families of the innocent dead. But, it is not vengeance for the lost that is important now, nor even justice…if such a thing can be objectively defi
ned. It is survival. Survival for all of us, as a people.”
Zhukov leaned forward and looked over at Fujin. She’d been friends with the retired fighter pilot almost as long as she had been with Fujin’s husband. She might have reacted angrily to someone else making the argument Fujin was, but she knew very well that Mariko was not a cold and uncaring person. There was realism in all she said, and Zhukov understood the idea that saving a few people at the risk of endangering an entire civilization was a dangerous, and perhaps unbalanced, point of view. But, she couldn’t quite bring herself to look at things that way. Her efforts weren’t helped when she saw two of the condemned dragged out onto the scaffold, both of them young men, no older than sixteen…and both slouched over, sobbing, begging their captors for mercy.
“I know this is difficult for you, Ana…but you must consider other images, the sky aflame, great mushrooms clouds obliterating all we have built, killing hundreds of thousands, until Earth Two is a silent tomb, our own people lost to the enemy even as the Ancients who preceded us.” Harmon didn’t sound any less miserable when he spoke, but she could hear the conviction growing stronger in his words.
She understood—she even agreed to an extent—but she couldn’t bring herself to support what was about to happen. “Is this how you want to rule? To lead us to victory? With fear?”
She could tell immediately she’d hit a weak spot, and as firmly as she felt the executions, some of them at least, were wrong, she felt guilty for what she had just said.
“Yes…with fear.” It was Fujin again, answering for her husband, and her voice was like ice. “I have watched for more than forty years, waiting for the day when my husband could set aside his burdens…and for the last twelve, we have lived in a house that looks more like a fortress, protected by Marines day and night. All that time, I have craved another way, a path to victory, to survival for Earth Two…but that has been nothing but a tortured dream. Max has dedicated his life to Earth Two, given all he has to secure a future for our people. I will not see that goal lost now for lack of the willingness to do what must be done.” She looked at Harmon, her gaze one of unrelenting intensity. “It is time, Max…is it not?”