by J G Cressey
Shortly after touching down, Sinclair had picked up a simple, short-range SOS signal emanating from the research base. The signal wasn’t unexpected—they’d already known that the researchers were having difficulty—so it stood to reason that they’d send out a local distress signal. But it was unusually weak and intermittent with a puzzling frequency. Sinclair had described it like something a kid would have sent out after rigging up a simple beacon using old spare parts. The assessment had been all the reason Cal needed to send a message to Captain Decker requesting immediate retrieval of the civilians. As yet, no reply had been received.
“Malloy, how long?” he asked, looking down at the man who was crouched between two of the drone’s hideous, spiked legs.
“Fifteen more minutes,” Malloy replied, pausing for a moment to look up. He had stripped bare a section of the drone’s base and was wielding a couple of complex tools.
Cal shook his head in frustration. They’d already been here well over an hour. “Any way to hurry it along?” He asked the question even though he knew it was futile. Malloy was as fast and efficient as they came whether you asked him to be or not.
The science officer shook his head. “It would usually have taken far longer, but the drone’s shields were already offline when we arrived.”
Cal’s brow creased. “Signs of tampering?”
“None whatsoever,” Malloy said as he returned his attentions back to the job at hand. “I’ll need to ensure that the other defenses are inert before we delve any deeper.”
Cal nodded approvingly. Malloy was a damn fine science officer, something that was hardly surprising considering he had a T-tech augment fitted inside his skull. The augment enabled him to instantly access and process an unfathomable amount of information. Not only that but his eyes had been enhanced to a level almost matching that of a synthetic combat soldier. It made him privy to a host of details that normal human sight couldn’t hope to discern. On their first meeting, Cal had found the golden sheen covering Malloy’s eyes disconcerting, but he’d soon become used to it.
Stepping back from the drone, Cal glanced at Franco. “Corporal, stop caressing that flower, and get Max up and running. We’ll need him to shift the drone into the ship.”
“Sure thing, lieutenant,” Franco replied. “That drone looks his type though. Might get unprofessional.” The corporal took a moment to appreciate his own joke before jogging up the ship’s loading ramp.
“Cal, we’ve had a reply from the starship.” The voice was Sinclair’s, emanating from the comm on his wrist.
Cal gritted his teeth. He could tell from her tone that it wasn’t good news. “Do I want to hear it?”
“Probably not. Captain Decker wants the mission followed precisely as was ordered. Absolutely no deviations.”
God damn that prick, Cal thought angrily. The man was a bona fide idiot who’d not once set his own feet out on the field. How could such an ignorant, inexperienced person be expected to command? And how the hell could he have reached the rank of captain? Unfortunately, Cal knew the answer, and it was a woefully simple one: Decker’s father was the admiral of the fleet, and the truth of it was admirals could pull any strings they pleased.
“At least the communications seem to working fine,” Sinclair commented in way of conciliation.
“True enough,” Cal replied as he pondered his next move. “Send the message again if you would, Sinclair. And if the same reply comes back, then send it again.” Cal doubted if this approach would do the least bit of good. Decker was a blinkered, stubborn idiot, and pushing him only made him more so.
“Consider it done,” Sinclair replied. “If nothing else, it will be a good way to keep a check on the comms.”
“Thanks, Sinclair.”
Cal stared up at the ugly hunk of drone that towered over him and tried his best to simmer his frustration. He was starting to find the rank of lieutenant a bitch of a position—to be in charge but at the same time really not to be in charge. In an attempt to distract himself from thoughts of his inept superior, he planted his foot on a mound of churned up soil that surrounded one of the drone’s legs and leaned forward on his knee to get a better look at Malloy’s efforts. He didn’t know why he bothered; he couldn’t make head nor tail of the ridiculous maze of circuitry.
“What could have caused this malfunction, Malloy?”
Again, Malloy shook his head. “Sorry, right now, I have no answer for you.”
“You heard of this happening before?”
“There’re no similar occurrences in my database. And like I said, there’s no sign of damage. Bottom line, it should be working just fine. You want me to keep digging?”
“Yes…but not now,” Cal replied. “Best we get on the move. We’ll get Max to load it onto the ship, and you can puzzle through it later.”
Cal left Malloy to finish up and walked to the lake’s edge. Dipping the toe of his armored boot in, he swirled the crystal clear water and took a moment to consider the situation. His gut was still telling him that humans weren’t the problem here. And despite his science officer not being the most communicative of fellows, Cal suspected that Malloy agreed. Even the most sophisticated of scavengers, or even pirates, would have left their mark when disabling a drone in such a way. And even if they had managed it, to what purpose? Why just leave it? He rubbed his jaw and looked up to the sky in the hope it might trigger some miraculous insight. Now that the clouds had completely cleared, the suns were beating down, creating a pleasant warmth.
“Nice place this, sir.”
Cal turned to see that Couter had returned from his scouting. He eyed the new recruit for a moment, trying to decide if he was taking a mocking leaf out of Franco’s book. But the young man’s smile as he looked out over the lake seemed one of genuine appreciation. “It is indeed.”
“We did a full local sweep, sir. There’s a fair amount of wildlife. Some quite large herbivores but no signs of anything particularly dangerous.”
“Good.” Cal retracted his boot from the water. “It seems you might have to wait a little longer before you enjoy the pleasures of a true hellhole.”
Couter shrugged. “Looks that way… I guess my mother will just have to wait too.”
Cal shot him a questioning look.
Couter’s smile faltered slightly, making Cal suspect that he regretted having let the words slip out. He shrugged again. “Captain Maria Coutes is looking forward to bragging about her son’s unparalleled skill and cast-iron will in the face of overwhelming odds.”
Holy shit, Cal thought, almost blurting the reaction out loud. “Your mother is Captain Coutes?”
“Yes, sir,” Couter replied, his expression suggesting that he’d heard that kind of response far too many times in his short life. “Revered hero of the Terron sector moons,” he said with a lackluster wave of his arm.
Cal suddenly felt a little star struck. He was pretty confident in his combat abilities and had beaten a fair few odds in his time, but Maria Coutes’ achievements were legendary. Seeing the look on his recruit’s face, Cal did his best to swallow his enthusiasm; he suspected that the young man would prefer that his commanding officer didn’t ask for his mother's autograph. “So…a lot of pressure being her son, I’d imagine?” he said, deciding that Couter probably didn’t want to hear that he had a crush on her either.
Couter nodded. “Let’s just say my mother’s victories cast one hell of a big shadow. She’ll be going down in the history books, and she won’t be satisfied until her son’s right there next to her. Don’t get me wrong; I want to be a soldier…a great soldier. I did well at the Academy. I wouldn’t have made it into your team if I hadn’t. But living up to my mother’s expectations… Sometimes, it just seems beyond impossible.”
Cal hadn’t known his own parents and felt ill-equipped to give Couter any advice. Still, as his commanding officer, he felt it his duty to at least try. “My advice: Just concentrate on your own expectations.” Nice and simple.
&n
bsp; Couter looked out over the lake then nodded.
“And mine of course,” Cal added. “I am your boss after all.”
Couter nodded again, but this time, a smile appeared.
The two of them continued to look out over the lake for a time until Couter broke the silence. “So what’s next, Lieutenant? We heading for the civilians?”
Cal turned to him and found himself swallowing the automatic answer he was about to give—some extra bullshit to cover up the bullshit he’d already been ordered with. Christ, what had happened to him? When had he turned into such a…mindless machine? Had it been after his promotion to lieutenant? He liked to think there was a time he’d have told his superiors to shove their idiotic orders where absolutely nothing could be retrieved, no matter what its monetary value. But up until a year ago, he’d always admired and respected those he was answering to. But then Captain Lawrence Decker had been appointed.
Cal found himself nodding at Couter. Maybe it was recruit’s youth and enthusiasm reminding him of what he was once like himself: a headstrong young man who wasn’t afraid to give the rules a little bend when it was needed. He activated his comm. “Sinclair, keep checking the communications for me, but forget about sending Decker any further messages, and ignore any replies.”
“You sure?” Sinclair asked after a moment.
“Quite sure,” Cal said, shooting Couter a quick smile. “The drones can wait. Set us a direct course for the civilian research base.”
CHAPTER THREE
Cal stood at the front end of the deployment cabin. Now that they were traveling within the planet’s atmosphere, the flight was smooth, especially with Sinclair at the helm. There were no windows in the cabin, and if it hadn’t been for the takeoff, one could have been forgiven for believing they were still on the ground. It had taken them a good hour to load the data drone onto the ship, and Cal had been close to just abandoning it. Max, their combat robot, wasn’t as young as he once was, and on this particular day, he seemed to be struggling more than normal. Cal looked to the back of the cabin where the big robot stood motionless and wondered if this would be his last outing. The more advanced synthetic combat soldiers were about to be integrated into the specialist teams, and he imagined one would be replacing Max before the year was out.
Max was much bigger than the modern synthetics and possibly a good deal stronger. The new synthetics were designed to replicate a human in appearance, but no such efforts were made with the older combat robots. Max was eleven feet tall—a giant of solid, cybernetic muscle. But compared to the new synthetics, it was relatively clumsy muscle. The synthetics were incredibly fast and precise with far more ability to learn, their AI systems teetering on the very edge of the limitation laws. But even in Max’s soon-to-be outdated system, Cal thought he occasionally detected something akin to life behind the robot’s glowing eyes even though he doubted it was truly possible.
“You realize this deviation could have harsh consequences, Lieutenant.”
The statement had come from Veteran Wilson, who was sitting close by. Cal nodded while still staring at Max. “I’m keenly aware.”
“Captain Decker’s not the sort of man who takes even the smallest deviations lightly. And his orders were quite clear.”
Cal turned to look at the older man, to assess his expression. As usual, it was a stony mask, entirely unreadable. Cal suddenly wondered whether either Wilson or Orisho might try and overrule his command in an instance like this. The two veterans were, after all, his unofficial overseers—highly experienced team members entrusted to keep an eye on the uninitiated. Cal could understand the need for such a role—it was one thing for a new officer to perform well in training or even on a more straightforward mission like a scavenger flush on a first world colony—but it could be a whole different story when trying to dish out orders on a fringe world, waist deep in swampland while point grenades rained down. But Cal had never considered that the role may also be to keep a new officer on the straight and narrow, to keep them from bending the rules or breaking orders. Now that he thought about it, however—and was faced with Wilson’s stony expression—he thought it entirely possible, perhaps even likely.
“Those civilians could be in real trouble, Wilson,” Cal reasoned.
Wilson gave the smallest of nods. “I’m not denying that… But orders are orders.”
“They are, I’m in total agreement, but Decker—”
“You mean Captain Decker?” Wilson interrupted, an edge to his tone. “The man who is not only in charge of our team but our entire starship.”
Cal wasn’t liking the way this was sounding. Despite being in Wilson’s company for many years, he still felt he couldn’t truly read the man. Was he really that steadfast to his superiors no matter what the situation or possible consequences? And would Orisho be the same? Cal suspected that with Becker at his back, he could possibly retain control over the team should the two veterans end up opposing him, but that could get very messy very fast. Deciding that complete honesty was the only way forward, he said, “Decker is indeed a captain, but it doesn’t stop the man being a damn fool who dishes out orders on a whim…”
Wilson raised an eyebrow at that—only very slightly, but it seemed a lot on such an unyielding face.
“…Orders that can get a lot of people killed,” Cal continued. “Civilians and soldiers alike.”
Wilson dropped the eyebrow and sat still and silent as if he were carved from rock.
“Come on, Wilson, you know me,” Cal said in an attempt to chip away at that rock. “You know I wouldn’t ignore an order unless I thought it was for a good reason. Something’s happened at that base, and it’s not a simple scavenge crime or comm malfunction.”
Wilson still didn’t reply, but he seemed to be considering.
“You really think I’m making the wrong call here?” Cal asked after a moment.
The veteran continued to stare at him, that damn weathered face of his still unreadable. Cal stared right back and was about to push his argument further when Wilson turned to look at Orisho, who was sitting further down the cabin. The big Japanese man was deep in conversation with Private Forester, the team’s medic, but as if somehow telepathically linked, he suddenly paused in his conversation to look toward his comrade. Cal thought it a strange bond that the two men shared, which at times seemed to border on supernatural, but perhaps it was simply decades of watching each other’s backs that attuned their senses past the norm. Seeming to read a lot more in Wilson’s expression than Cal could, Orisho gave his fellow veteran a nod before reverting back to his conversation with Forester.
Cal was encouraged by the nod and was further encouraged when Wilson turned back to him and offered him a hint of a smile. It was subtle but genuine.
“As it happens, I do think you’re making the right call,” Wilson said. “But I guess only time will tell.”
“I guess so,” Cal replied, taking a deep breath and nodding his appreciation.
The flight continued to be uneventful, and the whole team took the opportunity to eat and hydrate. As they neared their destination, Cal moved to the center of the cabin to address the rest of the team. “Okay, it won’t be long now before we arrive at the research base,” he said, looking around the group. “Time for another quick brief.”
“You think this touchdown might put us in as much danger as the last, Lieutenant?” Franco asked. The corporal was slouched over two flight seats, his feet on a crate of food packs. “I realize you’ve won the Federation Bravery Award three times, but the rest of us aren’t quite so fearless.”
Cal winced. “I’m considering you for a solo mission, Corporal. And if you bring up those bloody awards one more time, I won’t bother to land the ship before I send you out.”
This got a few laughs that were mostly drowned out by Orisho’s booming guffaw.
Cal waited until the big man had simmered to a quiet, sporadic chuckle before he continued. “Just because this planet’s fallen a little sho
rt of hellish, it doesn’t mean we can all ease off the trigger. We still don’t know the reasons behind the malfunctioning drones and the loss of communication with the research base. And it still could be that we have to deal with pirates. Even scavengers can be a bitch if—”
Cal’s words caught in his throat as the ship suddenly lurched, causing him to stumble. He quickly activated his comm. “Sinclair, what’s with the turbulence?”
“Everyone, grab on to something.”
Sinclair’s tone held an urgency that encouraged Cal to lunge for the nearest restraint. Unfortunately, he didn’t make it. The ship took a sudden, dramatic dive, causing the entire team to go airborne. Cal let out a curse that was knocked out of him as the back of his head slammed into the cabin’s metal ceiling. Then, a second later, the side of his face bore the brunt as he was reunited with the floor. There was a moment of disorientation as his head spun, and his vision protested. “Sinclair, talk to me,” he shouted as he wrapped his arm around a smart-strap that was securing a nearby crate. The ship was shuddering violently, and he had the distinct impression they were heading down fast.
“Hold on tight,” Sinclair replied, her voice sounding blessedly composed thorough the comm. “Emergency touchdown in three…two…one.”
Cal was pressed hard into the floor as the landing gear blasted out what must have been a maximum thrust. Despite this, the ship still hit the ground hard.