by M. D. Cooper
She unslung her S901 and loaded in a magazine of armor piercing 20mm rounds. Moving down the corridor, she fired several rounds into the wall, opening holes into the elevator foyer on the far side of the room from two/one.
She quickly flipped out the magazine and swapped in incendiary rounds.
Angela said at the same time as Williams.
The AI didn’t respond but Tanis could tell that she was following her command. At least just one of them would face court martial for the action. The Phobos Accords, which were created at the end of the century long Ascendance War, governed not only human and AI interactions, but also the things you could do to a sentient being’s mind.
Burning a mind was tantamount to a war crime.
Angela directed the nano that had entered into the horror’s body to its brains and set them about their task, burning out all dendrites that facilitated higher functions. The act would turn each of the horrors’ brains into something that could do no more than power the organs under its control.
Normally the process could be done in a dozen seconds, but with the number of brains in the creature it would take a few minutes.
Tippin directed several fireteams to follow Tanis’s example and moments later they were rotating incendiary fire to keep the thing guessing where the next assault would come from.
The work became easier as the number of functioning limbs on the creature decreased. After what turned out to be only four minutes from the time the elevator door opened to when the thing dropped, the platoon stood down, every one of them knowing they could have easily died in this encounter, a thought made all the more sobering by the realization that two Marines had died and three others were in no shape to continue on.
Tippin and Williams triaged and adjusted the affected squads, sending a total of eight Marines back to the position three/one held at the station’s entrance.
One/one hauled the horror out of the lift and dropped it in a corner. One/two joined them in the lift and the eight Marines took the ride down into the asteroid to secure the landing below.
Tanis passed the intel on the horror to the other platoons along with what they had to do to take it down. The responses she received were heartening. No one condemned her for burning the minds—not after they saw the thing and the destruction it had wrought.
She gave the order that company commanders could use their nano for the same action if necessary and she would take the heat.
When the Phobos Accords had been written a thousand years ago, she couldn’t imagine the intent had been to protect things like what she had destroyed—at least not in the heat of battle when it was killing her Marines.
Tanis nodded, she wasn’t quite ready to speak yet. Instead she monitored the nano that was racing ahead of the descending lift, anxious to see what awaited the Marines when they arrived at the bottom.
“Now I believe in a god…or two,” Tippin said as he stared down at the horror.
“Why is that?” Williams asked.
“Because I know there’s a devil.”
“Not for long.” Tanis felt anger drag her out of perseveration over her actions. “We’re going to go down there and kill him.”
As luck, or perhaps a god, would have it, the Marines only faced light defenses at the bottom of the lift, and several minutes later the platoon was working their way through the asteroid itself.
The gravity was lighter here and magnetics in their boots helped keep them attached to the deck plating. Tanis always found it a bit awkward and ended up turning hers off. When the gravity was too light to hold her down at all she’d switch them back on.
Reports came over the battalion combat net of more horrors like what the 4th platoon had faced—and other things like them. Only one other platoon had encountered one in tight quarters like the 4th Bravo had. They managed to blow out a wall with explosive rounds and sucked the thing into vacuum. The other encounters all took place in more forgiving surroundings for the Marines, and they managed to use flanking and explosives to take the creatures down.
The platoons were all within the core of the asteroid at this point, facing an endless stream of new enemies, few as difficult to take down as the multi-human horror, but none easy. Though it was taking a toll on them, the Marines worked their way through the nightmare with stoic determination.
Tanis despaired, doubting they would find any unaltered humans to save in the place. Every person, using that term lightly, was a monster and attacked them on sight, never saying a word, though shrieks and moans were common.
By the count Bruno was keeping, the Marines had killed over a thousand of the probable ten-thousand inhabitants of Toro. The 4th Bravo and several other platoons were closing in on what the net showed to be a large, open chamber near the center of the asteroid. Chances were that they would find the other nine-thousand occupants there.
If they had all been turned into monsters then things were about to get a lot worse.
The platoon moved down a final corridor toward the central chamber, and Tanis’s remaining nano, scouting ahead, flew out into the expanse first and provided a feed.
The chamber matched what the net said and was five-hundred meters long and thee hundred wide. Being near the center of Toro, there was no gravity here, save for a small pull backwards. It was roughly oval and was full.
Creatures of all shapes and sizes floated in the space, more than the nine-thousand Tanis’s intel had estimated, there had to be at least twenty-thousand or more. It was hard to be sure because so many consisted of more than one human.
“Welcome,” a voice boomed out, “it is so nice of you to come and join our union.”
Tanis could make out a figure roughly a hundred meters into the chamber. It was drifting closer and the vague outline began to take shape.
It was John Cardid…plus a few other people. His head was present and appeared to be attached to a mass of human bodies with a variety of other heads sticking out of his ‘torso’. His arms consisted of additional people and his legs were each made up of two people.
“On the authority of the Sol Space Federation, I order you to surrender,” Tanis called out.
“Right, because he’s going to do that,” one of the Marines said quietly.
“I have to say it…but I hope he doesn’t. I’d very much like to see this…guy dead,” Tanis replied.
John Cardid had started chuckling as he heard the statement. “I don’t think so. Even now my forces are flooding out through tunnels not on the station’s net to flank you. You’ll join us or die. Chances are that you’ll join us even if you do die.”
Almost as one, the figures on the edges of the space began to push off and, like a slow wave, Cardid’s followers moved toward the platoon.
“Platoon…retreat.” Tanis said aloud before sending the command over the combat net to the entire battalion.
The 4th Bravo began to move back up the corridor, keeping an eye out for the flanking forces Cardid had spoken of. Tanis and one/one were moving backward, covering their escape, and one of the Marines planted a few high explosive charges on the walls as they went.
“Can’t cause a ‘cave-in’ in zero-g but it can block them and their plasma bolts for a bit.”
Tanis no
dded her approval and when they were at a safe distance from the charges, the Marine detonated the packs. The shockwave rippled past them and back down the corridor; the walls turned into high-speed gravel. It wasn’t a moment too soon as fire from Cardid’s forces began to impact the debris cloud.
The platoon picked up the pace, but they were soon slowed down by the aforementioned flanking forces.
They managed to move, but slowly, fighting for each meter. The Marines were beginning to show signs of cracking. When a series of spider-looking things crawled out of a tunnel, a few began to fire wildly in all directions, screaming in horror over the Link.
Williams was there in an instant, shouting them back into control and then calming them. Tanis was impressed with his abilities, but knew he wouldn’t be able to maintain control for long.
The platoon was taking hits, running low on ammunition and close to losing it.
Tanis said as she passed up the data that Angela and Bruno had worked up, over a hundred coordinates that would clear paths ahead of the Marines and hopefully slow down their pursuers.
Tanis suspected he was consulting his packet for a way around the order. There wasn’t one and she knew he would comply.
Her expectations were confirmed as a section of the tunnel a hundred meters behind the platoon disappeared in a white-hot flash. The tunnel shook as the rock rapidly expanded and the Marines felt their magnetic boots increase the strength of their magnetic lock as air whipped past.
Several exceptionally grotesque enemies flew by as the tunnel decompressed, eyes bulging, but still firing at the Marines. Tanis fired back as she kept the platoon moving up the corridor to the evac point.
As if on command, another white-hot flash of laser fire tore through the tunnel further ahead, cutting a path to the surface of the asteroid and their waiting transport.
The Marines rushed into the space and used their armor’s thrusters to avoid the white-hot walls of the wide shaft. At the top, their transport awaited, three/one hanging off the sides, firing at the monsters who seemed not to care that they were dying in the vacuum.
The battalion’s combat net showed that all the platoons were on their transports; the 4th Bravo, being the furthest in, was the last out.
Looking down, Tanis saw dozens of holes on the surface of Toro venting atmosphere, but there were also several small ships taking off from the asteroid itself and the ring of stations surrounding it.
Even though they should be evacuating, the ships accelerated on attack vectors, aiming to take out the Marine transports.
The Marines had all locked down in the transport and Tanis took her seat, watching the external monitors. Below them, the holes the Arcturus had burned were no longer venting atmosphere. Suddenly a large crack appeared across the center of Toro, then another appeared laterally.
When Toro had been spun up for increased centripetal force, carbon nano-struts were added to re-enforce the asteroid. Cardid, apparently, had not increased the structural support to compensate for the new tunnels and chambers.
The weakening effect of the laser fire burning holes in the asteroid proved to be too much and Toro began to tear itself apart.
Like a slow motion dance of destruction, the asteroid broke apart, chunks breaking off and swinging out into space, while others smashed into the ring of stations. Explosions blossomed, and by the time the transports were docking on the Arcturus, Toro was no more.
The Marines were silent as the transports unloaded. They stripped out of their armor with little talking and carefully cleaned the blood and gore from their gear.
Tanis was working with them, cleaning the armor and weapons she had used. There were a thousand other things she should be doing, but she needed the time to collect her thoughts, to try to put together what had just happened into something that made sense.
“Colonel Richards!” a voice called out behind her. Tanis turned to see a squad of MPs approaching. One of them, an officer named Indras, stepped forward.
“Yes, Major?” Tanis asked.
“I am here to relieve you from command of the 242nd Marine Battalion and place you under arrest.”
Several of the Marines around her turned sharply and bristled, a few reached for their weapons. She may not be a Marine, but apparently going through Toro had made her enough of one for them.
“What is the charge?” Tanis felt like the ship had fallen out from beneath her.
“Violation of the Phobos Accords, violation of the TSF code of conduct, use of weapons of mass destruction against civilians, and other crimes against humanity.”
“There were no civilians and no humanity on Toro,” Williams barked. “On whose orders are you doing this?”
The TBI agent, Brennan, was with the MPs and shook his head. “I forwarded the feeds. What you did was unconscionable.”
The major’s eyes were hard and unblinking. “On the orders of the president of the Terran Hegemony and the joint chiefs, come with us, Colonel Richards, we are to confine you to quarters.”
Tanis set down the weapon she had been cleaning and followed the major; the other MPs forming a box around her as the Marines hollered and swore at their backs.
CHURN AND BURN
STELLAR DATE: 3223493 / 07.11.4113 (Adjusted Gregorian)
LOCATION: TSS Normandy
REGION: Near Makemake, Scattered Worlds, Sol Space Federation
The carrier was rigged for silent running.
There were no emissions, the engines were cold and the ship was slowly drifting down toward the stellar disk. Captain Ygres didn’t like it one bit. Didn’t like the orders, didn’t like the secrecy, didn’t like the destination.
Not one bit.
She surveyed the bridge, noting how well the crew hid their boredom. The last few months had been a flurry of activity; getting all the fighters ready, all the weapons systems primed while offline, and all the Marine transports ready to deploy—all without emitting one more rad or photon than necessary. But now…now it was the embodiment of the space force’s favorite catch-phrase: hurry up and wait.
The TSS Normandy had departed from Ceres seven months ago. As far as anyone—other than she and the XO—knew, they had been on their way to join up with the seventh fleet near Venus for maneuvers. Only the Normandy had accelerated past the seventh and entered into a polar orbit around Sol.
The crew got curious, but the captain wasn’t offering explanations, so they made do with their own gossip.
Only it wasn’t an orbit. They used the pass by Sol for a gravity assist, what the vacuum jocks called a slingshot. The carrier broke away from Sol at a quarter of the speed of light; impossible to spot unless you were looking for them.
That’s when the crew started to worry, scared shitless in some cases. Banking off the star at a quarter the speed of light was an outsystem vector. Warships didn’t go outsystem, there was no point. She knew some of the comments whispered when she wasn’t around, some likely questioned her sanity; but Lieutenant Colonel Arkon, her XO, had words with anyone who spread the smallest rumor about their captain.
Sometimes it bothered her a bit; it felt like they trusted hi
m more than her. But she knew that wasn’t it; it was the XO’s job to stop the captain from doing something stupid. Since he wasn’t stopping her, that meant she was acting under orders…however, any experienced corpsman knew that following orders didn’t mean they weren’t doing something stupid.
Ygres presented perfect calm to the crew. They had to know she was solid and dependable.
Even if she thought the orders were shit. Why, of all the ships flitting about the Sol System did they have to pick hers for this mad mission?
She shook her head and looked at the countdown to deceleration that had been on her HUD for weeks.
Fifteen hours.
Fifteen mind numbing hours.
By now the crew had figured out what was going on. She hadn’t told them. Arkon hadn’t told them. But they knew. Anyone in the corps could read the stars, a few peeks out a porthole and you’d know where the ship was heading.
The scattered disk.
More specifically, Makemake, capital of the Scattered Worlds.
The crew also knew what it meant when the Federation sent one of their most powerful warships to park on the doorstep of one of its member nations. No one said it—no one needed to.
She remembered what the news feeds had contained before they had left Ceres. The Scattered Worlds had elected a new parliament and they were doing more than making noises about leaving the Sol Space Federation, they were going to vote on it.
Damn fools. What would they do if they weren’t a part of the Federation? And could they even legally secede? No one knew for sure, and the Normandy was on its way to make certain no one would find out either.
She looked around the bridge one last time before retreating to her ready room. Despite her best efforts, the crew was picking up on her tension and anxiety, no need to have their captain looming over their shoulders, adding to their stress.
Normally, Commander Joseph Evans couldn’t care less about the politics of an engagement—he believed that it was best for there to be no politics on board a starship. But this was different. They were all but sneaking up on a Federation capital world. Hell, there was no almost about it; they were sneaking up on a Federation capital world.