Earth Colony Sentinel (Galactic Arena Book 2)

by Dan Davis

  No one spotted them.

  Not yet.

  Ram stumbled down the slope and dumped his gear into the back of the ETAT. Stirling hurried them along.

  Ensign Tseng stood by the passenger seat to the No.1 ETAT, his hand gripping the roll cage frame as if he was staking a claim to it.

  “Hurry,” Tseng urged them.

  Ram threw his weapon in then climbed into the space on the flatbed at the rear of ETAT No.1 and Harris got in the driver’s seat.

  The other four climbed into No.2 ETAT, Cooper driving, Stirling in the front with the stocky young Private Flores and the grizzled Corporal Fury on the back.

  Above, the clouds thickened, blocking out the stars completely. Up there, the Victory and her crew were facing down the enemy ship. Maybe had fought it already. Had the Stalwart Sentinel arrived yet? Or the other ships that were following it? The continued silence from orbit suggested that nothing had happened.

  For all the earlier bravado, everyone seemed subdued. Stiff, anxious. Full of cortisol. Ram wanted to say something to lift their spirits but he was not in command. And he was painfully aware that they were all there because of him. It was Ram who had decided to go on a suicidal rescue mission. They would all be having doubts, second thoughts. He was having them himself. On the other hand, there are times for making decisions and times when life has momentum, when you are more at the mercy of events outside yourself, even if you set them in motion. You get swept up and at those times it is best to just push through and save your doubt for later.

  Yeah but you think that way because of Avar. This is real life and your team doesn’t get to respawn.

  “Come on, then,” Ram said. “Let’s go murder some wheelers.”

  A couple of them laughed, a couple growled something aggressive and the rest remained silent. About as good as he could have hoped for.

  “Yes, move out,” Ensign Tseng said, but both ETATs had already started moving. Their motors whining under the strain of climbing out of the vehicle park with such heavy loads. They made it easily, though. Powerful vehicles.

  “I’ll activate the GPAT,” Harris said, spinning the wheel and heading for the dark mass of hills to the northeast. “Fury, throw it out the back.”

  “Hold on,” Stirling said. “No rush. If the signal diverges from what they can see of our tracks on the ground then they’ll know it’s a trick.”

  “Can’t wait too long,” Harris said.

  “Just a few more minutes,” Stirling said, speaking slowly. Ram saw him slouching in his seat like he was a lord taking a tour of his grounds. “Everything is fine, people. We’re good. Everything is going according to plan.”

  Even bouncing about in the dark and buried in layers of armor, Ram felt through the comms system and AugHud how the team members relaxed at Stirling’s words. At Stirling’s demeanor. It was becoming clearer with every moment that the sergeant was the best soldier out of all of them, a man to be trusted even in spite of whatever professional problems had landed him in Spaz Squad. If Stirling was relaxed then everything must be alright, must be good, just like he said.

  After a few more minutes, Harris set the GPAT drone off. The little thing was all wheels. No matter which way it bounced or rolled, it would always be able to keep going. Other than the usual tech that would keep it running in a general direction for five days straight, it was hosting a mirror of their suit and biochips. It bounced along next to them for a few hundred meters, moving gradually further away until it was lost from sight in the darkness, gone behind the jumbles of rock that littered the landscape.

  “You know,” Flores said. “As soon as they get the aerial back online, they’ll be able to spot us with the satellites.”

  “No, they won’t,” Harris said, sneered. “Those stupid little microsats couldn’t spot a battle tank. They couldn’t even spot your fat ass.”

  “Oh, really? You want to start talking about the sizes of body parts now, you really want to go there, Harris?”

  “Quiet!” Tseng snapped. “We’re barely outside and you’re already starting to annoy me. Keep watching your segments, alright?”

  A few of them mumbled acknowledgment. “Sir.”

  Tseng was uptight. They respected his rank but not the man. Perhaps that was a little harsh, they would never have allowed him to come along if they really hated him. Although, Ram was surprised the officer had come along at all. It did not fit the rest of the man’s character. If he was so bitterly opposed to Captain Cassidy then the depth of feeling must have been intense. Intense enough, in fact, that it had led to an actual demotion and removal from active duty, which seemed to Ram to be an extreme decision on the part of Cassidy.

  But what did Ram know. He didn’t know anything about the UNOPS Marine Corps.

  A light rain began falling again. His hydrophobic visor and armor shed the water like he wasn’t even there but the world around him, cast in shades of gray, shone with slickness. The ETATs and their drivers adjusted to the new driving conditions, slowing down and taking corners with heightened care. The black hills were carved by water, and rivers sliced their way down from altitude toward the plains where they meandered in new channels or thundered through deep gullies. Everywhere, the erosion had left piles of scree sloping up the flanks of jagged mountains and outcrops. It was slow going but the drivers had routes already mapped out from the satellite images they had pulled from the network. Even so, they needed to head up and down awkward slopes, cutting back and forth over valleys and zigzagging into the highlands above the plateau.

  All the evidence suggested that the wheelers were underground. Scans also indicated an area just 120 kilometers from the outpost was riddled with lava tubes. Underground channels that had, thousands or millions of years before, flowed with hot magma pouring from deep volcanic chambers out onto the surface. The diameter of the tubes varied from five meters up to twenty or even more. Some had eroded into open channels. Others, below the water table, flowed like natural aqueducts. But there were some lava tubes, pushed high by some hypothesized tectonic activity, that had remained as clear tunnels. They did not know how many tunnels there were. They had no idea how many kilometers they ran for.

  It made sense that the wheelers had used them for their base on the planet. Humans had done the very same thing on the Moon and on Mars. Ram had visited them virtually, through Avar, and he had seen how efficient a habitat they made. Cover the ends of the tube system with airtight structures, plus roof over any eroded skylights and you made yourself a nice, secure place to live that was shielded from radiation with minimum effort. The reason the UNOP outpost had been established on the plain, so they told him, was to be next to the airfield and the lava tubes had been eyed as the next step in colonization plans before they had discovered the wheelers called them home.

  So, just 120 kilometers as the drone flies but twice that distance in the ETATs while they crisscrossed back and forth across the broken landscape. Up and down and up again. They had to climb out of the vehicles four times so they could unload and then heave them out of loose scree and up slippery rock surfaces.

  “Dawn is coming,” Corporal Fury said, pointing at a nearby peak that seemed more silhouetted than it had before. “Time to lay up.”

  They parked the vehicles tight against the wall of a sheer rock face and pitched the tents in between. Three tents with Level 1 Environment Seals. They were modular and fitted together to create a three-pod structure with space enough for nine people, including armor.

  “They’re not made for me,” Ram pointed out. “I’ll have to sleep in the ETAT. On it. What’s the difference, anyway?”

  “You can squeeze in,” Stirling said. “It’s important to have time with your helmet off.”

  “Eight hours for every twenty-four,” Ram said. “But I feel okay. I feel good.”

  “You get inside,” Stirling said. “Squeeze in beside Flores. She’s buff as shit but she’s the shortest. And she won’t mind getting squashed, because she’s tough
as balls, right?”

  “Hey,” Flores said. “Don’t talk for me, Sarge.”

  “I don’t think you understand the chain of command, Flores,” Stirling said.

  “Oh,” Flores said, innocently, “are we still doing that?”

  “Go on, sir,” Stirling said, speaking to Ram. “Get your giant backside in your pod.”

  Ram crawled in and lay down with his legs drawn up as best he could while Flores scrunched herself against the far wall of their shared pod section. Most of the Marines used their helmet as a seat but Ram was too big so he just reclined like a Roman at meal time.

  Despite claiming he would be happy to sit on the ETAT in full armor, it was an immense relief to crack the seals on his helmet and breath shared air. Even if it did stink of old sweat. No matter what the manuals said about the suits’ antibacterial processes and waste removal systems, Marines confined to their armor for days on end would always stink. Just as sure as they would moan about it.

  “Jesus Christ,” Cooper said. “Which one of you fucking idiots forgot to swap out your waste module before climbing in here?”

  “No one,” Harris said. “That’s just your breath.”

  “Alright, knock it off,” Stirling said. “Get some food in you and hydrate and then we’ll sleep. If it’s alright with you, sir, me and Harris will take the first watch.”

  “What’s that?” Ensign Tseng asked, looking up from the external monitor on his wrist pad. “Oh, no, it’s alright, Sergeant, I will take the first watch. You will sleep.”

  “Are you sure, sir? It’s just that—”

  “I said the watch is mine.” Tseng stared at his sergeant.

  Stirling held his gaze for a moment. “Yes, sir.”

  They broke out their preferred rations. Ram had chosen a selection of self-heating packets of mixed rice that required a tab to be yanked on the bottom that created a quite intense heat while you stirred the contents. Even though some of them elected to eat cold meals, within a couple of minutes the entire tent structure was steaming with a discordant stench of cooking smells. Ram’s mouth watered and he ate his first rice packet before it was fully heated and started heating the next one before finishing the first.

  “How many of them do you need to eat?” Flores asked.

  “Two-thousand calories per pack,” Ram said. “I should probably eat four or five but I’ll stick to three.”

  “And you need, what was it, ten-thousand per day?” Flores said.

  Ram was surprised that she knew. “Depends on my exertion levels,” Ram said, mouth full of rice. “But yeah, at least that. Sometimes twice. I think my record when I had a high intensity day was over thirty thousand. I had to chug down protein and oil drinks.”

  “Holy shit, Ram. I know you like eating but that is impressive.”

  “I was training for that day my whole life,” Ram said, laughing. “If only someone had told me earlier that I was supposed to combine this insatiable appetite with endless exercise, maybe I wouldn’t have ended up too fat to leave my apartment.”

  Cooper cut in. “You must have known that. How can you not have known that you need to burn as many calories as you eat in order to stay the same size?”

  Harris groaned. “He was joking, you utter cretin. You moron. You braindead—”

  “Alright!” Stirling said. The tent rang with the echo of his voice. Stirling continued, his words as soft as a whisper. “Keep your voices down. Unless you want the wheelers to find us before we find them? No? Okay. Finish your food.”

  Fury rammed down her unheated energy bars, chewed and swallowed her drug doses. Then she sealed her helmet back on her head, lay down on her back and checked her sidearm and combat knife were present in their holsters and promptly fell asleep.

  Stirling was watching Ram. “She’s been doing this a long time,” he said, gesturing to the sleeping Corporal Fury. “Seen action all over Earth. On the Moon a bit, when she was young. Did stuff on Mars she never talks about. We can all learn from how she sets her priorities.” Stirling looked around at all of them. “We will have one hell of a fight tomorrow. And when we snatch our people away from the wheelers, we might be fighting a running battle all the way home. Get some rest. All of you. Lieutenant, you’ll wake me in two hours?”

  “It’s Ensign,” Tseng said. “And why don’t we make it four?”

  Stirling’s face creased slightly. “Alright, sir. Thank you, sir. I’ll do that.”

  Something was off about Ensign Tseng, as far as Ram was concerned. They were all rated as psychologically defective in some way but the officer was all wrong. His attitude was prissy and he was perfectly competent in his organization of his team but he made no effort to bond with them. And he was clearly nervous about the situation but not overly so. Perhaps he was. The man was hard to read. Someone who took his duty so seriously that he was crushed when his career advancement had been crushed by his clashes with his superior officer. It had made him miserable, clearly. Or maybe he had always been that way. His technical ability and ambition had got him to a certain point but his personality had got in the way.

  Ram sighed and turned onto his back, stretching out as far as he could. Not very far. Still, he wasn’t tired. His daily pills. He took them from the hip pouch on his armor and chewed them down. Tasty cocktail of anabolic steroids, Human Growth Hormone, timed release amphetamines and all manner of performance enhancing nootropics.

  It was odd how familiar everything felt. His whole life, he had been playing team games in Avar. For much of that time he had been the leader of a group of professional Avar players and he had grown to know many of them intimately. As colleagues, team mates, friends, comrades. Being in tent shelter with the Marines felt so similar that it was remarkable.

  Tseng was shuffling around in his corner, glancing at his wrist pad. The surveillance system and the ETATs monitored the area automatically for sound, movement, any changes in heat or light or any electromagnetic fluctuations at all. Still, Ram could understand wanting to look at the camera feeds. Human senses were familiar. Could be trusted. It wasn’t logical but that was people for you.

  The Marines shuffled and squirmed and the air filtration system hummed. Tseng’s wrist screen cover clicked open and then closed again.

  Ram cracked an eye. The ensign shifted on his backside, clicking his cover open again. It was easy for Ram to check his own screen and see what Tseng was looking at. The camera view showed the route back down the slope. Back the way they had come.

  It made a certain sense. The south was protected by the steep cliff they parked next to. West and east, down and up the slope, were the likeliest two approaches but the enemy could have come across the broken ground to the north.

  Ensign Tseng never changed the orientation of the camera. Kept pointing down the slope. Westward. He fidgeted. His eyes flicked over the Marines, stopping as the met Ram’s.

  He looked away, afraid.

  Guilty.

  Ram rolled over and crawled toward the officer. Flores squirmed aside. Fury rolled out of the way and Stirling shouted a warning. Ram, on his hands and knees, filled the space.

  “Stop,” Tseng shouted. “Halt. That’s an order.”

  Stirling sat up, his eyes wide and he moved to intercept Ram while Tseng scooted backwards. Stirling was immensely strong but he was only human. Ram shoved him aside, rocking the entire shelter when Stirling fell into the wall.

  Dragging Tseng by the ankle, Ram pulled the man to him. The ensign yanked out his sidearm, pointed it at Ram’s face but it was easy to yank it out of the man’s hand and toss it aside. He pinned him down. It was easy.

  “You sold us out,” Ram shouted. “Didn’t you.”

  “Take your hands off me, you freak. I order you to let me go.”

  “Order? What will you do if I don’t? I’m not even a Marine, remember? How will you enforce that order, Ensign Tseng?”

  Stirling spoke. “He won’t have to.”

  The sergeant, on his knees, held hi
s sidearm pointed at Ram’s head.

  “He sold us out,” Ram said.

  “Explain,” Stirling said.

  Tseng started to object. “I didn’t, he’s lost his mind again, he—”

  “Shut up.” Stirling cut him off. “Talk, Ram.”

  “He’s waiting for the others to come and find us,” Ram said. “He was watching the road back to the outpost.”

  “I was on watch, you moron,” Tseng shouted, defiance and confidence overcoming the fear. “That was what I was supposed to do.”

  “Why were you not looking any other way?” Ram said.

  “I was. I did!” Tseng laughed, eyes flicking to Stirling. “He’s lost his mind. I told you. Paranoid. Post-traumatic stress, isn’t it. Coming back. See? I told you. Paranoia all over again.”

  “What are you talking about?” Ram asked. He looked around the tent. No one would meet his eye. No one but Stirling.

  “He’s talking about how you were before,” Stirling said, speaking softly.

  “Before what?” Ram’s heart raced. “I never had post-traumatic stress. I was never paranoid.”

  “You were, sir. That’s what they told us, anyway,” Stirling said, lowering his weapon. “After the Orb. Before you came down to the planet, here.”

  Ram shook his head. “I was dead. For ten months, that might as well be a whole year. They brought me back. Before the shuttle left the Victory and landed here.”

  Stirling took a deep breath. “You died, yes. They brought you back, pasted your brains back into that cl0ned body, yes. It wasn’t a year, though, sir. Not ten months, neither. More like a couple of weeks after the Orb fight and you were up and walking around in that new body, back to your old self. Almost right away, you started to train with us. But then there were problems.”

  Ram sat back, his head pushing against the ceiling. Tseng scrambled away.

  “He’s insane,” Tseng said, calm but with a brittle edge. “More than any of you, he is. And that’s saying something.”