by JR Handley
She knew she’d contradicted herself to his ears, since he was leading the rear unit, but GG knew such nuances would be lost on him. She made a note to relieve him of command after they seized the last outpost. He’d become a liability she didn’t need, especially not when they assaulted New Detroit City. While the Marines of 4th Battalion, 5th Regiment, stripped out of their combat armor, their AIs left copies of themselves in the suits. It allowed the original AIs to control the suits remotely, without the risk to the Marines or AIs.
The empty armor would use the Marines’ SA-71 carbines, leaving the Marines outside armed only with Flenser pistols. The Marines themselves weren’t in any protective clothing, wearing just the fiber-optic mesh suits used to interface with the new ACE-4 Combat Armor. These offered little to no defense in combat, but they would shield the Marines from radiation for a few days.
In just under fifteen minutes, the lead element of the assault marched into the outpost. As GG watched from the HUD screen on her helmet’s visor, she noticed the suits maneuvered oddly. She turned to Colonel Messer and ordered him to have the AIs compensate for the lack of weight inside the suits. With a quick correction, the dead-man suits slowly picked up speed. She saw that the rest of the task force were far enough back to let the empty suits absorb the enemy firepower. Even if a suit was pierced by a sabot, which couldn’t easily happen, there was nobody inside to wound.
The empty suits were laying down sabot fire with devastating effect. They were about to get within hand-to-hand range when she turned the rear guard over to Messer. Free to resume her command duties, she took off at a loping run towards the outpost sally port. GG quickly closed the distance with the rear element of the task force, which had advanced towards the first level barricade, and then she was thrown backward by a colossal explosion. She landed near the entryway, her suit alerts screaming at her. All systems were critical, and she was zoning in and out of consciousness. GG was able to get enough information from her screen to know that the enemy had set off a Tac Nuke. They’d killed themselves or had a spotter watching remotely.
The world around her faded to black, then gray, and then finally to black again. She realized she was being dragged, but she didn’t know by whom. Am I floating? she wondered. Am I dead? She didn’t think the afterlife would be this painful. Then her ancestors started tapping on her face – no, her helmet. Suddenly she was bathed in light, before the darkness resumed.
“Field Marshal, Field Marshal,” said an ambiguous voice.
GG grunted, trying to make the light go away. The voice spoke again.
“Stay with me,” said the voice. “If you go to sleep, you’ll never wake up.”
She was having trouble hearing him. The ringing in her ears grew louder and softer and louder again. Her vision was clearing up; she could see the silhouette of a human leaning over her. She tried to speak, but nothing came out. Her throat burned, and the pain was rolling over her in waves. She tried focusing on the light, meditating like her mentors had taught her when she was a youngling. Moments of clarity were coming to her, and she tried speaking again.
“Humans,” she said. “There are humans in the afterlife?”
Her voice and her words sounded strange to her; it wasn’t in her native Jotun tongue. What were those words she spoke, and why did they sound so familiar? The voice box, she remembered. It’s translating my words. But to what? And why are there aliens in my afterlife? Was my karma so bad that I went to the realm of sinners?
“Field Marshal, wake up! Stay awake,” urged the voice. It sounded familiar, like a fly buzzing at the back of her head with no relief.
Colonel Messer. It’s Colonel Messer. Why is he in my afterlife? Don’t humans have their own? The longer she pondered these questions, the more the pain subdued. It was becoming manageable, and she felt as if she was being dragged back into her body. I’m not dead yet, she realized. She tried to clear her head, to make sense of what was going on. Her vision was slowly clearing, the pinpricks of light fading away into nothingness. The light still burned her eyes, but she could make out silhouettes in the distance. She tried speaking again, hoping for answers before she lost her self once more.
“Colonel Messer, where happened are we?” she asked.
He didn’t answer, muttering something to himself that she couldn’t understand. Is he talking to me? Why isn’t it making sense? Why won’t he listen to me? Dammit, I’m an officer, and he should answer my questions. GG took a deep breath and tried again, scolding herself for showing weakness before such a young race.
“Colonel Messer, happened where are we? No, that’s not right. Voice clock broken.”
She didn’t know whether her message got through, but Messer seemed to understand and turned to the Marine next to him. He shouted something GG couldn’t quite process, and squatted next to her, gently patting her shoulder.
“Your voice box is broken,” said Colonel Messer. “Wait one moment. We are going to rig up an Aimee to translate for us. I lost my voice box when I pulled you out of the wreckage.”
She tried to nod. The waves of pain told her she moved, but she wasn’t sure he understood her gesture. She was growing impatient. Then another shadow knelt next to her, its forearm near her throat. She panicked momentarily. She desperately wanted to react, to move the threat away, but the pain was too much. She spoke again, hoping the voice box would miraculously fix itself.
“Colonel Messer, what happened? Where are we?”
Despite the pain, she realized her message had been clear. The human officer understood! She waited impatiently for the answer, and couldn’t understand what was taking so long.
“There was an explosion,” Colonel Messer said slowly, before slowing his speech down even more. “They used… a tactical… nuke.”
Her frustration escaped, and she growled again. The officer got the message, and he told her that the explosion had wrecked their comms device. They were on their own until the shuttles returned for them. She tried asking more questions, but he just kept speaking over her.
“The shuttles are on extreme overwatch, on radio silence. They won’t acknowledge any radio signals until the timer hits zero. Our relays were damaged, so we contacted the rest of the Legion. We’re on our own until exfil.”
— Chapter 68 —
Early Morning, Post-Revival Day 219
Supply Depot, Baylshore
Commander, Task Force Vengeance, Human Legion
Moving hurts, thought Colonel Lance Scipio as he struggled to clear his sleep-deprived mind. The four regiments under his command were being ferried in the maritime navy vessel that had been used to transport the gravtanks. The Storks intended for this purpose were on an emergency run, taking wounded prisoners for medical care in Akoni City. The hospital facilities there were top of the line, and mostly automated so they could compensate for their loss of trained medical personnel.
He was pleasantly surprised to see that Nhlappo had liberated so many Marines. Lance read her update. Some of them wouldn’t survive the recovery, but she’d given them a chance. It was more than the devil they were fighting had given them. Unlike GG, who was operating under radio silence because of her proximity to New Detroit, Nhlappo was sending him constant updates. The rapid flow of information allowed the Legion to become a nimbler force. Lance intended to weaponize that so he could capture this supply depot with as few casualties as possible, despite the manner of their insertion into the fight.
It was an odd experience, being carted around underwater, especially since the Legion hadn’t even figured out what these vessels were called. There was no name or reference of them in the databases, and the computer core inside the vessel had been wiped. The White Knight Empire had gone out of their way to make sure these things were stricken from the historical record. Lance suspected they were deemed obsolete but couldn’t understand why their information would be wiped. Maybe it was merely about hiding Cardamine; they’d certainly put a lot of effort into that endeavor. Ultimately it
had taken a Hardit engineer, Master Chief Petty Officer Teon, to rebuild the operating system for the vessel. She used the interstellar vessel’s computer matrix as the base model, but water and the void didn’t operate the same.
Luckily, Teon had an agile mind and could think several moves ahead. She added the capability for the AI to learn, which was why the vessels were still functional. Unlike the Stork, which could travel in straight lines, the maritime navy vessel had to account for the underwater terrain of Tranquility’s ocean. Because of that consideration, the task force was behind schedule, and Lance planned on pushing hard to make up for lost time.
Knowing they had a hard push coming, he’d ordered his troops to rest while they were in transit. Lance knew he should be sleeping, too, but it wouldn’t happen. Every time he closed his eyes, he saw the carnage of war, blood and fire. He couldn’t stop seeing the friends he’d lost along the way. He heard their screams of death and saw the pain and fear on their faces at the end. His mind kept circling back around to that one question: Why? Why’d he get to live when those more worthy died?
Attention to orders. The undesignated assault vessel will begin dock procedures in approximately ten minutes. Immediately secure yourself in your assault cushion and prepare for deceleration.
Lance laughed at the odd speech patterns of the AI and its creative way of describing the beaching of the ship outside the Baylshore Supply Depot. He felt a burst of air on his neck and heard Xena’s voice from the helmet clipped to his waist.
It’s programmed for a void ship, you nitwit. Don’t laugh at his language barrier! You’re so insensitive, he might just spit you out early if you’re not nice!
He merely grunted his displeasure as he slammed his helmet onto the collar of his armor. It’d been a while since he’d been assigned the minx, and she still frustrated him. Lance knew he shouldn’t let her get under his skin, but she was too damned good at it. With his helmet on, he connected to the LBNet and began issuing orders. He needed his task force to prepare to disembark, maximizing on any element of surprise their watery entrance gave them. The instant the ramp dropped on the southeastern shore, the task force would rush out.
Once they were on the shore, the task force would prepare a defensive perimeter so the officers could orient themselves and determine their line of march. They had a bit of a hike to the depot, but it was flat terrain. Thank the gods, they had gravsleds onboard; those would make covering the distance so much more comfortable. Despite that advantage, Lance wasn’t looking forward to the forced march. There was too much that could go wrong, and being that exposed worried him.
Ultimately, it took them eight hours on the hard Baylshore plains. Lance couldn’t decide which was worse: the march or the joking complaints from his troops. Traveling in the pre-dawn was dangerous, but luckily their armor protected them from twisted ankles. When the sun came up, he was glad. At least he could see any insurgents coming. It proved to be a non-issue, as the three gravtanks and numerous gravsleds allowed them to set a grueling pace.
During the transit, Lance ordered four engineers to ride on top of the Apani Gravtanks, allowing them to send a picket line of scout drones forward. He didn’t want to run into the enemy, at least not without the upper hand. When they were within sight of the depot, the scouts reported nil contacts, so Lance ordered a tactical halt. He wanted the task force to rest before the final, wild charge. He was surprised when Sergeant Major Thorn pulled him aside.
“Sir, the men want to push on. They want to finish the fight and bank on weeks of downtime afterward. We know the longer we wait, the harder the fight will be. Give the order to resume the march.”
Surprised at their determination, Lance gave the order. Soon they closed in on the vacant defensive positions around the factory. The polycrete bunkers and manufactured trenches were empty, overrun with grass and other signs of disrepair. After their recent experiences, Lance sent the drones into the supply depot, looking for enemy activity. He then ordered the engineers to search the area for any mines or booby traps. When they assured him nothing was there, he ordered them to search again. By the fourth time he had them search, his sergeant major got involved.
“Sir, it’s safe. You’re tired and not thinking clearly. Relax, and let’s move out.”
He realized Thorn was right, and the task force pushed forward unopposed. With the outer perimeter secured, Lance reverted to monitoring the data streaming in from the scout drones. He’d ordered them to repeat the search pattern seven times, when finally Xena stepped in.
You know everything the sensors know, she said gently. You can’t know anything else until your Marines place their boots on the polycrete tiles.
Shaking his head, his bloodshot eyes begging for sleep, Lance agreed with Xena and ordered his troops to breach the supply depot. Every indication was that Spartika hadn’t breached the facility, and there were no traps. Lance couldn’t shake the concern that it was all too easy. Why would the enemy leave supplies? Even if it’d been abandoned, she should’ve at least searched it. Raided it for whatever supplies she needed. The maglev lines, he thought sleepily. It has to be the maglev lines. If she’d raided it from below and then neutralized the lines, he wouldn’t find anything. Why wouldn’t she have mined the place like she had everything else? he asked himself. He started repeating those questions to Xena, hoping her logical mind could accomplish what his tired one could not.
Lance, she likely raided it of anything of use already. Your scenario of using the maglev lines is sound, though it’s also possible that she merely knew it was already empty. She was in Detroit City when the war with the New Order started. It’s possible that the Human Resistance raided the place long before Nhlappo’s arrival woke us up. You’re at an impasse, and the only solution is forward.
Tired, Lance decided to trust his longtime companion, ordering the task force forward. The breach into the supply depot was uneventful, and as the sensors indicated they found nothing: no traps, mines, or enemy insurgents on the first four levels. The deeper they went, however, the more they began finding bizarre remnants of battle. There were dead Marines littered everywhere, rotting in their armored suits. It was evident that they’d been here for a while, though not long enough for the remains to decompose. This wasn’t like the ancient war they’d found on Cardamine. Lance needed answers, so he squatted down next to one of the Marines wearing the insignia of a senior sergeant and connected Xena to the suit’s AI.
That’s horrible! exclaimed Xena. The enemy left the corpses to rot and forced the AIs to fight in the empty suits. They had to sit here, waiting for us, with their dead companions inside. It’s horrific. Ultimately, it drove the AIs insane, and they turned on each other. This was a trap left for us, but it failed. Had we unlocked the higher setting on their processors, the AIs could’ve lived past their hosts. They died before they reached true sentience. Spartika has much to answer for.
The search through the rest of the supply depot was more of the same, bodies littering every space and all the supplies raided. Those resources that had been left behind were sabotaged, but the Legion was able to scrounge from the dead. They repurposed all of the sabots they could and stripped the dead of their armor. Sergeant Major Thorn found another gravsled that he could repair, and the honored dead were brought to the surface for burial. They decided it was best to bury them together, using a section of the trenches in a mass grave. Lance had Xena mark the location on the maps so the bodies could be recovered later. He wanted to allow them to join their comrades on the final trip into the sun.
While they were dealing with the dead, Lance had the engineers scouting the maglev tunnels. They were heavily mined and booby-trapped, just liked he’d expected. He was just about to scratch that avenue of approach off his strategic plans when engineer Lieutenant Hyatt offered a solution. The tunnels could be cleared of the traps if they could repurpose a quarter of the enemy combat armor. They could put copies of AIs into the suits and march them down the tunnel to trip the
mines.
“Make it so,” he told the engineer. “You’ve got a bright future ahead of yourself.”
— Chapter 69 —
Early Afternoon, Post-Revival Day 219
Ship under Construction, Tranquility Orbit
Naval Construction Unit, Human Legion
After she’d been banished by Field Marshal Gaarjar, Master Chief Petty Officer Teon Roca-Bonga was sent back to Akoni City. She knew some would consider the transfer a disgrace, but she felt vindicated for her actions. During the shuttle ride back, she slept peacefully because she knew the gods, goddess, and ancestors would shine down on her. Her faith demanded such perverse desecrations of creation be destroyed. When she arrived in the city, Human Legion command didn’t know what to do with her. Their sole focus was on the Baylshore Campaign and merely told her to wait.
Rather than sit around waiting for an assignment, Teon had packed her kit and personal effects and headed for the orbital elevator. A short maglev ride from Akoni City took her to Fortress Beta City. When she got to the bustling fortress, she used her status as a senior Spacer NCO to procure a ride up the orbital elevator. She boarded the personnel car, which was nothing more than a glorified metal box. No creature comforts, making the long journey up uncomfortable. However, the time spent in transit allowed her to spend time solving various engineering puzzles on her new Aimee.
Once she made it aboard the space-bound car, she was home free. Teon was surprised, having expected to have to do more bullying to catch a ride up the elevator. The Legion had made no effort to stop her, almost as if they’d forgotten she was alive. The trip up was surprisingly quick. Her math said it should’ve taken a day or two. But this was her first time using the contraption, and she didn’t want to ask the other Spacers, exposing her ignorance. She determined that she wasn’t a huge fan of the process; heights made her anxious. She was finally able to relax when the weightlessness of null gravity kicked in.