by Rick Partlow
“I don’t think they would have risked dropping too far from the outpost,” McKay mused, coming back to the subject. “The biomechs don’t have that much in the way of autonomy, and they’d have to guide them through the woods probably in the dark…”
“Yes,” Podbyrin nodded agreement. “Three, four kilometers, no more. But your people who found the base destroyed… would not they have found any landing site already?”
“They didn’t have time,” McKay informed him. “It was late Fall when they arrived. They had just found the rifle casings when the first big storms of the winter rolled in and dumped about a meter of snow on this place. The ship’s captain made the call to get the news back to Earth instead of waiting out the weather.”
Stepping across the bare floor, desolate and shielded from the star’s warmth by the tyranny of the trees, they fell silent under the oppressive hush of the forest, eyes hunting for signs of intrusion but seeing only a still-frame sameness. Long, wordless minutes passed, the only sound the faint crunching of dead leaves beneath their boots, and McKay began to lose track of time and distance. A quick check of his ‘link revealed that they had walked nearly three klicks from the outpost and he had begun to debate whether he was going to go any farther on foot.
“Hold up,” Vinnie said softly, raising fist in the air to halt them. Slowly he brought up his carbine, gesturing with the barrel to a point on their right. “Three o’clock, fifty meters, on the ground.”
McKay scanned to their front right and almost passed over the dark shape as a root or rock before he came back to it, noticing the not-quite-right color, the too-regular shape.
“Vinnie, Jock, stay here and keep overwatch,” McKay ordered. “Podbyrin, you’re with me.”
“Joy,” the Russian muttered, following behind him.
As the two men approached the object, its lines grew clearer and its color more distinct… it was globular, colored a dull grey mixed with rust. McKay nudged it with the barrel of his carbine, turning it over and revealing it for the broken remnants of a battle helmet.
“That is Protectorate,” Podbyrin declared, a slight waver in his voice.
“You’re damned right it is,” McKay muttered. The visor was gone, shattered, the pieces buried and carried away in the snow melt, but the helmet’s design was all too familiar to McKay. He waved Jock and Vinnie forward, standing and turning to keep watch as they examined the helmet.
Jock cursed softly. “Well, no more doubt now,” he muttered.
“Come on,” McKay said. “We still have to find where they landed.”
As they moved on through the forest another few hundred meters, McKay began to notice a gentle upward slope to the ground and a thinning of the trees, accompanied by a lightening of the gloom and the presence on the forest floor of some short, stunted growths of some sort of plant life that wasn’t quite grass but could have passed for it on first glance. Gradually the slope increased and he could see that they were heading for the crest of a small hill. He halted the others with an upraised hand, taking a knee on the soft loam.
“Jock,” he instructed. “Scout the other side of that hill.”
The big man nodded and slowly made his way toward the hilltop, going from a crouch to a high crawl, knees and elbows taking him forward to the very edge, where he dropped to his belly and wormed the last few meters. Jock was, McKay reflected, surprisingly stealthy for someone almost two meters tall and a good 110 kilos. After a long moment, he turned back to them and waved them forward. McKay led Podbyrin up the hill while Vinnie watched their backs, trailing them by ten meters and scanning carefully around.
“Eleven o’clock, one hundred meters,” Jock said quietly as they went to the ground beside him.
McKay looked down into the valley on the other side of the hill, seeing a narrow, shallow stream cutting through it and meandering into the near distance as it wound around another hill. The trees had thinned out near the hilltop and there was a clearing near the middle of the valley, not far from the creek. In that clearing was what appeared at first glance to be a mound of loose dirt… until a closer look revealed its true character. Here and there, the dirt deposited by mudslides after the spring melt had fallen away, revealing the bare nickel-iron and small pieces of the grey, gnarled surface of polystyrene: a cheap, low-tech method of making the thing invisible to microwave sensors. A single surviving parachute shroud whipped in the wind like a tail behind the thing, the huge parasail it had once secured long ripped and blown away by winter storms.
It was a Protectorate drop pod, the same sort of cheap, stealthy insertion craft that Antonov had used to invade Earth five years before.
McKay felt his throat go dry. It was one thing to know something on a purely intellectual level; it was another to come face to face with the reality of it. He swallowed hard, forced himself to concentrate on scanning the area around the pod for threats.
“Looks clear,” he rasped. “Jock, stay up here and cover us.”
The footing on the downward slope was treacherous from fallen leaves slick with yesterday’s rain and the three men wound up half-sliding down it, McKay and Vinnie in a half-crouch, Podbyrin squarely on his ass. As McKay reached the valley floor he brought up his carbine and nearly squeezed off a shot at a blur of movement to his left, but held off as he saw that the tan flash was an animal of some kind… an herbivore by the look of it, the size of a cow, four-legged and covered with shaggy fur. He let out a breath he hadn’t realized he was holding as the thing galloped silently out of the valley.
“Coulda’ been dinner,” Vinnie cracked quietly, shrugging. McKay snorted, grateful for Vinnie’s irreverence.
“I like my steak a little less rare,” he muttered in return.
There were no humanoid tracks around the pod, McKay saw as they approached it, no trace of the Protectorate biomech troops at all. Everything had been wiped clean by the snow melt and the rains and the only tracks were from the local wildlife. He circled the lander slowly and carefully, not fearing a present threat as much as the possibility of missing something.
Going around the other side, they could see where the explosive bolts had split the pod in half to free its payload of troops, the edges jagged and broken. The floor of the pod’s interior was buried in several inches of mud, dirt and animal droppings… something had evidently used it as a den during the winter. McKay saw piles of small bones collected under the metal benches that had held rows of seated biomechs but were now bare except for more caked dirt.
McKay sighed, shoulders sagging. “We’re not going to get anything useful out of here. Time to let the lab techs have their fun.” He tapped a control on his ‘link. “McKay to Decatur, over.”
”Decatur here,” came the reply from the ship’s communications officer. “Over.”
“Get a fix on my location,” McKay instructed, “and get me a full field investigation team down here ASAP. We’ve found the Protectorate drop pod.”
“Aye, sir.” McKay could hear a slight waver in the woman’s voice as the reality of the situation hit her. “Captain Minishimi says it will launch in a couple hours.”
“Acknowledged. McKay out.”
“This feels wrong.” McKay turned, surprised, at Podbyrin’s quiet declaration. The Russian was shaking his head thoughtfully, staring at the wreckage of the drop pod.
“What?” McKay wanted to know.
“To attack like this,” Podbyrin amplified. “This is a risk, no? It draws attention. The General has spent the last five years avoiding attention, rebuilding one assumes. To do this, there would have to be something very important here that he wanted.”
“We’re not going to find it standing here,” McKay shrugged. “Let’s head back to the outpost site. Maybe someone’s turned up something there.”
* * *
“What do we know about this planet?” McKay murmured to himself, staring at the globe map of Peboan projected above the table. He’d been leaning against the table for the last ten minutes a
nd the map hadn’t yet revealed any secrets to him.
“It’s pretty rich in minerals,” Vinnie shrugged from where he sat on the floor of the outpost building, leaning against a bare wall. The investigation team had cleared them to use the place as a base after they’d finished scanning it a few hours ago, but there still wasn’t much in the way of furniture available. “Oil, natural gas, uranium, gold…”
“But we haven’t seen any evidence of mining from orbit,” Jock pointed out. The big man was squatting by the opposite wall, cleaning his field-stripped carbine.
“D’mitry,” McKay asked the Russian, who leaned against the wall beside where Vinnie was sitting, “did Antonov ever do any asteroid mining or did he get his resources from planetside?”
“We did not have the equipment for smelting asteroids,” Podbyrin shook his head. “Nor did we have extensive EVA gear for working in vacuum for long periods. We were forced to get those resources which we couldn’t steal from your cargo ships from easily-available mines near the surface of habitable planets.”
“Okay, we have no reason to believe that’s changed,” McKay said, nodding. “So, it’s possible he needed resources from this planet… but we haven’t found the location he mined yet. Is there anything else you guys can think of that would make this place important to him?”
“Location?” Jock ventured. “He uses those gates to travel FTL… maybe this system is a hub of some kind, and he needed to move something through here without us seeing?”
McKay cast a questioning glance at Podbyrin, who nodded confirmation. “That is possible,” the Russian said. “There were several systems that had multiple gates.”
“Not bad, Jock,” McKay said, nodding thoughtfully. “That feels more likely to me than just a mining site. If he has to move through here to get to where he’s going, he’d want to keep this system clear of Republic forces. It might be worth the risk to him to take out this outpost.” His eyes narrowed and he grabbed his ‘link from his belt. “Decatur, this is McKay, come in.”
A pause and then: “Roger, McKay, this is Decatur, go ahead.”
“Let me speak with the Captain,” McKay told the communications officer. “It’s urgent.”
“Aye, sir, wait one.”
“Minishimi here,” her voice came over the ‘link after a moment. “Go ahead, McKay.”
“Captain,” McKay said calmly but firmly, “we’ve been piecing some things together and I have reason to believe that Protectorate forces may still be in this system and are probably maintaining surveillance here… we may be facing an imminent threat. I recommend breaking orbit and taking up a tactical posture at the closest LaGrangian point and launching combat shuttle patrols immediately.”
Behind McKay, Vinnie and Podbyrin slowly came to their feet, concern on their faces. Jock seemed unmoved, but he silently began reassembling his carbine.
“Our active scans aren’t showing anything, McKay,” Minishimi protested over the link. “Are you certain about this?”
“Captain,” McKay took a deep breath and reminded himself she wasn’t his subordinate, “our working hypothesis is that this is a hub system for their wormhole matrix… and if that’s the case, they will not be leaving it unguarded. It’s my feeling that there are either enemy ships already insystem or else some sort of automated sentry that launched a message buoy through the gate the minute it spotted us. If I’m right, we could have anywhere from days to no time at all, but I would recommend we err on the side of caution.”
“Roger, McKay,” Minishimi acknowledged with, he thought, a little reluctance in her voice. “We are launching patrols and then will engage the drives and move out of orbit. We’ll be out of contact once the drives activate, but I will instruct the patrols to keep contact with you. You have a shuttle on the ground right now… do you want them to stay there for possible evac?”
“If it’s all right with you, Captain, we’ll keep Commander Villanueva’s shuttle here just in case.”
“I’ll send them the word, and then we are out of orbit. If we don’t see anything in twenty four hours, we’ll drop the Eysselink field and contact you.”
“Talk to you then, Captain.” McKay tapped a new frequency into his ‘link. “Lieutenant Dodd, this is McKay.”
“Dodd here, sir,” came the reply.
“Lieutenant, what’s the disposition of the Marines currently onplanet?” McKay asked. Jock had finished reassembling his carbine and he loaded the magazine, chambering a round and moving to stand in the open door of the building.
“Sir, we have two platoons down,” the young officer reported crisply. “One is in a defensive perimeter around the shuttles at the landing zone; the other is assisting the investigation team in bringing their equipment to the Protectorate pod you discovered.”
“Call back the investigation team,” McKay instructed. “Have them report back to the outpost. Get the platoon with them to set up a perimeter around the outpost buildings and report back to me when it’s done. We may not be alone here, Dodd.”
“Aye, sir,” there was an urgency to the man’s voice now as he signed off.
“You think they will attack here?” Podbyrin asked, voice wavering. There was a fine sheen of sweat on his forehead despite the cool temperatures.
“Jock,” McKay spoke to the big NCO instead. “Take Colonel Podbyrin to the shuttle and…”
“Colonel McKay!” A voice… he thought it was Commander Villanueva’s voice… came over his ‘link. “We’ve got…”
Whatever she’d been about to say was lost in a thundering explosion that shook dust from the ceiling and echoed through the woods around them.
”Bozhemoi!” Podbyrin swore, ducking instinctively as the explosion was followed by the faint sound of gunfire in the distance, first to their front and then more distantly to the rear. Jock crouched down in the doorway, not seeing anything. scanning the immediate area but
Too fucking late, McKay snarled at himself silently, a cold surge of fear welling up in his gut that he hadn’t felt since a Protectorate drop pod had almost landed on his head six years ago on Aphrodite. I was too fucking late.
Chapter Ten
“And so,” Colonel Lee clasped his hands in his lap, looking as if he were trying very, very hard to avoid panicking, “We have… we have confirmed your findings.” It was a mark of how serious the situation was in his eyes that Ari, Lee and Hassan were meeting in the Colonel’s office instead of someplace more unofficial. The Colonel was squirming in his chair uncomfortably, while Hassan Ali sat morosely by his side, looking as if his world had collapsed around him. “We dug deeper, in the right places, and it was there, just as you said. We… we have a serious problem now.”
And it only took you four fucking days, Ari thought, trying to hide a sneer.
“We have to kill her,” Hassan snarled, slamming a fist into the arm of his chair. “I will do it myself, with my own hands.”
“That aside,” Ari spoke for the first time since entering the office, keeping his voice calm and measured, “how does this affect our plans? Does she know enough to stop us?”
“The bitch knows enough to have us arrested!” Hassan Ali blurted. “Being in jail would stop us fairly certain.”
“Yet we are not in jail, my friend,” Ari pointed out to him. “That tells us that either she wants to collect more evidence, or, more likely, she has, as my American friends used to say, bigger fish to fry.” He looked to Colonel Lee. “She knows this plan goes beyond and above your position, sir, and that is her target. She knows if they arrest you and the rest of us here, the plan could still go forward.”
“This cause does not go above me,” Colonel Lee said peevishly, his anxiety briefly turning to annoyance. Then he sighed. “But it does go beyond me…” He glanced at Hassan Ali, who shrugged demonstratively.
“If this does not prove he can be trusted,” Hassan said, “I do not know what would.”
“I will lead the Guard in this operation,” Lee asserted, lookin
g back to Ari. “But it does reach beyond the Guard… we could not hope to hold out for long without assistance from other elements of the government and even the private sector. This is about more than what is important to us as Guard officers… when it is finished, many other things will be changed as well.”
Ari nodded, silent for a moment. This wasn’t unexpected… neither he nor Major Stark had ever believed that this was something the Guard could pull off on its own.
“The question I have,” Ari began carefully, “is whether this could all be moved up. If we can start now, before those opposed to us are ready, then even Alida’s infiltration could not stand in our way.”
“That is, unfortunately, not possible,” Lee told him, shaking his head in obvious frustration. “We could advance the timing of the uprising, but not the distraction that will draw the Fleet ships away from the colonies; and, without that distraction, our forces would be vulnerable to orbital bombardment and would be forced to fight Marine reaction platoons. The signal will be sent when the Republic government is decapitated by an orbital strike, and that will happen only when the Fleet returns to Earth.”
Ari nodded thoughtfully. “Such an attack could only be accomplished with the complicity of the Spacefleet. I can only surmise that whatever elements with which we are allied in the Fleet need the time to consolidate their influence.” He glanced up at Colonel Lee, eyes narrowing warily. “Sir, I mean no disrespect by this, but how certain are you of the… steadfastness of our allies? Can they do what they say they will do? Or will they allow us to sacrifice ourselves while they decide if it’s worth it?”
Ari noticed Hassan Ali cast a glance at Lee as if saying I’ve been wondering that myself, but the man held his tongue. “I am convinced they will go through with it.” Lee told him. “It is in their interests even more than ours. The multicorps need cheap labor and the Fleet needs a reason to exist. If we do not reestablish order in the colonies, our whole civilization will collapse and the peasant rabble will sift through the ashes for food and wish for the days when they had the option of leaving this world.”