Call of Courage: 7 Novels of the Galactic Frontier

by C. Gockel

  “It’s well tested. Used it throughout the Fight,” Sarge said while patting the stock of the gun. Alvarez noticed it was curly maple with a checkered inlay.

  Wooden objects of any kind were uncommon in corporate settlements. Although timber harvesting became sustainable on earth decades earlier—the hybridized blight-immune chestnut coppicing systems had revolutionized the industry—except for antiques and crafts, wood was replaced by the cheaper, more durable plastics and alloys.

  “I don’t remember any of the corporations issuing those armaments. We’ve had energy weapons for over fifty years now,” Alvarez said.

  “It wasn’t issued. It’s a family heirloom. My pappy’s pappy carried it as an MP in Korea…or was it Vietnam? Any way, it was on the wall collecting dust until my orbiter was boarded by Statists goons. After I saw what it did to those thugs, it never left my side. I’ve taken it with me on every corporate mission since.”

  “What about non-atmospheric conditions? Won’t it foul up or something?”

  “Unless I drop it under water, it works like a charm. It’s a workhorse. If I’ve got enough shells,” he pulled on the bandolier strapped around his shoulder and torso, “and I keep pumping, it goes bang.”

  Mostly satisfied, Alvarez was anxious to get a move on. He punched keys on the console unlocking the rear hatch and cued the grunts with a hand signal. Jitters, closest to the rear, pulled the manual release on the side wall. The atmosphere in the shuttle vented, and the hatch rapidly lowered like one from a Higgins boat on D-Day.

  The team fanned out around the nearby rock formation. When Alvarez spotted the formation from space, it looked like three obelisks, massive at the base and narrowing quickly towards the top. The three small towers leaned towards each other, towards the center of a concentric triangle, without touching.

  Sarge stood at one of the formations. Its base diameter was as large as the shuttle’s, but starting at about twice his height and continuing to who-knows-how-high, it narrowed—tapering to the width of a transport table. It was as if monuments from 20th century Washington, DC protruded up from the rocky landscape of Colorado’s Garden of the Gods.

  “Sir, this isn't natural,” Sarge said. “Look at these corners.”

  Alvarez came and bent over to get a closer view. The base was rough rock, but the obelisk that jutted out was anything but.

  “They have four corners,” Sarge continued, “and they appear to be evenly spaced apart. They look like they were chiseled out of...well, rock. But not any kind I recognize.”

  Alvarez pointed up at the obelisks. “There’s something on them too. Some sort of logos or icons.” Alvarez wondered if this was from an unincorporated settlement, marauders, or some looney cult. Whoever they were, they came out this far for a reason. He climbed the rocky base. To his surprise, his feet found purchase without any of the stone crumbling. It must be tough stuff, he thought. Closer now to the obelisk, he looked at the inscriptions. He still couldn’t make heads or tails of it.

  “Do you recognize any of this?” he asked.

  “Nope. That’s nothing I’ve seen from any of the Outer-Five,” Sarge said.

  In the stone were swirling gray and white patterns. It definitely wasn’t concrete and mortar. Alvarez had come to recognize the typical species of rock from the mining expeditions he led on various planets, moons, and asteroids. They were always named and cataloged in relation to the most ubiquitous rocks mined on earth. Whatever this was, he hadn’t encountered it before.

  Carelessly, he jumped off the base, forgetting how high up he was. His landing, fortunately, was softened by the light gravity. He stood up, straightening his back.

  “Sarge, have any other corporate settlements been out this far? It's supposed to be Novos territory.”

  “What would another Outer-Five be doing out here?” Sarge said. “Unless they know something we don’t, I don’t see any corp spending certs on ugly stone artwork, especially if they had to haul the stone from home or mine it here. Just doesn’t make sense to me.”

  Alvarez had already thought the same but was hoping Sarge would see it differently. Sarge wasn’t the most diplomatic person—probably why he hadn’t found a higher position with Novos—but he was a straight-shooter.

  Jitters was on the far side of the formation. “C-c-colonel, I’ve found something. This formation’s different.”

  Alvarez was the first to Jitters’s position. The rock formation there was similar to the others, but it was as if an obelisk had broken off leaving just a rocky base. Standing waist high, it was flat on top. Its surface looked like sand and reminded Alvarez of Adam’s sandbox back home. Although the texture wasn’t that of the hard, swirly stone the obelisks were made of, it had similar icons written on it.

  Everyone circled around and stared at the glyphs. For whatever reason, they were more striking than those on the obelisks. These markings were too distinct, too complex to be mere designs or logos for some start-up corp. This was writing, some form of language, Alvarez thought. It had to be.

  “These aren’t symbols I recognize,” Sarge said, breaking the silence.

  “This looks…” One of the grunts trailed off. He didn’t have to finish. Everyone, including Alvarez, knew the rest of that sentence: alien .

  The symbols were generic and simple. Each line, dash, or curved shape could be made with a finger in a single stroke. The organization seemed vertically oriented, like some east-asian scripts Alvarez had seen before, but they weren’t nearly as complex. He couldn’t understand how any one character could possibly represent a word. And pictograms required more detail than this. If it was an alphabet, there were far more than twenty-six characters.

  Alvarez’s head was swimming. He couldn’t see a solution. How could he? He didn’t even know what the problem was.

  His throat clinched, and his chest felt tight. He hoped someone would step forward and make a move, but clearly, they were waiting on him. Why did I agree to do this? he thought.

  Wasted thoughts, wasted energy, wasted fear. None of this helped. He needed to get a grip. He was getting worked-up instead of working the problem.

  “What are we supposed to do with this?” said a different grunt.

  Alvarez looked at the sensor readings on his wrist console. “This is where the energy signature seems to originate. It’s strongest here,” he said.

  Brennen, who had been uncharacteristically passive until now, shoved his way to the front of the group. He looked at the symbols briefly and began to mark slashes and dashes with his finger, adding to or completing the characters that were already written.

  “What do you think you're doing?” Alvarez shouted. “Stop, we have no idea what this is.”

  Brennen, whatever he was doing, was finished. “Correction, John. You don’t know what you’re doing,” Brennen’s usual sarcastic tone was missing.

  Alvarez felt a vibration from the ground below him. The men looked around wild-eyed. One pointed behind them. “Look! There’s an opening between the towers.”

  “What is that?” Sarge asked Alvarez.

  A dark silhouette formed as the ground slid apart like windowpanes. The thick, massive ledge revealed a rectangular entryway. Alvarez didn’t answer Sarge.

  No sooner had the ground stopped rumbling, then Brennen approached the opening and, without hesitation, dropped down into the darkness.

  “Michael, wait!” Alvarez said. But he was already gone. At the edge of the opening, Alvarez shined the light attached to his rifle barrel. Somehow the darkness swallowed his light and didn’t permit it to pierce as deeply as it should. Alvarez could barely make out a descending stairwell. The steps were oversized, at least three feet in length and depth. “Brennen, respond,” he yelled over the comm. Nothing.

  Alvarez couldn’t walk away, but he didn’t proceed. He just stood frozen on the edge. A twinge started in his belly and bubbled up to his head. He was doing it again. He knew if he allowed it, fear would continue to percolate, building pre
ssure until he lost his nerve completely. What if the opening closes after I drop down? he thought.

  He pushed the fear away and gripped his rifle. He held it with his left hand and tapped commands on his wrist console with his right. His helmet light came on. “Follow me,” he said.

  The men turned on their lights and in single-file descended the entryway. They looked like toddlers learning to descend the giant steps. They sat on their rears with legs dangling and then shoved off, falling until their feet touched the next step. They repeated this motion until they reached the bottom. The last drop was jarring, the gravity stronger there than on the surface.

  Alvarez could see more clearly. Either his eyes had adjusted or his lights were now working correctly. He scanned from right to left, tracing the hewn rock walls of an immense cavern. Unlike caves on earth, there was no evidence of water. Even on asteroids, there were usually ice pockets. Here it was bone dry, even dusty.

  When his light reached his left, he spotted Brennen who stood motionless, his back turned. The rest of the men shined their lights on him. Brennen didn’t move. Alvarez took point, grabbed his shoulder, and tried to turn him around. But Brennen stood firm as if he didn’t feel Alvarez’s pull.

  Alvarez walked around him and shined the light in Brennen’s face. Alvarez squinted, not from Brennen’s helmet light—it was off—but from the grunts’ lights still directed at Brennen.

  “Put ‘em down, men,” he ordered. His eyes began to adjust. Brennen’s pale face was expressionless.

  “Michael, I'm over this,” he said.

  Brennen slowly looked Alvarez in the eyes but didn’t speak. He wasn’t actively resisting, but there was no indication of compliance either.

  The two men stared each other down until Sarge spoke up. “What’s your orders, Colonel?”

  Alvarez stepped away from Brennen. “We need to see what else is down here.” He removed a sling from over one shoulder. Attached was a tripod and sensory imaging generator. He unfolded the legs and engaged the generator.

  On his wrist console appeared a small map with a blinking dot representing the generator and seven numerical IDs for each team member. After the computer’s gears spun for a moment, an N appeared representing an arbitrary Polaris on the map. Alvarez was mildly impressed. The program assigned North to the stairwell. Good as any other, he thought.

  “Let me refresh your memories on how this works,” Alvarez said. “Each of your helmets has a unique beacon ID. As we traverse this place, our beacons will continue to report back to this central generator, updating our positions and mapping out the territory we’ve traveled.”

  This was yet another piece of equipment Alvarez had learned to rely upon despite having little understanding of how it worked.

  “Everyone, stay in visual contact,” he continued. “But fan out. Report back if you find anything.”

  Sarge spoke privately to Alvarez. “What exactly should we be looking for?”

  “Well, something produced that burst. Obviously, it’s not technology that Novos knows about…”

  “Or at least it’s not technology they’ve told us about,” the old man said.

  “Regardless, there has to be an energy source somewhere on this sphere. If we can find that, we have a chance of stopping it,” Alvarez said.

  “What if it’s a natural phenomenon? How do you stop nature?”

  “Does this look natural to you?” Alvarez said sounding more sarcastic than he intended. Sarge knowingly pressed his lips together and looked down at the ground. Some things shouldn’t be said.

  One grunt had his wrist raised looking at his console. “Colonel, it says there's atmosphere down here.”

  Alvarez checked. “There's atmosphere alright, and you could probably breath it for a minute. But that would be your last. It's a tossup which would cause you to asphyxiate first: the insufficient oxygen or the toxic levels of hydrogen sulfide. Plus, we're close to whatever made that green burst and caused the probe to go out. Helmets stay on.”

  The good news was that they could hear each other without comms. Their helmets transmitted the ambient sounds and could even amplify distant sounds when needed. Everyone including Alvarez noticed the stronger gravity too. It was slightly heavier than regular AG. Alvarez didn’t mention it.

  An alarm sounded. It came from Sarge's suit. He looked at his wrist. “It says low oxygen, but my tank still reads at ninety-four percent.”

  “I bet it's a bad regulator valve,” Alavarez said. Sarge reached for his spare tank. It was attached to his suit in a preformed receptacle above his right shoulder. He removed it and looked to Alvarez who was waiting.

  “You ready?” Alvarez said.

  Sarge nodded. Alvarez quickly disengaged the lock on Sarge’s primary tank and yanked it out. Sarge gave Alvarez the spare tank, and with ease that only comes from years of practice the tank was replaced. Alvarez didn’t fret until afterwards. What if the contagion from that burst was able to get in Sarge's suit? he thought. Hopefully the vacuum seal would keep it out. That's what it was for after all. Regardless, he needed to keep an eye on Sarge.

  “We have about an hour to disable whatever’s producing the bursts. Let’s get a move on,” Alvarez said.

  The grunts shined their lights in all directions like a search-party for a missing child. As they explored the main chamber, the sensory image generator outlined the map on their wrist consoles. There were two tunnels that ran along the western and eastern ends of the main chamber and a third passageway that started in the middle. All three led south to who-knows-where.

  “Colonel Alvarez, the writing...” A grunt pointed to the wall next to the opening of the middle passageway.

  “Nobody touch anything,” Alvarez said. “Especially you, Dr. Brennen.” Brennen followed the group sheepishly.

  Alvarez looked at the symbols on the wall. Some he recognized from outside, but others were new. Unlike the formation outside the entranceway, this appeared to be hewn from stone. But it was definitely the same kind of writing, if that’s what it really was. Alvarez doubted that the surface was malleable enough to mark with his finger. He wasn’t going to test his hypothesis.

  Alvarez checked the readings from his wrist console. “It seems like the energy signal’s signature is strongest going through the middle passage way. But men, I want us to split up so we can quickly cover more ground.”

  He pointed to a grunt. “You're with me. We're going down the middle passage.”

  He pointed to Jitters and stopped. He knew he should send Jitters with Brennen. He wanted someone to keep Michael in line. But he felt like he needed to protect Jitters somehow, to make sure he made it back in one piece.

  “Jitters, you're with Sarge. You guys go down the western wall,” Alvarez said.

  He looked at the remaining grunts. “You two stick with Brennen. Take the eastern wall. If he goes off the reservation again, don't hesitate to shoot him.” Alvarez was only half-kidding and no one laughed. “Keep your comms on and report back periodically.”

  The three parties split up. Alvarez and the grunt watched the other two parties walk away, their lights getting dimmer until both groups turned corners and disappeared.

  “I guess we better get going,” Alvarez said. The two men walked down the center passage. Alvarez had his computer log their current position. He also checked his time. “I don't want to go so far we run out of air,” he said.

  “What sir?” said the grunt.

  “Oh, just thinking out loud. Never mind.”

  The two men traversed in quiet. No hums or vibrations from engines, no electronic chirping. Nothing but the sound of their breath and footsteps. Alvarez heard ringing in his ears that he usually only heard on spacewalks. Tinnitus, he thought. From all the loud drilling.

  “What's your name son?” Alvarez said.

  “Weston. David Weston.”

  “What was your last assignment with Novos?

  Weston paused. “This is my first assignment,” he said. />
  Alvarez tried to disguise his surprise. He thought Novos would have sent more seasoned veterans like Sarge and Jitters. Why take rookies on a mission important enough to invoke a reactivation clause and risk their most advanced space-vessel?

  “What got you to sign up with Novos?” he said.

  “I guess the same reason any sane person does this—quick certs.” His immature exuberance spilled out.

  Alvarez thought about the length of this mission. Novos expected it to last six weeks, which on paper didn’t seem long. But after being locked in your barracks the first week, you realized that you earned every cert.

  “Sir, look here,” Weston said. On the wall beside them was a hexagonal platform with the same symbols as the formation on the surface. This one didn't look like stone. Alvarez knew he could mark on it.

  “Don't touch it,” Alvarez said. He wondered if Brennen’s party would find the same objects. He knew better than to hope Brennen wouldn't mess with them.

  It was hard to tell how long they had walked through the monotonous passageway. Alvarez checked his wrist: just over six minutes. At least we haven’t found side tunnels to get lost in, he thought. But he was curious why there would be such a long, unbroken tunnel.

  This was definitely not a natural formation. This tunnel and, undoubtedly, the other two were highly uniform. The width of the passage never deviated. The ceiling, unnecessarily tall, remained constant with its smooth, rounded archway. Even the floor was steady except for the almost imperceptible descending slope.

  Alvarez checked his readings again. The energy signature was getting stronger. He was certain they would soon find the source of the burst.

  Alvarez found himself staring at the ground and his feet where he could see clearly, instead of off in the distance where the darkness defeated his light. He was uncomfortable looking into the shadows. He remembered scuba diving off a terraformed reef system and gazing into the underwater horizon. It was an all-consuming blue, a wall behind which any number of large predators lurked.

  The feeling never left him. He couldn't shake it. How big could one man be? Man in water—fish out of water.