“I have no record of a Marine by the name of Cole Becker on this mission,” the A.I. said.
Perhaps it was a clerical error. Like Drummer had said, weird shit happens in space – but that wasn’t limited to alien encounters. It also included just about every bureaucratic fuck-up imaginable. Losing a soldier would fall dead center of that pie chart of Fleet fuck-up’s.
The problem was, Tully had no idea how the Fleet could make such a goof. Cole’s on-board A.I. would have been registered with Tact the moment the newbie set foot on the Scout ship. Tully hated to admit it, but the system was pretty foolproof. In all his time as a Marine, Tully had never heard of a Marine – even a clueless newbie – not getting logged into the system.
That familiar chill running down Tully’s spine was back again. Suddenly, Tully had a thought.
“Tact, can you replay my HUD camera footage?” he asked. The faceplate was equipped with a camera, mostly for after-action debriefing.
“Affirmative,” Tact said. The footage appeared in the center of his HUD. Tully fast-forwarded to after the crash. He really didn’t want to see his team die. Instead, he focused on the moment he pulled out their vitals.
Five vitals stared back at him. Including Cole Becker’s at the bottom of the screen. It was blank, but it still showed his name. Tully sighed with relief. At the very least, he had evidence that Cole wasn’t some weird, imaginary figment of his imagination. When he got back to the ship, he could run the footage by Tact and get answers. But it got Tully thinking . . . if Cole wasn’t dead . . . what were his vitals now?
Tully opened the vitals’ chart from his wrist bracelet. He still saw the stagnant vitals of his now dead teammates, but only those four.
Cole’s name was gone.
“What the hell?” he said as he saw the missing entry. How could Cole have vanished from the vitals log? His name had been there at the start of the mission. Tully had checked it after the crash, even if he couldn’t get an exact reading on Cole’s vitals in the process.
How could a dead Marine completely vanish, not only from the hold itself, but also from the logs of the Scout ship’s computer? It didn’t make sense. It only brought one unerring certainty to Tully’s world.
Something was very wrong.
This was on top of having found a freaking alien ship buried in the ice. If anything, it had all the markings of a horror movie. Tully chewed on his lip.
These things never end well.
Fortunately, there were two things that were clear to Tully. First off, the alien ship was not going anywhere, at least, as far as he could tell. Secondly, he couldn’t investigate Cole’s disappearance from here. He would have better luck returning to the ship and making the necessary repairs. He could present his evidence to Tact, though Tully doubted the annoying artificial intelligence would be much help in this case. The most likely case was that he’d have to present his evidence up the chain of command, presenting a potentially bigger headache if he ever got off this rock.
This will look just great to command. I’m coming back with four dead Marines and one fucking big question mark. Thanks a lot, Cole. Your vanishing act is a pain in my ass.
He was getting ahead of himself. His first priority was surviving and making his window to link up with the Astraeus. Everything else was a very distant second. Tully turned away from the ship and opted to begin his long trek back to the Scout ship.
“I’ll deal with you later,” he told the alien spacecraft. It was funny. What had started as a simple fight for survival had now grown exponentially more complicated.
“I’m getting out of here before things get weirder,” he told himself.
He began to retrace his steps through the cavern. He just needed to find the tunnel and then make his way up the snowy slope, to the moon’s surface, and back to the Scout ship. It was about an hour’s journey from there, giving him plenty of time to mull over the many questions running through is head.
Tully saw the entrance to the tunnel about thirty yards ahead and he stepped lightly in its direction, hoping to start his return journey soon. The chill hadn’t left his spine. That’s when he heard it – a shuffling sound that wasn’t made by his feet.
He twisted around quickly, looking for signs of someone else. The alien ship remained still, and Tully saw no sign of anyone – or anything – having left the massive spacecraft. He turned around only to be greeted by the pitter-patter sound of footsteps.
Tully reached for his sidearm but there was no time. The footsteps approached from a different direction. By the time Tully’s hands touched the grip of his sidearm, something touched him in the back. His entire body racked with pain. The force was enough to send him spiraling to the ground, armor and all, into the darkness.
He was out for several seconds. He felt his body being rolled over by something. When Private Lance Tully came to, someone was standing over him. It was Private Cole Becker. He didn’t appear afraid or nervous, as he had on the Scout ship. Here, he appeared confident and vigorous, backed by a vicious grin and hungry eyes.
“You make a terrible Marine, Private Tully,” Cole said. “You can’t even die when you’re supposed to.”
Those were the last sounds Tully heard before the shadows claimed him once more.
Five
When Tully came to, he still saw Cole staring down at him with a morbid kind of fascination. His eyes were wide, and he looked almost gleeful in his excitement. Tully’s mind was racing. Had Cole suffered some sort of space sickness? It was possible, but it didn’t account for the disappearing act on the ship. Then Tully remembered his squeamish reaction to the battle rifle and his glitching med log. It all lead Tully to one inevitable conclusion.
Betrayal.
“You’re finally awake,” Cole said, a statement not a question.
“Cole, you’re---” Tully started, but Cole interrupted him.
“I know, I know. Alive! Surprise! How can this be?” Cole gestured around him as if he had an audience.
“No, I was going to say . . . an asshole,” Tully said. “Is this a new development or have you always been this way?”
Cole’s mood immediately darkened. He frowned and walked away like a rejected child on the playground.
“Tully, always with the quips and comebacks,” Cole said blithely. “No wonder no one on the team likes you.”
“I disagree. I’m think I’m quite popular,” Tully said. “But you’ll have to ask them because . . . oh wait . . . you can’t. Because you killed them.”
Cole chuckled, “Ahhh. Put that altogether now, did we?”
“Well, it’s the only viable explanation. Don’t think I didn’t check your med logs for your vitals, only to see nothing; nada,” Tully said. “Now I wish I hadn’t gone through all the trouble.”
“Yes, well, she wanted someone on-board to ensure the Scout ship went down without any . . . mishaps,” Cole regarded Tully with a shark-like gaze, complete with large eyes and a wide smile. “It was a bumpy ride, but it was worth it. Otherwise, you would have survived, and we just can’t have that, no sir, sorry.”
At a glance, Tully wasn’t sure which Cole he preferred. The trembling and anxious Cole on the Scout ship was obviously an act, but he was a clear improvement over the chatty dickhead in front of him.
“Wait a minute,” Tully said as Cole’s words finally caught up with him. “Did you say she? Don’t tell me you did all this to get laid, because I have to tell you, Cole, there are easier way for a Marine to get some.”
Cole kept the unnerving smile, but he cocked his head like a dog trying to understand a new command. Then he took a deep breath, as if he was taking in fresh air for the first time in years.
Keep breathing, Cole. One of us has to run out of air eventually.
Though the odds in Tully’s favor were pretty low at the moment. He scanned his surroundings. Cole had dragged him to a part of the alien spacecraft he had never seen before. The once-smooth chassis of the ship was now divided into
several new sections, including what appeared to be an opening. Tully couldn’t see what lay inside within the darkness.
“You checking out my lady?” Cole queried. “She is a beauty, isn’t she?”
“A little bland on the personality front,” Tully said. “But you’re a Marine, so your standards aren’t that high to begin with.”
Cole’s face turned into a twisted mask of anger and rage. He stomped his boot onto Tully’s midsection.
“Don’t talk about her like that,” Cole growled. “You’re not worthy of licking the fuel from her exhaust ports!”
“I’m not sure what that means, but I’m going to trust you on it,” Tully said.
“Shut up!” Cole said, kicking him in the side. Tully grimaced as he felt a rib crack. Still, he did his best to laugh, if only to see it the flustered expression on Cole’s face.
“Oh man. You know, it’s probably a good thing you went and killed Laskey and Rodriguez. If I could get under your skin so easy, there’s no way you could survive a ribbing from either of them,” Tully replied.
Cole looked upset for a moment, but then his face shifted back to the violently lovesick asshole he had been, with a serene and placid expression on his otherwise youthful face. He walked casually with his hands in the pockets of his armor as if he was turning to leave.
“Well, the sad truth is, there’s no way you can survive this,” Cole said. “I’m sorry . . . but she’s made it very clear, for the Sovereign to get her way, you need to die. I am truly sorry about that, Tully.”
“Awww . . . we were just starting to bond. No snowball fight? No hot cocoa? No sleepover?” Tully quipped. He knew he had to keep Cole distracted and talking while he reached for the side of his armor, to the snap-away compartment by his right thigh.
It had worked so far. Cole’s face started to simmer, as if to show the rising anger beneath his mask of lovesick civility.
“If it’s any comfort, your death will save millions, perhaps billions of lives,” Cole continued. “The Sovereign will rise . . . and there will be nothing anyone can do . . . but submit.”
“You named your ship the Sovereign,” Tully replied. “It’s catchy but it’s a tad on the unoriginal side.”
“Shut the fuck up!” Cole warned, returning his boot to the side of Tully’s armor. “She’s not a ship. She had millions of facets across the galaxy. This is but one vessel, one part of our greater body.”
“Which body part is it? Is it her feet? You strike me as the kind with a serious foot fetish,” Tully suggested.
“Shut up!” Cole repeated even louder than before. “Neither of us is fit to grovel at her feet.”
He produced a large crowbar in his hand. “Fortunately, only one of us is going to get the chance. I’m sorry you’re about to die, Private, but it doesn’t change the fact that you are far from your ship, with no way to contact the fleet, and no battle rifle to protect yourself.”
“Well, you’ve got most of that right,” Tully said. “In all honesty, you’ve left me with just one thing on my person.”
Cole crossed his arms, clearly prepared for another smart-ass comment. “And what’s that?”
“My sidearm,” Tully grinned. Cole’s smile vanished.
Before he could step forward, Tully was rising to his feet, his sidearm drawn. Cole ran forward, crowbar in hand, but instead of connecting, Cole dropped the crowbar and fled in the opposite direction. By the time Tully squeezed the trigger, he was aiming at empty space.
He’s a squirrely bastard, I’ll give him that.
Of course, squirrely didn’t mean much since Tully had always been a dead-shot marksman since Basics. His first shot missed, and Tully took aim of Cole’s retreating form. He felt a little bad about shooting an unarmed, retreating enemy, but he needed answers. Cole had it coming anyway.
He put one bullet into the back of Tully’s knee and the other into his right armpit. Unfortunately, neither did much damage, thanks to the standard issue Fleet Marine armor. Still, it was sufficient to topple Cole over. He went down like a sack of potatoes – a cursing and ranting sack of potatoes.
“Fuck! You! The Sovereign will make you grovel at her divine luminance!” he announced. Tully pointed the sidearm directly at the downed Cole’s head.
“When did she get to you, Cole? Was it in Basics . . . or after?” he asked. He’d heard of brainwashing. Maybe this unfortunate Marine just got his gray matter scrambled during some shore leave.
“Before,” Cole grinned. “I’ve always been what you might call a believer. I’ve been talking to her since I was sixteen. She’s shown me the universe.”
“Touching,” Tully said. “I guess most guys fall in love with their rides at some point.”
“I’m not like most guys,” Cole spat. “I’m doing this all for her. You think this is the first time one of you Marines have gotten in the way? Once you know what you’re looking for . . . it’s so easy to fake an accident.”
Now it was Tully’s turn to kick Cole, and he did so with a ferocious blow to his stomach.
“How many of us did you kill, you little shit?” he asked. “How many?”
“I’ve lost count,” Cole laughed weakly. “And I’m not the only one. There are others like me . . . slowly bleeding your fleet of its manpower.”
“Okay. I know you sabotaged the collision detection system. But how’d you take your med log?” Tully said. “And how did you pull off your disappearing act?”
“Why should I tell you?” Cole asked. “You’re just going to kill me.”
“I’m giving you a choice. Tell me and you spill all your garbage to a court martial,” Tully said. “Don’t tell me, and the last thing you see will be the barrel of this gun.”
“Fair point,” Cole shrugged. He cast a glance to the alien spacecraft behind Tully. “It had help. The Sovereign gave me a jammer that masked my vitals once we crashed.”
“And why the crash to begin with?” Tully said. “Seems like a lot of trouble to go through just to get some alone time with your . . . girl.”
He was still having trouble wrapping his head around Cole’s apparent love affair with an alien artifact. Then again, he could only trust Cole’s motivations and backstory so far. It was still possible he’d been brainwashed to such an extent in a previous encounter that he could be thinking anything at this point.
“This is but a seed of the Sovereign,” Cole informed him. “One of many seeds the Sovereign has planted across the galaxy. There are hundreds of them.”
Tully couldn’t help but snicker. Cole turned to him, an angry and disgusted sneer on his face.
“Wow. Your girlfriend really gets around,” Tully laughed.
“How dare yo-” Cole started, but Tully stepped on his foot and applied maximum pressure. Cole screamed.
“Why did you crash the Scout ship?” he asked. “Answer the question.”
“This particular ship came online prematurely. That’s why the Astraeus picked up its signal,” Cole said. “I had to ensure no more Marines would come to this moon. I had to make it look like an inexplicable accident.”
“Of course,” Tully said. “The radiation bands. After losing one party, the Fleet would probably just pack up and leave. After all, there’s plenty of systems out there. Pretty good plan.”
“For the most part, everything’s going according to plan,” Cole said confidently.
“Going?” Tully said, noting the shift into present tense.
“Yes. You might have the upper hand, but it won’t last,” Cole went on. “I’m guessing you already repaired the ship by now. You could have taken off and been none the wiser, but you had to come and check out the signal. Now you’re wasting time and oxygen just talking to me. The rendezvous is in less than a few hours. You may have a gun, but I’ve got the biggest weapon of all. I’ve got time.”
A deep weight filled Tully’s stomach as he considered Cole’s words. Even though he had the answers he’d been looking for, how much had this little det
our cost him? He still had to affect some minimal repairs on the ship, and as Tact had warned him, the window was closing fast. As much as it pained him to admit it, Cole was right. He had only an hour or two at most to get back to the ship and get off this rock and on to the Astraeus.
“There’s no way you could have come up with all of this on your own,” Tully said. “You’re just a pretty face. I’ll bet she’s the real brains behind the operation.”
Cole’s face beamed with approval. Tully didn’t have much time, so he hoped this new tactic would pay off.
“So maybe I should talk to her directly,” Tully said as he leaned closer. “And apply some enhanced interrogation methods on her.”
Cole’s face turned red. He sneered in disgust as he tried to launch himself at Tully. The standing Marine pushed Cole down and kept his gun level with his head.
“So what’s it gonna be, pal? Do I talk to you . . . or do I talk to your girlfriend?” Tully asked.
Then, as if a button had clicked, Cole’s face shifted, and he appeared content and gracious. He settled back as if he was making himself comfortable. Tully couldn’t understand what was going on.
“I think you’ve got the wrong idea about our relationship,” Cole said with a smirk.
This can’t possibly be good. It’s never good when they’re smiling.
“I have?” Tully asked, playing along for the moment. If this went south, he reminded himself, he could always put two into Cole’s head. He was growing more and more fond of the idea, even if Cole had been brainwashed by this Sovereign.
“Yes, you have. She doesn’t need my permission to talk to anyone. She can speak to whomever she likes,” Cole said. “And she really wants to talk to you. She’s pissed.”
Suddenly the ground began to shake violently at Tully’s feet. He looked over to the flashing lights emitting from the spacecraft. Tully remembered noticing how the ship seemed merged with the icy terrain. It must have been able to control the terrain somehow.
Cole made his move seconds later. He dove into Tully, knocking the pistol out of his hand in the process. Tully elbowed Cole’s back twice before he went down. Cole planted himself atop of Tully’s stomach and began laying punches down onto his faceplate. Tully knew he could shatter it with enough effort – he’d seen it happen to plenty of unfortunate Marines in Basics.
Lone Marine Page 3