by Rob Dearsley
Hale deflated. “If you hear it again. Please tell me.”
“Of course.”
“I’m sorry, Commander,” Rossini said. “Bring us in-system. Nice and slow. Status on the rest of the scanners?”
“Not good,” Valentine said, climbing out of the watch pit. “The main array shorted during the jump. Techs say four hours before we have anything other than optical and EM. The support craft were powered down for jump so they should be fine. I suggest we launch them. Coms are operational, so we can rout their sensor data back here.”
Rossini and Valentine joined Niels at the holo-table. Talking on their coms as they prepped to launch the myriad of support craft they’d brought. Dannage longed to get the Folly back in space. To explore, to be able to see for himself. There was something out there. He’d heard it, he was sure.
“Captain.” Lloyd waved him over to join the others as the holo-table sprang to life showing a top-down map of the system.
As they moved further in-system, details filled in on the hologram, blurred by the dense scattering of debris.
“That’s the Asgard II shipyards.” Hale pointed to a mostly intact, triangular shaped station in high orbit over the main planet. “That’s where the Neural Sculptor will be.”
“We’re also picking out intact structures and some low-level power readings on the surface,” Niels said. “Well send a team down to the planet, while Captain Dannage and the Folly investigates the shipyards. Miss Hale, we’d like you to accompany Sergeant Grayson’s team to the planet.”
Hale shifted uncomfortably, her posture tight, but acquiesced with a slight tilt of her head.
Dannage said, “I’ll take Arland and Luc over to the station.” The sooner they could get out, be back in open space, the better. He wanted to fly again. His hands twitched, aching for the Folly’s flight controls.
“The Feynman will go into geostationary orbit here.” Rossini pointed to a high orbital track above the largest continent. “We’ll be able to support both exploration teams from there.”
Dannage pushed away from the holotable and started for the bridge doors and the lifts beyond.
Lloyd ducked through the closing doors into the lift. “Looking forward to getting out there?”
Dannage nodded. “I take it you’re joining us?”
“Slater and I’ll be running as outriders for the fleet, ready to provide air support if the exploration teams need backup.” He tapped the button for the main flight deck and the lift whirred into life.
Riding the lift down through the massive ship was an oddly normal experience. Everything was the same as before. It could have been any SDF ship, anywhere in the colonies.
But it wasn’t. They were half a galaxy away from the colonies. In a whole new spiral arm. Dannage couldn’t quite wrap his head around the fact they were the first people to see this system in thousands of years. To even be here was amazing. He’d heard stories of the Imperium through his childhood, and now he was here. Really here in the heart of the Terran Imperium.
The lift doors opened into the orderly hubbub of a flight deck gearing up for multiple launches. The scent of ozone from ship thrusters permeated the hanger. Dannage dodged around a fuelling cart, heading for the Folly’s open loading ramp, Luc and Arland following in his wake.
A pair of techs unhooked the fuelling line from the Folly’s port side. One of them gave Dannage a thumbs up. “You’re good to go, Captain.”
“See you out there.” Lloyd took a flight helmet from one of the techs and started toward where the blunt-nosed form of his fighter hunched over its landing gear. At the fighter’s stubby wingtip, he stopped to talk to a young woman with dark hair and an olive complexion, also in a pilot’s uniform. Dannage guessed it was Slater.
Vaughn and Hutch joined them at the foot the Folly’s loading ramp.
“It’s been a while since I saw the old girl.” Vaughn said by way of greeting. “Niels figured it would be good to have me on site if you find the neural sculptor.”
Dannage started up the ramp into the artificial freefall of the Folly’s hold. There was no if about it. They were going to find this damn doohicky and sort out the mess in his head. Then he could go back to regular trading runs and just worry about keeping himself and his crew fed and in the air.
A pair of armoured suits, the same ones they’d used on the Viner, stood at the back of the cargo hold, their hulking presence intimidating. The overhead lights glinted off the hardshell plates and mechanical armatures.
“I brought some toys,” Hutch said, arresting his momentum next to Dannage. “Better safe than sorry.”
“Only two sets,” Luc said, joining them. “Who gets to use them?”
“Arland and I are trained to use them. I brought enough rifles for everyone though,” Hutch replied.
Dannage shrugged, he was happy for Arland and the young marine to take point. He kicked off up toward the bridge, Luc and Arland following behind him. The bridge doors hushed aside as Dannage stepped back into the standard gravity of the bridge. Luc and Arland took their regular seats just behind him on either side.
Seeing the three of them reflected in the cupola, together again and heading out into the unknown. This was how it was supposed to be. As he watched, Vaughn slipped in and moved to one of the rear stations. They were his family, his home. For a moment he took them all in. It felt right
Smiling, Dannage climbed into the pilot’s seat and started going through the pre-flight. The Folly’s engines hummed to life.
The launch indicator in front of them turned green. He punched the engines and the Folly lunged forward from the bright chaos of the flight deck into the darkness of the Terran home system.
Dodging debris, he swung the Folly in a wide arc to get some distance on the Feynman before coming around to see all the smaller ships disconnect. The two scouts broke away, from beneath the supercarrier flecks of frozen oxygen spinning away from the umbilical’s trailing behind the squat rectangular ships. Above them, a pair of troop transports shot from one of the flight decks – Hale was on one of them. He hoped she was okay seeing her home like this. Maybe going back there would give her closure. The transports were joined a moment later by the Wolfhounds.
The group fell into a loose formation starting toward Terra Prime and the space elevator.
Dannage flicked through the display options, bringing up the scanner information. No EM or heat signatures within range.
Arland moved forward, stooping to look through the cupola beside Dannage.
“There.” She pointed to the triangular station orbiting above them. “That’s the Asgard II shipyard.”
“See if you can find us a way in,” Dannage said.
He swung the folly around a slowly spinning chunk of debris, by the look of it a comms tower. Something drew his attention off to the right. Behind the shipyard, one of Terra Prime’s moons spun past, even at that distance he could make out the regular outlines of structures.
A nagging from out there kept pulling at the back of his mind. The voice? Maybe, but then why wouldn’t it respond to him? The Folly’s scanners couldn’t pick out anything. He knew there was something there waiting, watching.
The space elevator spun toward them, the SDF fleet decelerating and manoeuvring to come into a geosynchronous orbit matching the sprawling, shattered station at the top of the space elevator.
Dannage rolled the Folly, tracking the two transports as they dropped away into the planet’s atmosphere, turning into orange streaks following the path of the space elevator down. Hale was going home.
“Captain,” Arland’s voice broke into his thoughts. “I’ve got a landing pad on the shipyard. Sending you a waypoint now.”
A blue waypoint line sprang up on the HUD, directing him to a point midway down the nearside edge of the station. The Folly responded to Dannage’s touch gliding along the glowing blue line. The debris had thinned out and the shipyard itself looked intact and largely damage free.
“C
ap’n?”
“I’m fine.” He caught Luc’s concerned look reflected in the cupola. “Really. Just thinking about what this place must have looked like before.”
“There’s a reason they called it ‘The Fall’,” Arland said. “Still nothing on scanners. Not even Turned.”
Thank the Stars for small mercies at least. He skirted around the wreckage of a Terran Gunship, one of the building-sized missiles sat unused on the underwing mounts. Something had ripped the ship clean in half, bow to stern.
“Which side were you on?” Dannage muttered as they passed under the wing. The damn thing was nearly as big as an SDF cruiser. There was no way to know if this ship had died in a valiant last stand against innumerable odds or had given in to join the X-Ships in killing their creators.
Memories came unbidden. The stink of bleach, the buzz of a saw and beneath it all the scent of blood and scorched flesh.
I remember the fight. The pain and fire that ends all things.
Dannage snapped back to himself, the voice like a bucket of ice in his face. Damn it, why couldn’t they just leave him alone. He just wanted to get back to normal.
The station loomed large in front of them, gantries and scaffold moorings extended claw-like from the sides of the station. They slipped between articulated repair arms, where a two-tier landing pad was set into the stations super-structure. Dannage followed the waypoint line down onto the lower of the two pads.
“I’m going to get geared up,” Arland said, as the Folly settled onto her struts with a long-suffering groan.
Dannage twisted around in his chair. “You sure you want to do this?”
Arland shot him a smile. “Are you kidding? I want to see what’s out there. Grayson and I have the power armour and coil-guns. We’re ready for anything.”
“Now you’re just tempting fate,” Luc said moving to join her.
Dannage smiled. Stars, he loved them both. “Come back.”
“Always,” Arland said, then she pushed off into the hold to get ready.
Don’t go down. Down is for the dead and dying.
◊◊
Hale looked through the small porthole at the incandescent form of the other transport and beyond to the remains of the golden shaft of the space elevator as they dropped through Terra Prime’s atmosphere. She was going home.
Home to a place she hadn’t seen for more than fifty-thousand years. Even before she’d been put in stasis at the start of the war, she hadn’t been on Prime since taking the post on the Heimdall. Below them, the capital city stretched out. Buildings overgrown with lush green plant life, or crumbled to dust – lost to the passage of the ages. The streets were no longer the glowing arteries of the city. Now they were thrown into shade from the larger shrubbery. Steel and concrete replaced with grass and earth. And in the middle of it all, the Defence Federation building still rose grandiose, monolithic. She could see it as it had been bright, whole. Her home.
“Commander,” Sergeant Grayson said, his voice pulling her from her reverie.
The SDF marines were doing final checks on their armour.
“How’s the gear?” Grayson asked.
Hale looked down at the Terran Marine armour she was wearing. The chest plate’s black surface caught the light, picking out the red highlights. Large hex bolts held the different parts together. The edges of the plate curved under making it look even thicker than even heavy powered armour the SDF troopers now wore. Layers of ceramic strike plate, carbon nano-fabric protected her. Thinner plates covered her arms and legs, and a helmet completed the armour. Hale pulled the helmet on and flipped the eyepiece down over her right eye.
“Looks good,” Hale said, grinning. It felt good to be in Imperial gear again.
“Commander, we’ve connected your Heads-up display into the squad link,” Fyffe said, looking up to meet Hale’s eyes. The young technician’s eyes flicked from side to side nervously.
Ellis finished checking over Fyffe’s armour. Despite the atmosphere appearing breathable, they were keeping their suits sealed.
They were interrupted by the pilot’s voice. “Boots down in ten.”
Hale grabbed one of the SDF’s new anti-Turned guns and fell into formation behind Grayson, Fyffe at her side. Ellis brought up the rear. He’d equipped his anti-Turned rifle with a marksman’s scope.
The shuttle settled with a hiss from the hydraulics in the landing gear and the back door opened out onto the dusty square. Despite the view from above, large sections of the city remained unclaimed by the greenery. Including the plaza between the cathedral-like frontage of the Defence Federation HQ and the space elevator.
The downdraught from the engines kicked up swirling devils of rust-red dust around the team as they descended the ramp onto the rough plaza. Hale took a breath, the air was cool dry, and carried the scent of fresh earth and mulch. It reminded her of the fallow fields on her parents’ farm. Had the rogue ships destroyed their home as well? Were there any remnants of the Imperium that survived? If the founders of the SDF had survived, why not others?
“Eyes up, people,” Grayson said over the squad channel. “Could there be Turned down here?”
“I’m not sure, I was in cryosleep by that point. The ships could have landed them on the surface, but I don’t think they could have converted the planet wholesale. Sorry, I don’t know.”
“They were shooting at something.” Ellis pointed to a string of bullet marks on the front of the HQ building.
Fyffe checked her wrist-mounted flex. “The power readings are coming from inside.” She pointed to the Defence Force Headquarters ornate frontage.
Hale could imagine the red and gold of imperial pennants. Everywhere she looked, her imagination filled in details as clear as if it were just yesterday.
“Are you okay?” Fyffe asked.
Hale nodded, not trusting her voice.
Overgrown rubble formed a barricade down the middle of the foyer. Above them, the circular room’s roof curved into an ornate dome, stained glass chronicling the Creation and the First Stars. Sunlight filtered through the brightly coloured shards of glass.
“The Angels used the Heart of Stars and brought forth the light of the first stars to fight back the Darkness of the Before, and brought life to the universe.” Hale didn’t realise she was speaking until she looked down to find the others looking at her.
“I’m sure it was beautiful in its day,” Fyffe said.
Frowning, Hale looked up at the shattered remains of the glass dome, a tree now growing through it. Nothing was like she remembered it.
“This is odd,” Ellis said from the top of the rubble.
Hale slung her rifle and scrambled up the scrubby rocks.
“What is it?” Grayson asked, joining them.
“Look.” Ellis pointed at the pockmarked rear wall with his rifle’s laser sight.
“Bullet holes.” Fyffe hopped over a gnarled tree root. “So? We already suspected there was fighting on the surface.”
“Yes. But-” Ellis swung his laser around the walls. They were cracked and worn with age, but no bullet damage. “This isn’t fighting people coming in. This is fighting against something trying to get out.”
He was right. In the middle of a planet-wide siege, what were they trying to keep in?
Pushing the thoughts aside, Hale slithered down the rubble to the rear doors, ornate wood polished to a shine. Except not, the doorway was pitch dark void, the doors having long since faded to dust.
Dust and memories. It was all she had left now.
The SDF helmet lights pierced the darkness, picking out overturned carts and scarred walls. Less plant-life had penetrated this darkness. More bullet-holes marked what to Hale looked like a running firefight, or a fighting retreat. Again, out of the building. Maybe the X-Ships had dropped Turned into the centre of the complex somehow.
Hale flicked on her own armour lights as she followed the SDF officers through the doorway and into the dark interior. Musty, chill air b
rushing her exposed face.
Grayson turned to face them, the soft glow of his heads-up display giving his face an ethereal and vaguely menacing visage. “Where to now?”
“Science and medical facilities are in the west wing.” Hale pointed to their right. “They’re hermetically sealed and reinforced, so they’re likely to be the best preserved.”
“Power readings are coming from western sections,” Fyffe said.
Grayson frowned but accepted her explanation. “Keep heading west, guys. And keep an eye out for any facility plans.”
Fyffe opened a pouch on the front of her armour. “We could send out the throw drones to map the area.”
At Grayson’s indication, she pulled a pair of matte-black spheres from her pouch and tossed them down the hallway. They beeped and rolled off into the dark.
The drone feed popped up in Hale’s HUD, she minimised it preferring to focus on corridor around her.
They moved through another shattered pair of doors, into a plain white hallway.
“This is the VR training suit.” Hale traced her fingers along the wall, grime transferring onto her glove. “We used training simulations, it’s safer than live fire and more authentic than running around with blanks. Death was… disconcerting.” She’d never forget the disjointed feeling of virtual death.
Ellis peered into one of the side rooms, his helmet lights picking out the control consoles and beyond them, the VR chambers themselves. It was hard to see past the central partition, but Hale thought she could make out remains in one of the VR harnesses.
Hale pushed herself through the broken, glass door into the room, getting a better view of the other section. The harnesses looked like the back half of powered armour with bulky helmets that came down over the user’s eyes. They’d never been the most comfortable things to wear.
The middle station was still clamped around a desiccated corpse, little more than parchment skin over the skeleton, fragments of a uniform still clung in places.
Hale stepped up to the glass, touching her fingertips to it. They’d been here, fighting for their lives while she’d been sleeping in that damn cryo-tube. Her whole world turned to dust. She touched her hand to her head and heart, before kissing her fist and pressing it to the glass. “May you rest with the Angels, in starlight, always.”