“Clear.” Maria said, sweeping her rifle’s sights across the atrium of the Wethan Governance Center.
“Copy that, Prussin. Karazwaki, come with me, Freeman, cover us. Go!” Out of the corner of her eye, Maria could see Ten and Makoro dashing across the street. They had seen no D since being dropped at the edge of the city a few hours ago. It was unnerving, almost more so than if they had had to fight for every inch of progress.
It took barely a few seconds for the two others to join Maria at the entrance. “Freeman, we’ve got you covered. Get over here.” Silver barked. Moments later, the fourth member of their team was present.
“Copy that, Prussin. Karazwaki, come with me, Freeman, cover us. Go!” Out of the corner of her eye, Maria could see Ten and Makoro dashing across the street. They had seen no D since being dropped at the edge of the city a few hours ago. It was unnerving, almost more so than if they had had to fight for every inch of progress.
It took barely a few seconds for the two others to join Maria at the entrance. “Freeman, we’ve got you covered. Get over here.” Silver barked. Moments later, the fourth member of their team was present.
“This looks like it was hell.” Ten remarked. “There's what, a dozen skeletons within ten feet of us?”
Maria nodded, glancing at the bones. There was really no way to tell if they were Base Terran or Kynaki, but that didn’t really matter. “Yeah, but there’s still no D.”
“Is that necessarily a good thing? It’s a virtual guarantee that they’re watching us.”
“Still better than getting shot at.”
Ten shrugged. “Nominally, I suppose. Anyway,” Ten pulled her tablet off of her belt, and pulled up a map of the Governance Center, “We’re here, at the Eastern Entrance. Their Communications Hub is three levels down, and more or less centered in the building. We get in, pull whatever records we can get our hands on, and then call the ship down for Evac. Let’s try to limit the use of anything that explodes, because while I’m sure the Kynaki built this place to handle anything up to an Antimatter Loom being pointed at it, it clearly didn’t work that well. Any questions?”
“Are we going to have comms to the ship while we’re down there?” Freeman asked.
Ten shrugged. “In theory, yes, our comms should be able to punch through orders of magnitude more rock than this. I’m sure the Kynaki had various toys we don’t know about protecting places like this, but for a comms hub to be useful, I’d assume that that means it’s not physically shielded.” Ten waited for a moment, in case there were more questions, then continued, “Right then, let’s roll out in five. Freeman, get in contact with the ship, just touch base with them.”
Exhausted, Maria sat, wishing she could take her helmet off. The Tactical armor was tight against her skin, but its presence was almost comforting. Glancing to her side, she saw Makoro Karazwaki sitting next to her. “First real Op?” She asked.
“Yes.” He answered.
“Is this your first cruise, or what?” No offense, but you’re old for a greenie, but you clearly haven’t been here long.
“I’m a ‘Selected Volunteer’.” He replied, turning away. “I’d much rather be dead with my family than eking out this hellish existence here.”
Maria frowned. “Really? This seems to be far better. The general purpose of life is to not die, after all.”
Makoro smiled. “You’re not religious then, I assume?”
“Not particularly.”
“That explains it then. I believe that they’re out there now, watching over us if God wills it, watching this last pathetic spark that is humanity fizzle out.”
“That’s rather depressing.”
“No less so than the reality of our position.”
“I’d strongly disagree with that—didn’t XO Norton tell us about that Rally Point at Earth Orbit or whatever?”
“Exactly. It’s become an ‘or whatever’ for you. Do you notice how they haven’t brought that up since that first day?”
“What, are you saying they’re lying to us?”
“It wouldn’t be unprecedented.”
“Yeah, but... I mean, just think about it. It makes intuitive sense for there to be a rally point of some kind. The war wasn’t fought in an instant—even if we may have thought that once, we have Aetna to show us that it wasn’t. It just makes sense for the Fleet to have whisked at least some people off somewhere safe and hidden.”
“In a universe where the Agents who originally wore this very armor would shoot men down on street corners? Somehow I doubt that.”
Maria shrugged. “There are small abuses of power, definitely, but overall the Declaration of Dissent is what guides the Republic. ‘The primary aim of any just government being the good of the governed, this Republic shall be established as a bulwark against the twin evils of death and of despair.’ I think it’s pretty clear that they’re looking out for the good of the species.”
Makoro shook his head. “They paid lip-service to that idea, certainly, but they’re no better than any of the other possibilities.”
“You’d really rather have lived under the Federation or the Imperiata?”
“No—it just doesn’t matter. Under the Republic the injustices were directed towards the poor or stigmatized. Under the Imperiata they were directed towards non-Base Terrans. It didn’t matter, ultimately, which won that war. Neither was fighting for anything other than power. The faces on it may change, but the coin remains.”
“We’re on Kynak right now. It’s basically the only world that remained majority non-Base Terran after the Republic-Imperiata war. Could you look a Kynaki in the eye and tell them that you basically don’t care if the Imperiata had won.”
“I think you’re confusing support for the Imperiata with having an equal dislike of the Republic. I don’t think that the Imperiata were just, but only that the differences between the Republic and the Imperiata are so small as to be irrelevant.”
“Then what’s your preferred solution? How would you go about governing the universe?”
Makoro opened his mouth to answer, but Ten cut him off. “We’re rolling out. Freeman, take point, Karazwaki, cover our backs.”
“Any word from the ship?” Maria asked, springing to her feet, grabbing her rifle back up.
“They’re incredibly helpful. They’ve told us to, and I’m quoting directly here, ‘Stay safe and exercise caution, but continue to the objective barring undue risk.’ I hadn’t thought about it in that particularly convoluted way before.”
Maria shook her head in disgust.
“Anyway, I think we all want to be done with this as soon as possible. Let’s head out.”
The Governance Building had been laid out in straight lines and at right angles, which gave them excellent lines of sight. It also had alcoves built into the walls every few dozen feet, equipped with tables and benches for meetings, and a clearly-marked weapons locker.
There were frequent stairwells, so they were at the lowest level almost immediately. Said stairwells were also collapsed into steep ramps, had their handrails removed, and had airlocks at each end.
“The Kynaki really took their military seriously.” Maria observed.
“Yeah. They were incredible—every road on the planet has to be straight for one mile out of every ten to act as an emergency airfield. Every building was legally required to have enough Safe Rooms to accommodate fifty percent more than their expected maximum capacity. They were obligated to join the military or go into other civil service for five years after reaching adulthood. They were damn amazing warriors.” Ten said.
“They were physically fascinating, too.” Freeman piped up. “Their life expectancy was well over that of Base Terrans, and they consistently performed above Base on virtually any physical test.”
“I suppose there were reasons that the Imperiata never even approached this system.” Makoro observed. “It just doesn’t seem like it was ever worth their efforts.”
“On one level yeah, that’s true.” Ten said, “But the Coronan and Trapac both had comparable militaries at the time, and look what happened to them. Both wiped—.”
“Hold up.” Freeman said, interrupting Ten, then kneeling down. “Ten, come take a look at this.”
Ten took a few steps forward, then knelt down with Freeman. “What is it?”
“Dust.” Cassidy replied. “It’s fine, black, and glows slightly in the infrared spectrum. This is from a D.”
Ten nodded. “Agreed. Everyone, close up your air filters, flip your weapon’s safeties off. Be ready to engage.”
Maria felt a surge of adrenaline flow through her as she armed her rifle. Maria wasn't a marine like Ten, but she had become a soldier over the past few weeks. Ten had drilled with her several times, having said that she was of the opinion that Maria would be called upon to be a part of any future Away Teams. She was, in a twisted way, looking forward to engaging the enemy.
They didn’t speak any more than was absolutely necessary as Ten guided them through the grid of corridors to the area indicated on the map as the Comms Hub.
“Away Team to Warbler.” Maria could hear Ten say as they cautiously stalked through the abandoned corridors. “Warbler, do you copy?”
“Go for SENCOM.” A static-filled voice responded. “What do you need?”
“We’ve reached the Hub, and would like to inquire once again, what sorts of information exactly we are looking for?”
“One moment please.” The line was dead for a moment, then, “Ansible logs, especially from the twenty-eighth day of the war onwards. Something about Aetna’s records. Also, we’ve been told to inform you that the standard practice is to keep hard drive backups in several places, but there’s almost always a set in the Ansible Room itself.”
“Copy that, Warbler. Away Team out.”
Wow. Maria thought. That actually sounded helpful.
Ten glanced up to Cassidy Freeman. “This is as far as our maps can take us. We’re going to have to physically explore this. We’ve had no engagements with the D apart from the occasional pile of dust—do you think it’ll be safe to split up into groups of two?”
Freeman was taken slightly aback by the question. “Are you actually asking me?”
“Yeah. Basically you’ve got as much experience with the D as anyone—hell, I was in that mech on the Hoatzin, so I really couldn’t pick up on the little things. What do you think?”
Cassidy hesitated. “I’m not sure. My gut says that it’s probably alright. There’s really no reason to believe that the D will have any stronger a presence here than anywhere else.”
Ten nodded. “Then we’ll split. Karazwaki, with me. We’ll be following the signs for the Ansible Room. Freeman, Prussin, you’re together. Poke around, and if you find something good, radio me.”
Cassidy waved Maria over to the side of the tunnel. “So we’re together for the immediate future. Try not to get me killed, okay?” Maria could see the slight smile on Freeman’s face, which was somehow incredibly reassuring.
“Got it. Any other advice?”
“Nothing so subtle. Let’s go have some fun by not dying.”
The Ansible Room or the Wethan Governance Complex couldn’t have been more different from the Warbler’s. All the same pieces were there, but there were some major differences.
To begin with, the Warbler’s actually contained an Ansible, much unlike the empty containment unit in front of Ten. Second, the Warbler’s Ansible Room wasn’t filled with humanoid skeletons. Third, the Warbler’s Ansible Room didn’t have several dozen glowing blue spheres scattered around it.
“What are those?” Makoro asked.
“Those,” Ten said, thinking back to the Hoatzin, “Are species D brains. Basically that black dust we’ve been tramping through is the body, those blue spheres the brain. If you kill those, the entire thing breaks down.”
“I see.” Makoro said, frowning. “Are we going to kill them then?”
“Hell yes.” Ten said. “First though, I want our objective. The data drives should be somewhere obvious, on some desk or something.”
“Understood.” Makoro said, turning to a set of shelves by the door, his boots kicking up an inordinate amount of black dust.
It’s the shields on the suits. Ten thought. They repel stuff—apparently ‘stuff’ includes D dust.
As Ten began rifling through her own set of drawers, she heard Makoro speak up from behind her. “I understand why you want to kill those things, but if I may ask one question: What purpose would it serve?”
Ten laughed. “You’re joking, right? Basically those are soldiers of the species that wiped out our own? You know how we’ve been talking about the Kynaki all day, and how they’re terrifying? These things wiped them out, too. Each of these could kill us a dozen different ways. You’ve seen Sadira—do you want to be like that, unable to breathe half the time because it’s crawling into your lungs, cutting you up inside anywhere it can reach? Think of the trillion or so people these killed and tell me that we shouldn’t kill them.”
“They’re thinking creature's, quite unlike anything we’ve ever encountered before. Each of those is, if what you say is true, a life not that different from our own. Furthermore, killing these will have no real effect on the universe as a whole. There’s a few dozen here, and it definitely would have take more than that to conquer Kynak. It’s pointless murder.”
“If you must call war that, I’m very sorry you’re here, Ensign Karazwaki. I wished a real soldier had lived in your place.” She spat.
“As do I.” He said quietly. “Look, I just found the drive. Let’s just get out, and get back to the ship.”
“No. Stow the drive, and get out whatever explosives you packed. We’re levelling this room.”
“No.”
“Give me your backpack, Ensign. You are a soldier of the United Terran Republic, and obligated to obey the authority vested in me by my command of this mission.”
“I am not a soldier. I will not comply with this.”
“I see. Get out of the room, Ensign.”
Makoro shook his head and turned slowly, walking out of the room. Swearing silently to herself, Ten dropped her own pack to the ground, and took out half a dozen incendiary grenades. She tucked them into a crevice in the Ansible Containment Mechanism, followed by a remote detonator. That would be more than enough to slag the room and everything in it by an order of magnitude.
Exiting the room herself, she turned to face Makoro. “We’ll address your insubordination when we get back to the ship, Ensign.” Makoro didn’t answer. “Come with me. We’re meeting back up with Freeman and Prussin.”
“Away Team Silver to Away Team Freeman, do you copy?” She asked, opening a comms channel to the second group. “We’ve got our objective. Grab whatever you might have found, and head out.”
“Copy that, Silver. We’ll see you soon.”
“Silver out.” She cycled to the Warbler’s channel, and essentially repeated the conversation. They seemed mildly annoyed that she had split the team, but they could deal with it. This was exactly why they needed clear guidance, after all.
Having gotten the calls to Freeman and the ship out of the way, and seeing as how they were getting far enough away from the Ansible Room that the signal was about to become a potential problem, ten flipped her detonator switch.
The ground by their feet rippled—or rather, the fine coat of dust that covered it did. She realized that Makoro was looking at her, but she also didn’t honestly care. The detonator she held showed that the room had experienced temperatures in excess of six thousand degrees fahrenheit.
As they reached the stairway, Ten noticed tracks in the dust on the ground. Apparently the other two had already been through here.
“Was there dust here originally?” Makoro asked. “Didn’t we only notice it when we were nearing the Comms Hub?”
Ten shook her head. “Could be any number of reasons for that. Simplest is probably that we’re just slightly lost, but Freeman and Prussin are clearly heading out this way, because we’re the only people on this damn planet. We’ll just have to call the ship in to a slightly different entrance.”
“Maybe.” Makoro didn’t sound convinced, but he was being worse than useless today. She was going to have to have him taken off the Away Team.
They emerged onto the ground level a few minutes later, in the same abandoned atrium. “What the hell?” Ten wondered. “Away Team Silver to Away Team Freeman, where the hell are you?”
“We’re still down on the second level. We should be up in five minutes, tops. Also, we’re noticing some D activity down here—are you getting the same?”
Chills ran up Ten’s spine. “Yeah. There’s D dust by the entrance now. With footprints in it.”
“Damn. We’ll be up in a few minutes. Stay safe.”
“Copy that. Ten out. Oh, and... Please, don’t take your time.”
Maria followed Cassidy Freeman up the stair/ramp, heart pounding. It was hard to keep her footing, but she managed it. Cassidy kept trying to get in contact with the Warbler, but there was just static on the line. They couldn’t even reach Ten anymore.
They burst into the atrium, looking around wildly for Ten and Makoro. After a brief moment of panic, they heard Ten shout “We’re here.” and emerge out of an alcove.
“Excellent. Were you able to raise the ship?”
Silver shook her head. “No. Damn this all.”
“We’ll have to find whatever’s jamming us—there’s not any other way for us to contact the ship, is there?”
“They could be experiencing interference on-orbit.” Maria cut in.
Cassidy shook her head. “They could, but that wouldn’t have stopped us from reaching Ten. Our comms are peer-to-peer, precisely so the ship being taken out doesn’t put them offline. There’s something hostile nearby. Honestly though, if it was able to stop us talking to each other just from a few stories down, this jamming has got to be nearby—it shouldn’t be too hard to find.”
“You’re from SENCOM, right? Can you do something to find out where it’s coming from?”
Cassidy nodded. “I can do some triangulation to get us a fix on...” She trailed off, and Maria could see Freeman’s eyes open wide. “What?” She asked, pointing.
Maria whirled around. A humanoid figure stood in the doorway, outlined against the light.
It stepped forwards, coming into focus as Ten switched on her helmet camera. It was a human, or probably a Kynaki, all things considered. It wasn’t wearing armor or a pressure suit of any kind, and its face was unnaturally pale.
“Why are you here?” It asked. “Why is this necessary?”
“Fan out. Surround it. Same fireteams as before.” Ten said, raising her rifle. “Sir, I’m going to have to ask you to get down. If you’re human, I don’t want to have to hurt you.”
The creature cocked its head. “Interesting.” It said. Then, it dissolved.
A flow of black dust emerged from it, oozing out of the skin, gushing out of the the mouth and the nose. It coalesced into a whirling mass, matching perfectly the descriptions of the D that Maria had been given.
“Fire!” Ten shouted, opening up with her own plasma rifle, torching the D. It took only a few seconds to slag it, but they were terrifying.
“As we were saying,” came a second voice from behind, “Why are you here? Why have you done what you-.” Maria saw Ten whip around, and blasted the D’s head off.
“-Have done?” A second voice, from an entirely different direction. “What did we do to provoke this action?” It sounded genuinely curious about whatever it was asking about, which didn’t stop Maria from also shooting it squarely in the chest.
“What’s going on?” Makoro asked. “What are those? I told you not to burn that room out, Silver.”
“Best guess is that the D have been using Kynaki corpses to hold themselves for some reason. Maybe they’ve become pathogenic here—if you think back to it, we didn’t see many real signs of battle down below, just panic.” Cassidy replied. “And Ten, what’s he talking about?”
“Nothing.” Ten spat. “We’ll deal with that once we get out of here. Let’s get the hell out of here.”
“We can’t.” Cassidy sighed. “There’s the jammer.”
“Hell. We have to take these out then.” Ten said, glancing around at the ever-growing number of D-infected Kynaki, and pumping off several shots of her rifle. “We’re exposed. Break for cover, stay with your partner. Go!”
Maria ran, heading for the nearest wall, following Cassidy Freeman. The reached the wall a moment later, turning to see that the room had erupted into motion, the D provoked by their sudden movement.
It was vaguely horrifying to Maria, but in a detached way. Aim, fire, one. Aim, fire, zero. Eject cartridge, reload. Aim, fire, thirty. Aim, fire, twenty-nine.
The whole thing seemed oddly familiar, like she had done it a thousand times. There was chaos, but Maria found that she understood it.
“Where’d you learn to shoot?” Freeman asked as she reloaded, Maria covering both of them.
“I swear I’ve never done this before.” She answered. “I’ve-. What the hell?” She glanced out into the room as Makoro Karazwaki dashed out of the corner that he and Ten had been hiding in, lobbing a grenade into the center of the mass of D as he ran for the door. “Damn that coward.”
“No, no...” Cassidy breathed. “He’s going for the jammer.”
Makoro vanished outside the building, followed by an explosion a minutes later.
“Silver to Warbler, Silver to Warbler, come in!” The crackle of the comms in Maria’s headset was shocking, yet relieving. They were back online. It was faint, but there.
“Go for SENCOM. What’s your situation, Away Team? Over.”
“We’re under fire at the Governance Building. Ensign Karazwaki is unaccounted for. We need an extraction.”
“Understood. Stand by, Away Team.”
Maria smiled, ejecting another cartridge before opening fire once again.
“Silver to Freeman.”
“Go for Freeman.”
“If you get an opening, go for the door. Get on a building, go for the roof. The Warbler won’t be able to pick us up in the street.”
“Ten, you’re not—.”
“No, I’m not doing anything stupid. I’ll be out as soon as I have an opening. Go.”
Cassidy glanced to Maria. “This is going to be doable, but I’ll need your help. I can clear us a path, but I need you to take out anything I miss.”
“I... I can’t do that. We’ll die. We’ll get cut down out there in seconds!” Maria felt even more terrified just thinking about it.
“No, you won’t.” Cassidy said, voice once again oddly reassuring. “We’ll be fine.”
“How do you know?”
Cassidy hesitated for a moment. Then, she extended her right arm in a thrusting motion towards the D. Several of them were literally thrown backwards several feet, hitting the ground unnaturally heavily. “Maria, I have augments. Human Cybernetic Augmentation is illegal, I know—it wasn’t me that did it. Among those augments is the ability to read other augments, like the Neuronic Links that Tactical Agents and some other Republic soldiers use. You have one of those chips in you.”
Maria frowned. “Wait, what?”
“You’ve undergone Morton therapy. I don’t know what it was for, or why you’re here—my guess is that you’re a sleeper on the ship. You’re an Agent though, and in your subconscious you’ve still got all those skills. Don’t question right now—just survive.”
Maria could almost feel something switch on inside of her, some confidence that had unlocked. “Understood. Let’s go.”
Cassidy slung her rifle over her back, and Maria could see her breathe deeply before stepping outside the alcove. Immediately a shot from a plasma rifle connected with her, and though her armor glowed red-hot, it held, and Maria knew she had seen that before.
Freeman held out her arms, moving them like she was pushing back the D-infected Kynaki, but they moved even when they were several feet away. Maria followed close, edging sideways along with Cassidy, taking a shot at any D that seemed to be getting too close.
In a few moments, they were out the door, and somehow Maria knew which building to run to. Grab Makoro. Ran through her mind. The thought wasn’t her own though.
Maria ran towards the mass of roiling black dust that surrounded a barely-distinguishable set of armored limbs. She could make out its glowing core, so she pumped off a single round into it and it collapsed.
She knelt, grabbed Makoro under the armpits, and began to drag him. She wished she could have used a Fireman’s Lift, but there was no way she was going to be able to lift him over her shoulder like that.
His faceplate was shattered, though, and there was black dust covering him. She tried to brush it away from his eyes, nose, and mouth, but it just flowed back, like it was specifically targeting those areas.
There were actually very few D in the street, so Maria reached the building without incident.
“Look.” She heard Cassidy breathe, pointing.
Maria turned to see Silver striding out of the Governance Center, literally surrounded by a cloud of stirred-up black dust. Her armor was glowing white hot, destroying any nanites that approached it. The sight was amazing.
“Let’s go.” Maria said, gesturing towards the stairs. “That’s beautiful and terrifying and all, but we’ve got to get out of here.”
“Sorry.” Cassidy said, following Maria up to the roof. The city was surprisingly low—the building, even though it was near the center of the city, was only four stories high. The Kynaki, apparently, had liked to build down, not up.
Silver joined them on the roof a moment later, looking upwards towards the sky where the faint glow of the Warbler’s reentry was visible. “We’ve still got ten minutes.” Ten said. “Get down on the edge, snipe anything that gets near this building. I’m not dying now.”
Ervin Norton stood inside the Warbler’s forward airlock, wearing a set of Tactical armor. It felt strange. For instance, he could taste the fact that he was breathing canned air, but couldn’t feel the weight of an air tank. Every step was slightly dampened by the armor’s shield. It was bizarre.
“SENCOM to XO Norton, we’re at the Extraction Zone. Bridge says you’ve got thirty seconds. Clear for departure.”
He grabbed onto the landing ladder, then jumped out of the now-open airlock onto the building’s roof. “Go, get in!” He shouted, pointing. “Just stay in the airlock, we don’t have time to cycle it!”
“Freeman, you first.” Ten ordered, pointing. “XO, help me with Makoro.”
Ervin glanced down to where Karazwaki’s body lay. That was the reason he had been sent out, after all, but... “His suit was breached?” He asked.
“Yeah.” Ten said, grabbing Makoro’s arms. “Here, help me carry him up.”
Ervin shook his head. “You said as you were guiding us in that the D here are pathogenic... That the nanites are like a disease.”
“Yeah, so what? Help me with this already.”
Ervin shook his head. “Dammit, Ten, I’m sorry... We can’t bring him aboard the Warbler. It’s too dangerous. I’m so sorry.”
“This man is unconscious and dying because he went above and beyond the call of duty to save the other three members of his squad and the mission, and you don’t even give a damn about it, do you!” Ten shouted.
“I do, I really do, but...” Ervin put a hand on Ten’s shoulder.
“Ten seconds.” SENCOM updated him.
“Command decision, Ten. Sometimes people die to protect others. Just like the Warbler is leaving in ten seconds, whether we’re on it or not.”
“I understand, it’s just... It’s damn well not right.”
“I agree.” Ervin said, stepping up onto the ladder, following Ten.
“Five seconds.” SENCOM told him.
“It’s not right. And it burns inside. But deep down... We’re the leaders of men. We have to make the tough calls sometimes. XO Norton to SENCOM, we are clear for departure.”
“XO Norton, you don’t have Ensign Karazwaki onboard.”
“Makoro’s not coming home today.” Ervin answered.
“No.” Ten whispered. “I think he’d say that he is.”
Maria nodded, glancing at the bones. There was really no way to tell if they were Base Terran or Kynaki, but that didn’t really matter. “Yeah, but there’s still no D.”
“Is that necessarily a good thing? It’s a virtual guarantee that they’re watching us.”
“Still better than getting shot at.”
Ten shrugged. “Nominally, I suppose. Anyway,” Ten pulled her tablet off of her belt, and pulled up a map of the Governance Center, “We’re here, at the Eastern Entrance. Their Communications Hub is three levels down, and more or less centered in the building. We get in, pull whatever records we can get our hands on, and then call the ship down for Evac. Let’s try to limit the use of anything that explodes, because while I’m sure the Kynaki built this place to handle anything up to an Antimatter Loom being pointed at it, it clearly didn’t work that well. Any questions?”
“Are we going to have comms to the ship while we’re down there?” Freeman asked.
Ten shrugged. “In theory, yes, our comms should be able to punch through orders of magnitude more rock than this. I’m sure the Kynaki had various toys we don’t know about protecting places like this, but for a comms hub to be useful, I’d assume that that means it’s not physically shielded.” Ten waited for a moment, in case there were more questions, then continued, “Right then, let’s roll out in five. Freeman, get in contact with the ship, just touch base with them.”
Exhausted, Maria sat, wishing she could take her helmet off. The Tactical armor was tight against her skin, but its presence was almost comforting. Glancing to her side, she saw Makoro Karazwaki sitting next to her. “First real Op?” She asked.
“Yes.” He answered.
“Is this your first cruise, or what?” No offense, but you’re old for a greenie, but you clearly haven’t been here long.
“I’m a ‘Selected Volunteer’.” He replied, turning away. “I’d much rather be dead with my family than eking out this hellish existence here.”
Maria frowned. “Really? This seems to be far better. The general purpose of life is to not die, after all.”
Makoro smiled. “You’re not religious then, I assume?”
“Not particularly.”
“That explains it then. I believe that they’re out there now, watching over us if God wills it, watching this last pathetic spark that is humanity fizzle out.”
“That’s rather depressing.”
“No less so than the reality of our position.”
“I’d strongly disagree with that—didn’t XO Norton tell us about that Rally Point at Earth Orbit or whatever?”
“Exactly. It’s become an ‘or whatever’ for you. Do you notice how they haven’t brought that up since that first day?”
“What, are you saying they’re lying to us?”
“It wouldn’t be unprecedented.”
“Yeah, but... I mean, just think about it. It makes intuitive sense for there to be a rally point of some kind. The war wasn’t fought in an instant—even if we may have thought that once, we have Aetna to show us that it wasn’t. It just makes sense for the Fleet to have whisked at least some people off somewhere safe and hidden.”
“In a universe where the Agents who originally wore this very armor would shoot men down on street corners? Somehow I doubt that.”
Maria shrugged. “There are small abuses of power, definitely, but overall the Declaration of Dissent is what guides the Republic. ‘The primary aim of any just government being the good of the governed, this Republic shall be established as a bulwark against the twin evils of death and of despair.’ I think it’s pretty clear that they’re looking out for the good of the species.”
Makoro shook his head. “They paid lip-service to that idea, certainly, but they’re no better than any of the other possibilities.”
“You’d really rather have lived under the Federation or the Imperiata?”
“No—it just doesn’t matter. Under the Republic the injustices were directed towards the poor or stigmatized. Under the Imperiata they were directed towards non-Base Terrans. It didn’t matter, ultimately, which won that war. Neither was fighting for anything other than power. The faces on it may change, but the coin remains.”
“We’re on Kynak right now. It’s basically the only world that remained majority non-Base Terran after the Republic-Imperiata war. Could you look a Kynaki in the eye and tell them that you basically don’t care if the Imperiata had won.”
“I think you’re confusing support for the Imperiata with having an equal dislike of the Republic. I don’t think that the Imperiata were just, but only that the differences between the Republic and the Imperiata are so small as to be irrelevant.”
“Then what’s your preferred solution? How would you go about governing the universe?”
Makoro opened his mouth to answer, but Ten cut him off. “We’re rolling out. Freeman, take point, Karazwaki, cover our backs.”
“Any word from the ship?” Maria asked, springing to her feet, grabbing her rifle back up.
“They’re incredibly helpful. They’ve told us to, and I’m quoting directly here, ‘Stay safe and exercise caution, but continue to the objective barring undue risk.’ I hadn’t thought about it in that particularly convoluted way before.”
Maria shook her head in disgust.
“Anyway, I think we all want to be done with this as soon as possible. Let’s head out.”
The Governance Building had been laid out in straight lines and at right angles, which gave them excellent lines of sight. It also had alcoves built into the walls every few dozen feet, equipped with tables and benches for meetings, and a clearly-marked weapons locker.
There were frequent stairwells, so they were at the lowest level almost immediately. Said stairwells were also collapsed into steep ramps, had their handrails removed, and had airlocks at each end.
“The Kynaki really took their military seriously.” Maria observed.
“Yeah. They were incredible—every road on the planet has to be straight for one mile out of every ten to act as an emergency airfield. Every building was legally required to have enough Safe Rooms to accommodate fifty percent more than their expected maximum capacity. They were obligated to join the military or go into other civil service for five years after reaching adulthood. They were damn amazing warriors.” Ten said.
“They were physically fascinating, too.” Freeman piped up. “Their life expectancy was well over that of Base Terrans, and they consistently performed above Base on virtually any physical test.”
“I suppose there were reasons that the Imperiata never even approached this system.” Makoro observed. “It just doesn’t seem like it was ever worth their efforts.”
“On one level yeah, that’s true.” Ten said, “But the Coronan and Trapac both had comparable militaries at the time, and look what happened to them. Both wiped—.”
“Hold up.” Freeman said, interrupting Ten, then kneeling down. “Ten, come take a look at this.”
Ten took a few steps forward, then knelt down with Freeman. “What is it?”
“Dust.” Cassidy replied. “It’s fine, black, and glows slightly in the infrared spectrum. This is from a D.”
Ten nodded. “Agreed. Everyone, close up your air filters, flip your weapon’s safeties off. Be ready to engage.”
Maria felt a surge of adrenaline flow through her as she armed her rifle. Maria wasn't a marine like Ten, but she had become a soldier over the past few weeks. Ten had drilled with her several times, having said that she was of the opinion that Maria would be called upon to be a part of any future Away Teams. She was, in a twisted way, looking forward to engaging the enemy.
They didn’t speak any more than was absolutely necessary as Ten guided them through the grid of corridors to the area indicated on the map as the Comms Hub.
“Away Team to Warbler.” Maria could hear Ten say as they cautiously stalked through the abandoned corridors. “Warbler, do you copy?”
“Go for SENCOM.” A static-filled voice responded. “What do you need?”
“We’ve reached the Hub, and would like to inquire once again, what sorts of information exactly we are looking for?”
“One moment please.” The line was dead for a moment, then, “Ansible logs, especially from the twenty-eighth day of the war onwards. Something about Aetna’s records. Also, we’ve been told to inform you that the standard practice is to keep hard drive backups in several places, but there’s almost always a set in the Ansible Room itself.”
“Copy that, Warbler. Away Team out.”
Wow. Maria thought. That actually sounded helpful.
Ten glanced up to Cassidy Freeman. “This is as far as our maps can take us. We’re going to have to physically explore this. We’ve had no engagements with the D apart from the occasional pile of dust—do you think it’ll be safe to split up into groups of two?”
Freeman was taken slightly aback by the question. “Are you actually asking me?”
“Yeah. Basically you’ve got as much experience with the D as anyone—hell, I was in that mech on the Hoatzin, so I really couldn’t pick up on the little things. What do you think?”
Cassidy hesitated. “I’m not sure. My gut says that it’s probably alright. There’s really no reason to believe that the D will have any stronger a presence here than anywhere else.”
Ten nodded. “Then we’ll split. Karazwaki, with me. We’ll be following the signs for the Ansible Room. Freeman, Prussin, you’re together. Poke around, and if you find something good, radio me.”
Cassidy waved Maria over to the side of the tunnel. “So we’re together for the immediate future. Try not to get me killed, okay?” Maria could see the slight smile on Freeman’s face, which was somehow incredibly reassuring.
“Got it. Any other advice?”
“Nothing so subtle. Let’s go have some fun by not dying.”
The Ansible Room or the Wethan Governance Complex couldn’t have been more different from the Warbler’s. All the same pieces were there, but there were some major differences.
To begin with, the Warbler’s actually contained an Ansible, much unlike the empty containment unit in front of Ten. Second, the Warbler’s Ansible Room wasn’t filled with humanoid skeletons. Third, the Warbler’s Ansible Room didn’t have several dozen glowing blue spheres scattered around it.
“What are those?” Makoro asked.
“Those,” Ten said, thinking back to the Hoatzin, “Are species D brains. Basically that black dust we’ve been tramping through is the body, those blue spheres the brain. If you kill those, the entire thing breaks down.”
“I see.” Makoro said, frowning. “Are we going to kill them then?”
“Hell yes.” Ten said. “First though, I want our objective. The data drives should be somewhere obvious, on some desk or something.”
“Understood.” Makoro said, turning to a set of shelves by the door, his boots kicking up an inordinate amount of black dust.
It’s the shields on the suits. Ten thought. They repel stuff—apparently ‘stuff’ includes D dust.
As Ten began rifling through her own set of drawers, she heard Makoro speak up from behind her. “I understand why you want to kill those things, but if I may ask one question: What purpose would it serve?”
Ten laughed. “You’re joking, right? Basically those are soldiers of the species that wiped out our own? You know how we’ve been talking about the Kynaki all day, and how they’re terrifying? These things wiped them out, too. Each of these could kill us a dozen different ways. You’ve seen Sadira—do you want to be like that, unable to breathe half the time because it’s crawling into your lungs, cutting you up inside anywhere it can reach? Think of the trillion or so people these killed and tell me that we shouldn’t kill them.”
“They’re thinking creature's, quite unlike anything we’ve ever encountered before. Each of those is, if what you say is true, a life not that different from our own. Furthermore, killing these will have no real effect on the universe as a whole. There’s a few dozen here, and it definitely would have take more than that to conquer Kynak. It’s pointless murder.”
“If you must call war that, I’m very sorry you’re here, Ensign Karazwaki. I wished a real soldier had lived in your place.” She spat.
“As do I.” He said quietly. “Look, I just found the drive. Let’s just get out, and get back to the ship.”
“No. Stow the drive, and get out whatever explosives you packed. We’re levelling this room.”
“No.”
“Give me your backpack, Ensign. You are a soldier of the United Terran Republic, and obligated to obey the authority vested in me by my command of this mission.”
“I am not a soldier. I will not comply with this.”
“I see. Get out of the room, Ensign.”
Makoro shook his head and turned slowly, walking out of the room. Swearing silently to herself, Ten dropped her own pack to the ground, and took out half a dozen incendiary grenades. She tucked them into a crevice in the Ansible Containment Mechanism, followed by a remote detonator. That would be more than enough to slag the room and everything in it by an order of magnitude.
Exiting the room herself, she turned to face Makoro. “We’ll address your insubordination when we get back to the ship, Ensign.” Makoro didn’t answer. “Come with me. We’re meeting back up with Freeman and Prussin.”
“Away Team Silver to Away Team Freeman, do you copy?” She asked, opening a comms channel to the second group. “We’ve got our objective. Grab whatever you might have found, and head out.”
“Copy that, Silver. We’ll see you soon.”
“Silver out.” She cycled to the Warbler’s channel, and essentially repeated the conversation. They seemed mildly annoyed that she had split the team, but they could deal with it. This was exactly why they needed clear guidance, after all.
Having gotten the calls to Freeman and the ship out of the way, and seeing as how they were getting far enough away from the Ansible Room that the signal was about to become a potential problem, ten flipped her detonator switch.
The ground by their feet rippled—or rather, the fine coat of dust that covered it did. She realized that Makoro was looking at her, but she also didn’t honestly care. The detonator she held showed that the room had experienced temperatures in excess of six thousand degrees fahrenheit.
As they reached the stairway, Ten noticed tracks in the dust on the ground. Apparently the other two had already been through here.
“Was there dust here originally?” Makoro asked. “Didn’t we only notice it when we were nearing the Comms Hub?”
Ten shook her head. “Could be any number of reasons for that. Simplest is probably that we’re just slightly lost, but Freeman and Prussin are clearly heading out this way, because we’re the only people on this damn planet. We’ll just have to call the ship in to a slightly different entrance.”
“Maybe.” Makoro didn’t sound convinced, but he was being worse than useless today. She was going to have to have him taken off the Away Team.
They emerged onto the ground level a few minutes later, in the same abandoned atrium. “What the hell?” Ten wondered. “Away Team Silver to Away Team Freeman, where the hell are you?”
“We’re still down on the second level. We should be up in five minutes, tops. Also, we’re noticing some D activity down here—are you getting the same?”
Chills ran up Ten’s spine. “Yeah. There’s D dust by the entrance now. With footprints in it.”
“Damn. We’ll be up in a few minutes. Stay safe.”
“Copy that. Ten out. Oh, and... Please, don’t take your time.”
Maria followed Cassidy Freeman up the stair/ramp, heart pounding. It was hard to keep her footing, but she managed it. Cassidy kept trying to get in contact with the Warbler, but there was just static on the line. They couldn’t even reach Ten anymore.
They burst into the atrium, looking around wildly for Ten and Makoro. After a brief moment of panic, they heard Ten shout “We’re here.” and emerge out of an alcove.
“Excellent. Were you able to raise the ship?”
Silver shook her head. “No. Damn this all.”
“We’ll have to find whatever’s jamming us—there’s not any other way for us to contact the ship, is there?”
“They could be experiencing interference on-orbit.” Maria cut in.
Cassidy shook her head. “They could, but that wouldn’t have stopped us from reaching Ten. Our comms are peer-to-peer, precisely so the ship being taken out doesn’t put them offline. There’s something hostile nearby. Honestly though, if it was able to stop us talking to each other just from a few stories down, this jamming has got to be nearby—it shouldn’t be too hard to find.”
“You’re from SENCOM, right? Can you do something to find out where it’s coming from?”
Cassidy nodded. “I can do some triangulation to get us a fix on...” She trailed off, and Maria could see Freeman’s eyes open wide. “What?” She asked, pointing.
Maria whirled around. A humanoid figure stood in the doorway, outlined against the light.
It stepped forwards, coming into focus as Ten switched on her helmet camera. It was a human, or probably a Kynaki, all things considered. It wasn’t wearing armor or a pressure suit of any kind, and its face was unnaturally pale.
“Why are you here?” It asked. “Why is this necessary?”
“Fan out. Surround it. Same fireteams as before.” Ten said, raising her rifle. “Sir, I’m going to have to ask you to get down. If you’re human, I don’t want to have to hurt you.”
The creature cocked its head. “Interesting.” It said. Then, it dissolved.
A flow of black dust emerged from it, oozing out of the skin, gushing out of the the mouth and the nose. It coalesced into a whirling mass, matching perfectly the descriptions of the D that Maria had been given.
“Fire!” Ten shouted, opening up with her own plasma rifle, torching the D. It took only a few seconds to slag it, but they were terrifying.
“As we were saying,” came a second voice from behind, “Why are you here? Why have you done what you-.” Maria saw Ten whip around, and blasted the D’s head off.
“-Have done?” A second voice, from an entirely different direction. “What did we do to provoke this action?” It sounded genuinely curious about whatever it was asking about, which didn’t stop Maria from also shooting it squarely in the chest.
“What’s going on?” Makoro asked. “What are those? I told you not to burn that room out, Silver.”
“Best guess is that the D have been using Kynaki corpses to hold themselves for some reason. Maybe they’ve become pathogenic here—if you think back to it, we didn’t see many real signs of battle down below, just panic.” Cassidy replied. “And Ten, what’s he talking about?”
“Nothing.” Ten spat. “We’ll deal with that once we get out of here. Let’s get the hell out of here.”
“We can’t.” Cassidy sighed. “There’s the jammer.”
“Hell. We have to take these out then.” Ten said, glancing around at the ever-growing number of D-infected Kynaki, and pumping off several shots of her rifle. “We’re exposed. Break for cover, stay with your partner. Go!”
Maria ran, heading for the nearest wall, following Cassidy Freeman. The reached the wall a moment later, turning to see that the room had erupted into motion, the D provoked by their sudden movement.
It was vaguely horrifying to Maria, but in a detached way. Aim, fire, one. Aim, fire, zero. Eject cartridge, reload. Aim, fire, thirty. Aim, fire, twenty-nine.
The whole thing seemed oddly familiar, like she had done it a thousand times. There was chaos, but Maria found that she understood it.
“Where’d you learn to shoot?” Freeman asked as she reloaded, Maria covering both of them.
“I swear I’ve never done this before.” She answered. “I’ve-. What the hell?” She glanced out into the room as Makoro Karazwaki dashed out of the corner that he and Ten had been hiding in, lobbing a grenade into the center of the mass of D as he ran for the door. “Damn that coward.”
“No, no...” Cassidy breathed. “He’s going for the jammer.”
Makoro vanished outside the building, followed by an explosion a minutes later.
“Silver to Warbler, Silver to Warbler, come in!” The crackle of the comms in Maria’s headset was shocking, yet relieving. They were back online. It was faint, but there.
“Go for SENCOM. What’s your situation, Away Team? Over.”
“We’re under fire at the Governance Building. Ensign Karazwaki is unaccounted for. We need an extraction.”
“Understood. Stand by, Away Team.”
Maria smiled, ejecting another cartridge before opening fire once again.
“Silver to Freeman.”
“Go for Freeman.”
“If you get an opening, go for the door. Get on a building, go for the roof. The Warbler won’t be able to pick us up in the street.”
“Ten, you’re not—.”
“No, I’m not doing anything stupid. I’ll be out as soon as I have an opening. Go.”
Cassidy glanced to Maria. “This is going to be doable, but I’ll need your help. I can clear us a path, but I need you to take out anything I miss.”
“I... I can’t do that. We’ll die. We’ll get cut down out there in seconds!” Maria felt even more terrified just thinking about it.
“No, you won’t.” Cassidy said, voice once again oddly reassuring. “We’ll be fine.”
“How do you know?”
Cassidy hesitated for a moment. Then, she extended her right arm in a thrusting motion towards the D. Several of them were literally thrown backwards several feet, hitting the ground unnaturally heavily. “Maria, I have augments. Human Cybernetic Augmentation is illegal, I know—it wasn’t me that did it. Among those augments is the ability to read other augments, like the Neuronic Links that Tactical Agents and some other Republic soldiers use. You have one of those chips in you.”
Maria frowned. “Wait, what?”
“You’ve undergone Morton therapy. I don’t know what it was for, or why you’re here—my guess is that you’re a sleeper on the ship. You’re an Agent though, and in your subconscious you’ve still got all those skills. Don’t question right now—just survive.”
Maria could almost feel something switch on inside of her, some confidence that had unlocked. “Understood. Let’s go.”
Cassidy slung her rifle over her back, and Maria could see her breathe deeply before stepping outside the alcove. Immediately a shot from a plasma rifle connected with her, and though her armor glowed red-hot, it held, and Maria knew she had seen that before.
Freeman held out her arms, moving them like she was pushing back the D-infected Kynaki, but they moved even when they were several feet away. Maria followed close, edging sideways along with Cassidy, taking a shot at any D that seemed to be getting too close.
In a few moments, they were out the door, and somehow Maria knew which building to run to. Grab Makoro. Ran through her mind. The thought wasn’t her own though.
Maria ran towards the mass of roiling black dust that surrounded a barely-distinguishable set of armored limbs. She could make out its glowing core, so she pumped off a single round into it and it collapsed.
She knelt, grabbed Makoro under the armpits, and began to drag him. She wished she could have used a Fireman’s Lift, but there was no way she was going to be able to lift him over her shoulder like that.
His faceplate was shattered, though, and there was black dust covering him. She tried to brush it away from his eyes, nose, and mouth, but it just flowed back, like it was specifically targeting those areas.
There were actually very few D in the street, so Maria reached the building without incident.
“Look.” She heard Cassidy breathe, pointing.
Maria turned to see Silver striding out of the Governance Center, literally surrounded by a cloud of stirred-up black dust. Her armor was glowing white hot, destroying any nanites that approached it. The sight was amazing.
“Let’s go.” Maria said, gesturing towards the stairs. “That’s beautiful and terrifying and all, but we’ve got to get out of here.”
“Sorry.” Cassidy said, following Maria up to the roof. The city was surprisingly low—the building, even though it was near the center of the city, was only four stories high. The Kynaki, apparently, had liked to build down, not up.
Silver joined them on the roof a moment later, looking upwards towards the sky where the faint glow of the Warbler’s reentry was visible. “We’ve still got ten minutes.” Ten said. “Get down on the edge, snipe anything that gets near this building. I’m not dying now.”
Ervin Norton stood inside the Warbler’s forward airlock, wearing a set of Tactical armor. It felt strange. For instance, he could taste the fact that he was breathing canned air, but couldn’t feel the weight of an air tank. Every step was slightly dampened by the armor’s shield. It was bizarre.
“SENCOM to XO Norton, we’re at the Extraction Zone. Bridge says you’ve got thirty seconds. Clear for departure.”
He grabbed onto the landing ladder, then jumped out of the now-open airlock onto the building’s roof. “Go, get in!” He shouted, pointing. “Just stay in the airlock, we don’t have time to cycle it!”
“Freeman, you first.” Ten ordered, pointing. “XO, help me with Makoro.”
Ervin glanced down to where Karazwaki’s body lay. That was the reason he had been sent out, after all, but... “His suit was breached?” He asked.
“Yeah.” Ten said, grabbing Makoro’s arms. “Here, help me carry him up.”
Ervin shook his head. “You said as you were guiding us in that the D here are pathogenic... That the nanites are like a disease.”
“Yeah, so what? Help me with this already.”
Ervin shook his head. “Dammit, Ten, I’m sorry... We can’t bring him aboard the Warbler. It’s too dangerous. I’m so sorry.”
“This man is unconscious and dying because he went above and beyond the call of duty to save the other three members of his squad and the mission, and you don’t even give a damn about it, do you!” Ten shouted.
“I do, I really do, but...” Ervin put a hand on Ten’s shoulder.
“Ten seconds.” SENCOM updated him.
“Command decision, Ten. Sometimes people die to protect others. Just like the Warbler is leaving in ten seconds, whether we’re on it or not.”
“I understand, it’s just... It’s damn well not right.”
“I agree.” Ervin said, stepping up onto the ladder, following Ten.
“Five seconds.” SENCOM told him.
“It’s not right. And it burns inside. But deep down... We’re the leaders of men. We have to make the tough calls sometimes. XO Norton to SENCOM, we are clear for departure.”
“XO Norton, you don’t have Ensign Karazwaki onboard.”
“Makoro’s not coming home today.” Ervin answered.
“No.” Ten whispered. “I think he’d say that he is.”