Galaxy's Edge: Savage Wars

by Jason Anspach

  The little mechs continued their work unabated.

  “Stand by…” said Rechs over the comm. “Watch for squirters.”

  But nothing moved. No one else came out of the old Earth shuttle.

  “You want me to check it out?” asked Martin.

  That’s a point man’s job, thought Rechs. But no one had the armor he wore.

  “I got it.” He stood with a small grunt, swapped in a new charge pack for the pulse rifle, and made his way out through the glass of the ruined store.

  “What’s your status?” asked Davis over the comm. They’d heard the sudden fire back at the APC.

  “Target neutralized. Securing location,” replied Rechs, adding no further details.

  He checked all the tangos. They were dead. All bled red despite their augmentations. It leaked out onto the street, mixing with a stream of hydraulic fluid coming from the shuttle’s gear. Maybe someone had hit a line. Or maybe the vessel was so ancient that it simply couldn’t be kept in good repair anymore.

  “Thing’s pretty damn old,” he whispered to himself. “What do you expect? Not everything and everyone doesn’t age.”

  He’d stopped expecting anything lasting from the galaxy a long time ago.

  No. That wasn’t right. War was lasting. He could expect that much.

  Finally he stood over the golden woman who wasn’t gold anymore. The advanced imaging provided by his helmet’s HUD told him what he was looking at, but he switched on the pulse rifle’s flash to be sure.

  The sniper, the Wild Man, had made a clean hit right in the upper chest. Probably got the heart with the size of the round. Her lungs and bone were blown out onto the sidewalk on the far side of the street.

  Her surreal golden eyes gazed up at the night sky and the stars that had been her home for so long. Except as he watched, the eyes turned from gold to blue. The golden skin was fading like a dying ember. And beneath it, Tyrus saw the skin of an ancient mummy. Wrinkled and withered. Dried up to a husk. Bony hands and limbs.

  He checked the others. Same. These were never young and vibrant. Never perfect. Some kind of reality augmentation had only made them seem eternally young. Some glimmer they’d learned out there in their long crawl. Longevity without the eternal youth possessed by the Savages Rechs had known back on the Obsidia.

  But now that they were dead, the trick was dead too.

  These had been living mummies.

  And vampires. The Savage marines were seen feasting on the dead.

  But then again… every Savage, in his experience, was a kind of vampire. Weren’t they?

  47

  The APC crawled up the winding street. Massive skyscrapers, dark and looming, rose up in silence above the vehicle’s late-night crawl. Off to the east the red glow of fires illuminated the smoke still boiling up and drifting out over the leaden sea. One of the moons faded into the ocean behind a front of distant clouds.

  Sometimes they’d get an alert from the sensors that another Savage hulk was passing overhead. They’d dial down and switch off engines, sensors, and any electronic gear. And sometimes they’d see more units dropping down into the city. Old-school chemical engines flared for landing. They’d sink through the drifting smoke and disappear.

  “Judging by these signatures,” volunteered Makaffie, “all those hot burning blue flames, man—there’s a wide variety of vehicles and assets dropping onto New Vega. Like the galaxy has brought so many things together for this one moment in time, you know?”

  No one had asked for his opinion, but that didn’t stop the little gnome of a gun bunny from constantly sharing them, along with his frequent observations and general chatter, as much as the situation and the quiet remonstrations of Rechs, Captain Davis, and Sergeant Major Andres would allow.

  “That’s the entrance to the forgotten Old Colony,” Davis announced over comm. “The New Vega government disguised it as a parking garage.”

  “Let’s not drive any closer,” Rechs said.

  The APC came to a halt, its twin-barreled gun swiveling on a low hydraulic note, scanning the area.

  “Sensors?” asked Rechs over the comm as he studied the surrounding darkness.

  “Nothing,” said Greenhill.

  Davis got down to the business of navigating the secret underground of the city. “Three levels down, there’s a security door. I have the access codes. Beyond that is the main tunnel into the central warren. There’s a quieter way on foot, but since time is of the essence and no one is around, I suggest we save ourselves the walk and drive as far as we can.”

  “Fair enough,” grunted Rechs.

  The low, flat vehicle started forward again slowly, weaving down into the garage. It moved past large, cylindrical concrete support beams. There were few vehicles present, allowing them to drive a straight line to a security door marked with local government warnings and off-limits signs. It was sealed tight.

  “This is the place,” Davis said.

  The darkness of the garage had necessitated the use of the vehicle’s running lights. Even the night vision was having trouble.

  “How do we get in?” asked Rechs. “You got a remote code?”

  “Manual entry,” Davis replied. “So I’ll need to dismount.”

  “I’ll go forward with you. Rest of you, watch the shadows.”

  The blinding glare of the vehicle’s lights made the surrounding darkness in the garage depths that much more impenetrable.

  Rechs, pulse rifle at the ready, accompanied the naval captain out to the door set in the wall of the garage’s lowest level. The captain deployed an access pad from a hidden panel next to the door and began typing her way through the digital locks.

  “Five weeks on your own down here,” said Rechs.

  “Not on my own,” she replied. “Not at first. There were twenty-four of us when we set down on New Vega. A week later it was just me. And yeah… then I was on my own. So four weeks.”

  “What was U-Dub planning to do with it once they stole it?”

  “Don’t know,” she replied tersely as she neared the last lockdown screen. The blue of the terminal bathed her beautiful yet austere face with a ghostly glow. “Orders are orders. They told me to get it. That’s what I’ll do.”

  Rechs understood that. Doing something because it needed to be done. Mission first. Mission only. The galaxy had gone crazy with needing everyone to understand why everything needed to be done. Sometimes you just had to do it, whether you understood it or not.

  Sometimes things had to be done even if whole sections of the population thought you were a war criminal for doing them.

  Rechs took out the folded flexy he’d taken off the dead blue Savage and handed it to her. She stopped typing.

  “Intel,” he said. “Give it to your people. And if you can… keep me in the loop if we survive. On the other side of this, I’d like to know what they thought they were going to do with this place.”

  She took it, unzipped her jumpsuit, and tucked it inside. Then she was back to typing. “Might be hard to get you that info. You are Tyrus Rechs after all,” she said with a bare smile. “Half the galaxy wants you dead. The other half wants you to solve all their problems with… let’s just say… your preferred methods.”

  Rechs watched the surrounding darkness beyond the APC’s lights. His helmet could image both low and direct light and show him a picture of everything despite the varying degrees of illumination. Handy against flashbangs when it was that type of situation.

  A moment later the screen she was working her way through turned red. “Ready to open,” she said softly. “Bring the APC forward just in case there’s something on the other side.”

  “Greenhill, move up,” ordered Rechs. The quiet vehicle hummed back to life. He looked at the captain. “What are we expecting on the other side?”

  “On the other side? Probab
ly nothing.”

  “But we’re moving the APC forward for something. What?”

  Davis sighed, not in annoyance, more out of a vague desperation. Perhaps a tiredness. “Last time I came through this side, the Savages were working a big project deep down to cut into the old colony ship. Of course it has tons of entrances, like all ships of its size, but they’re all sealed and secured. The Savages are trying to get in near the top security entrance.”

  “How many decks?” asked Rechs.

  “It goes down about twenty decks into the substrata.”

  Rechs gave a growling “hmm” before saying, “I thought this was the entrance to the ship.”

  Davis shook her head. “No. Just into the tunnel complex built around the ship. That’s as far as my team made it and as far as the Savages made it—at least that I’m aware. Anything else?”

  “Suppose not.”

  She hit the command function key on the hidden security panel and the security door that accessed the deep tunnels began to rise. Yellow hazard strobes whirled and tossed busy light across the entrance, then ceased when the door had risen fully open.

  “You have a big decision to make now,” she said, turning to look at Rechs.

  “What’s that?”

  “Are you really going to help me get what I’ve come for, or was that all talk just to get in so you could blow everything sky high?”

  She watched the man in armor turn and look at the yawning darkness beyond the security door. Then he turned back to her.

  “I may be a lot of things… but I don’t renege on deals. We’ll get your party trick. Then we’ll destroy the hulk.”

  A few minutes later they were all standing around the APC, studying a crude map Captain Davis had made on one of the command vehicle’s abandoned battle boards.

  “This will take us straight to the main access tunnel. Once we hit it, it’s as wide as a freeway with nearly as many exits. We can drive this rig right out of a hole near the Nest the Savages have blown open into the tunnels and right up to the belly of their ship.”

  “And you’re certain,” said de Macha, “that such a hole is true. Not… speculation?”

  “It’s real,” said Davis, nodding. “I’ve seen it. In my time down here, I’ve had eyes on just about every tunnel in the complex. I expect the first thing they did after landing was create that entrance right next to the Nest. We just have to hope it won’t be too heavily guarded. It was only lightly guarded before, and my guess is they’ve figured out you guys are leaving, bugging out, so they’ll be even less alert now.”

  “Problem with that, ma’am,” interjected Greenhill, rifle in hand, pointing with the other toward the captain’s map, “is that we won’t be sneaking around on foot like you were. We’ll be driving the trigger-nuke right up to their doorstep.”

  “Can’t we set it on remote det?” asked Martin.

  “Sure,” answered Greenhill. “But someone’s still got to drive it in there. And whoever that is probably ain’t gettin’ out.”

  Rechs held up a hand like he’d already solved that problem.

  “First things first,” he said, touching a gauntleted hand to the battle board, scrolling toward their first objective. The old colony ship buried in the hill. “The hypercomm device. Any thoughts on where in there the thing is located?”

  When no one immediately answered, Rechs looked up.

  “When the time comes, I’ll drive the trigger-nuke. Now tell me about the device.”

  Davis highlighted a section of the battle board, drawing an oval with her fingertip. “It’s in the labs of the colony ship itself. When we came in to snatch it, we found the colony ship shut tight. And it sure as hell wasn’t anywhere in the tunnel complex around it—believe me, I looked thoroughly. Then we had other problems.”

  “What problems, ma’am?” asked Sergeant Major Andres.

  “Savages. At first they were focused on the underground transportation routes, which aren’t connected to anything where we are, but once they moved into the tunnel complex, they cleared it out thoroughly. Wasn’t easy evading notice.”

  “You said there weren’t many Savvies,” said Andres, in a tone that suggested he wasn’t entirely trusting of the UW officer.

  “Not at the end. Once they cleared the tunnels, the marines went to work elsewhere. But a very big work crew is still here”—she pointed at a spot on the battle board—“or they were, trying to bore through the outer hull of the colony ship, coming in from above.”

  “That sounds like,” began Makaffie, who seemed to be searching for the right phrase, “entirely too much work, man.”

  “Maybe,” said Davis. “But it’s easier than trying to get past these sealed security doors. Trust me.”

  “So the Savages are below us. That means we move here,” said Rechs, pointing at a spot on the map. “Three floors above where the Savages are, or were, trying to tunnel in. We leave the APC, then move down to use the entrance the Savages have made for themselves—assuming they’ve succeeded—enter the ship, find the labs, and secure the asset. And then we’ll finish the job.”

  “Go through the Savages?” said Davis. “I wasn’t joking when I said there were heavy concentrations working on getting into the ship. It was like watching a swarm of hornets.”

  Rechs nodded. “We’ll have the advantage of surprise.”

  “And what if the Savages haven’t broken through?” asked de Macha. “Surely we cannot expect them to let us join in and help with the process of boring into the ship.”

  Davis nodded in agreement. “We could try a sealed entrance. We won’t be able to break in, but if there are survivors locked inside the ship, and they see us—guns, Coalition military—they may let us in, hoping for rescue. It’s been weeks…”

  Rechs didn’t share her assessment. “No. I’d rather force entry and control access. Plus, I doubt they’re going to want to part with their toy when we get to that part. And this is not a rescue mission.”

  No one said anything.

  “Begging the colonel’s pardon, sir,” began Sergeant Major Andres. “But… the survivors inside the ship… when we det that weapon, they goin’ too, aren’t they?”

  “It would seem,” de Macha said while stroking his chin, “that the ruthlessness of Tyrus Rechs is not just legend.”

  When Rechs didn’t say anything, Captain Davis interjected.

  “It’s an old starship, Sergeant Major. Strong. I’m not saying it’ll be pleasant, but we were led to believe during the mission briefs it’s rated to withstand a direct hit from a nuclear weapon. Those people could survive for up to two years in there, minimum. Once the Savages are cleared out, the rescue teams can still come in and pull them out. There’d still be an exposure risk… but the starship would probably survive.”

  “Theoretically,” said Sergeant Major Andres.

  Captain Davis nodded. Barely. “Theoretically.”

  Makaffie grew excited. “I seen them trigger-nukes in training recorders. They trigger a chain reaction in every hydrogen molecule within the blast wave. The entire surface of the planet will be cooked. Just turned to glass. It’ll be beautiful, man.”

  The scrawny private was starry-eyed, as though he was watching the trigger-nuke’s blast with his mind’s eye and loving the spectacle. He wasn’t helping Davis’s cause.

  “But below ground,” she said, “chances are, they’ll be safe.” She stopped and looked at Rechs. “That about right?”

  Rechs locked eyes from behind the expressionless face of his helmet with each man watching him. “Just so we’re clear: I came to blow up that Savage ship. I know that what I’m about to say will seem… callous. And it probably is. But a few hundred dead, compared to what I’ve seen the Savages do to entire populations… is a drop in the bucket.”

  Most of the enlisted looked down.

  Rechs co
ntinued.

  “Those survivors are not my priority. I came here to kill Savages. Not save anyone. The people here are already dead. Whether they go up with the nuke, or live out a nightmare under the Savages, they’re gone. Trust me. The best I will offer is that we’ll tell any survivors we meet to head toward the evac LZ once we have the asset. If they can secure transportation, they might make it to the Chang before we detonate the weapon. If anyone has problems with that… I don’t care. This isn’t about New Vega. It’s about humanity. The Savages have to be destroyed.”

  No one said anything until Makaffie, at the back, whistled low and slow. “Man, that’s ice cold. You sure don’t play around, T-Rex.”

  “No,” said Rechs. “I do not. And neither should any of you.”

  48

  “Stop here,” Davis said as the APC slowly moved through one of the tunnel complex’s thoroughfares. It was empty. And quiet. In a way that felt good, a sort of relief, but also ratcheted up tensions as the riders of the command vehicle waited with teeth set for Savages to suddenly appear and destroy their secluded calm.

  Greenhill slowly braked to a halt, his hand hovering over the engine’s kill switch. “This our last stop, or do you see something I don’t?”

  “This is,” she said, giving a nod for Greenhill to go ahead and cut power. “Set up the sentry gun to protect the vehicle.”

  “Everybody up top best jump on down,” Greenhill said over comm. “Guns are gonna start movin’ now that we’ve reached our destination.”

  “Where to now?” asked Andres in reply.

  “The only way to go now is by foot,” Davis said as she moved to the APC’s exit to join the ad hoc task force outside. “Stairs.”

  The team stacked outside of a stairwell door. It was unlocked, and after smoothly bursting inside, Martin and Rechs waved in the rest of the team.

  Scaffolding metal stairs wound around a subterranean pillar that fell through the dark void of an immense artificial cavern. Visibility was minimal, with the NVGs barely finding enough light from the distantly glowing exit signs to give them any appreciable optics.