Warp Marine Corps- The Complete Series

by C. J. Carella

  “So those eight things were their equivalent if a security reaction force.”

  “Yes, sir. As it is, we were lucky. Those eight were the only survivors of a force numbering in the hundreds. It appears that most of them died off over the years as their stasis fields broke down and warp exposure took its toll.”

  Everyone at the meeting looked sick at the thought. A hundred of those things would have wiped them out and likely dragged the Humboldt down as well. Only Doctor Munson appeared unaffected by any of it. For someone who’d been grandfathered out of military service, he was surprisingly calm after having a ringside seat to a brutal fight that had killed almost forty people in as many seconds, and wounded three times as many. If anything, he looked fascinated by the whole thing. Heather discreetly broke into his implants’ feeds and wasn’t surprised to discover he was constantly replaying footage of the Marauder Battlers on one window display.

  Better keep an eye on him.

  “Next question,” the Humboldt’s skipper went on. “Do you have a plan for getting inside that building? The first two tries have resulted in casualties. I lost thirty-four crewmembers down there. At this point, I don’t know if another try is worth the risk.”

  “The Corpse-Ships are there,” Lisbeth said.

  “How can you be sure of that?”

  “The Battler that started to eat my face told me. When he died, well… I guess turnabout is fair play. I had him for lunch instead. Now I know what he knew. Trust me, I wish I didn’t.”

  “I would like a concise answer, Major.”

  “I absorbed most of his memories. I know what’s inside the Black Tower. There is a squadron, seven Corpse-Ships, stationed there. Their hangar is located on the fifteenth level. Sir,” she added belatedly.

  Captain Spears looked at Heather, hoping to get confirmation from someone sane. Heather wasn’t sure she qualified anymore. She’d seen Atu the Pathfinder, fought Marauders in the Starless Path, and barely survived. None of those experiences had been exactly conducive to good mental health.

  Just another fine mess you’ve got me into, Zhang, she thought, and saw Lisbeth suppress a giggle when she ‘heard’ the thought.

  “I agree with Major Zhang’s assessment of the situation, and I witnessed the encounter with the Battlers. As you know, we have one intact corpse to examine thanks to her efforts.”

  “And that find alone is worth everything we’ve gone through,” Doctor Munson broke in. “I have tentatively identified no less than three weapon systems not found in current Starfarer inventories. They include a particle beam accelerator that can bypass standard force fields. We were extremely fortunate only one the aliens appeared to have it, or we would have been exterminated! But if we could replicate that technology…” He didn’t finish the sentence; he didn’t have to.

  “I concur with Doctor Munson’s assessment,” the Science Officer added. “Reverse-engineering the technologies we’ve found so far could prove invaluable.”

  “Years down the line, Lieutenant,” Captain Spears reminded him. “Years America may not have. In any case, if Major Zhang is correct, our objective is attainable.”

  “It is,” Lisbeth said. “And now I can open the doors. The Marauder I ate knew the codes. Which means I know them now. Sir.”

  “Maybe you should have begun your report with that information, Major.”

  “You are right, sir. No excuse, sir.”

  “Since no further digging or demolitions are required, we don’t have to have to land a large crew. Unless you think we’ll encounter more hostiles once you’ve gained access to the building, Major.”

  “We won’t run into any more Battlers, sir. They were all stationed outside. Once the alarm was given, they sent everybody they could send.”

  “That’s something, at least.”

  “The only things we have to worry about are the two Warplings in the Tower. Sir.”

  “Two?”

  “Yes, sir. The one the Kraxans bound to the Tower to act as its mind and soul, the Keeper. And then there is big one. That is the entity that materialized in our universe and destroyed Redoubt-Six. After that, it killed all Marauders in the Tower and most of the population of Redoubt-Five.”

  That was news to everyone there. Captain Spears started to say something but sighed and shook his head instead.

  “It’s still down there,” Lisbeth went on. “Now that I have a half-Kranxan mind, I can hear it, doing its rounds. It keeps waking up the dead and killing them. It’s how it keeps itself entertained, you see.” She giggled.

  “Major Zhang,” Captain Spears said. “Report to sick bay. I want to have the Medical Department conduct a thorough check on you.”

  “Yes, sir.” Lisbeth stood up. “I should remind you that the findings of such an exam need to be classified, sir.”

  “Noted. You may go.”

  The naval officer turned to the rest of the room after she had left.

  “All right. I’ve half a mind to put Major Zhang under sedation and head back to Xanadu System as fast as we can make our warp connections. I’d like to hear any reasons why I shouldn’t do just that. Well, like is too strong a word.”

  Heather took a deep breath before piping in.

  “Captain, Major Zhang is suffering from a great deal of stress, as you can imagine, but so far all the intelligence she has gained through her – experiences, let’s call them – has been accurate and actionable.”

  “Granted. Even if she’s telling the truth, however, she’s talking about sending another shore party to confront an entity that supposedly destroyed a planet. Given that, I don’t see how we can hope to successfully complete the mission.”

  Most of the attendees nodded at the captain’s words. Heather, Peter and Doctor Munson were the only exceptions.

  The scientist spoke up before Heather could respond. “You are all suffering from a lack of imagination. Obviously, fighting a being of such power is beyond our means. But perhaps we can communicate with it. It had good reasons to destroy the Marauders, even from our perspective. They enslaved at least one of its kind, after all. If we can convince it we mean no harm, we could reach an understanding. An understanding with an actual, living denizen of null-space. We owe it to the entire galaxy to try and learn from this Warpling.”

  Nobody mentioned the result of a failed attempt. Maybe because it was obvious, and also because the death of everyone aboard the USS Humboldt had been, if not inevitable, certainly a likely outcome. Long shots had a way of ending badly for those who attempted them.

  “I believe Major Zhang has a plan for facing the entity,” Heather said. “And yes, I believe initially she will try to reason with it.”

  “And if that fails?”

  She let Peter field that question.

  “Major Zhang is a Marine, Captain. If talking fails, her contingency plan will be to kill every… enemy in the room, sir.”

  “I am familiar with the actual phrase, Mister Fromm. And that’s all well and good. But can she do it? If it comes to that, can she stop something that overpowered the Kraxans and depopulated this system?”

  Heather thought of the three-eyed alien, who was as part of Lisbeth Zhang’s mind as the Marauder she’d consumed, if not more. Lisbeth, charging the mental manifestations of a pack of Battlers while a Warmetal song played around her. She might be more than half-crazy, but she got things done.

  “If anybody in this galaxy can, it is her.”

  Captain Spears didn’t look happy, but he nodded. “Very well. No choice in the matter, then. We will detail a small party to accompany the Major. The Humboldt will keep close watch overhead and the rest of the Marines will provide perimeter security on the ground.”

  He paused and looked Heather in the eye.

  “And if things go wrong, we will evacuate anyone we can and drop all available ordnance on that facility. Because I’d rather lose my ship and crew than let loose something more dangerous than anything the US is fighting.”

  * *
*

  Fromm looked up and saw Heather standing by the tent’s entrance. He set aside the after-action report. It could wait.

  “You didn’t call ahead.”

  “Op-sec. Didn’t want to leave a comm trail about us fraternizing.”

  “I’m sure all the Marines on duty know exactly where you are.”

  “Maybe I didn’t want to risk you telling me to leave you alone.”

  He smiled. “I was planning on dropping by your tent in a few minutes, actually.”

  “Right answer.”

  They made the most of the time they had. They both knew these could be their last shared moments.

  The shore party had returned to Camp Discovery after the meeting on the Humboldt. The plan was to send a small group into the ruins after a few hours’ rest. By rights, Fromm should stay with his mauled company, maintaining perimeter security while Heather, Zhang, Munson and a squad’s worth of volunteers went on the mission. Instead, he would leave Lieutenant Hansen in charge and lead the squad himself. Unprofessional of him, and further proof of what a bad idea fraternization within a combat unit was. But he didn’t care.

  Afterwards, they lay in his bunk and talked.

  “How is she?” he asked her.

  “Lisbeth is… Honestly, I have no idea. She should be totally, absolutely, foaming at the mouth, chewing on the wallpaper insane by now. She’s got bits and pieces from not one but two alien minds sharing space in her head, on top of having endured enough mental trauma to redline any Special Forces operators I’ve known. And yet she’s still keeping it together somehow. Mostly.”

  “Definitely Devil Dog material.”

  “She’s got the temperament for it, that’s for sure. The medical officer found some noticeable alterations to her skull, plus other physical changes. All this exposure to warp space is changing her.”

  “Warping her.”

  “Yeah. It all goes back to what she likes to call the Starless Path. It’s funny, but it never made much sense to call it ‘warp’ space. We don’t fold or warp space when we go into transit: we enter another realm or universe where the rules are completely different. Null-space is the preferred scientific term, of course. Hyperspace would have been better.”

  “I’m not a linguist, but if I remember it right, we got the name from the Puppies.”

  She nodded. “And other languages use something similar. In the Imperium, they call it the Twisting Void. Because that’s what going there does. It warps you. Your mind and even your body as well, if you expose yourself to it enough times.”

  Fromm thought about the deformed corpses still waiting for them inside the tower. “Yep. Pretty damn twisted, but it’s the only way to travel. Doesn’t say much about the universe, does it?”

  “Maybe. Lisbeth says that it used to be better, but the Kraxans somehow messed things up. And we’re going to walk right into their last sanctum and play with their toys.”

  “Doesn’t sound very smart of us, when you put it that way. But it’s part of the mission.”

  Heather looked at him.

  “Look…” Fromm started to say before running out of words.

  He didn’t know how to tell her what he wanted to say. That he’d killed too many of his Marines, all to get the mission done, and he’d lost the stomach for it. That each time got a little harder, and the temptation to go do the dying himself a little stronger. That his other reason for leading this forlorn hope was that he thought he deserved it.

  “This isn’t a suicide mission, Peter. I trust Lisbeth. Doesn’t mean we won’t get killed, but don’t think it’s inevitable, okay?”

  “Reading my mind?”

  She grinned. “Nah. Knowing your mind. And knowing about guilt, too.”

  He held her, and for a while things were a little better.

  Eleven

  Capricorn System, Year 167

  Admiral Nicholas Kerensky had his implants display the written orders one more time, as if the act could somehow change them. The words remained stubbornly the same, and he had to restrain the impulse to punch the messenger. He contented himself with glaring at him.

  Commander Grayson met his glare unflinchingly; the Navy troubleshooter was many things, but not a coward. The fact didn’t make Kerensky like him any better.

  “I understand how this must seem, Admiral.”

  “You understand…” For a moment, Kerensky saw himself grabbing the remfie bastard by the throat. He looked down at his clenched hands and took a deep breath.

  Get ahold of yourself. You have your orders. Your duty is to follow them.

  “Seventh Fleet is to withdraw from Capricorn System and redeploy in New Texas. Seventh Fleet will not be reinforced and must make plans to abandon New Texas as well.”

  Speaking the words out loud didn’t change anything, either.

  “The move to New Texas will shorten your supply lines,” Grayson said.

  “I have less than a hundred vessels fit for combat, and no replacement. Supply is the least of my problems.”

  “The Joint Chiefs believe the destruction of the Imperium’s Deep Space Armada, as well as your raid on Hoon System will disrupt enemy operations in this sector for the foreseeable future. Your proposal to establish a presence in Paulus was a non-starter, I’m afraid. It would risk driving the Wyrashat fully into the Gal-Imps’ arms.”

  “The Wyrms have already surrendered to the Gimps, Commander. Paulus, and a dozen other systems, are being used as supply depots by the enemy.”

  He knew that arguing with a glorified flunky was useless, but he couldn’t help himself. And Grayson, despite his low rank, had the ear of the admirals at the Hexagon. At worst, Kerensky might hear the reasons for throwing away potential victory. The humiliation of discussing strategy with a junior officer grated on him, but he needed to vent, and the courier-cum-troubleshooter wasn’t in his chain of command, which made him a better sounding board than anybody in his staff.

  “Fourth Fleet is noting increased activity on its sector,” Grayson said. “The Imperium seems to have secured passage rights from the Bijoons, which means they threaten several worlds along that border, including a warp chain nine transits away from Sol System. Fleet has to reinforce that sector, and that means diverting some of the replacements and supplies allotted to you.”

  “I’m seven warp jumps away from Gimp space. I can take my Special Attack Force plus a few Pan-Asian squadrons, and finally let the bastards know they are in a war. Maybe after we burn down one of their Provincial Capitals, they’ll begin to see reason.”

  “Admiral, most of those warp points are inside Wyrashat space. Under their treaty obligations with the Gal-Imps, they would have to try to stop you. And even if they didn’t confront Seventh Fleet directly, the threat to your supply lines would be untenable.”

  Kerensky clenched his teeth. Everything the troubleshooter said was true. The only way to mount an assault over that many transits would be to secure each planetary system along the way. The Wyrms couldn’t go back on their word, not without losing what little credibility they had. They wouldn’t allow him to leave blocking forces at each juncture, not without a fight.

  A part of him was ready to burn them down. Burn them all down.

  Something is wrong with me.

  He’d been having that thought with increasing frequency ever since the Battle of Capricorn. Irritability had grown into simmering rage, ready to burst open at the least provocation. On more than once occasion, he’d yelled at Captain Cochrane, members of his staff, and several lower-ranking officers. That wasn’t like him at all. An admiral wasn’t supposed to actually lose his temper. Too much was at stake to be overruled by emotions.

  “A defensive posture surrenders the initiative to the enemy,” he said, if only to have his protests on record. “Combined with the weakened state of Seventh Fleet, we may not be able to hold New Texas.”

  For one, he’d lost too many fighters to maintain the deep space patrols that had allowed him to ambush the Allian
ce fleet. With no reinforcements available, that meant he would be forced to conduct a standard core-planet defense, waiting for the enemy fleet to engage his forces at its leisure. He couldn’t win that fight, not if the Imperium and Lampreys could field even a third of the forces it had deployed the previous time.

  “That is covered in your orders, Admiral.”

  “I know. I’m supposed to abandon New Texas if the enemy comes back in force.”

  “We cannot lose Seventh Fleet. New Texas only has four warp lines besides the one linking it to Capricorn, and three of them lead to dead ends, with no further inroads into American space. The connection to Cascadia System is critical, however: from Cascadia, the enemy can reach half a dozen other nexus points, each with three to five more ley lines – that’s almost half of our territory; Sol is only six transits away from that system. Cascadia must hold.”

  Grayson was neglecting to point out that each of those ‘dead end’ systems had populations of three hundred thousand, a million and a half, and two million, respectively. Evacuating all of them was going to be impossible, not when the Navy would have to start removing New Texas’ twenty-five million people first. It couldn’t be done, not unless the enemy considerately gave them six to eight months. Kerensky didn’t think they were going to get even that many weeks before the Imperium came back for a rematch. And if he was right, there wouldn’t be time to save more than half of New Texas’ inhabitants, let alone the poor bastards on those minor colonies – families who’d chosen to spend decades of hardship and poverty to expand the United Stars’ reach and access to resources. The Navy was supposed to make sure their sacrifices didn’t include their lives.

  “We can’t do this.”

  “That’s a worst-case estimate, Admiral. The JCs’ assessment is that the Imperium has shot its bolt. They cannot replace the tonnage you sank at Capricorn, not for some years, and by then we’ll be in an unassailable position. Your victory has turned the tide, sir. As Admiral Carruthers would say, it may not be the beginning of the end, but it certainly is the end of the beginning.”