Warp Marine Corps- The Complete Series

by C. J. Carella

  Kerensky tried to smile back at Grayson, but he couldn’t. Every instinct in his bones told him the enemy wasn’t done with this sector. Everything the commander said was true, but the Imperium knew it as well. Their window of opportunity was closing, and their only chance was to make a final push before the US could leverage the wealth from Xanadu into enough fighters and carriers to destroy any force they sent their way. That meant they had to attack soon.

  They were going to make him run away again. He couldn’t do it, not after Heinlein.

  14,873,097. That cursed number was going to grow larger. If he fled New Texas and its three minor warp links, it would more than double.

  I can’t do it.

  “There is something else, Admiral,” Commander Grayson said. “The Joint Chiefs wanted to keep it off the record.”

  “Of course, Commander,” Kerensky said, dutifully turning off his imp and office recorders. His anger was gone, and all he felt was overwhelming exhaustion. He hoped whatever this was would be over quickly.

  “First of all, the Joint Chiefs want to commend you for the innovative use of fighter spacecraft as a scouting tool. Our next generation of fighters will be redesigned to perform more efficiently as reconnaissance platforms. You have single-handedly revolutionized space warfare, just as the enemy was beginning to get used to the previous quantum leap.”

  If he’d been in his right mind, Kerensky would have demurred and explained that the idea wasn’t wholly his, but the work of a dozen people in Seventh Fleet, who had taken his initial thoughts and ran with them. Instead, he just nodded dully. The congratulations felt hollow and meaningless.

  “There is, however, some concern about your liberal usage of Warp-Tolerance Serum – what pilots jokingly refer to as Melange, or Spice. Those drugs were never meant to be widely distributed; they are very costly for one, and the calibrations required to personalize doses to fit each individual serviceperson take an inordinate amount of processing time and other demands on naval medical personnel.”

  “Under the circumstances, I decided the costs were warranted.”

  “And they were. The problem is, you have continued to dispense the serum to everyone in Seventh Fleet. You have run through the entire supply allotted to your fighter wings.”

  “My med techs figured out a way to produce WTS in quantity,” Kerensky said. “As it turns out, adjusting the dosage to match individual needs can be expedited, and the ensuing side effects are within tolerable levels. Ever since I instituted the new dispensing guidelines, we have suffered no casualties during warp transit. And a diluted version will allow us to safely evacuate everyone in Capricorn System.”

  Ninety-eight percent, actually, but that was enough of a miracle to deserve no qualifications.

  “Of course. Be that as it may, the Joint Chiefs would like you to stop or at least curtail the use of Melange until its side effects can be properly studied. There were numerous problems – including severe casualties – during the early part of the program. They allegedly have improved the formula, but those things take time. The JCs want you to dial it back until then.”

  “They want me to do so? This isn’t a direct order?”

  “There are security considerations involved. Official orders regarding the new drugs could reveal their existence to the enemy. And the Hexagon respects your judgment. The ultimate decision is yours, sir.”

  And if my decisions lead to disaster here, in what they now consider a safe sector, they can lay the blame on my shoulders.

  The thought was almost alien; he’d never been so bitter and cynical, not even in the aftermath of the Heinlein debacle.

  “I will take it under advisement, Commander. Stopping the medication immediately may cause additional problems, however. Withdrawal symptoms can be severe, for one. But I will oversee a gradual weaning off, in consultation to my medical officers.”

  “Of course, sir. I believe that’s exactly what the Chiefs had in mind.”

  Even as Kerensky spoke, his med implant delivered a dose of Melange into his bloodstream. His exhaustion lifted and he felt a surge of determination within him, despite the fact that none of the chemicals in the serum were stimulants. The concoction still had a rejuvenating effect on him.

  Intellectually, he realized that shooting up experimental drugs was the most likely cause for the changes he’d noticed in himself, but he couldn’t stop now. WTS had saved thousands of lives at Capricorn and helped Seventh Fleet perform beyond anyone’s expectations. If his fears – or maybe premonitions – were right, he would need every tool at his disposal to prevent disaster.

  One thing was certain; he would burn down this corner of the galaxy before he allowed more innocent millions to die while he still lived.

  He smiled at Commander Grayson; his grin widened when the officer flinched at the sight.

  New Texas System, Year 167

  The world was changing, and so was he.

  Lieutenant Gus Chandler had never felt better. Same thing went for the rest of his squadron. They’d kicked ass at Hoon and they were ready to go back for seconds. It was too bad the remfies had made them retreat to New Texas, but if the Gimps or the Lampreys followed them there, the Fourth Carrier Space Wing would be ready for them. They were doing better than ever.

  Except for Grinner, but she’d always been the odd woman out. Funny how she didn’t like it when everyone got a handle on warp space and caught up to her. Ever since the fight at Hoon she’d been withdrawn and upset, and it was rubbing everyone the wrong way. Still, everyone in Fourth Squadron, and a bunch of people from other units owed her a lot, and they’d gotten the rest to take it easy on her. She would come around. Gus was sure of it.

  They were back in their War Eagles, practicing maneuvers in real space for no good reason other than to keep pilots and hangar crews busy. All real-space maneuvers did was show how inadequate their little crates were for anything other than teleporting into position, shooting up a target, and warping away before they could be swatted away like so many flies. Or even better, ghosting and tearing the enemy a new one with no chance to be shot. The Foos were a problem, but a few guys were coming up with ideas on what to do about it.

  “Bingo, you’re falling out of formation,” Papa told him, and Gus realized he’d started daydreaming again. That’d been happening a little too often lately.

  “Roger that, Papa. My bad.”

  He put more power into the fighter’s thrusters, getting a tiny bit of extra acceleration, and caught up with the rest of his flight as they maneuvered for a simulated attack run. They were going to make a notional – i.e. fake – warp jump and then dry-fire their guns at a virtual target while they were targeted by low-power lasers to simulate enemy ack-ack. Boring as hell, and nothing like the real thing. Without doing a warp jump, it could be nothing like the real thing. You changed when you warped in and out of reality, and the more you did it, the more you changed. In a real emergence, the minds of everyone in the squadron would have been linked, allowing them to fire and hit as one. Not like this, where their connection was far weaker. Their salvo was scattered all over; five of them missed the target clear, and the rest all hit within fifty meters.

  Even so, it was better than what the fighters’ designers had ever expected. Nobody had dreamed that doing multiple jumps in a short period would do something to people’s minds, beyond the usual insanity everybody risked when going from one star to another. Even in real space, everyone in Fourth Squadron could talk instantly, mind to mind, faster than the any implant comm systems and without any delays even over light hours.

  They’d been upping their Melange doses, which helped a lot. Almost everyone was getting twice their previous dosages, except for a few holdouts like Grinner. It’d taken some doing, but warp pilots were a resourceful bunch, especially when a trick one of them came up with could be instantly passed along to everyone else. A thriving black market of the stuff was now rampant through Seventh Fleet. It helped that they were manufacturing the
stuff on assorted supply and medical vessels. All it took was a few discreet bribes or some blackmail, and production runs got ramped up – not much, considering they were now giving the stuff out even to ordinary spacers – and the extra doses got delivered to the waiting pilots. People were getting as much Spice as they wanted. Word was the Fleet Admiral himself was mainlining the stuff on the side. It was a party and everyone was invited.

  With a few annoying exceptions.

  Gus was getting good enough to pick up on Grinner’s mood even in real space. She was doing her job, helping coordinate the simulated attack runs, but she was worried and upset. Once the practice run was over and they were flying back to the Enterprise, he decided to have a word with her.

  “What gives, Grinner?”

  “Nothing you want to hear.”

  “Look, we’re all doing the job, right? We might be getting a handle on the Foos, too.”

  Her mental glare was almost painful. “I’ve heard what that insane bastard from the Macon is peddling. He’s lost it, Bingo, and if you follow him, you’re all next. If you haven’t lost it already, that is. I’m beginning to wonder if it’s not too late.”

  “Beak’s okay,” Gus said, wishing he felt as sure as he sounded.

  Lieutenant Federico ‘Beak’ Dhukai had been a Warp Navigator for decades, long before fighters came around. The guy had a reputation as a weirdo, even among other navigators; word was that bad rep had kept him a Lieutenant Junior Grade for a good ten years. Shortly after making the switch to space aviation, Beak’s out-there ideas only got weirder.

  Among other things, Dhukai claimed he’d contacted a Foo during the Battle of Capricorn, just as it was about to munch on him. He said he’d struck a bargain with the Warpling, and now he was safe even while ghosting. That was a pretty tall tale, even for spacer stories (the ones that usually started with ‘This is no shit’). But people were listening. He might be lying or crazy or both, but he’d ghosted the entire time during the raid on Hoon, and nothing had bothered him. Maybe there was a method to his madness.

  Gus had met him once, sort of. When Seventh Fleet jumped back to Capricorn, all the pilots had held a big get together via the biggest shared illusion their collective minds had created so far. They’d gotten drunk, traded jokes and had a good time. Beak had spread his story around, and he and Gus had talked for a bit. The guy was tall and skinny, with bright black eyes and a big honker of a nose that explained his handle. He sounded sincere. And very intense, like Star Baptist preacher intense. Enough to worry Gus a bit, but what Beak was peddling would be so damn good if it was true. If they didn’t have to worry about the Foos, nothing could stop them.

  “Nothing is free, Bingo. Not in this universe or any other,” Grinner said. “Even if what Dhukai is selling is true, it won’t come cheap. The price is going to be more than you’ll want to pay, except by the time the bill comes due you won’t be able to change your mind.”

  A rumor had gone around claiming Grinner had spent some of her civvie time reading fortunes in the boonies of some planet or another. She sure was beginning to sound like that.

  “If it makes a difference, why not give it a try? We can’t really fight the Foos, Grinner. If we could kill ‘em, it’d be different, but best we can do is scare them away until they come back for another try. Might as well try to make a deal with them.”

  “A lot of people think warp space is a gateway to Hell. What if they are right? What does that make the Warplings? Do you want to make a deal with that?”

  “Jesus, Grinner,” Gus said. He crossed himself. “If that’s true, we shouldn’t be doing any of this. Are you going to quit?”

  “No,” she said, as if confessing some terrible sin.

  “Me neither. So we better hope we aren’t dealing with the Devil. Because we need to make a deal with them, if we can.”

  “I think we could fight them off instead.”

  She had. Gus recoiled from the memories of the incident at Lahiri. It had been too much for him, and too close for both of them. Maybe you could fight them off after all, but it would be like a guy with a knife going up against a bear or some heavy-world ET: the odds would suck ass.

  “Overdosing on WTS isn’t helping at all, either” she went on. “Too many people are opening doors to warp space in their minds. It was bad enough with navigators and fighter pilots doing it, but now every spacer in the fleet is getting exposed. Open enough pathways, and something is going to find its way through them.”

  “Like the Exeter?”

  Nobody knew what happened to the fleet carrier. According to the official report, a hit had caused a warp shield malfunction that had swallowed the ship. The sensor readings of the incident had been classified. All the fighter pilots had felt something happen – for Gus it’d been like hearing a distant thunderstorm – but other than that all they had was guesses and more spacer stories.

  “Like the Exeter,” Grinner agreed. “Or worse.”

  “It’s going to be okay,” he told her.

  “Is it? Are you still wearing your crucifix?”

  “Sure am,” he lied. Truth was, he’d forgotten to wear it at Hoon, and left it in his quarters ever since.

  The fighters reached the Enterprise and they began the now-familiar docking evolution. Their conversation ended there. Gus felt angry and scared at the same time. He’d been trying to help, but Grinner had made him feel worse about everything, and that wasn’t right.

  He shrugged. Things were changing, and everybody, even her, was going to have to change with them.

  Twelve

  Redoubt-Five, 167 AFC

  It got damn quiet at night.

  Russell had been to enough jungles to know that it normally would be anything but quiet after the local sun went down. The only reason you could hear a pin drop here was that they’d burned down everything as far as the eye could see. Any nocturnal critters slumbering away during the day had gotten blown up or crisped. It was quiet as the grave because that’s what they’d made it. The fight with those big-ass ETs the next day had only rearranged the rubble.

  Mess with the best, die like the rest. A dozen Devil Dogs in the company had that tattooed somewhere on their skin. Not as popular as the Eagle, Globe and Anchor, Semper Fi and the common mottos, but pretty up there. Next time Russell had more money than he needed for booze or cooze, he might get it done somewhere on his back. Although it’d be all kinds of stupid, getting a new Marine tag just before he left the Corps.

  The morning’s festivities hadn’t helped change his mind. Just about every deployment since the Days of Infamy had put him in harm’s way. This planet was turning out to be just as bad. Waking up in sick bay hadn’t been any fun: he’d gotten most of his ribs caved in and a full set of broken arms and legs. His bones still itched after the hasty repair job the med-techs had done on him. He might be officially fit for duty, but he wasn’t enjoying any of it.

  Word was, more critters were trying to come their way. Just more animals and bugs, not those flying fuckers that had inflicted most of the casualties so far, but the beasties were bad enough. From the looks of it, anything that could run on two or four legs, crawl on its belly or beat wings to get underway was trying to make it there and chomp on some Marine ass. The shuttles, tanks and LAVs had been laying down a steady fire on any concentrations approaching the valley. From the lack of gunfire out in the distance, they critters had given up for the night, although scans showed the plant life was moving forward, reclaiming the burned-out ground at something like three meters per hour. In a couple months, nobody would be able to tell the Marines had been there, breaking stuff and killing things.

  They’d be long gone by then, or they’d just burn down the jungle again. Shouldn’t be a problem, but he still felt antsy. They had sensors all around their perimeter, set to detect anything bigger than a single-cell organism. Nobody could sneak in on them, and everybody swore up and down there were no more warp-assault capable enemies around. He should feel bored and an
noyed by the pointless duty. Instead, he was tense and nervous.

  “Charlie-One-One, this is Charlie-One-Twenty, have unknown visual contact.”

  That was PFC Dennis “Leo’ Lee from First Platoon, a newbie they’d gotten at Xanadu; his watch post was twenty meters north of Russell’s fireteam. They linked to Lee’s visual feed as soon as he called out.

  There was nothing there.

  “Say again, Charlie-One-Twenty.”

  “It’s coming right at me, Sergeant!”

  “Charlie-One-Twenty, highlight the contact.” By the tone of voice, Sergeant Russo of First Platoon was in no mood for this shit.

  Lee did: a red aiming icon appeared in mid-air, bracketing nothing but air. Russell went through every scanner wavelength on his system, but as far all his sensors could tell, Leo was aiming at nothing..

  “Fuck!” Leo shouted. A moment later, he lit up the night with a burst from his Iwo gun.

  “Check fire! Leo, check fire right the fuck now!”

  Leo’s screams stepped on the platoon sergeant’s orders. The Marine jumped out of his hole and charged down the hill, firing short, controlled bursts. He might have gone bugfuck crazy, but he was fighting by the numbers, even if there was nothing to fight.

  “All Charlie-One, Charlie-Three elements, hold your positions,” Sergeant Russo ordered. “Leo is suffering from warp hallucinations.”

  “Shit,” Russell grumbled.

  At least the newb had opened fire downhill rather than on his own people. Buying it on a blue-on-blue incident would suck royally. They’d been warned about the miniature warps, although nobody had seen anything until now. The platoon sergeant would take care of Leo; he must be activating the private’s medical implants to deliver a dose of sleepy-bye drugs into his system. In a few seconds, Leo would…