by M. R. Forbes
He didn’t want to, but he couldn’t linger on the comms, not when he might be able to raise someone else for help. He moved through the system, switching frequencies.
“This is Sergeant Caleb Card. I’m in a Relyeh fighter and under attack, requesting immediate assistance. I repeat, this is Sergeant Caleb Card requesting immediate assistance.” He saved the statement, interfacing with the control mind to replay it on each of the available channels in succession.
“What’s happening, Sarge?” Washington asked, unable to see any of the action from his position.
“We’re fine,” Caleb lied. “I’ve got it all under control.”
“Roger that.”
Something burned Caleb’s left side, and he took evasive action just in time to avoid an ion blast from that side of the Relyeh ship, the bolt singeing a protruding section of the stone-like surface. He broke back to the north, trying to stay close to the right vector to carry them to the Deliverance without getting too close.
His message continued to cycle through the comm channels, repeating over and over without receiving a response. His maneuvering allowed the enemy ships to close to ten kilometers, leaving them way too close for comfort.
They started firing on him again. He sent the ship into a series of tight turns and changes in altitude and vector, dozens of ion blasts arcing past them. The craft shuddered as one of the shots hit, melting through the outer hull but not causing critical damage.
“Damn it,” he muttered.
“Are you sure we’re good?” Washington asked.
“Just great,” Caleb replied. “Hold on.”
He continued to maneuver, dropping down to just above the treetops. He was able to drop through a hole in the thinning canopy, zipping over the ground at dangerous speeds. One slip and he would kill them both.
Ion bolts hit the foliage around him, starting small fires along the landscape. He banked around a thick trunk, noticing the growth became much thicker up ahead.
He was almost out of time.
“Ishek, is it possible to enter more than one mind at once?”
It is not impossible. Shub-Nigu enters many minds at once. But only to record. Not to control.
Ishek had said he overwhelmed the control mind without trying. What would happen if he did try?
“Can you patch me in?”
If this doesn’t work, you might leave one or both of us braindead.
“If this doesn’t work, we’re going to be dead anyway.”
“What?” Washington said.
“Standby,” Caleb replied. The trees were approaching ahead. He had to pull up, or they were going to crash. “Here we go. Ishek, do it.”
The sudden pressure in his head made it feel like it was going to explode. A cacophony of memories invaded him, all of them dark and painful. The integration with the mechanical systems wasn’t simple or painless, and the connection put him through it nearly thirty times all at once.
“Too many,” he managed to say.
The pressure reduced as some of the control minds dropped away. Caleb pulled the fighter out of the trees and into the sky, putting them once again in the open. He couldn’t see through the other ships to fly them, not without crashing this one. He sent a single thought out to the group.
Protect me.
Ishek had dropped many of the minds, but not all of them. Six of the twenty-eight fighters suddenly changed vectors, firing on the others at close range. Ion blasts creased the air from every direction, developing into a massive dogfight. Relyeh ships either exploded outright or crashed into the trees in explosions of flame and smoke.
Within seconds, only four of Caleb’s fighters remained, along with twelve of the enemy. It was better odds, but still not great. He reached out to two of the remaining enemy craft, capturing them instead of shooting them down, able to control seven minds at a time. The pressure was intense, the pain increasing with each passing second. He let the last two go again, unable to maintain it.
“That is not what I call fine,” Washington said, reacting to the evasive maneuvers.
The fighters moved and swirled around one another over the landscape, trading fire. Another one of Caleb’s fighters went down, along with two more of the enemy’s. He seized another, keeping four active.
They mingled in the sky. Caleb banked left to avoid an ion blast, climbing and banking hard right to get away from another. The fighters he hadn’t taken had realized what was happening and were gathering to again concentrate their fire on him.
He felt a burning tingle at the base of his neck, the system warning him he was in the enemy’s crosshairs. His arm tingled too, and one of the Relyeh ships swooped in from the front, racing straight at them, ready to fire.
Something hit the fighter ahead and it exploded. Two more of them detonated an instant later, blown to pieces in powerful explosions. Caleb scanned the skies ahead, searching for the source and finding it a moment later.
A Dagger streaked through the air ahead of him, joined by a second, and then a third, each of them coming together in a nearly perfect formation, banking hard and coming back around.
Caleb watched them, hardly able to believe it. The Deliverance didn’t have a single decent pilot, nevermind three.
Two more Daggers drifted in on either side of his ship. Caleb returned to the comm, searching for the call that had received a response.
“...is Dagger One. Sergeant Card, please respond. I repeat, this is Dagger One. Sergeant Card, please respond.”
“Dagger One,” Caleb said. “This is Sergeant Card. Do you copy?”
“I hear you, Sergeant. Is that you in that big ugly rock?”
Caleb tried to place the voice. It sounded familiar. “It is. Deputy Klahanie, is that you?”
“Roger that, Sergeant. Are the rest of the targets with you?”
“Technically, they are me,” Caleb replied. “It’s a long story.”
“Roger. I’ve got someone else with me who’s pretty damn happy to hear from you.”
“Sergeant Caleb,” Tsi said, coming in over the comm.
“Tsi?” Caleb said, elated. “I’m glad you're okay. Is this squadron of flying aces your doing?”
“Not mine alone. It’s also a long story. We can debrief back at the Deliverance.”
“We need to make it fast. Arluthu’s Might is on its way.”
“It’s worse than that,” Tsi replied, her voice turning grim. “We registered a power spike from the other side of the mountains not long ago. The Seeker is operational.”
“Sarge, what’s going on?” Washington asked. He couldn’t hear the conversation, but he could see the Daggers flanking the ship through the forward transparency.
“We just got pulled out of the frying pan,” Caleb replied. “Now we have to fight the fire.”
Chapter 50
Caleb managed to not only land his Relyeh fighter, but the other five remaining craft as well, bringing them in beside the hulking starship.
The landscape around the Deliverance had changed dramatically in only a few days. Military vehicles were organized beneath the corners of the ship, under as much cover as the colonists could give them. Likewise, there were dozens of crates of munitions and supplies tucked out of sight, and plenty of people in both Strongman suits and Advanced Tactical Combat Armor rushing from one place to another, continuing preparations. A half-dozen Butchers patrolled the outer perimeter against anything that might appear from the jungle’s edge, and drones circled watchfully, keeping an eye out for approaching enemies.
They wouldn’t be circling much longer.
It was more than Caleb had expected to find. Much, much more. His vision was a Deliverance that hadn’t changed at all, where the Governor continued his lockdown of the city and was still counting on the heavy seals to save them. To see the beginnings of an army forming beneath the ship, to have Tsi greet him as a member of a squadron of Daggers—it had raised his spirits enough that a sense of hope was creeping in.
At least until he remembered how ineffective the Earth weapons were against the Inahri’s armor.
At least until he remembered what Tsi had said about the Seeker.
He still didn’t think they could win. But as the hatch of the Relyeh craft slid open and he hopped out onto the dirt beside the Deliverance, he realized they might not have to.
Deputy Klahanie and Sergeant Tsi intercepted him on the way to the closest lander. The other colonists on the ground had all stopped to stare when the dark stone ships had appeared, and they continued to stare at the two Marines who emerged from it. Tsi seemed to notice, and she stopped before greeting Caleb, spinning and barking.
“Get back to work!”
The soldiers hopped to, turning back to their task and risking quicker glances in their direction.
“Sergeant Card,” Klahanie said. “I’m damn happy to see you.” He seemed a little upset. “But where’s Sheriff Dante?”
Caleb shook his head. “She didn’t make it. No one did, except Wash and me.”
“I’m so sorry to hear that. She was a good woman. A great sheriff.”
“She was,” Caleb agreed. He didn’t need to go into details about how she had died. Not now. “Tsi, what happened here?”
Tsi threw herself at him, giving him an unexpected hug. He returned it stiffly, not sure about the woman’s reaction.
“I’m thrilled you’re back. Governor Stone will be too.”
“The Governor is still alive?”
Caleb had assumed the activity on the ground was all Tsi’s doing. That she had somehow convinced whoever was in charge of Metro to get their asses moving. He hadn’t expected Stone to be the one who had approved all of this.
“He’s different, Caleb. You saw his wife. And Harai left him paralyzed from the waist down.”
Caleb nodded. “We’re all different, I think. I need to talk to him right away. I have a plan.”
“That was fast,” Klahanie said.
Tsi glanced at Washington. Then she looked back at Caleb. “You went through the sanctorium.”
“Yeah. Two good arms again. It still feels weird.”
“And one slightly less ugly face,” Washington said. “I’d prefer to still have the scars.”
“Let’s hope you don’t get new ones.”
“What about the other ships?” Klahanie said. “Are the pilots going to join us?”
“There aren’t any other pilots,” Caleb replied.
“What do you mean?”
“It’s a long story.” He glanced at Tsi, noticing she had stiffened up. She knew what the statement meant. Had she thought they had disabled the control minds? “It’s okay. I’ve got it under control.”
She stared at him a moment, eyes flicking to the spot where Ishek was wrapped around his arm. The bulge beneath the Skin was barely noticeable, but she knew what to look for. “It isn’t you I’m worried about.”
“I’ve gotten good at resisting.”
“I don’t know what either of you are talking about,” Klahanie said.
“Don’t worry about it,” Caleb replied. “ Take us to Stone, We don’t have much time.”
“You know the way, Sergeant.”
They entered the landing tube, taking the lift up into the ship. Caleb sprinted from the lift, Washington and Tsi close behind him. The portly Klahanie quickly fell behind, but they didn’t have time to wait for him.
Moving as quickly as he could, Caleb navigated his way through the Deliverance, a countdown timer ticking down in the back of his mind. “Tsi, can you get Stone with your badge?” he asked.
“Yes. We should be in range.” She tapped on it. “Governor Stone.” The LED flashed and turned green. “Governor, this is Tsi. Sergeant Caleb is back. We’re on our way to the city now.”
“Sergeant Card?” Stone said excitedly. “I’ll meet you by the entrance in South Park. Welcome home, Sergeant.”
“Thank you, Governor,” Caleb said.
Tsi tapped the badge and they continued in silence. More people were moving around closer to engineering, and they froze as they watched Washington and Caleb hurry past them.
Governor Stone was rolling across the trampled park grounds as Caleb, Washington, and Tsi emerged. Sheriff Zane was at his side.
A group of a hundred trife, led by a queen, trailed behind him.
Caleb pulled to a stop, wishing he hadn’t left the Relyeh rifle on the fighter. “What the hell?”
“Sergeant Card!” Stone called out, waving. He had a big smile on his face, unconcerned about the trife behind him.
Caleb remembered the docile trife that had been hiding near the armory. Stone had obviously found them. And befriended them? But he had seen the group. It was much smaller, and there hadn’t been a queen.
He glanced at the largest demon again, noticing now that she was missing a hand. It wasn’t hard for him to add things up from there.
They met near the center of the park. There were soldiers all around them. Soldiers Caleb hadn’t noticed because of the trife. They had all stopped what they were doing to watch him. None of them appeared to be afraid of the queen or her followers.
“Sergeant Card,” Governor Stone said again, holding out his hand. “Welcome home.” Caleb shook his hand and tried to pull it away, but Stone held onto him. “I want to tell you how sorry I am. For what I did to you.” He glanced past him, expression turning darker. “For Sheriff Dante. All of it. I made a huge mistake. The whole colony knows the truth now.”
“I appreciate that Governor, but I don’t care about that very much right now. I’m impressed with everything you’ve managed to do, and in such a short time. But that time is up. I got away from the Relyeh just ahead of their assault force. The Might of Arluthu will be here inside an hour.”
Caleb expected Stone’s face to freeze with fear. It didn’t. The Governor nodded. “And the Seeker is powering up as we speak. Sergeant Tsi tells me it will take a little time to recharge the batteries, and then the ship will be fully operational.”
“Two hours at most,” Tsi said.
“The end is coming,” Stone said. “It’s do or die time. Humankind’s last stand on Essex.”
“It sounds heroic,” Caleb said. “But I have another idea.”
Chapter 51
“You want to do what?” Governor Stone growled. “No, Sergeant. I won’t even think of it.” The reaction caused the trife queen to hiss and take a step toward Caleb. Stone noticed and put up his hand. “It’s okay. We’re just having a discussion.”
“A one-sided discussion,” Caleb argued. “You wanted me back because you value my expertise, and when I give it, you won’t even listen.”
They had retreated from the center of the park to the lobby of Block One, where Sheriff Zane had quickly ordered most of the people away.
“You want to run away,” Stone said.
“Sergeant Card’s plan is the opposite of running away,” Washington said. “Depending on how you look at it.”
“I’ll tell you how I look at it. We’re abandoning the Deliverance.”
“If things go well, we’ll upgrade to the Seeker. It’s bigger than the Deliverance, more advanced, and oh yeah...it works.”
Stone made a face. “Engineering has spent the last four days repairing the most critical damage to the Deliverance. It’s spaceworthy, Sergeant.”
“Except it doesn’t have enough power to get anywhere.”
“Not true. The energy unit recharged the batteries. We can get back into orbit. We can set a course for Earth. We can get up enough speed that we should reach it inside of eight hundred years.”
Caleb laughed. “You can’t be serious. She’ll fall apart long before she arrives.”
“If we can’t win the fight, we’ll have to take that chance.”
“No. We get the colonists out. We send them into the jungle to wait out the fighting. At the same time, we launch an attack against the Relyeh forces there before they can get the Seeker off the ground. Meanwhile, we
leave a fighting force here to defend the Deliverance during the evacuation. If we can get the Seeker, we’ll also get its firepower. Enough to keep the Relyeh reinforcements from regaining the ship.”
Governor Stone shook his head again. “It’ll never work. It’s too risky. You’re talking about moving ten-thousand people inside of an hour. It can’t be done.”
“They only have to make it into the jungle. It can be done, as long as we stop arguing about it and get moving.”
“We have to argue as long as we disagree.”
“We’re never going to agree, Stone. We didn’t before. I thought we could start now. But no matter how much you say you want to save the colony, your arrogance is rearing its ugly head again.”
“My arrogance?” Stone said. “Sergeant Caleb Card, Marine Raider, Guardian, captured by the Relyeh and escaped.”
“Those are accomplishments, not brags,” Washington said. “Cal’s got the arrogance any Marine needs to do their job to the best of their abilities. Nothing more.”
“Thanks, Wash,” Caleb said. “This plan can work. If we lose the Deliverance, as long as we capture the Seeker we have a way to get the colony back off the planet if needed. And the Inahri have teleportation technology. Wormhole generators.”
“I don’t know what that means.”
“The Seeker can’t go through a wormhole,” Tsi said. “It’s too big.”
“But there’s a portal room on board. Harai said so himself. And there’s a portal on Earth.”
The statement brought the entire congregation to silence.
“What?” Stone said.
“There’s an Axon portal on Earth,” Caleb repeated. “Valentine told me about it.”
Governor Stone scoffed. “Valentine? No offense, Sergeant, but this whole thing is her fault. You can’t trust a word she says.”
“I don’t. But I do trust her mind. There’s a portal on Earth.”
“Where?”
