by Dan Davis
“Bloody run, man,” Kat shouted at him. “Would you tell him to run? It’s a data block, its bloody well indestructible, ain’t it?”
“Alright,” the Lieutenant said. “Everyone out. Let’s get you processed. Quickly, we don’t have much time.”
Ram was taken away with the others into a process much like the one on the surface only even more thorough. His armor was blasted with powerful blasts of air, then UV, some dry powder, air again, then scrubbed thoroughly with a frothy liquid, washed and blasted with air and who knew what else again. Medical technicians in hazmat suits removed his armor then all of his clothes and he went through a similar process on his naked body. It was extremely strange and quite unpleasant. Not least because he had not even had time to become familiar with that body himself and these strangers were getting to know it quite intimately.
“Probably good you’re in all that gear,” Ram said to the woman who was scrubbing his flanks with a brush on a stick, as if he was an elephant at the sanctuary. “I haven’t washed in days.”
She did not respond, other than to scrub even harder.
While he was still naked and raw, other medical staff took blood and swaps from his nose, ears, mouth and anus. They left his penis alone. He didn’t know whether to be relieved or disappointed. Eventually, they gave him clothes and led him into a small room, like a waiting room, with soft furniture, a low table and a desk. There was a chair large enough for him to sit in. He sank into it, comfortable and sighing a sigh that threatened to go on forever.
For all his anger, at losing Milena, at losing the outpost and running away. For all his desire to go back and fight and kill the aliens, his body could not maintain the emotion. Instead, skin scrubbed to within an inch of its life, he fell asleep.
A man was there. Standing over him.
“Lieutenant Seti?” the man said. A Marine officer, middle aged, gray hair and with a weathered face and deep age lines that suggested a lifetime of frowning. The corners of his mouth turned down and his eyes were small and dark. Insignia on the uniform said a colonel. He stood in front of Ram. Another Marine stood behind him, to one side. She was probably an aide.
“Oh, shit,” Ram said, climbing to his feet and rubbing his eyes. His head almost touched the ceiling and he towered over the Marines. “Sorry, sir.”
“We do not have much time so we must get on with it, I’m afraid. My name is Colonel Mathieson and I am in command of all UNOP Marine Corps forces in this system. You are Rama Seti, a Lieutenant in the Corps and so are under my command. Do you understand?”
Ram was about to explain that he was unsure of his status as a Marine but then he realized that if anyone would know, it was this Colonel in front of him. “Yes, sir.”
“Good, sit down, Lieutenant.” The colonel sat himself in one of the chairs opposite. “I’ve spoken to your colleagues while you rested. I just wanted to ask you a few questions now. I think I have the overall narrative down quite well. Then again, I have the data from the Victory and the data from the shuttle. And I have the data from the outpost that you brought out as it was attacked. Now, that’s a lot of data. Our people are reviewing it now, going over everything in detail and I’m getting continual updates.” He pointed a finger at his eyes. “Now, I know all about you. I know about your training and your victory in the Orb. I know about you joining the Marines. In fact, I authorized it myself. I reviewed your military training and I am aware of, though I did not authorize, the decision to wipe your memory after you murdered your PT instructor. So, you might say I know you quite well.”
The colonel paused, as if waiting for something.
“Yes, sir.”
“In the outpost report from Captain Cassidy, he says you went AWOL, stole two ETATs, the only two such vehicles on the planet, and you attacked an enemy position. The enemy HQ in fact. All without sanction, without orders. Sergeant Gruger has confirmed your actions. Is that an accurate description, Lieutenant?”
The urge to explain himself was profound.
“Yes, sir.”
Colonel Mathieson nodded. “Dr. Arthur is very grateful that you did so. He’s a brilliant man.”
“He’s awake? And lucid?”
“Our medical team here is second to none.”
Ram checked the time on his AugHud. “I was asleep for what, five hours? Fast work, Colonel.”
“The alien vessel dubbed the Wildfire is returning, coming back around the planet while we break into orbit from the other direction. We do not have long before the battle begins. I would like to ask your opinion about the alien psychology.”
“Their psychology?”
“You know, for all of human history, we have been perfecting the science and the art of warfare. The technological developments over that time are obvious but it is the use of that technology that we have excelled at. The weapons and their defenses, the endless arms race, is meaningless without understanding the proper use of them. They use the term psychological warfare, as if that did not apply to all war. And it pervades all our doctrine. Consider the usage of a machine gun. Where it is placed, the distance it traverses, the height above ground to aim, the rate of fire, all of it carefully considered to have specific psychological effects on the enemy. Our problem as I’m sure you know is that we just do not understand the alien psychology. Not yet.”
“And you think I can help?”
“Can you?”
Ram thought for a moment. “Our psychology is dictated by our bodies. By our environment. I heard a lot of competing hypotheses about the possible environment on the wheelhunter homeworld. If we know that evolution aims for the minimum necessary energy expenditure in organisms, it is notable that the wheelers have sensory organs all over their skin. Enough so that one of each is covering every angle of approach. The selection pressures in the wheeler evolution to result in that must have been enormous and sustained. I don’t doubt the idea that their world is dark, possibly from volcanic smoke. The idea that the wheeling motion is only possible due to a world covered in flat volcanic plains seems plausible.”
“And what does that lead to conclude about their psychology? What do you think of their tactics? You were a professional Avar player before you were an Orb champion and Marine. You must have seen an enormous range of strange tactics employed that are nothing like real world human battlefields. How would you beat them on the ground?”
Ram shrugged. “Captain Cassidy and some of the others seemed to think they were dumb. Or, at least naive. And, at first glance, they seem to lack finesse or subtlety. In each attack on the outpost, they massed troops in one area outside the combat area before attacking in pretty much a single wave. They slowly fed more troops into the battle and then fully retreated all the way back to their base. When I attacked them there, it took them a long time to respond and even then, all they did was mass their troops and roll after us en masse.”
“And I take it you disagree with that?”
“The psychological aspect isn’t just about understanding the enemy, it’s recognizing our own behavior in war. The Captain and the rest of them assumed the wheelers were dumb because they look like insects or lizards or just crazy aliens. They were living underground, in tubes, like insects, right? There was a joke in the outpost, a meme, you know? About only needing to kill the Hive Queen and the war would be won. Yes, it was a joke but it reflects a certain way of thinking. I don’t think they’re drones in a hive, I don’t think they’re mindless genetic clones. A small group of them broke away from the main assault, broke into the outpost and abducted a few humans. They also hit the radio equipment and Cassidy and the others said their targets were random, opportunistic. But it’s too perfect, you know, their sensitivity for a wider range of the spectrum?”
“Go on.”
“And there’s the discrepancy between the way they fight on the ground versus their easy win over the Victory. I think most of them on the planet are scientists, doing research. I know this is me showing my cognitive biases but ins
ide that lava tube, it was clearly a research area. It was open to the air. They were testing or growing bacteria or fungus or some sort of simple life and that was where they locked up our people after they took them. So, some of them are probably militia or irregulars and they did most of the fighting. It’s just that…”
“Go on.”
“The sudden change in tactics at the end, when they took us by surprise. You might conclude that it fits with the wheeler psychology. That it takes them a long time to do something but then they get it right. But it’s such a drastic change, isn’t it? Maybe I’m assessing them too much in human terms but the suddenness of that last assault. Were they just baiting us, all those other times?” Ram shook his head, filling with doubt.
“Interesting,” Colonel Mathieson said. “It seems as though a few new tactics were employed. Drones swooped in and dropped off troops inside the perimeter. Tunnels were used to approach unseen from all directions. We believe the wheelers received reinforcements prior to the final assault. Reinforcements from the alien warship.”
“How? It must have been tens or hundreds of thousands of kilometers away by that point.”
“Let me tell you something now. Ever since the Victory approached the planet Arcadia, there have been human satellites and drones in space around it and in the atmosphere. When the alien ship engaged, it dropped its own swarm of drones. The Victory’s shuttle was almost shot down by one variety during evacuation and then only a few hours ago, you managed to incapacitate one and bring it here. We think the one you captured was the last operational one of that kind, hiding from us in the atmosphere. As we approached the planet, days ago, Admiral Howe ordered our antidrone fleet deployed to sweep the enemy clear. There were other types of drone recorded. Large enough to hold wheelers and those types were considered to be landers rather than reusable drones.”
“Dropping off soldiers. Shit.”
“Soldiers, perhaps. Special forces? Military advisers? Something to change their tactics at any rate.”
“Your antidrone drones didn’t shoot them down?”
“They came in very fast. Easier with one-way vehicles. On the other hand, you might say it’s lucky that we didn’t get them all.”
“How so?”
The colonel stood. “I have no wish to give you false hope. In fact, I suspect I will succeed only in making you feel anxious. But come with me, please.”
They didn’t go far. A few doors down the corridor, they turned into a medical facility. A patient was propped up, half sitting in his bed. The man smiled at Ram and the medical staff stepped back.
“Dr. Arthur,” Ram walking to the bed. “You’ve recovered.”
The man winced. “Getting there. I hope. Thanks to you. I owe you my life.”
“You’re welcome. I’m sorry I took so long to get you. And I’m sorry about the others. Your colleagues.”
“Quite,” Arthur said. “I can’t imagine what they’re going through up there.”
Ram was confused but he nodded along, smile fixed in place. He never really understood Christianity.
“He means up there on the alien warship,” the colonel said, behind Ram. “The others were placed in a drone ship and blasted into space. Dr. Arthur was taken from the drone at the last minute. Perhaps it was an issue with mass constraints, we’re not sure.”
“No, I found Milena’s EVA suit. It was dripping with blood.”
“They cut their suits off and injured them. She lost a lot of blood but she was alive. Conscious and stable.”
Ram leaned forward, held his head in his hands. “What are you saying? She’s alive?”
“We have no way of knowing. What we do have is Dr. Isaac’s statement, plus the facts that a launch was detected by the outpost at a time that matches. And our own sensor data shows a drone docking with the alien warship a few hours later. We believe the prisoners reached that ship alive.”
“There’s a chance Milena is alive? On that ship?” Ram had to control his breathing. “And you’re about to destroy it?”
“You tried to rescue her once. Would you be willing to do so again, Lieutenant?”
Ram could barely contain himself. “Where do I sign up?”
***
“Settle down, everyone, please,” Colonel Mathieson said, at the head of the briefing room. The thirty or forty people in the room turned to face the front and the hubbub died away inside of two seconds. “This mission must be launched in a little over two hours from now, at eighteen hundred hours. We will therefore keep this short. The Sentinel will begin to engage the enemy vessel, code name Wildfire, at approximately thirteen hundred tomorrow. To outline the naval element, I will hand over to the admiral.”
The colonel stepped back and Admiral Goto Howe took his place.
Admiral Howe was younger than Ram had expected, he looked maybe fifty years old, and he was very short. A 3D projection of Arcadia, with annotations, appeared next to the admiral. When he spoke, it was with an exceptionally clear, powerful voice and in a very proper English accent.
“The exact time of engagement is not known but the target vessel is approximately seventy thousand kilometers from the planet in a prograde orbit, descending and decelerating. The Sentinel is in a retrograde orbit and we are set to pass the enemy within a few thousand kilometers around thirteen hundred tomorrow. We therefore have around nineteen hours before the engagement begins. The Sentinel is under the command of Captain Cheng and we do of course believe that we can win that engagement. However, we have been presented with a remarkable opportunity to further tip the odds in our favor. Thanks to the actions of Lieutenant Xenakis and Lieutenant Seti, we have the resources to attempt a covert boarding of the Wildfire. The Navy will lead the transport element of the mission.” On the 3D image, a new course plot appeared, leading from the Sentinel in a curving line down to the planet, around it and back out again. “As you can see from the rendering, here, Lieutenant Xenakis will pilot her shuttle into a low altitude, just into the last wisps of the upper atmosphere and complete a quarter orbit in just a few minutes. In fact, almost immediately she will burn hard, here, to place the shuttle on an intercept course with the Wildfire.”
The admiral looked around. The room was silent but for the whirring and humming of the ship around them.
“Our intention is for the enemy to believe that one of their own transport drones is returning from the surface. We will achieve this end due to the use of an enemy IFF transponder obtained from the wreckage of a drone shot down and brought to the Sentinel. It is also only possible as we have an enemy asset who has agreed to join the mission and send the appropriate codes at the appropriate time. These codes will grant the shuttle entry into the enemy vessel.” Admiral Howe paused, fixing many of them in turn with a hard look. “There are risks involved. The course of the shuttle ensures there is no line of sight from the Wildfire to the shuttle until after the intercept burn and we will be doing all we can to distract them with brighter and flashier things. But it may be noticed early on. The enemy may see through the ruse at any moment. Our turncoat may be a double agent or otherwise untrustworthy. Yet we have a great opportunity to tip the odds in our favor and we must take it. No one has any delusions about the grave risks involved and, even so, every member of the team has volunteered for this mission. I have complete faith in their abilities and I know that they will rely on your full support.”
Risks? You’re risking a crazy pilot and a beat-up shuttle. You’re risking a Marine officer that no one wants, an injured sergeant removed from active duty for mental health issues and an enemy alien.
Ram looked across the aisle to Kat and raised his eyebrows. Kat rolled her eyes.
“As Captain Cheng and I have additional preparations to make for the engagement, I will hand over to Colonel Mathieson for the rest of the briefing. Good luck to you all.”
Everyone in the room got to their feet while the senior Navy officers left the room.
Ram glanced at Kat and she jerked her head a
t the retreating Admiral and his train of junior helpers. Ram nodded in agreement.
Can’t get away from this doomed mission fast enough.
“Alright,” Colonel Mathieson said as they sat again. “The mission’s primary objective is to place an explosive device within the structure of the enemy ship. The secondary objective is to locate four human prisoners and remove them from the vessel before the device is detonated. Due to the high-risk nature of this mission, we have a human pilot, Lieutenant Xenakis. A mission profile with an AI-only shuttle was rejected as the enemy have tech able to disrupt sensitive electronics, even when shielded. And the Lieutenant is in the running for best pilot in the whole UNOP Navy, so if she can’t do it, no one can. Providing cover from the cargo ramp will be Sergeant Stirling with a range of weaponry. Once the explosive device is in place, Lieutenant Seti and the wheelhunter asset will attempt to locate and extract the prisoners from inside the vessel. The device can be detonated directly, remotely and has a timer that will be triggered as soon as the shuttle is inside the Wildfire. Once either everyone is back on board or the minimum distance time is crossed, the shuttle will disembark. Questions?”
Silence. A few people shuffled in their seats. Everyone in the room must have known that the plan was insane. Known that it had almost no chance of success.
Ram certainly did.
16.
Kat regretted volunteering for the mission when she was about halfway to Arcadia. Too late to back out.
“Why the hell did I agree to this, Sheila?”
“I am unable to provide that answer,” the AI said. “However, a human pilot is recommended in all missions and especially when the profile suggests risk to the operation of the shuttle AI.”
“I’m backup. I’m risking my life to be backup. Just like every time I climb into this thing. I hate being a UNOP pilot, do you know that?”
“I did not know that, Kat.”
“It’s true, darling. I wish I had stayed on Earth and kept flying interceptors, it was a lot more fun.”
