by G. P. Eliot
The Pequod appeared in a flash and glimmer of light in a patch of non-descript space above a non-descript planet.
The planet below was grey-white, and was only known as Gilese 9b. It was large, but it was so far out from its Gilesian sun that its revolution was almost a crawl and its core was almost inactive. Gilese 9b had little in the way of precious metals or ores, and the effort it would take to terraform it had placed it amongst the many other surveyed planets that were little more than curiosities.
Which made it a perfect spot for the Union Forward Operating Base 421.
“Minister Chakman, this is the Pequod requesting an immediate audience,” the Jackal said from his command chair on the Bridge. It was hard to keep the scorn from his voice. The words of the dissident Hank were still ringing in his ears:
“…Then why are you still an employee? Why aren’t you up there yourself, making the rules?”
The Jackal glowered at 421 heavily.
The Union had many such Forward Operating Bases, of course, spread throughout its territories. The Union had realized a long time ago that a distributed network of military and intelligence bases was the only way to police such a large space. So, in the event of any Confederate or non-aligned attack they not only had the closest Union planet’s defense forces, but also the nearest Operating Base as well.
Like all of the others, the FOB 421 was a space platform, looking more or less like a giant X in space. Each arm was a launch hangar, stuffed full of ships of varying sizes and capabilities. Its externals gleamed a dull black, and small red and orange lights flickered up and down its surface in lines.
Each of the FOBs were further coded between Operational, Silver, Gold, and Black, determining their particular abilities. The Operational were the most ubiquitous, and given over to mostly military and emergency response capabilities. The others were rarer, and generally had higher-ranking Union officials present.
The FOB 421 was classified as Black, meaning that it was military intelligence only.
“Jackal.” A holo flickered to life on one of the Pequod’s forward screens. It was Minister Chakman, a thin woman with sharp eyes and long hair that must have once been a mousy brown, but was now streaked with lines of silver. She had that lean, pinched tone to her flesh that indicated a life of hard work and uncompromising decisions.
“You have not been given orders to return to base. I take it that your mission is complete?” the woman said sternly. But still, the Jackal could detect a slight flicker in her eyes as she talked to him. A wariness. Fear?
“How can I complete my mission if I don’t even know what it is?” the Jackal snapped at her. Around him on the Bridge a new layer of tension filled the air. His Wolverines would follow him to the fires of hell if he asked them to of course, but they had never heard the Jackal be so aggressive to the political leaders of the Union itself.
“And precisely what is it that you do not understand about your mission?” Chakman’s tone went dead as she glared at him. Any other soldier would have quailed and apologized immediately. “It should be clear: Apprehend the dissidents. They are traitors to the Union, who have stolen valuable Union assets. Use any and all force necessary to recover the asset that they stole from us.”
Chakman took a deep breath. “In what way is that not clear?”
The Jackal’s prosthetic hands tightened on the edges of his arm rests. It would be so easy to order his crew to open-up on FOB 421. It wouldn’t be an easy fight, he knew–but it would be so satisfying. One part of the man’s brain started imagining how it would go–the Pequod’s Orbital Laser could easily punch a hole through the arms of FOB 421. Maybe he would be able to send it cartwheeling down to the dead planet below, where it would land like a giant ‘X marks the spot’.
That mental image cheered the Jackal up slightly. Here was I, the Jackal, he thought. The optimism it gave him was enough to make him raise his chin and smile viciously at his superior.
“What is very clear, Minister Chakman, is that you must be a very long time out of your military service years,” he said. Again, his fellow Wolverines on the Bridge were far too controlled to gasp or shuffle awkwardly, but the air thickened as each and every person around listened in awe.
“Excuse me, soldier?” the Minister’s lips pursed.
“…Why aren’t you up there yourself, making the rules?” The Jackal remembered. Strangely, that misguided fool Hank Snider had actually been right on that, at least. It should be him in charge of this mission. In full operational charge, not just flying around here or there like the Minister’s errand boy.
“As a commanding officer–and a special tactical commanding officer at that–I have a right to know the contents of that Message. And what it means. And where the Message will lead my fugitives.” The Jackal stated.
“Your rights are determined by the Ministers alone!” Chakman said angrily. “How dare you seek to tell me what rights you have? We remade you! We gave you new life after that man’s dogs—”
“They were wolves, Minister,” the Jackal sneered. As if mere dogs could have cost him his hands and his throat!
“Whatever. You would have died were it not for our good graces. You owe us, soldier.”
Owe. The word was like an insult to the Jackal. How could a man like him owe anything? To anyone?
It wasn’t that the Jackal was under any illusions as to what his limits and weaknesses were. He just knew that he didn’t have many of them. Growing up with his psychology–or psychopathy, as the doctors and therapists had referred to it–meant that he had very little time for all of the usual mental and emotional ticks that kept other humans down.
The Jackal rarely felt remorse or guilt or shame. Or if he did, it was generally in a removed way. ‘Oh, that is what that feeling is like. How interesting.’
The Jackal also only rarely felt things like sympathy, empathy or compassion. He remembered once feeling particularly fond of one of his favorite hunting knives, and sad when he had lost it. Well, he thought ‘lost’ but he actually had always known precisely where it was–its blade was trapped inside the skull of a man who’d had the audacity to try and cheat him.
He wouldn’t make that same mistake twice, the Jackal thought. Next time, he would save his best weapons for himself and just shoot the man instead!
So, for the Minister Chakman–a woman who in the Jackal’s eyes was clearly past her prime–to think that he owed her anything was laughable. And anyway–hadn’t he been doing Union work at the time? Didn’t the Union have a duty to look after their soldiers?
“Minister.” The Jackal pulled himself up straighter in his chair. He knew his own worth. He knew precisely what he was capable of–which was far more than this bean-counter in front of him!
And the Jackal also knew that the Union had no one else who could replace him.
“How do you expect me to accurately strategize and model my opponents if I have no idea what is at stake? How do you expect me to magically guess where the Message has led them if you yourselves will not tell me what the Message contains?” The Jackal even managed to sound reasonable.
“Perhaps if you were better at tracking, hunting, and interrogation we wouldn’t be having this conversation, soldier,” the Minister returned.
It was the wrong thing to say to a man like the Jackal. It was clear that these sorts of cat-and-dog arguments were all part of the trade to a Minister like Chakman. She probably spent all day every day embroiled in sophisticated arguments, after all.
But the Jackal was a different kettle of fish. He had absolutely zero time to play games with words.
“Perhaps if you told me what the content of the Message is, then I won’t have to leak all that I know to the news agencies?” the Jackal purred at her, as he slowly stood up.
“What did you just say?” Minister Chakman gasped. “Are you attempting to threaten me, soldier?”
There it was again. That little word ‘soldier’ that the Minister had managed to turn into an i
nsult. As if it meant that he was any less than her, the Jackal could have reached through the intervening space and throttled her.
“I have no need for threats, Minister. I am merely stating the facts. If you do not give me the information that I require to do my job, then I will have to conclude that you have failed me.” The Jackal said sternly. “And no, do not be so arrogant and think that I am talking just to you. I am talking to the entire Ministers and Elites of the Union.” The Jackal stalked forward towards the holo.
You see, the Jackal had worked something out. The Ministers of the Union needed men like him. They needed people who would go and do things for them so that they could keep out of the way.
The Jackal also knew that if the Ministers lost him, then they would also lose the Wolverines–which he had spent years turning into a personally loyal and almost-fanatical fighting force.
Were the Ministers that foolish to throw it all away?
“I know that you must have decoded the Message yourselves,” the Jackal said, “or at least a part of it.”
“The Message could be a dangerous Trojan Horse sent by whatever aliens attacked Old Earth!” Chakman burst out. “You know that as well as I do—”
There was a sharp ‘pop’ of static, and the holo of Minister Chakman snapped off. So did one of the viewing screens that was handling all telemetries and communications.
“Comms? Has that woman hung up on me?” the Jackal berated his communications officer.
“Sir, no sir.” The Wolverine said. “There appeared to be some kind of override on the FOB 421 channel…” the Wolverine said.
“Officer.” A voice suddenly emerged from the blackness of the screen. It was hard to tell if it was a male or a female voice, as it appeared to be modulated by some sort of digital-masking program.
“Who am I speaking to?” the Jackal asked.
“You are speaking to someone who is able to provide answers.” The mysterious voice said.
The Elites, the Jackal thought. The shadowy figures at the head of the Union government. No–not the government–at the head of Union society. Those who were so powerful that they did not need to be re-elected or chosen for their positions every few years. They did not need letters of recommendation or testimonials and portfolios.
How long had the Elites been listening in to this conversation?
How long had the Elites been listening in to him?
“The Message Center was also home to the generation ship the Dalida,” the Jackal said. “I do not take that as a coincidence. The same place that was decoding the Message was also preparing the most advanced seed colony that humanity has ever seen…”
“Correct.” The voice said in its strange, almost automated tones.
“Then what does the Message contain? Where does it point to?” the Jackal snarled.
There was a moment of silence, before the voice returned. “The Message contains the key to the future of humanity. Nothing short of our salvation and survival.” The voice said.
“But all of that has now been stolen by a small bunch of self-serving dissidents, who will keep the technologies and secrets for themselves, or else sell them to the highest bidder. Is that the way that you want the Union to fall apart? By the greed of the few?”
I don’t care how the Union falls apart at all, the Jackal mentally shrugged. But his ears did prick up when he heard the man say ‘technologies and secrets’.
Perhaps he could be the one to blackmail the Elites? If he could get his hands on the content of the Message, that is.
“If I tell you where the Message points to, will you apprehend these traitors for us? Will you save humanity? Will you save the Union?” The voice said.
The Jackal almost laughed at that. This voice was clearly trying to appeal to some sort of shared humanity that they thought he shared. Just as the Jackal didn’t care about the Union–he didn’t care if the rest of humanity lived or dissolved into their riots and epidemics and wars all over again.
But there was no reason to let one of the Elites know that, was there?
“Of course,” the Jackal smiled wolfishly. “Where do I need to go?”
27
“Dead ahead, Boss,” said Ida, referring to a section of the digital hexagram map overlaid on the shuttle’s forward screens.
The chute of rock that they had been travelling through was now just a few meters wide on either side of them. There was barely the room to maneuver the shuttle around the lumps and bumps of rock that projected into the acid.
There was a difference in the digital map ahead. A flat surface.
And everything else around us was curved and jagged and organic, the Captain thought. A perfectly flat surface meant that it had been manufactured. Carved, perhaps.
“Slowing to zero point two thrusters,” Hank called out. He was sweating, even inside his environmental suit. He dared himself to look at the internal temperatures of the shuttle itself–seventy-something degrees Celsius.
We must be pretty deep inside the planet, Hank thought as the forward shuttle lights illuminated a shadow, and then—
It was a bulkhead. A metal door. Hank could see the flat metal structure, and then an indented oval ring in the middle.
An airlock.
Which was pretty fortunate, the man had to think, as one of the shuttles forward lights suddenly burst and went dark, as the acid had finally managed to eat its way through the outer cells.
“Shuttle forward plating at 30%” the ship’s computers blared their warning. He had set it to warn them at every 5 degree loss of metal efficiency. The problem was that it was happening every ten seconds or so now. As soon as the acid had managed to burn its way through the outer protective coatings, it was having a cascade effect as it worked faster and faster through the inner plates.
Which gives us what–a minute before the shuttle breaks apart entirely?
Hank wasted no time in pulling the shuttle around and clunking it against what he thought had to be the oval.
“Initiating locking procedure,” he called, and already Steed was up and out of his chair and standing ready at the door, his laser blaster raised in two hands.
“No time to waste,” he told his men, abandoning the controls and hitting the door release as soon as the lock light went green.
There was a hiss, and the three men jumped through. The oval dove-tailed closed behind them with a soft mechanical hum, and then Hank and the others all heard the sounds of grating and screaming metal from the far side.
“Ah…” Hank winced. “I think we have to try and catch a new ride home when we’re done?”
“Still no contact with the Dalida, and my sensors are still only good for two hundred meters,” Ida informed him.
Hank growled, but guessed that he shouldn’t expect anything better. He and his team were alive. They hadn’t had their faces eaten off by sulfuric acid. That had to count as a win, right?
They were in an exact square corridor that looked as though it had been cut out of the rock with laser precision. The rock itself around them was marbled where the laser must have sliced through.
“But we still have no idea who made this…” Hank muttered.
“Or what,” Madigan added. Even the big guy looked a bit spooked from inside the helmet of his environmental suit.
“Head’s up, chaps,” Hank said. “We’re the representatives of humanity, don’t you know?” It was his attempt at a joke–but it didn’t seem to go down well with the denizens of this underground realm, as suddenly there was the sound of something approaching, chittering like an insect.
“Crap!” Hank’s first instinct was to raise his laser pistol, but then he remembered that he might be about to greet an alien species. Instead, he lowered it and raised his alternate hand.
“We come in peace!” he called out.
“Uh, Captain? I don’t think they do,” Steed said.
The chittering, insect-like things emerged into the light. They were flying on tiny wings.
>
And they were made of metal. No bigger than a man’s head, with small, segmented bodies. And where their faces should be was a collection of slashing and flaring blades.
“Drones!” Hank shouted and fired.
The first one went down with the Captain’s laser shot, but it was only to be replaced by two more.
“Light them up!” Hank was shouting, and Steed and Madigan needed no more encouragement. Steed fell into a crouch, using his medium blaster to track and shoot at individual drones.
Not Madigan, though. He held his far heavier blaster at hip level like his beloved shotgun. He had already flicked its controls into burst fire as he sprayed the buzzing cloud as it descended on them. Laser beams illuminated the passageway like red strobe lights, as well as the bursts of plasma fire from Madigan’s far larger gun.
