The Requiem of Steel

by David Adams

  “Definitely,” Gurruwiwi said. “But I can’t help but think, Captain. What happens in that future? Will we keep fighting the Toralii forever?”

  That was a hard question to which neither she, nor anyone else she’d spoken to had a good answer. “Not sure I know.”

  Gurruwiwi nodded. “Few would. But I do question the wisdom of eternal war. In Australia, in Canberra, the capital, they placed the war memorial in line of sight to Parliament house. There’s a massive open strip that meant that, although they used to be quite far apart, they faced each other. I don’t know if it’s deliberate, but I enjoy the notion that our politicians, if deciding that we as a country should go to war, were forced to look down the road to the war memorial, and wonder if it was worth adding another wing.”

  She, too, liked that image. “My father encouraged me to sign up. He said that military personnel are brave and unlucky people, enabling civilians to be less brave and more lucky.”

  “Hopefully,” Jazz said, “we can be lucky enough today.”

  If it was Allah’s will. “Agreed,” she said then tuned out the rest of the conversation, letting the crew chatter around her.

  Smooth Pebbles floated in the black, slowly inching closer to Mullaŋan. The grey planetoid grew larger on her monitor; their target swung around the other side of the planet and was eclipsed. Two grey blobs that were their Broadswords, cold and seemingly inert, drifting silently behind the alien ship, appearing to the rest of the galaxy like wreckage—she hoped.

  Before long, the Broadswords, too, disappeared from view, and the rest was totally out of her hands.

  CSO’s station

  Broadsword Warsong

  Major Tess “Tiny” McKenna, Combat Systems Officer of the Warsong, stared at her control system at the approaching planetoid. Her ship spun slowly, without navigational power, causing the small round ball to wobble in her screens. Her ship, and its crew of marines from the Knight, drifted through space, turning over and over.

  Mullaŋan was such a small world, and so empty, a barren rock in the void. Black and dead, it orbited an equally lifeless star, surrounded by so much wreckage the sky must twinkle with it at night. All those pretty reflections would be beautiful.

  “I can’t believe it,” she said. They all had their internal communications devices and artificial gravity off—everything except low-power external sensors was off—so she talked to herself to keep her mind focused. “Is there really anyone alive on that thing?”

  “Who knows?” said Jack “Omelette” Breaker, their pilot as he moved right behind her.

  “Jack!” Tiny nearly jumped out of her skin. “W-What the fuck!”

  “Sorry,” Omelette said.

  That was a lie if ever she’d heard one. The guy grinned at her. She elbowed him in the gut, sending him into the ceiling and her spinning until she grabbed hold of her console with both hands.

  “Haven’t you got anything better to do?” she snapped, a little meaner than she’d intended. “Like fly the fucking ship?” A couple of deep breaths got her heart rate back to normal. “What are you doing back here?”

  Omelette kicked off the ceiling and drifted up to her again. “The ship’s on autopilot,” he said, stopping himself with the back of her chair. “Don’t worry, Tiny. Everything’s fine.”

  “Don’t tell me not to worry.” Tiny groaned and, reluctant to reward him for his shitbaggery, put her arm around his neck. “That’s how I know to worry.”

  The idiot just grinned at her like a chump.

  “You’re a piece of shit. You know that?” she said, pulling her hair out of her eyes.

  He laughed and kissed her. “That’s why you love me.”

  God, he was so pretty and stupid—and cute.

  “My shittiness. My best quality.”

  “No,” she said, smiling a half-smile, “I love you despite that. Plus, you’re the third best pilot in the fleet, so you’ve got that going for you.”

  Mock-offended, Omelette waggled a finger. “Third best? Excuse me?”

  The two exchanged a laugh. “Jazz beat you fair and square,” Tiny said. “You know that.”

  “He cheated.”

  This again. Always with the competition… Tiny put her hands on her hips. “He won because he’s the better pilot. You really need to let this go. It was a long time ago.”

  “He over-g’d, and the simulator didn’t pick him up on it.” Omelette slowly spun himself head over heels in the zero gravity. “That’s cheating.”

  “That’s winning,” Tiny said. “There was a chance he would have been disqualified. He took a risk.”

  Omelette smiled that cheeky, shit-eating smile of his as his head came around. “Maybe you should be fucking him instead of me, then.”

  “Maybe,” teased Tiny, her tone dripping with sarcasm, “I already am. You ever considered that, huh?”

  “Uhh—” clearly he hadn’t, and sarcasm was a foreign art. “You, um, aren’t, are you?”

  Of course not, but there was no reason to let him know that. She dragged out her answer, but a faint shudder ran through Warsong, vibrating it like an air current. As one, she and Omelette were cut off by a chirp that echoed down from the cockpit.

  “Damn,” Omelette said, stopping his spin. “That’s the autopilot.”

  “Time to get to work,” Tiny said, making a shoo-ing motion. “Fly now, jealousy later.”

  Omelette pushed off her chair and down the passageway, calling over his shoulder, “You didn’t really sleep with him, did you?”

  Tiny just winked, then strapped herself into her seat, focusing on her monitors. As she drank in the information displayed there, the levity and boredom evaporated instantly.

  The Warsong was passing through the edge of some kind of gravimetric disturbance. The waves were extremely constant, as though being emitted by some deliberate mechanism. It was highly localised energy similar in some ways to the gravity mines humanity had secured Earth with before its destruction, but in a remarkably different configuration. Those were designed to pulse randomly so as to make jumping impossible. These, however, emitted a constant rate, unlike anything she’d ever seen.

  Motion out of the corner of her eye stole her attention. A green spot on the black world, the round splodge of life was no more than a thousand kilometres across, but on such a small planetoid, it stood out like a wart on a face. It hadn’t been there before. She flicked her cameras over to infrared; the spot was still there, a hot dot in a sea of cold. Without active sensors, she could do nothing but look, so look she did.

  “What the hell?”

  “You’re seeing it too, huh?” Omelette shouted from the cockpit. “The gravitational manipulation was hiding the damn thing!”

  The Toralii—clever fuckers!—had been using the reactionless device technology to warp the dim light of the dead system, bending it around the tiny spot of growth on the surface of the otherwise-lifeless planetoid, making the small dot seem like just another bare, empty patch. Someone had gone to a great deal of trouble to hide the patch of greenery, and a thief’s greatest delight was a locked safe.

  As the resolution improved, the green swelled, coming into focus. At the centre was black dot within the green, like an eye looking at them.

  “Got another contact,” Tiny said, as much to herself as to anyone who might be creepily wandering up behind her again. “A structure.”

  It was massive, nearly two hundred feet tall, and comprised of thick metal that their feeble passive sensors could not penetrate. A belt of greenery surrounded it, winding coils like tendrils that snaked out across the soil of the planet. It was terraforming: atmosphere held in place by gravity-generating devices, powered by some kind of reactor. A massive black obelisk jutted out of it, with what appeared to be strange spires thrusting upward towards the fake, artificial sky.

  They had found Zar’krun.

  “You seeing this?” she called.

  The slightest tremor as the ship changed course told her he h
ad. “Tell the marines to go ready the cutting laser,” Omelette shouted back. “They’ll be seeing us pretty soon, if they haven’t already. We’re going in five!”

  She unclipped herself, pushed away, floated to the ceiling, and turned towards the floor hatch that lead to the gunship’s passenger compartment. The moment she lifted the hatch, the smell hit her. Weapon lubricant. Gunpowder. Sweat. Body odour.

  The pure, unadulterated funk was the product of a dozen marines crammed into a too-small airtight can for hours in full combat gear. Sweating. Farting. Belching. Committing unnameable affronts against her nose, each of them. It wasn’t just the men, either; a quarter of the marines were female. Marine culture didn’t seem to care about gender differences; the women stank just like their male comrades.

  “Hey,” she shouted into the passenger compartment, a zero-gravity box full of flesh and steel. “We’re inserting in five. Corporal Foley, get ready to do your thing!”

  “Ooorah!” was the shout, the foremost Corporal Alexander Foley.

  The ship rocked as something struck its outer hull. The Toralii definitely knew the Warsong was there.

  She shut the hatch and touched her radio. “All hands, end radio silence and move to condition two. Weapons tight. Get ready to rock and roll.” Tiny floated back to her console and, with the tap of a few buttons, bought the ship out of low-power mode. The reactor hummed with power as the ship sprang to life, gravity was restored, and energy returned to the weapons. She sank into her seat and strapped herself in once more.

  Igniter opened a channel. “How’re you doing over there, darlin’?” asked Captain Brock “Brick” Samson, his deep southern drawl coming through like treacle. “Seems like the cats are a mite ornery this morning.”

  The ship lurched as Omelette dodged incoming fire. Tiny’s console showed the white-hot streaks leaping out from the perimeter of the green zone, like a mouth full of teeth trying to take a bite. “We probably woke them up,” Tiny said in return. “Poor little furballs ain’t going to have a catnap today.”

  “Copy that,” Brick said, “let’s get down to the surface and insert our men.”

  “Affirm. I’m sick of smelling them.” Tiny switched to the Broadsword’s internal frequency. “All gunners, weapons free, weapons free. Engage targets of opportunity. Call your targets. Be advised: danger close. We have people on the ground and Igniter in the air. Do not shoot our buddies, and do not hit the main structure. Pilot, get us down to the surface.”

  Warsong bobbed and weaved, careful to avoid colliding with Igniter, avoiding the incoming fire as best they could. Between the defensive manoeuvres, the shudder of gravimetric disturbances, and the growing presence of atmosphere, the Broadsword trembled with anticipation.

  Then, with the thud of metal on metal, it stopped.

  “All hands,” Omelette said, “we have attached to the outer wall of Zar’krun. Engage the drilling laser and commence gas insertion.”

  That was standard procedure for attacking Toralii ships and structures: gas, followed by marines. The ship’s power levels dipped as the laser stole from her reactor.

  “This is Foley,” came the voice of the marines. “Drilling laser engaged. Get ready to receive prisoners.”

  Liao’s Quarters

  Meanwhile

  Liao lay on her bed with her hand behind her head, intending for sleep to come but finding it difficult. She had thinking to do—and planning. She began to feel tired, deathly tired, almost as though the energy was being sapped out of her body. Her breathing shallowed, almost as though she weren’t getting enough air.

  Liao tried to stand, but her head swam, and dots formed in front of her eyes. Panic set in. Was she dying? Was what Sanders had communicable? Why was she—

  Despite a frenzied attempt to fight it, Liao passed out and barely felt her head hit the hard, uncomfortable pillow.

  She sensed something being put over her head, something thick and rubbery. It enclosed her head, gripping it, squeezing… entombing her head within darkness.

  Liao kicked and struggled through a mind-fog, trying to force herself to wake up. To stand up. To fight.

  When her eyes opened, she was looking through a gas mask. An unheard explosion had torn the door off her cell, blasting it onto the ground and filling her cell with smoke. Surrounded by the wispy tendrils were three figures, vaguely humanoid, with glowing green eyes. Some kind of monsters. Beasts and demons had finally come to slay her in the night.

  She sat bolt upright, ears ringing. The strange creatures’ green eyes stared at her blankly.

  No. Not eyes. Night vision goggles worn over a gas mask, identical to her own.

  “Captain Liao,” said the masked figure, withdrawing an M9 pistol and handing it to her grip first. “Corporal Alexander Foley. United States Marine Corps, attached to the Knight. We’re here to rescue you.”

  An actual rescue? It seemed asinine. Incredible. She doubted—she had hoped, planned, and pleaded with anyone who would listen, but now it was actually happening.

  Liao said the only thing she could think of. “Thank you.”

  “Pleasure’s mine,” Foley said, drawing a handgun and handing it to her by the barrel, grip first. “No one gets left behind.”

  Liao took the gun with a shaking hand. She could only guess it was loaded and chambered; good thing, too, as with only one arm, she would struggle. With a bit of luck, it wouldn’t come to that. “How did you find me?” she asked. It was the only question she dared.

  “Doesn’t matter,” Foley said. “Where are the rest of the Humans?”

  “Nearby cells. The Humans are held all along this corridor.” Cautiously, she stood and adjusted her mask. The smoke in her chambers was everywhere; it hadn’t come from the explosion. It was some kind of vapour that filled the complex in a thin white mist.

  “Aye aye,” Foley said to the rest of his men. “This way, move, move!”

  As one, the group filed out into the corridor. The guards were passed out at their posts, their weapons slumped up against their sides.

  “Blow these doors,” Foley said, his Dragon’s Breath rifle pressed snugly against his shoulder. “Get everyone out.”

  It was happening. Slowly, but surely, with increasing sureness, the realisation hit her.

  They had come for her.

  “Where’s the extraction point?” she asked, her voice muffled by the mask. “Speaking of which, where are we?”

  “You won’t believe me if I told you, but don’t worry. There’ll be time enough for questions when we’re out of here. The main thing you need to know, ma’am, is that we’re on a dead planet—uh, more or less—and there’s a Broadsword waiting to take you to the closest jump point.” He pointed down the corridor. “Head to the main central area. There’s a section that heads off from there; we blew our entrance at that position to make our infiltration. Ramirez, Hovet, go with her. If anyone shoots at you, paint the corridors purple with their blood.”

  Going out the same way they went in made sense. Foley and other marines, ten or twelve of them, went to work blowing the doors off other cells. They had cleared a half-dozen already; her fellow prisoners were being escorted out, moving in twos and threes, all of them clad in gas masks.

  “Captain,” said Decker-Sheng. “You ready to go home?”

  “More than ever, sir.” She gave him a firm nod. “Going to need a shower, new arm. Going to eat a whole bunch of sweet and sour pork and wontons. It’s going to be great.”

  “You and me both.” The relief was clear in his voice. “The exit’s this way.”

  They walked side-by-side to the main holding area. Two huge holes had been blasted into the low roof, through which the loading ramps of a pair of Broadsword gunships extended, like the tongues of dragons waiting to take them aboard. All around them, unconscious Toralii lay strewn about. She casually kicked one the guards, who didn’t move.

  Then she saw Sunkret, his four arms splayed out on the deck, unconscious just like all the o
thers. He was smaller than the Toralii… and an entirely different species. What if the gas affected him differently? How would she even know?

  Carefully, Liao crouched next to him. He seemed to be breathing. Or wheezing faintly. It was hard to say… she touched his arm. It was colder than normal.

  “Ma’am?” asked the marine beside her. “You want me to snatch that guy, bring him along with us?”

  Did she? What kind of reception would Sunkret receive with the Humans? Would he be allowed to stay? Would it be better if he stayed here, where he belonged?

  They didn’t know what crime he had allegedly committed. It might very well be that he, more than any of them, deserved to be there. Maybe it would be best if they slipped away, forgetting Sunkret, forgetting everyone who wasn’t Human…

  In that brief moment, she didn’t have time to decide. “Take him with us. He’s been a friend to me here.”

  The marine picked up Sunkret and sling him over his shoulder. She stepped up onto the ramp of the left Broadsword, but as she did so, she turned around and risked a glance at the room.

  “Ma’am, we should go,” Decker-Sheng said, his foot on the same loading ramp.

  She nodded. “Right.” Eternity had not seemed that long.

  She caught a glimpse of O’Hill’s smiling eyes as he boarded the other Broadsword.

  This shouldn’t be an awkward trip. It should be triumphant. She looked to Decker-Sheng. “I’ll catch the other one,” she said, stepping back.

  Decker-Sheng’s expression was difficult to read under the gas mask, but he nodded. “Of course.”

  O’Hill waved her over. Decker-Sheng didn’t need her to be there. Liao moved over to the other craft then slowly and deliberately stepped up the ramp. She took her seat next O’Hill. An unconscious Sunkret was slung over the shoulder of the marine two seats down from her; the officers were crammed in with everyone else. She put her hand in her lap, still holding the gifted pistol.

  Then the remaining marines filtered in. The Broadsword’s loading ramp retracted, the ship sealed itself with a faint hiss, then it detached from the facility with the scrape of metal on metal.