Citizen Pariah (Unreal Universe Book 3)

by Lee

  The moment the black hole engines had proven not only workable, but impressively efficient, Trinity’d held to Its promises; every ship in Special Services had been outfitted with the new rigging no matter where in Trinityspace it’d been parked. More than half the Army’s vessels had undergone the same treatment. They’d all launched themselves at the unsuspecting solar system, confident that the battle –minus a few hitches- would end quickly.

  Using a fiendish –and some would argue impossible- design involving Trinity’s new planetary shield techniques and actual gravity bombs, SpecSer tech teams had discovered a way to launch ships at a remote target at speeds faster than light. Since the technique didn’t involve any of the sciences or branches of science outlawed by Trinity for being too dangerous and/or illegal, the machine mind had gracefully decided not to kill everyone involved, so long as they get their hindquarters to Latelyspace as soon as possible.

  The Army, the ‘golden child’ of Trinity Itself and the ‘face of modern warfare’, had insisted on taking the lead for that initial sortie into Latelyspace. Their reasoning, at the time, had been simple –if embarrassingly egomaniacal-; all their ships looked the same, were easily identifiable as belonging to Trinity, and were really quite intimidating, whereas SpecSer forces were the equivalent of spacefaring hobos in dirty shirts, what with their mishmash of ships from a thousand different solar systems and their steadfast refusal to even recognize that the word ‘uniform’ existed.

  Understanding that wars were hardly ever won based on who made the grandest entrance, Politoyov had capitulated to Admiral Bennenson’s demands without batting an orange eyeball. Winning wars wasn’t about who made the best entrance, but who stuck around the longest.

  Ships moving faster than light need a lot of AI processing power to ensure that everything goes smoothly. Even level 8 and 9 AI spheres had a difficult time analyzing and assessing data coming at them at those speeds. They’d lost a dozen or more of the costly minds in the beginning, realizing in a burst of insight that, while the new engines had no real upper limit to velocity, you could hit the ceiling on AI processing power pretty damn quickly. The delicate synthetic diamond fiber optic brains were able to handle the flow once things were up and running at eighty percent of max speed, but when you cannot see a goddamn solar system-sized shield, there was … there was nothing you could do but watch space cruisers the size of cities burst into pretty fireworks.

  That was the first wrinkle. Latelyspace had destroyed roughly half of their invasion force without even firing a shot.

  Trinity was pissed; It’d brought those Army ships in from dozens of different hotspots throughout It’s Domain, hotspots that couldn’t really afford to be without military presence for any goodly length of time. Getting the Army back up to strength wasn’t just a matter of pointing to a bunch of different worlds and shouting ‘sign up for the Army now!’ There was training to do, experience to gain, wisdom to acquire. It wasn’t the deaths that had Trinity irate, oh no, not at all; It’d been expecting massive casualties. It was more that It would’ve preferred there to be casualties on both sides.

  The second wrinkle, one that Aleksander was glad they weren’t actually having to deal with right now, was the whole reason why they’d come to Latelyspace in the first place.

  Garth Nickels. Commander Politoyov knew more than most about the man. Truthfully, though, he spent most of his waking hours wishing he didn’t know anything at all. The rest of the time he worried what was happening behind that shield.

  Garth Nickels was a destroyer. A wild-eyed, dark-haired, died-in-the-wool eater of worlds. He was a technical savant, too, but on a level that made the Offworlder’s feet sweat and brain itch. You could –and it’d happened- drop Nickels on a planet with no technology whatsoever, he’d have the local equivalent of Hand of Glory missiles built and ready to launch in a matter of days. Armed with these deadly world-breakers, he’d threaten to launch them at the sun if the natives didn’t bring him things like ‘Jujubes’ or ‘hamburgers’.

  Plop Garth on a planet with computers and actual science and fissionable material, and suddenly buildings were being launched into space and space stations were stolen from under the noses of systemic crime lords.

  But in a system like Latelyspace, where there were no laws governing what areas the mad scientists delved into, where there were no safeguards against insanity… there was no telling what was actually on the other side of the shield.

  Not for the first time, Politoyov wondered if the shield wasn’t there to keep them all alive. At his worst, Nickels hadn’t exactly been a ‘spare the wounded’ kind of man.

  Politoyov wrinkled his nose. He couldn’t make up his mind. Was he happy that he wasn’t currently going toe-to-toe with Garth Nickels or not? He wished he had a piece of paper he could ball up and throw against the wall.

  “Sir?”

  The commander looked up from his navel gazing. It was one of his aides. “Yes?”

  “They’re … they’re doing it again.” The aide, a young woman with a pageboy haircut, rubbed a hand through her immaculately short hair nervously.

  “Don’t they have anything better to do?” Politoyov demanded angrily as he rose from his chair. He followed the woman –Patrice, if he wasn’t mistaken- out into the corridor. Highly trained commander-ears heard whispers and grumbles as Patrice ‘led’ him to the command station in the middle of the battleship.

  His escort grew from Patrice to dozens and by the time Commander Aleksander Politoyov made it to the bridge, he had to nudge his way through a crowd of nervously excited soldiers and SpecSer servicemen alike. Politoyov shooed a ranked officer out of his chair with a smack to the back of the head and watched the antics of the five unknown men with the gaze of a predator.

  AI analysis didn’t know what to make of their … visitors. The shield prevented or hindered all but the crudest of their sensors from operating properly, so they didn’t have definitive proof that the five weren’t God soldiers, but if they were, they were unlike any others anyone had ever seen. They lacked all the physical hallmarks of soldiers so heavily augmented that they made departed Zurich seem like a newborn.

  One of the spectators gasped as one of the five, a dark-haired, black-eyed … devilish looking man, blurred then added six feet two inches to his frame. The others chuckled in the depth of space and did the same.

  Politoyov barked to the AIs. “How are they doing that?”

  The response came back almost immediately. “Unknown. Their physical forms adhere to no standard model of rationality. Assessment of the change is that it is not …”

  Politoyov threw up a hand. “I remember from yesterday, Gamma. ‘It is not illusion or manipulation’. They are actually growing that big.”

  “How … how are they breathing?” Someone new asked.

  The commander for Trinity’s assembled might shook his head in disgust as the quintet began tossing a ball around, their stark features alight with humor. “That,” he turned, trying to spy who’d asked the question, “That is what bothers you? Not the whole ‘growing bigger in the blink of an eye’ thing.”

  As his eyes roved over the crowd trying to locate the man or woman who’d asked such a stupid question so he could kick them off the bridge and ban them for the duration of the operation from ever asking something so stupid again, Politoyov grew aware that every single one of them was standing stock still, their faces pale, their mouths wide open, their eyes … their eyes positively ablaze with terror.

  “I swear by all that is holy,” Politoyov muttered as he slowly swiveled his head back, “if they’re inside this ship, I will blast this bridge into sp … well, no. That wouldn’t work. Fuck me.”

  About the only thing that was lucky was that the five mysterious, space-breathing, size-changing men weren’t in the ship. Politoyov reflected that would be better than what they were doing; they were somehow managing to stare directly at them, and were rapping ever-so-gently on where AI systems said the shield
was.

  “Let us in.”

  The voice whispered through the bridge comm systems, awash with a hissing noise.

  Three of the viewers passed out and a clean dozen threw up on themselves. Klaxon alarms and the assorted noises of machines and AI minds abruptly doing the electronic version of passing out and throwing up on themselves filled the bridge.

  “Let us innnnn….”

  “It’s so cold out here….”

  Politoyov turned the monitors off, skin tingling with cold sweat. “Every … every non-essential person on this bridge … get your asses off it.”

  The monitors flicked back on of their own accord. One of the five tick-tocked a finger at them. The speakers filled back up with soulless moaning and whispers. The lights began flickering.

  Politoyov hung his head in his hands. This stank of a Garth Nickels ploy. When their most successful Specter hadn’t been busy figuring out ways to blow up planets with a quarter-stick of dynamite he’d been busy coming up with new and ingenious methods of driving his targets batshit insane.

  “All right.” Politoyov thumbed a button and waited for the comm system to acknowledge that his voice would be heard across every single speaker in his armada. He didn’t do speeches, he hated talking to this many men, women and other all at the same time, preferred, actually, to do as little as possible and to trust those in his command to do what they knew how to do with as little interference as seemed realistic.

  But this … shape-shifting, space-breathing men who whispered through speakers that were allegedly hardened against interference … this was, in Garth Nickels’ own words, total bullshit.

  “Everyone, listen up. I know this is going to sound redundant, but ignore those crazy bastards out there. They’re messing with our minds. This is psychological operations at its finest. We’ve all seen some nasty shit in our long careers and when this is all over and done with, we can sit around a table drinking beers and scaring the ever-loving shit out of one another with this particularly nightmarish story. And when we get drunk enough and it’s late enough in the evening, we can confess to one another how close we came to pissing our pants but for now, right now, I want every single man, woman and Offworlder in these ships to focus on coming up with a way to get through that shield. I want you to do that, and I want you to do it quick because so help me, I would really like to jam a HoG down each one of those motherfucker’s throats and set them off like human-shaped Roman candles. Are we clear?”

  Except for the whispering and ghoulish jibber-jabbering and the flickering lights on his bridge, Politoyov was greeted with total silence.

  He cleared his throat. “I said, are we clear, soldiers?”

  AI systems began tallying acknowledgement signals from the soldiers on the other ships. Everyone on the bridge saluted.

  Politoyov grinned. The focus wouldn’t last. Psy Ops were effective. He had maybe a day before he’d have to come up with something new to get his men to concentrate on the task at hand. After that … it was anyone’s guess as to what would happen.

  “I don’t know if you can hear me out there,” Politoyov whispered, locking eyes with the one he’d decided was the leader of the impossible quintet, “but if we get in there, you, you personally, are going to suffer agony on a level never experienced before.”

  A surge of electric fear lanced through the Offworld commander’s body as the leader grinned back at him, flipping a sardonic two-fingered salute.

  Something had to happen. Something had to break. Or they’d all go mad.

  Politoyov watched the antics of the five Latelian super soldiers for a few more minutes before heading back to his private quarters. Hopefully –as had happened in the past- they’d get bored and go back to whatever Pit of Hell they’d crawled out of in the first place.

  ***

  Ute read the data report on his prote for a third time, one of his massive hands splayed out against the nearest wall; the tremors were getting worse, and though only the lower levels were experiencing major stress from the rapid vibrations, sooner or later, the whole mountain would start shaking.

  “You need to leave.” Ute barked into his prote. Sidra, the bodyguard, stared back.

  “I cannot.”

  Ute bit back a retort. “We’re evacuating The Peak, si. Whatever is happening with Bravo cannot be a good thing. The man you are protecting is the Chairman. And he is a little person. Pick him up, fling him over a shoulder, and walk through a wall if you have to, just get him out of there!”

  A fleeting look of desire flickered across Foursie Sidra’s face before she responded, leaving Ute to wonder what in the hell was going on down there besides a suddenly suicidal Chairman lounging around while several billion tons of reinforced mountain geared up to fall on his balding head.

  “The Chairman will not leave his compatriot, Sa Ute. If the … if Bravo explodes with The Engineer inside, the Chairman says there is no reason to continue on.” Sidra’s eyes shone with pride. “This is not a suicidal statement, Sa Ute, or melancholy. He is right. I would not want for him to witness what we will do should Bravo’s occupant die.”

  Nor do I, Ute thought morosely. Of all the God soldiers under Harmony tutelage, he was the only one who hadn’t bought into the idea of anarchy and nihilism that lay just under Fenris’ … preaching. It rankled the oldest God soldier sorely, but there was nothing he could –or would- do about it, because the flip side of everything was that Goddies everywhere were learning how to … how to be again.

  After –in most cases- thousands of years of being relegated to simplistic tasks and painfully moronic thoughts, men and women he’d watched from the shadows were finally, gloriously capable of holding conversations, of tracking down relatives and standing tall and saying ‘I am Gorrak, your great-great-great to the tenth power nephew’ and being given something every man and woman in the world wants: family.

  “Put him on the prote, please.”

  A curious smile crossed the Foursie’s lips. “My l… the Chairman regrets to inform you that he is too busy trying not to piss his pants and change his mind. If you have need of … holy motherfucking shit, get down, Herrig, get down!”

  Sidra’s prote-feed exploded into static and the mountain started coming down.

  Ute let instinct take control. His body began burning with power as fully self-controlled God soldier subsystems came on-line. Strength greater than any other save the original Harmony soldiers flooded through him. Data from his prote began registering on cybernetic implants, filling him with intuitive knowledge. The background tune of Harmony, ever a slender thread keeping the darkness at bay, moved ‘forward’ within him, becoming instead a full on soundtrack to the sudden chaos gripping The Peak.

  He started moving. He didn’t know where he was moving, but that was the way it was, now; much like the netLINK system that provided the whole of Latelyspace with unlimited bandwidth and ultimate connectivity, the Harmony suffused everything. ‘It’ knew he needed to be somewhere, and so that was where he was going to go. Ute wanted it to be Herrig that needed his help, but something whispered to the God soldier that the man would be fine, that there was something that needed his attention far more desperately.

  Thousands of messages spilled onto and then off his retinal feeds, contact and permission requests automatically responded to by avatar subsets carefully programmed to do so in times of crisis; the fact that he was getting them instead of OverCommander Vasily meant the nominal commander of the God Army was still MIA. The Goddie hoped that the OverCommander was finding peace out there, wherever he was.

  Ute ordered the avatars running his cybernetic links to stop flashing him messages that were being auto-filled and grabbed updates on The Peak itself. Data crowded his vision.

  Six hundred and five men and women remained inside the mountain stronghold. That number, plus or minus a few, was the bare minimum required to run the base and to ensure everything continued to run ‘smoothly’; as much as he’d hated it, Ute had been force
d to leave those integral people right where they were. Unfortunately for everyone, there were systems in The Peak that helped keep Hospitalis on an even keel. Regardless of whether or not anyone thought that was a good idea, it was a thing they had to continue doing until something better came along.

  They weren’t all dead, which was good. Most of them were now trapped in their various offices and/or departments, which was also good, given a moderately skewed value of ‘good’; The Peak had been constructed with an eventual collapse in mind. Each main section and some offices devoted to high-ranking officers and staffers transformed into literal crypts the moment a significant amount of structural damage occurred. Of the six hundred and five, four hundred ninety-two were now locked inside well-stocked tombs. They could survive, theoretically and assuming Bravo –which, according to avatar feed, hadn’t yet completely smashed the shit out of The Peak, a briefly confusing turn of events- didn’t blow up, for about six months before dying of dehydration.

  Avatars had no data on Herrig. Naturally not. At the epicenter of the abrupt departure of Bravo, everything in range of that initial collapse and imagined energy blast from engines was probably destroyed.

  Ute continued moving forward, picking up speed now that he knew he wasn’t likely to run into anyone wandering the halls looking for a fresh cup of coffee. He became a blur or color and his senses gleaming.

  A massive load-bearing beam of duronium-reinforced concrete broke loose from the ceiling thirty feet away. By the time Ute got to it, the forty-ton beam was a formidable barrier to progress.

  Ute, the Sixth Harmony Soldier, blew through it like tissue paper.

  He grinned, wondering not for the first time if this was what it felt like to be a superhero.

  Then he remembered that Bravo was busy crashing it’s way out of The Peak and went somber for a moment before realizing that if Garth was beside him, well, Garth would be singing one of those ridiculous rock songs of his at top volume and laughing like a maniac.