Victory on Terra

by Terry Mixon

  “Excellent,” he said. “Let’s get this show on the road.”

  20

  A pair of guards escorted Jared and Julia up into the tower to meet with Leader Mordechai. He wasn’t in the wide-open upper floor but down in an interior room about halfway up the tower. Someone had cut away part of an inside wall to give him a view outside the building, but he was still sheltered from any of the weather that was now coming through the shattered windows.

  The man himself was seated behind a large desk, doing what looked like paperwork. The concept of that seemed almost unimaginable to Jared. This was a post-apocalyptic society. They might’ve retained some of the knowledge that they’d had from before, but the idea of working with actual paper boggled him.

  As soon as they entered the room, Mordechai set aside the pen he’d been using and steepled his fingers as he considered them.

  “Where’s Jebediah?” he asked, his eyebrow raised.

  “He’s taken Carl to show him something,” Jared said. “He said that he’d be up as soon as he was done with that but that you could accept that he’d verified what we’d told you.”

  At those words, one of the guards who’d accompanied them on the trip up stepped forward. “I overheard him, Leader Mordechai. That’s exactly what Jebediah said.”

  “Then that’s good enough for me,” the older man said. “Now comes the mystery of figuring out who took our heritage from us. A theft of that magnitude is unbelievable. The effort that would’ve been required and the sheer number of people it probably took takes my breath away. The fact that they carried this out right under our noses makes me angry. Do we have any idea how they might’ve done such a thing?”

  Jared reached into his pouch and retrieved the pin he’d found, placing it on the desk. “We found this in the stairwell. It looks like whoever was down there only activated the life-support system for the lowest few levels. This was on the stairs above that safe layer. Do you recognize the emblem?”

  The older man picked up and examined the pin, his eyes narrowing. “It looks vaguely familiar, but I can’t say that I know how I know it.”

  “It’s the emblem of the Marine Raiders. My sister intends to use something very much like it once she has more of our marines fully transitioned.

  “Jebediah said that based on the corrosion, he believed it had only been down there for a few years. Since it appears to be made out of conventional materials, I’m willing to accept that he knows better than I what its durability is. That means that somewhere on the maglev train system, there’s a group of people that have some kind of association with the Marine Raiders.”

  The older man leaned back in his chair and shook his head. “That idea is ludicrous on its face. The Marine Raiders stationed here didn’t last more than a few decades after the invasion.”

  “Could there have been other groups?” Julia asked. “Just because you only know of one doesn’t mean that there weren’t others. What if their descendants—or some kind of organization formed by them—came here to take the fusion plant?

  “Obviously, whoever did this had a lot of technological know-how. Disassembling something as complex as a fusion plant isn’t the kind of task that you’re going to undertake without knowing how it works. So it’s credible that an organization set up by people like that could still be in operation somewhere.”

  Mordechai sat there for almost a minute without speaking. Then he shrugged.

  “The only answers we’re going to find are those that we seek ourselves. Since there’s a technological society out there somewhere, I think it would behoove both our groups to make some kind of effort in contacting them. The theft is long done, but it may be that my people can leverage the feelings of outrage that we have into some type of concessions from those people.

  “For all I know, they may be worthy enough, even if they are thieves. It’s not as if we’ve been using that fusion plant for the last hundred years. In any case, the next step must be finding them. At least that will be the case once we’ve won this fight against the horde.”

  “Speaking of the fighting, how is it going?” Jared asked. “Are my people okay? Have we managed to drive the horde out of your city?”

  The man waggled his hand. “One of the ambushes didn’t go so well. A number of our people were killed, and the horde was triumphant there. The second ambush went exceptionally well, and the enemy was decimated.

  “I’ve only just received word that the third ambush fell somewhere in between the other two. We managed to inflict a lot of casualties, but the enemy withdrew in good order. Now all the survivors are retreating toward where they’re keeping their reserves. I anticipate that once they regroup, they’ll be back.

  “Your people are well, though I must warn you that your sister and her husband have volunteered to lure the enemy into another trap. I can’t imagine how, but they seem quite determined.”

  Jared chuckled darkly. “Kelsey’s very stubborn. If anyone can make it work, it’s her. While they’re doing that, we should talk about what we’re going to do next. Your son is escorting Carl to take a look at the hardware the Marine Raiders left behind when they vanished.

  “It’s possible that something will still be usable, even though it won’t have power. It would be nice to face a technological society with weapons that might actually make them sit up and take notice.”

  Mordechai nodded. “While they’re doing that, we should discuss what happens next. I’ve decided to release you, so as of this moment, you are no longer our prisoners but our guests.

  “All of your weapons and belongings will be returned to you immediately. When it comes time for you to depart, we’ll allow you to do so without any hindrance and give you what aid we can. It is my deepest hope that you will continue to assist us in the matter of the stolen fusion plant so that we can make contact with the thieves as well.”

  “I’m looking forward to that discussion,” Jared said. “Almost as much as I am to lunch because I’m starving.”

  “Me, too,” Julia said. “I’m so hungry that survival rations sound good right now.”

  Mordechai laughed as he rose from his seat. “Then let’s go get something to eat.”

  Talbot raised his head slightly and stared out over the area in front of the building they were hiding in. It was positioned much closer to the edge of Frankfort, so the buildings were shorter, and there was more space between them than there had been in the packed interior of the dead megacity.

  The horde had taken advantage of that extra space to set up a fortified camp. His implants estimated that there were more than two thousand people inside it. That number was going to rise by at least another thousand as the survivors of the various ambushes trickled in.

  He and Kelsey had discussed the matter and decided to wait until as many people as possible were present before they attempted to lure them into the trap. There was no use in leaving a fighting force worthy of the name behind to attack them again. If they could lure them all into an ambush, that would ensure that they achieved the maximum number of casualties.

  Satisfied with what he’d seen and confident that none of the sentries had noticed his presence, Talbot stepped farther back into the gloom and found a place to sit next to Kelsey. The room had once been an office of some kind. The abandoned chairs allowed them to sit around a desk that was lit by the little sunlight that filtered in through the doorway.

  Based on the ruined elegance of the furnishings, it must’ve once belonged to someone both wealthy and powerful. Now it smelled of mildew and prolonged neglect.

  “I think we’re going to have to wait at least another hour for the last of the survivors to make their way back,” he said as he sat. “That’ll give them a chance to report what happened and really piss the people in charge off. The angrier they are, the more likely they are to come after us.”

  She nodded and handed him a ration bar. “Then I suggest you eat and drink while you can. We aren’t going to have a chance to rest once we sta
rt running for our lives. Even with our greater speed, we’ll have to stay in sight, or they’re going to stop chasing us.”

  He tore the wrapper off the bar and took a bite. Long practice allowed him to ignore the relatively terrible taste. The ration wasn’t meant to be a gourmet meal. Rather, it was packed with nutrients and vitamins that were mandatory in a survival situation.

  Still, couldn’t someone have tried to make them taste less like sawdust?

  “Do you really think that we’re doing the right thing here?” he asked. “Getting thousands of people to chase us with murder in their eyes seems to be a pretty chancy thing.”

  She grinned. “If they catch us, we’re screwed. So let that be your motivation to run just a little bit faster.”

  He grunted. That was the worst motivational speech he’d ever received. His wife really needed to work on that.

  “Any word on the expedition to get the fusion plant back online?” he asked.

  “I got a call from Carl a few minutes ago. The extended range of his updated implant communicator is handy. We definitely need to see about getting everyone else equipped with one as soon as possible.

  “It turns out that somebody’s been robbing Frankfort. They got down to the area where the fusion plant should have been, but it was gone. Someone had disassembled the whole thing and carried it off.”

  The news made him blink. “Seriously? How is that even possible? It’s not as if you can disassemble a fusion plant without the technical know-how and have a useful device at the end.

  “Even in the Old Empire, it took specialized skills to do that kind of thing. The man or woman on the street couldn’t even follow detailed instructions to make that happen. Here and now? Impossible.”

  “Impossible or not, Carl says that’s exactly what they did. Apparently, the theft only took place a couple of years ago, which only adds to the mystery.

  “There’s apparently a maglev train station on the lowest level of the city. Whoever they were, they used the power serving it and got the life-support system down there back online. They stripped an incredible amount of supplies and equipment from the lowest levels of the city. The ones that are blocked from access because of the bad air.

  “I’d be willing to bet they turned on the life-support system all the way up to the level of the fusion plant for that. They got one of the lifts working and used it to transport everything they wanted down to the lowest level and probably took the most valuable things away via the train. Then they shut off life support—except for the lowest levels—and the bad air drifted its way back down, leaving no one the wiser.”

  Talbot shook his head. “Even hearing you say that, I still find it hard to believe. Still, if we’ve got an operational train station, that means Carl could probably find us a way to get to these people. Potential allies with technological know-how might be beneficial in our current circumstances.”

  “I agree. We’ll see if Leader Mordechai is on board with that or just stays pissed off that somebody stole all of his stuff. He doesn’t seem to be the kind of person to let go of a grudge, if you know what I mean.”

  The two of them sat chatting for the next half hour, with him making occasional trips to the window to look at the horde camp. By the end of that time, it was apparent that the survivors had begun arriving because the enemy camp was in turmoil.

  Kelsey came over when he called her and nodded in satisfaction. “I think we’ve got enough people down there to be worthwhile. Why don’t we go ahead and make a little trip up the street? We’ll head back this way as soon as we get their attention. With any luck, we’ll make them so angry that the whole lot of them gives chase.

  “The nearest area that the defenders have buried explosives is about a kilometer away. It’s along one of the main paths into the city, so it’s a shame that the horde didn’t choose that route when marching in. If they had, the defenders could’ve blown them up without having to fight.”

  “If wishes were horses, we’d all be hip deep in horse crap,” he said philosophically. “Let’s get this over with. I want to take care of these bastards once and for all so that we can get back to saving the Empire.”

  21

  Carl followed Jebediah on a winding trip into the underground tunnels beneath Frankfort. The stash was obviously not centrally located. Thankfully, it didn’t seem to be very far underneath the city itself. Otherwise, they’d have had to deal with the bad air again.

  Not to say that the air they were breathing was of the highest quality, but it hadn’t crossed the threshold of being noxious yet. The carbon dioxide levels were rising by the time they stopped, but it was still within what he’d call tolerable parameters.

  Barely.

  Rather than doing anything with the lock on the door in front of them, the large man reached up to the ceiling and pushed at a panel there. It rose slightly, and something shiny fell out. The large man grabbed for it but missed. It struck the ground with the distinctive sound of metal.

  It was a key, probably like the one that the security door below had once required.

  Jebediah picked it up, inserted it into the lock, and twisted. With a loud click, the door unlocked, and the large man pushed it open.

  The interior of the room was just as dark as the rest of the megacity, but Carl could tell just from the torches that they carried that there was a significant amount of supplies within the room. The first things that grabbed his attention—commanded it, really—were the four suits of gray Marine Raider armor on stands against the far right-hand wall.

  “Holy cow,” he said reverently as he stepped into the room, automatically lowering his torch so that it didn’t scorch the ceiling. “It looks as if these were put here in an operational state. If so, it may be possible to recharge the power cells and utilize them. That would have a huge impact on combat operations. You really should’ve said something about these before the fighting started.”

  “I’ve never been in this room before,” Jebediah said. “I’m sure that my father had a rough idea of what was here, but I suspect that he hasn’t been here more than a few times since he was a boy.

  “In any case, we wouldn’t have trusted you with such a thing before now. Even if we had, there was no power to charge them with nor charging facilities with which to do so.”

  Carl nodded and moved over to the armor. A quick check showed that the power cells were dead, as expected. He couldn’t get any kind of status from the suits at all.

  A quick visual inspection told him that, barring any fried electronics or otherwise faulty circuits, the armor looked as if it had been in operational condition when stored.

  All of the suits were significantly larger than what would typically fit on Kelsey or Julia. Some of that could be adjusted. He’d done the customization on Kelsey’s suit himself, so he was quite familiar with the process.

  That didn’t mean that it would be easy under the present circumstances. He’d had a ship full of the right equipment and spare parts to make the modifications before. These suits had almost certainly been adjusted for their last users, so there wouldn’t be any need for them to have any of the more robust adjustment tools with them.

  He’d do what he could.

  Carl widened his search to the rest of the room. Placed nearby were cases holding flechette and plasma weapons sized for the armor.

  Ammunition for each of them was stored adjacent to the weapons themselves. Each of the power packs was undoubtedly dead, but it should be a reasonably straightforward process to recharge them.

  The smaller weapons used batteries inside the magazines themselves for their power. There were a lot of them, and it would take time to fully charge them all. Thankfully, there were a couple of racks made for just that purpose sitting nearby.

  The problem was that everything was going to have to be carried down the stairs to the lowest level of the megacity. That would be backbreaking labor and require that Carl had enough air bottles to make it work unless he got the life-support
system for the areas he needed to traverse back online. Getting the broken lift working again was also a priority.

  If he could do those things, the process would be significantly easier, and it would take one big problem off of his shoulders. It would also allow others to work below without having to be trapped there.

  The tricky part was going to be the fact that he couldn’t just turn on life support for the entire lower section of the megacity. That might draw enough power to alert the people running it that someone was using their power, which might be enough for them to turn it off on them.

  If any of their plans were to work, he had to avoid that outcome at all costs.

  He returned his attention to the supplies around him. There were a lot of marine knives, as well as a collection of short swords like Kelsey’s. Apparently, these people had had similar ideas to Ned Quincy.

  Hell, for all Carl knew, they might literally have gotten the idea from the man. In such a small community, that certainly wasn’t a big jump.

  If he ever got back to Persephone, he’d have to devote some more attention to working on a new home for the AI. Ned’s consciousness was currently in stasis inside jury-rigged hardware, but he had some ideas that might allow the strange being to finally have a place to call his own.

  Ned had been created inside Kelsey’s implants and had lived there his entire life as an artificial intelligence. That was awkward for both of them, so Ned had asked to be removed and archived until such time as a solution was put together.

  It was risky. There was no guarantee that Ned would wake up again when his new home was ready. Still, it was a risk that the man had insisted they take.

  Carl would do everything he could to make sure the AI survived, but he couldn’t do that if they never got off of Terra. Which brought him back around to what he needed to do now.

  There were three sets of blades just like Kelsey’s, so that was going to make their lives a lot easier when it came to melee fighting. He knew that those who could use the weapons would be thrilled to have them.