Whatever the general is going to tell us next, this is going to be bad… the specialist commander thought.
And he was right.
1
The Worries of Jezebel Wen
3 Days Later
“I still don’t understand… How can this be possible?” Jezzy said in low, urgent tones to the leader of the Gold Squad.
Who was not particularly looking as dazed or as confused as she herself felt, Jezzy thought. Her world had been turned upside-down during that debriefing by the commander of the fleet herself. Everything that she had thought she knew about the Confederacy, about the colonies – and even the Outcast Training Programme – all of it had been wrong.
“Just what are we expected to do with information like that? How can we fight it?” Jezzy continued to murmur as they walked down the hallway to their next session. They were back on Ganymede now, but even way out here on the largest moon of Jupiter, there was no time for the regular allotted training sessions that they’d received before the war.
The colonial war permeated everything invisibly; the corridors of the facility around them appeared deserted as most of the Outcast squads were still engaged on the front line at Mars. All that was left here were the squads like theirs who had been rotated out from the campaign, and then the wounded.
So, no prolonged study lounge sessions of working out complicated holographic puzzles or learning military strategy for them now, and no large-scale exercises featuring dummy rounds and mission objectives. Instead, Jezzy and Solomon were about to take part in the regular daily 6k run that all Outcasts were expected to do if they could.
After which, I would normally be sent to combat training, Jezzy thought, and Solomon beside her would be sent to lessons in military tactics and history. But the war meant that their schedule was entirely dependent on what came down the newswires. They might be corralled into loading up more Marine Transporters with equipment to be sent to the front line, or else unloading the next wave of wounded from the transporters coming back.
Jezzy knew that she should have felt good about the run ahead of her, as she pulled on her light tactical encounter suit—undermesh shirt fixed to the battle harness, over which locked their boots, gloves, and close-fitting visor-helmets. No shoulder-pads or breastplates for the space run today. Running in near zero-G always helped the ex-Yakuza executioner forget about her past. To become just another tired and striving body amongst others. She didn’t have to worry about her father, or her orders. She wouldn’t have to think about anything beyond her own stride.
But not now, of course.
Being told that there were aliens out there, and that they could be coming for you at any moment, kind of made everything else seem a little meaningless.
“Solomon? What are you thinking? What do you make of what the general told us?” Jezzy prompted, standing up and jumping a little to settle her suit as the other uninjured Outcasts around them were doing the same, or approaching the hangar lounge airlocks.
A part of Jezzy even wondered if what they had been told was a lie. A piece of careful misinformation seeded on the eve of war to help their campaign somehow? Or maybe to inspire loyalty. Their squad so far had already made waves by being the first one to have an actual traitor in their midst. She wouldn’t put it past the Confederacy to lie to their own people. After all, her own training in the Yakuza had led her to realize that power corrupts, and all organizations or individuals did everything they could to hold onto that power.
But the general wasn’t lying, was she? Jezzy thought. She knew that Asquew had been telling the truth, thanks again to her past. She had heard the last-minute confessions, reminiscences, and accusations of more people than she had ever truly wanted to. She knew what stripped-down, bare-naked honesty sounded like. She knew what it looked like in someone else’s eyes.
“Solomon?” she prompted again, pausing for him to get suited up before they joined the queue of others waiting to begin.
“Space sure is big,” Solomon muttered at the floor as he pulled on his boots.
2
The Brigadier General’s Address
“The Confederacy is at war,” Brigadier General Asquew had said, which Solomon thought was rather unsurprising, and also rather an understatement.
You invited my squad to this private debriefing just to tell us THAT? Solomon thought, his battle-tired body making him irritable.
“But not with who you think we are,” Asquew surprised him by saying next.
Not the First Martians, or the ‘Chosen of Mars,’ or whatever it was that band of fanatics were calling themselves? Solomon frowned, before his heart lurched.
Oh no. She must mean Proxima, doesn’t she? Earth’s largest sister-planet in the nearby star system of Alpha Centauri had been vying for complete independence for almost as long as Mars and Luna had. If they decided to throw their chips into the civil war too, they were a large enough and sustainable enough colony that they might even be able to win their freedom, the specialist commander thought…
But the answer was far stranger than another bunch of human settlers.
“This is unlike any conflict that humanity has faced yet,” Asquew intoned. “And as such, we have no way of strategizing our enemy’s weaknesses…
“Unlike other human conflicts, this has mostly been an invisible war without direct battlefield manifestations,” Asquew stated quizzically. “A war of positioning, and of information, against an enemy who appears to be far more technologically advanced than we are…”
What? The Proximians? Solomon thought confusedly. How had Earth’s sister got that far ahead of the Confederacy in such a short time? Everyone knew that the Confederates kept a strangle hold on technological development, and that most of the best available technology went to developing the Confederate Marine Corps itself.
But it wasn’t the Proximians that the general was talking about at all.
“You have been called here because you now have first-hand experience of the enemy, although you did not know who they really were at the time,” Asquew stated.
“You fought the rogue NeuroTech machine in the Erisian Asteroid Field, shortly after it had managed to kill an entire deep-field station-ship of traders on route to Mars. And you fought the cyborg warriors of Mars, also the creation of NeuroTech.”
“Well, to be honest, sir, I am not entirely sure if you could say what we did was fighting,” Solomon heard himself mutter, before shutting his mouth with an audible gulp. I must really be a lot more tired than I had thought! He looked up to see that Warden Coates was glaring at him for speaking out of turn, but Asquew didn’t appear to mind the small breach of conduct.
“I read your report, Specialist Commander,” Asquew responded. “Yourself, Specialists Wen and Karmov loaded that cyborg with bullets, and you managed to drop it. Which is more than any other Marine can say who have faced them yet.”
Only we didn’t drop it for very long, did we? Solomon remembered the strange being they had seen in the ventilation tunnel on Mars. It had shot Jezzy Wen with its hand-mounted particle engine—a weapon that Solomon had never seen in such a miniaturized form before—and Gold Squad in turn had fired everything they had at the creature that looked curiously like a mixture of Malady and a corpse, with part-metal suit and exposed, necrotic flesh.
The thing had dropped, but soon afterwards, it had vanished, leaving a trail of a thick, dark substance that looked like a horrifying mixture of blood and engine oil.
That cyborg had gotten back up and disappeared. Solomon remembered the feeling of horror in his stomach. It had gotten up even after taking six or seven solid Jackhammer shells.
“I’m sorry, sir?” Jezzy spoke up at his side. “You said that other Marines have faced those…things?”
Asquew frowned for a moment before replying, “Yes, only not in a battlefield situation. Here, let me explain…” She nodded at Warden Coates, who stepped forward to the desk to plug in a data-screen and swipe a few holographic
buttons. There was a shimmer of light as the center of Asquew’s desk lit up and started projecting a three-dimensional recording, faintly glitchy, from what appeared to be various training programs.
There was a team of full Marines—Solomon could tell from their heavier, more robust style of power armor—making a slow sweep of a diorama set, really nothing more than a breezeblock bunker with bare rooms and corridors inside that were used to train reaction times and threat-response.
The Marines moved in two groups through the bunker, their position made visible by a floating insert map. Suddenly, the leading team encountered a shape in the greenish night-vision cameras, and a red dot appeared on the map.
It was one of those cyborg things, Solomon saw, moving insanely fast and completely ignoring the live-round burst fire it received. This one was bulkier and shinier than the one they had faced in the tunnels, and the body’s chest, shoulders, and half of its bald head were exposed, looking pale, sickly, and ghostlike.
The thing shuddered and was thrown back against the nearest wall as the second team of Marines quickly advanced in a pincer movement through the diorama.
But it kept coming. Solomon watched it raise its hand and fire that strange weapon at the Marines. Internal turbines whirred, and light exploded—not as needle-sharp as the purple bolt of light that had hit Jezzy, but a more diffused spotlight-type of purple beam that still had enough force to throw three of the advancing Marines against the far wall.
BRAP-PRAP-PRAP! The cyborg fired the stocky pistol that it held in its ‘human’ hand at the Confederate Marines—and thankfully, Solomon saw that the cyborg had indeed been given dummy rounds that flashed bright yellow for a moment before hitting the leading Marine, and then the one beside them.
Alarms and grunts of pain sounded as the Marines were thrown back and forced to their knees by either dummy rounds or the thing’s diffused energy weapon, and each Marine who was hit earned a flashing orange light from their suit as they were registered ‘dead’ in the wargame.
The cyborg pretty much did the same to the second strike-force of Marines, and the third.
“What you are looking at here are highly confidential training videos taken three years ago, when NeuroTech approached us with what they said was the future of modern warfare,” Asquew stated.
“Naturally, the Marine Corps was eager to take advantage of any new development that would mean a quicker, more efficient defense of the Confederacy.” Asquew said the words, but Solomon could tell she wasn’t easy with that decision.
“The Marine Corps strategists realized that the NeuroTech cyborgs have two problems, however. One is that they are too good at killing. We had nothing that would stop them short of a full tactical.” Solomon watched her nod at Malady.
“And as for the second problem, they are owned by NeuroTech. Placing the future of the Marine Corps entirely into the hands of one mega-corporation was a risk that we realized we could not take, and it appears that in that, at least, our suspicions were proved correct.”
“So…” Jezzy nodded in understanding. “NeuroTech have been developing these weapons of war, and when the Marine Corps said that they don’t want them, the company decided to sell them to the separatists?”
“Indeed, Specialist Wen.” Asquew cleared her throat. “But were this a matter of a simple bit of illegal arms dealing, then our actions to freeze NeuroTech accounts and seize their assets would suffice. I told you that this is about aliens. About a new kind of conflict,” she said firmly.
“Naturally, we started investigating NeuroTech to see how they had come to develop this weaponry.” Asquew nodded once more at Warden Coates, who swiped another button. The paused training video to vanished and was replaced with a flickering image of an object hurtling through a high, white sky, followed by schematics.
The thing looked a little like on orb, although one side was flattened with the faintest lip on the outer ‘edge.’ The schematics—only of the outside—were much clearer, showing the same shape revolving and rotating in space without any apparent thrusters or rockets.
“This object was intercepted on Confederate Earth some ten years ago, after it crash-landed,” Asquew said. The image resolved to a massive hangar filled with Marine Corps ships, and the strange thing lying on its side in the center.
“Samples were taken, and scans conducted, of course, but nothing we could do would open it. Shortly thereafter…””
The image next showed a place in the desert where a few anonymous warehouse buildings sat. Suddenly, the scene exploded in a gigantic fireball, scattered through with purple sparks.
“The craft malfunctioned, or self-destructed, we really have no way of knowing…” Asquew stated. “But ever since, the Confederacy has been avidly hunting for more evidence of whoever sent it to us.
“Was it a probe? A spy? A challenge? A refugee? The first act of a war?” Asquew shrugged. “We have no idea, but what we later found out when we started looking into NeuroTech was that they had also been investigating these phenomena, and apparently managed to recover the exact same craft on Proxima,” Asquew stated.
“This craft became known as Experiment X to NeuroTech, and from it, they were able to start developing a line of human-machine hybrids we saw earlier as the cyborgs, as well as the murderous robots.
“And then, two years ago, we became aware of something called The Message.”
The Message! Solomon sat up a little straighter in his seat. That was what he had overheard Doctor Palinov and Coates talking about before. That the Outcasts had been created specially to deal with the ‘Message,’ whatever that was.
“Apparently, Proxima received a communication some time ago, at one of their deep-space satellites. It was from a race who called themselves the Ru’at, and they were claiming responsibility for seeding our solar systems with their craft.”
“What did they want?” Solomon couldn’t help himself and burst out.
“What do the Ru’at want? That, Specialist Commander, is the question of the century. Possible even of the millennium,” Asquew said. “We do not know the precise contents of this message other than a few small details: that the aliens called themselves the Ru’at, and that they had been the ones behind the vastly superior, mysterious craft…
“And that they were willing to offer us information,” Asquew said. “Our contacts and spies on Proxima have revealed that the Message contained very little information about the Ru’at as a species, but it did indeed contain a long and detailed data-set, which apparently translated to various new types of energetic particle engines, new types of alloy, stellar mechanics, perhaps even entirely new branches of science and mathematics.”
“And they gave all of that to the Proximians?” Solomon was surprised. He knew that maybe they should forgive their largest colony for utilizing the information, but why didn’t they share it with the Confederacy? With the rest of humanity?
“We do not know if the Ru’at were ever aware of what creed or polity of humanity they were contacting.” Asquew shrugged. “And we do not have access to the entire message, but from the copied and transcribed pieces that we have managed to smuggle out of Proxima, we have realized that this technology presents an existential threat to the Confederacy. It is far in advance of anything that Earth science has managed to generate, and now it is in the hands of NeuroTech, and the colonies.”
Asquew continued, “Our analysts have discovered that all of the Ru’at technology, the very same sort that has somehow found its way into NeuroTech’s experiments, operates from a base line of machine code that we have never even considered before. This technology cannot be hacked. It cannot be mimicked. It seems to operate as a self-replicating virus, one that is able to keep on generating complex algorithms to allow the machine itself to learn and adapt...”
“Artificial intelligence?” Solomon asked.
The general shook her head. “No. Not precisely. Or not as we understand it, anyway. These cyborgs and battle platforms that we have
seen—that you have faced—do not have sentience or self-awareness as we do. They do not have feelings. Indeed, they do not appear to have any semblance of personality at all. But they have very deep machine learning. So, you managed to neutralize that cyborg threat on Mars, but the next time, that same cyborg will have memorized and analyzed your fighting styles. The same goes for the Ru’at satellite technology, apparently. Once they are launched, they will continue upgrade and update their own programming until the communication abilities of the colonies far outstrips our own.”
“Uplift…” murmured Solomon, remembering something from a long, long time ago.
“Excuse me, solider?” Asquew said.
“Ah, excuse me, sir. I thought it was just a silly science fiction story…” Solomon smiled uneasily. “It’s an idea common in some stories that communities of aliens make contact with less technologically advanced species and uplift them, or they are given a new evolutionary leap by the far superior aliens.”
“Well, an interesting idea, soldier, but the Marine Corps cannot base its battle strategy on the optimistic dreams of writers,” Asquew said.
“Excuse me, sir, but…” Solomon said a little hesitantly. “But what makes you so sure that the Ru’at have any other intention than a peaceful uplift of the human species? Surely, if they come from an entirely alien civilization to ours, then maybe this is just how they say hello and not an act of war?”
“Cready…” Warden Coates hissed in annoyance. Solomon could see the vein throbbing in the warden’s neck that he had come to recognize as the sign of an impending outburst that usually led to him using the control unit to send torturous electric shocks through their bodies thanks to the implanted control chips that all of the ex-convict Outcasts had as a matter of course. But he’s not going to do that here, and now, is he? Solomon thought. Not in front of the general, at any rate.
Outcast Marines Boxed Set Page 52
