Outcast Marines Boxed Set

by James David Victor

  But maybe we never change, he considered, his eyes lowering to the floor.

  “Lieutenant!” Jezzy hissed, alerting him to the fact that the guests for the dinner had started to arrive.

  Solomon stood up a little straighter and concentrated, searching for the man who had tried to have him killed.

  “Imprimatur, such a pleasure!” The pleased ripples of conversation were entirely boring to Solomon as he watched couple after couple of trade ministers and finance directors and agricultural overseers and city mayors and who knows what else arrive and greet both Imprimatur Mariad Rhossily on one side, and Confederate Ambassador Ochrie on the other.

  “God help me,” Solomon heard Arlo opposite him groan, and, although he maintained his same wide-footed stance of attention, he saw the large man shrug a little as he mimicked falling asleep.

  “Menier,” Solomon breathed over the Gold channel, but he didn’t know if his rebuke went down well or was listened to as his concentration was broken by a sudden, gargled hiss of outrage on the other side of Sergeant Wen.

  It was Karamov, and he had half-stepped out of line, the power armor suit visibly shaking with pent-up emotion.

  “Corporal Karamov!” Solomon hissed over their secure channel, as the commotion had caused a few of the comfortable, smiling Proximian heads to turn. Solomon followed Karamov’s intense posture to see, there at the other end of the lobby and walking leisurely forward flanked by two heavyset cyborg guards, was Augustus Tavin, CEO of NeuroTech Industries.

  “Corporal, keep it together! Batten that frack down!” Solomon clicked off his suit’s external microphones to be able to shout a little more forcefully at Karamov, who, grudgingly, was stepping back into line next to Jezzy but who was still visibly shaking with fury.

  As well he might, Solomon thought as his own fists clenched. That man there had preened and gloated in front of himself and Karamov as he had threatened to have them tortured and killed on a live transmission to the General Asquew, back on Mars.

  And what had been worse, the CEO had had no intention of using them as a bargaining chip like the Chosen of Mars had, Solomon remembered bitterly. The Chosen had wanted to display their ‘captive Confederate infiltrators’ to the Marine Corps in the hope that they would release Father Ultor and Imprimatur Valance in a prisoner exchange.

  However, Augustus Tavin had been there to start a fight, both Solomon and Karamov knew. He had demanded impossible things that the General Asquew couldn’t possibly hope to offer, before insulting the Marine Corps and promising to kill Solomon and Karamov.

  All because Tavin wanted the war, so he could keep on supplying his arms to the seditionists, and now, the Proximians… Solomon took a deep breath and let it out slowly.

  “Orders, sir?” murmured Menier opposite him, now no longer goofing about but standing up straighter. “I have weapons on me… Do you want me to seize Tavin when he walks past?”

  “What?” Solomon asked. “You have weapons? How did you get them past the imprimatur’s inspection?”

  “I’m a big man in an even bigger suit,” Menier said.

  “Uh, Lieutenant, sir…” This came from Willoughby over their shared Gold channel. “I’ve got a service pistol down my boot.”

  “Well…” This came from Jezzy beside him, in the verbal equivalent of a guilty shrug. “Throwing knives. All over me.”

  Solomon groaned. He wasn’t sure whether to be proud or annoyed with his squad who had disobeyed orders to not bring weapons to their unarmed guard duty. Well, at least they were disobeying Proximian orders, and not mine… he considered. “Anyone else? Ratko? Karamov? Am I the only one without any sort of weapon on me?”

  “Guilty as charged,” the smaller Ratko standing beside Menier said.

  “I’ve got a spare service pistol behind my back plate you can use, Lieutenant,” Karamov said.

  Wow. Thanks for making me look like a total idiot! Solomon thought. But anyway, no time for this. Tavin was already turning to enter the lobby to the dining hall, and they were sure to need every weapon they had concealed if they couldn’t overpower those two cyborg guards immediately…

  “Uh…” Tavin rocked to a sudden standstill when he saw the Confederate Marine honor guard. Solomon narrowed his eyes and glared at him, knowing that Karamov would be doing the same, and he felt Tavin’s eyes glide across them.

  He doesn’t recognize me, Solomon thought, before remembering that he was behind his helmet. Dear old Augustus would have to get a lot closer to be able to see past the anti-glare sheen of his faceplate.

  “Is there a problem, Mr. Tavin?” the imprimatur was saying, stepping forward to block Solomon’s view before he could get a chance to make a move.

  “Dammit! Stand down!” Solomon hissed to the others, trying not to betray any movement to Tavin, the cyborgs, or the other guests. “We cannot afford to hurt Proxima’s leader!”

  “Oh, no problem, Mariad,” Augustus Tavin was saying, although his pale and austere face with its slicked-back dark hair did indeed look like there was a problem, and quite a severe one at that. “I just wasn’t aware that the ambassador had brought a squad of Marines with her…” he murmured. Solomon twitched his fingers inside their mesh gloves, activating the control pads that instructed the various controls of his suit.

  External Microphones: 100%

  The sounds of the party jumped in volume, and Solomon slowly angled his body a little so that his suit was directed toward the muttered conversation halfway down the lobby…

  “Times are dark, and the Confederacy is a little twitchy about security,” he heard Mariad Rhossily say with a sigh. “But have no fear, they are only an honor guard, nothing more—not an invasion fleet!”

  “Hm, well…” Tavin gave a thin, snake’s smile as he changed the subject.

  He probably would have loved it if we were the start of another war here, Solomon thought. That way he can make all the more money off the backs of dying people!

  “Have you seen the new X-line?” Tavin was saying, stepping aside to wave his long-fingered hands at the two heavyset cyborgs that flanked him.

  Solomon’s eyes narrowed as he tried to see what made them so special. Their human parts—the upper chest, lower jaws—were just as pallid and cadaverous as before, but the metal of their shoulders, arms, legs, and half-a-head seemed much sleeker and better manufactured than before.

  “I am sorry, Mr. Tavin, but I am not free to talk about trade at tonight’s dinner,” the imprimatur stated, touching the man briefly on the arm and gesturing towards the dining hall, past the double lines of Confederate Marines. “Please, take a seat with the others…”

  That’s it, walk right past me… Solomon tensed, imagining how it had to go down. He could seize Tavin as the other Outcasts attacked the two cyborgs. Before anyone died, he might be able to put a gun to Tavin’s head and tell him to call off the counter-attack.

  But I will have to get that gun from Karamov first, Solomon was thinking, as CEO Augustus Tavin appeared to want to argue.

  “But, Imprimatur, this is pleasure, not business!” Tavin simpered. “Our new X-line comes with the particle-beam hand as standard across all models, but we’ve upgraded their strength, toughness, jumping ability, and we now have weapons ports on the left shoulder! These two, for instance, have installed…”

  “Mr. Tavin, if you please. It is considered impolite to discuss business at mealtimes,” the imprimatur said more forcefully. “When you have stayed a few more years on Proxima, I hope that you will also come to understand our seemingly quaint traditions…”

  Dammit! Solomon had wanted to know just what weapons systems these two super-hardened, super-strong cyborgs were carrying. But at least he had learned something else: that Augustus Tavin wasn’t a Proximian native, and that his relationship with the imprimatur was an uneasy one, meaning that she might be more likely to let him go without conflict when Solomon and his men did what they had come here to do…

  “Lieutenant, sir?�
� Jezzy breathed.

  “Wait for my move,” Solomon said over their channel. “If you have to fire, single shot only…” he said quickly as the CEO and two cyborgs started their approach towards them.

  “Single shot! We could only smuggle in pistols, sir!” Ratko sniggered, just before Tavin and his two guards started walking down the middle of their two lines.

  Solomon waited the three steps it took for Tavin to be firmly in the middle of the lines of three Marines, before stepping out and turning to block Tavin’s exit.

  “Augustus Tavin, I am placing you under arrest for the deaths of thirty-nine brave men and women on the moon of Ganymede, Sol System,” Solomon said, raising a gloved and gauntleted hand…

  “Gah!” Tavin took a sudden step back, shock and horror written across his face.

  “Lieutenant! What are you—” shouted Imprimatur Rhossily, as—

  Arlo Menier calmly took a step forward, moving a hand from where it had been held behind his back, and discharged his smuggled Marine service pistol directly into the back of the nearest cyborg’s head.

  “FZTTT!” There was a grunt and a shower of sparks as the cyborg went down in a second.

  “Woah!” Solomon shouted, as the guests around them started to scream. What was Arlo thinking? Solomon’s mind raced. That bullet could have missed or could have gone clean through the cyborg into Tavin, or me! Luckily, however, Menier’s bullet hadn’t left the dead cyborg’s skull, and it had neatly severed the thing’s brain stem, as well, ing the only certain way to kill it.

  But the other was still very much alive, and Tavin was already starting to run.

  “Lieutenant! Ambassador!” Rhossily was screaming in fury.

  “Ugh!” Karamov hadn’t been as reckless as Menier had been, but he was every bit as decisive as he stepped forward behind the other cyborg, throwing an arm around the thing’s neck and jumping backwards, drawing it away from protecting Tavin—

  —who was scrambling to his feet and pushing past Ratko in a frantic attempt to get out of the lobby.

  “Wait right there, sir…” Willoughby slammed the butt of her pistol into the man’s face.

  “Ach! My nose!” Tavin fell to his knees as blood erupted from his face. Solomon had to admit that, after seeing the terror of the collapsed Ganymede Training Facility, and after seeing the crimson and white rising horror of an atom bomb exploded on Martian soil because of this man, Solomon was quite pleased that he was in pain.

  “Ach!” But Karamov was having trouble with the cyborg guard, who was easily stronger than him. The cyborg had backhanded Karamov in a metal-handed blow that had sent him crashing across the room, turning back to the other Marines.

  BRAP! BRAP-BRAP! Arlo, Ratko, and Willoughby fired at the thing, hitting the cyborg’s chest and making it stagger backwards, crashing through a giant potted yucca plant. But Tavin’s bodyguard was already pushing itself back up again from the wreckage, his bare chest dripping a mixture of machine oil and blood.

  “Call it off or I’ll slit your throat!” Jezzy had stepped forward to place one of her thin-bladed but glitteringly sharp throwing blades under the CEO’s chin.

  “Cease! Cease and desist!” Tavin shouted in terror, and the singular cyborg guard slowed his ascent to very calmly and smoothly resume a silently watching, standing position.

  “How long will that last?” Solomon snarled at Tavin, reaching into his belt harness for the only thing that he had been able to freely bring, the climbing metal rope, which he started to spool from its deployment module to tie the CEO’s hands and attach the man to his own suit. It beat handcuffs and chains, he had to think.

  “It’s keyed to my voice. It’s totally deactivated. It won’t threaten you again, I promise…” Tavin was sobbing in the middle of the circle of Confederate Marines, as all around them, the visiting Proximian dignitaries were demanding to know what was going on.

  “Precisely, Ambassador, how dare you bring weapons into an imprimatur’s sovereign territory!” Rhossily was shouting at Ambassador Ochrie, who was already making small, calming gestures as if this were just a schoolyard argument and she some sort of long-suffering teacher.

  “Please, ladies and gentlemen, good citizens of Proxima, this does not concern you. That man, the CEO of NeuroTech industries, is wanted for kidnap, murder, attempted murder, torture, and selling illegal armaments in a time of war!”

  “Arms to the Martian freedom-fighters, you mean!” someone at the back of the angry, panicked crowd shouted back.

  “Yeah! Freedom for Mars, freedom for Proxima!” someone else bellowed.

  Great, Solomon thought. What he really didn’t want was to find a bunch of Chosen of Mars sympathizers in this crowd right about now.

  “It is not a time of war here on Proxima, Ambassador, and so your Confederate laws do not apply. You are attempting to extradite a Proximian citizen, and I, with the full authority of Proxima, do not allow it!” the imprimatur shouted.

  Oh frack, Solomon thought. “Malady?” he whispered into the Gold Channel. “I want you to fire up that ship’s engines. We might need to make a much speedier exit than even I was expecting…”

  “Aye, Lieutenant, sir,” he heard Malady intone in his usual metallic drawl.

  “Consider your actions very carefully, Imprimatur Rhossily!” The ambassador drew herself up to her full height and spoke in a clear voice to her rival. “I will be leaving this planet with my honor guard and their prisoner over there, and if you or any Proximian force tries to stand in our way, then the Confederacy will have no choice but to do to Proxima what we did to Mars.”

  To nuke it? Solomon thought in horror. No-no-no! This is not how this was supposed to go. This was supposed to avoid a war…

  “Are you threatening me, Ambassador?” Rhossily spat back.

  “No, I am promising you,” the ambassador said evenly. “Which is why I know that you will let us go. I do not want a war between our planets. I know that no good can come of it. And I certainly do not want hundreds of thousands to die in the subsequent conflagration.” The ambassador took a step forward, so that she was face-to-face with the de facto leader of Proxima. “Because you and I are both intelligent women, and we both know precisely that is what will happen as soon as we cross that bridge, one that we cannot come back over,” she said in a low voice as the rest of the lobby and dining room fell quiet.

  “Hundreds of thousands will die. Perhaps millions. Is one man’s freedom worth all of that loss to both of our worlds?” The ambassador sounded cold, but infinitely logical. “War may be inevitable between Proxima and the Confederacy, one day, but it doesn’t have to begin here, on this day,”

  Solomon heard Ochrie’s voice take on a slightly softer tone, and he realized just how good she was as a diplomat.

  “You and a lot of your people have a dream, Mariad Rhossily: a free Proxima. An independent Proxima. I get that—really, I do—but that dream will be buried in ash and destruction if we fight each other now…. Instead, I am asking you to hold onto your dream, Mariad Rhossily and the good people of Proxima, to keep that hope alive and keep working for it in a different manner. Send ambassadors, envoys, and lawyers instead of soldiers and missiles. One day, the universe will be different, and I promise you that Proxima will have its chance again.”

  Wow, Solomon thought. Either the ambassador was playing a really long game, or she had just managed to lie through her teeth to get what the Confederacy wanted, because he saw the tears well up in Imprimatur Rhossily’s eyes, for her to shake her head and look away, and then nod.

  “Take him and leave Proxima space. I never want to see you in this hall again,” Rhossily said, and Solomon and the other Marines felt an immense sense of relief.

  So happy were they, and so caught up in the impassioned arguments of these two women, that no one reacted quickly enough when the deactivated cyborg suddenly reared to life, raised its particle-beam hand, and shot Augustus Tavin dead in front of them.

  16

>   A Metal Sky

  BRAP-DAP-DAP!

  Screams and gunfire filled the lobby as people reacted to the sudden assassination. Why did it do it? What’s going on? Solomon’s thoughts were already racing as he reached for his pistol—and realized that he didn’t have it on him.

  Arlo, Ratko, and Willoughby had stepped up to the challenge, however, responding with all of their almost two years of Marine Corps training and casting a deadly flurry of bullets at the cyborg. Solomon watched as time itself seemed to slow, and the cyborg was hit on the chest and arm—the bullets sparking and ricocheting off toward the ceiling. It staggered back, lifting its particle arm once again as something happened to its shoulder.

  It looked as though the thing’s metal shoulder muscle was blossoming like a flower, peeling apart steel petals as a four-barreled tube emerged from the thing’s back.

  The weapons module that Tavin had installed! Solomon realized. It was a micro-missile launcher!

  Phwack! Jezzy moved fast, lunging forward across the few meters that separated them and skewering her blade up and out, into the thing’s neck.

  Crash! With a metallic whine, the thing collapsed as Jezzy’s blade severed the thing’s brain stem and it fell backwards to the floor.

  “What’s happening!?” Rhossily was shouting. “Why did it—”

  “It must be some kind of automatic backup system,” Solomon said, already moving forward to Ambassador Ochrie’s position. Without the need to take Augustus Tavin in, his next priority was to ensure that the ambassador and his Gold Squad got back to the boat safely.

  “Malady… Get that bird ready. We’re leaving,” Solomon hissed over his suit’s communication channel.