“You think Tavin did this to himself? So that he wouldn’t be taken alive?” Jezzy was saying, standing over the body of the cyborg as the people around them quickly moved back from the gunfight, creating a wider and wider circle around them.
“He must have done. I don’t see any other explanation,” Solomon said quickly, looking around them.
“Arlo! Willoughby! You’re on point. I want a clear route back to the ship!” Solomon ordered brusquely. “Ratko, keep an eye on the other guests. Don’t shoot anyone.” He turned back to his remaining squad members. “Jezzy, Karamov, you two are with me. We’re protecting the ambassador and getting her out of here—”
THA-WHUMP!
Before any of the Outcasts could even take up their new positions, the checkerboard marble floor tremored and shook, and the chandeliers rocked from their chains.
“What was that!?” Imprimatur Rhossily of Proxima was already reaching into her white and silver robe for a small communicator bud, putting it into her ear as the crowd started to scream.
“We’re under attack!” Solomon heard one of the Proximian guests say, seconds before the glass of the windows shattered when another shockwave rolled over them.
“Ambassador! If this is some Confederate trick…” Rhossily was demanding answers, while at the same time calling for reinforcements. “Guard detail to the palace. Get me a situation report. Scramble the air fleet! What’s happening out there!?”
“Ambassador.” Solomon looked at her heavily. It wouldn’t be the first time that the Confederacy had decided to use his men as a diversion. Solomon and the rest of Gold Squad had been in Armstrong Habitat on Mars when the Confederate Marine Corps had started their attack, after all.
“I know nothing about any attack, I promise!”
FZZZT! There was a sudden bolt of purple-white light bursting down the hall from the main doors, missing the imprimatur by inches.
Solomon jumped forward, seizing Mariad Rhossily’s shoulder and dragging her back into the lobby. Over her struggling shoulder, Solomon saw two of the cyborg guards that had been placed by the front doors. They had broken down the front door and were marching forward, raising their weapons.
“Down!” Solomon shouted as another bolt of purple-white laser-light shot into the lobby and the dining room behind them. Someone screamed.
“Back! It’s the cyborgs!” Solomon shouted, shoving the Imprimatur of Proxima behind him as he reached for Ambassador Ochrie.
Who was firing a tiny, concealed pistol the size of a child’s toy at the advancing line of cyborgs. BANG!
“Even you came down here armed!?” Solomon shouted as he grabbed her shoulder and pushed her behind him as well.
“Of course! You don’t think I was stupid enough to not carry weapons, do you?” Ochrie said.
Great. It was just me who listened to the regulations then… Solomon thought, before shouting, “Outcasts! Form on me! Contact straight ahead!”
“It’s the cyborgs… They’ve malfunctioned,” the Imprimatur of Proxima was saying with wide eyes. Around Solomon, the Outcasts formed up, firing their pistols at the two advancing cyborgs. Without a weapon, Solomon was useless to do anything other than watch as the hail of bullets hit the two murderous man-robots, spinning them around or making them suddenly stumble.
CRACK! One shot hit something vital in one’s metal knee wheel, and the cyborg slammed to the floor, before starting to crawl towards them.
“Bring them down!” Solomon was shouting as the other cyborg was halfway to the lobby.
THAP! It was Karamov’s shot who ended it, firing from where he still lay on the floor. The rest of the Outcasts poured their bullets onto the remaining, crawling cyborg and eventually, one of them found the place that it needed to, as the metal death machine stopped moving.
“I’ve got reports coming in from all over Proxa. The cyborgs have seized the port, they’re making their way to the barracks…” the imprimatur said as she ordered people to stay away from the windows.
“NeuroTech,” Solomon growled. “It has to be them. This must be some sort of insurance policy that Tavin pre-programmed into the cyborgs…”
A metallic voice broke into their conversation. It was Malady from on board the ambassadorial ship. “I don’t think so, Lieutenant… I’m sending the courier’s live video feed to you…”
Solomon saw a faint line of green light flash over the inside of his helmet as Malady attached the ship’s videos to their Gold Channel.
Incoming Broadcast! Accept?
Source: Ambassadorial Craft X31 (Courier-Class)
A faint, slightly opaque image scrolled down over half of Solomon’s vision, and in it, he could make out the tall trees and parklands of the imprimatur’s estate and gardens, and the large white stone building of the palace itself. Everything was still glittering with grotto-lights, although they shared their radiance with large, dull red glows coming from Proxa itself.
“Bombs? Missiles?” Solomon breathed.
“Look up, Lieutenant…” Malady said, and Solomon did, seeing that the dark sky above the city wasn’t quite so dark as it should be.
Proxa was a wealthy place for a colonial city, and in its hex-mapped heart, there stood a number of shining metal skyscrapers—nowhere near as tall as the mega conurbations that existed back on Earth of course, but they were tall enough to speak of civilization and wealth. Along their sides and at their top were the gentle red illumination lights that guided Proxima’s drone and aerial vehicles. These lights spilled their radiance over the glass windows and metal walls of the towers.
And over the underside of a vast shape above them.
“What is that…” Solomon’s eyes went round inside his helmet.
Solomon Cready was a command specialist. That meant that he had been groomed for his position by studying strategy, tactics, military history, group psychology, and more. A part of his training was to have a functional knowledge of major types of starcraft employed across human space.
He was no expert, perhaps, but what he saw above him was unlike anything that he had ever seen before.
It was big, for a start—a vast metal sky that was only slightly grayer than the nighttime clouds that Solomon could see in the far distance. It hung over the city of Proxa like a shield, almost the size of the city itself.
The reason why Solomon hadn’t seen it at first was mostly because he hadn’t expected to see it, but also because the thing had no under-lighting on its machine belly. No landing lights. No guidance lights. Nothing to indicate that it cared at all for how it might make planetfall or what it might disrupt when it did.
And the thing looked mechanical in a way that Solomon didn’t expect from any sort of craft. He couldn’t even see any evidence of engines. No rocket fire or thrusters. How did it stay up there? Solomon had no idea.
He could see landscapes of metal pipes and tubes, each of which must have been as big as the palace they were currently standing in. Solomon could see units like metal boxes on tracks, shunting towards and back from each other. It was like looking at the inside of a vast engine, but one that Solomon had no idea what its ultimate purpose could be.
“Whose is that!?” Solomon was shouting as he took a step back, suddenly unsure. What do I do now? How do I defeat this? I can’t defeat this.
“Lieutenant?” It was Jezzy, helping Karamov to his feet as she looked at him in worry.
“Invasion. Some kind of craft,” Solomon was saying, his mind racing for an answer. Could this be a Proxima ship?
But all thoughts of it being loyal to the city it hung over were dashed as he saw small, dark, spinning objects fall from the engine-like sky, rotating as they did so faster and faster just before they hit the ground.
No! Solomon knew what would happen, and he watched in real time as he and everyone in the palace felt the whumps of explosions out in the city. Solomon watched as expanding purple-and-white light globes gave way to the roar of a more normal, crimson explosion.
That craft was bombarding Proxima.
“Imprimatur?” Solomon demanded, casting a look over his shoulder to see from her terrified expression that she had received the news over her ear communicator just what was happening to her capital city. “It’s not one of ours!” she said. “I’ve got reports of more cyborgs heading our way. Surrounding the palace.”
“Barricades!” Solomon realized what they had to do. “Get those doors sealed!”
“The windows are smashed open, Lieutenant,” one of the guests—perhaps the one who shouted pro-independence propaganda earlier—said dryly behind him.
“In the dining hall, not here in the lobby!” Solomon snapped, ordering that the grand, white-painted double-doors that led into the dining hall were also closed and barricaded. When some of the guests protested, Solomon had little time for them.
“You can either stay out there and be killed by the cyborgs or stay in here with a team of professionally-trained Marines. Your call.”
Each and every one of the guests, rather unsurprisingly, decided to move to the smaller lobby area as Arlo directed them in barricading the double-doors at either end of the room with anything they could find. Solomon watched as they upended antique dressers, tables, chairs, and statues against the doors. Before they had completely sealed the front, Solomon ordered them to halt, leaving a crack open.
“We all know that this is not going to hold them back, right?” he turned and said to Gold Squad.
One by one, Jezzy, Arlo, Willoughby, Ratko, and Karamov nodded at him. They knew what he was saying—when the cyborgs got there, they would be the only defense that these people had. And all they had were knives and service pistols.
Service pistols that are probably not far from running out of ammunition. Solomon grimaced.
“I’m going to our rooms,” Solomon said. “I’ll grab every weapon I can carry and rendezvous back here. But if you get a chance to get out to the courier, take it.”
“Lieutenant, no!” Karamov said. “I’ll go. We need you here.”
“No one needs to go,” Solomon heard a woman’s voice say, and he was surprised to see that it was Imprimatur Rhossily, stepping away from where she had been trying to calm her crowd of Proximian officials and elites.
“Proxima might have a reputation as a heavenly place, but that does not mean that my predecessors were fools and idiots.” Solomon and the rest watched as she walked to the center of the room, kicking at the different tiles until she found one that made a curiously echoing thonk. “I need a knife,” the imprimatur muttered, and Jezzy was at her side, stabbing at the grouting between the tiles until there was an audible click and the entire tile rose on automated pistons, revealing a metal ladder leading downwards.
“Where does it go?” Solomon asked.
“The palace has its own armory—pretty old stock now, but enough to give everyone a weapon, at least.” The imprimatur was already gesturing for the guests to approach. “The tunnels lead out to a feature in the garden. From there, we’re right next to the private launch pads. If we can find any more craft…”
“Enough to get everyone off planet?” Ambassador Ochrie asked, looking up at Solomon as she said in a smaller voice, “There isn’t enough room on the courier for all these people…”
No, there isn’t, Solomon thought dismally. Not for the thirty-odd people here, and clearly not for the tens of thousands of civilians who lived in the city of Proxa beyond.
“Off planet?” said a man’s voice. It was the same one as who had been the most vocal and acerbic just a little while earlier. Solomon saw that he was looking a large, round-bellied man with short brown and gray hair, and heavy black-rimmed glasses.
“Trade Minister Wylie, please… Now is not the time for arguments,” Rhossily said in exasperation. Clearly this man had a history of antagonism long before the Outcasts came.
“I have no intention of going off planet. I have a villa in the mountains. Fully stocked with food, water, and arms,” the man stated proudly.
“I should have known…” the imprimatur hissed under her breath.
“Those that can’t fit into your craft or don’t want to flee Proxima can make for my villa, where we’ll hole up and wait for reinforcements,” the man was saying.
Solomon realized that he was looking at some kind of struggle for power. This trade minister wanted to be the hero of the day, but he just didn’t understand the gravity of the situation.
“Short of an entire Marine Corps fleet, Mr. Wylie, I am not sure that any reinforcements are going to do you any good against the size of the ship that’s hanging over your city right now,” he said gravely.
“Lieutenant, the trade minister does have a point,” Ambassador Ochrie said urgently, as they could hear the distant sounds of laser shot and banging, as if the cyborgs had finally found their way to the palace.
“I cannot get all of these people off-world. The Confederacy cannot, at the moment. But if they can get to safety…” she pointed out.
“Fine,” Solomon growled. All he needed was another crazy mission across a battlefield to a place that may or may not be safe, especially when he had a perfectly good courier vessel waiting to take him and his troops out.
“I’ll go,” Arlo said gruffly, looking at the barricade behind them as it shook.
“What?” Solomon said.
“The situation is obvious. We need to get the Proximians to a place they can hide, and someone needs to get word of what is happening here back to the Confederacy,” Arlo said. “They’ll need protection. I’ll lead the Proximians here to this villa of theirs and await orders.”
You’d do that? Solomon blinked, surprised. For people that you don’t even know? For potential enemies of the Confederacy?
But then again, Solomon realized that the Confederacy and the Proximians’ only real enemy now was whoever—or whatever—was attacking Proxa out there.
THUMP! Some of the stacked chairs skittered from their places in the barricade as the doors shook again.
“Do it.” Solomon nodded, and the group of Proximian officials and ministers, as well as the Ambassador of Earth and a bunch of Outcast Marines from the Confederacy, climbed quickly down into the tunnel below the imprimatur’s palace, and hopefully, towards freedom.
17
The Ru-at
Click. They all heard the noise as the flagstone far above them automatically clicked into place, plunging the group of refugees into almost pitch black.
Environmental Lights Activated.
The cowls Marines’ helmets lit up with soft blue LEDs, banishing the near darkness. Solomon saw that they were in a wide two-person tunnel cut into the bedrock with machine precision, metal pipes and wires spread out along the walls.
I seem to spend a lot of my time underground, Solomon thought distractedly as he checked the vitals of his squad on his readout. All good.
“Malady? Situation report,” he breathed.
SKRRR! A crackle of static over the Gold Channel, but then, with relief, Solomon heard his Marine’s voice.
“I’ve taken the ambassador’s craft outside the palace grounds,” the metal golem responded. “The unknown vessel above us does not seem interested in engaging with any aerial or land-based craft.”
“What, none?” Solomon wondered. “Aren’t the Proximian forces attacking it?”
“There was an artillery barrage from the dock region of the city, Lieutenant, but the craft above ignored it, and shortly, the barrage stopped. I fear that no weapon that Proxima has will be enough to damage it.”
“The vessel is clearly in league with, or at least contact with, the cyborgs on the surface. It must be using them as its field-teams,” Solomon said
As if summoned by their mention, there was the distant sound of crashing and thumping from far above them.
“Have they found the trapdoor?” a worried Proximian minister asked, looking up.
But no light was lancing down from the shaft they had just climbed down. The
cyborgs must have broken into the room, but they had no idea where the contained humans had gone.
“Quietly.” Solomon held up a finger of his metal power gauntlets over his helmet, miming shushing them, before pointing at the imprimatur. “Lead the way,” he whispered, and, in pairs, the group of stranded Proximians and their guardians started creeping through the long dark, trying to make as little noise as possible for fear of alerting the man-machines above.
“Could it be NeuroTech?” Solomon whispered to the imprimatur at his side, with Ambassador Ochrie and Jezzy forming the next pair behind him. Solomon’s suit lights revealed a perfectly straight tunnel, with the occasional metal door leading right and left—all of which the imprimatur ignored.
“To be honest, Lieutenant, I really have no idea…” Rhossily shook her head.
“They would need an orbital ship-field to construct a vessel that big,” Solomon was saying, which didn’t fill him with confidence. He knew that the problem with space was that, well, it was big. Very big.
Plenty of space for an off-planet construction platform, Solomon thought. He had seen their like in the newsfeeds back on Earth, of course. Most spacecraft were constructed in orbit these days, and very few were engineered at surface level and then sent upwards. The fuel cost and the associated dangers of sending a newly-minted craft on its maiden test flight into orbit was simply too great.
Instead, the Confederacy and every colony world that had been given license used orbital platforms—giant mechanized stations with teams of hundreds of engineers who space-walked their vessels together, bolt by bolt.
“But still…” Solomon murmured as he kept walking into the gloom. “A construction station big enough to build something the size of city would get noticed, right?” Was NeuroTech really that rich?
“The question is not only how, Lieutenant, but why,” Ambassador Ochrie pointed out.
“What do you mean?”
“We have been operating under the assumption that NeuroTech has been profiting from the civil wars, seeking to offer every side its cyborg technology,”
Outcast Marines Boxed Set Page 62
