“Hngh!” Rhossily made a strangled sound of outrage. “They what?”
“Yes, Imprimatur. It wasn’t just to Proxima that Augustus Tavin promised his company’s technology…” the ambassador said, with a hint of sad irony to her voice. “But the fact remains that the only way that NeuroTech profits is if they stay out of direct conflict themselves…”
Solomon understood what she was driving at immediately.
“What good does it do NeuroTech to attack Proxima? To attack anyone with its own fleet of cyborgs? It doesn’t make any money that way.”
“Unless they sold out to the Confederacy,” Rhossily muttered irritably.
“No.” Solomon shook his head. “I would know. I was sent here to destroy NeuroTech, not make them our allies.”
“So you say…” The Imprimatur of Proxima was clearly suspicious.
Just as she had every right to be, Solomon conceded, just not to be stupid at the same time. “Even if you don’t believe me, Imprimatur, it looks like I failed in both missions. Augustus Tavin is clearly dead on the ground up there, and my squad is now stranded on Proxima unless I can find a way out!”
“It’s not far.” Rhossily seemed a little more subdued as she nodded ahead. The ambassador, however, had one final point to make on the nature of their new shared enemy.
“The cyborgs attacked both Confederate Marines and Proximians, which make them our shared enemy now, so please, Lieutenant, Imprimatur, we must work together—at least for now…” she stated. “I was taught that it is always wisest to understand what your opposite party wants when you enter into a negotiation,” they all heard Ochrie say.
“…but the actions of that vessel and the cyborgs make no sense if it really is NeuroTech behind them both. Even if the company succeeded in conquering Proxima, they would still have to fight the Confederacy straight afterwards, or at the same time. And, what is more, we should be asking ourselves whether one singular mega-corporation—if that is what we are dealing with here—can hope to maintain control over an entire planet? They are not a government. They are not a nation, with hundreds of thousands, even millions of people in their employ. NeuroTech just isn’t equipped to run a planet.”
Solomon was about to point out that none of this was getting them any closer to off-planet, when his suit lights illuminated an end to the tunnel ahead of them.
It was a simple metal door with stenciled letters and numbers across its center.
“This is the reserve armory,” Rhossily said, pulling a key from her pocket and inserting it into the door for it to creak open.
Ping! Tick! Fluorescent lights clicked on as soon as they walked into the cramped space. But it was a very large room, Solomon saw as he walked in cautiously, Karamov’s pistol held up high in front of him. No enemies lying in wait for them.
To be clear, it was a large room that had a lot of stuff in it. Solomon saw aisles of racks and holding boxes and cabinets stapled to the walls. There were crates of tinned goods, sitting beside open boxes stuffed full of encounter suits and boxes of medical kits.
And guns. Solomon’s eyes lit up.
There were stacks of rifles like unlit bonfires, next to trays of pistols and crates and crates of ammo boxes.
Nothing that was as powerful as a Jackhammer, Solomon thought miserably as he scanned the available merchandise. “Outcasts, reprovision,” he ordered, and the other members of his squad pushed their way in to start greedily throwing rifles over their shoulders and stuffing their available belt modules with ammo and pistols, discarding their Marine service ones if they had run out of bullets.
“Ah, now that is more like it!” Solomon heard an appreciative groan and ventured around one of the aisles to discover that Arlo had found racks of short shotguns. Pump-action ones, he saw with a slight sense of dismay. Not the automated release of the Jackhammer, but one where after every second shot, you would have to break open the barrel and reload.
But they pack a punch, he had to admit. Maybe enough to keep a cyborg down.
“Hand them out,” Solomon said quickly, picking one for himself and filling two utility modules on his belt with the stubby, rounded shells.
When the Outcasts were provisioned—Arlo stood proudly with two rifles strapped to his shoulders, and a shotgun in his hand—Solomon gave the signal for the rest of the Proximian ministers and officials to be brought in.
“Pick something you know how to use, and if you’ve never fired anything before, then pick a pistol,” Solomon called out, before turning to Ambassador Ochrie, who hadn’t picked up anything.
“Ambassador, although I am going to try and assure your safety, given the threat, I cannot be certain…” Solomon began.
“I have my pistol.” She showed him the ridiculously small device. What did it fire? .22 rounds? Solomon thought.
“I really don’t think that will cut it, ma’am…” Solomon tried to say. Even the imprimatur had equipped herself with a rifle and stood with her people, describing how to use them.
“I am a diplomat, Lieutenant,” Ochrie sighed. “While I have no qualms with fighting for my life, and my nation, I must always know how my skills are best served. Which is not on the front line but being able to talk about it after the battle.” She nodded, and Solomon felt curiously proud of her for taking such a stance.
No such luxury for him, however, as he slotted two shells into the shotgun and signaled to the imprimatur. “Is it that door for the way out?” He nodded to the only other door at the end of the armory.
“It is.” He watched her pale face nod. “It leads to another straight tunnel, but this time, there are no doors on either side. Eventually, it reaches a pair of stone stairs, which comes up about fifty meters from the palace terrace.
Fifty meters? Solomon grimaced. He didn’t like a number that small. Easy enough to be seen, and seen clearly.
“And from there to the rear of the palace grounds?” Solomon remembered what Malady had told him about where he had to hide the courier craft.
“Just follow the garden path. Another hundred meters or so. Plenty of shrubs and tree cover…” She nodded.
“Okay.” Solomon took a deep breath, and then came up with a plan.
Deactivate Environmental Lights? Affirmative.
External Microphones: 100%
Solomon turned off all his suit lights but turned every piece of sensing equipment that the armor had up to maximum as he crept down the corridor towards the stone steps at their end. The reason he could see was that the steps themselves were illuminated by a silvery sort of light—starlight from outside.
Behind him crept Jezzy, then the ambassador, Karamov, the imprimatur, with Ratko and Willoughby at the back of their small forward group. Arlo Menier was further back, with the Proximians who refused to leave the planet of their birth.
“Ready?” Solomon breathed, to see the graying shadow of Jezzy’s helmet nod, just the once.
Solomon eased himself up the steps, to see that they came out in what could only be described as a picturesque ‘grotto’—a collection of rocks around the tunnel exit, and the whole thing shielded by large, sprawling rhododendron bushes.
“See anything?” Jezzy hissed behind him as Solomon crouched two steps down from the top and peered out across the palace grounds.
It was night and it was dark outside, but at least it wasn’t the pitch black of the tunnel. Instead, the sky was a lighter silvery-grey of overcast clouds—and one giant fracking mechanical spaceship, Solomon thought—as well as the dim glow of the garden LED lights.
Whump! Suddenly, there was a flash of light across the scene and the sound of a distant explosion coming from the direction of the city.
“Bombardments continuing,” Malady’s voice joined them over the suit communicator. “Ship scans seem to be suggesting that they are targeting Proxa’s infrastructure. Barracks, factories…”
“Why aren’t the drone-satellites firing at it?” Solomon wondered aloud.
“Impossible
for me to ascertain at this point, Lieutenant,” Malady returned.
“One of these days, Malady, we’re going to work on your appreciation of rhetorical questions…” Solomon mounted the steps, emerging into the palace gardens and crouching under the cover of the spreading bushes.
There was the palace—with large sections of its walls, windows, and doors all seemingly broken apart. He heard the sound of distant screams and felt shame and anger run through him like a line of fire. I should be out there, saving people’s lives, he thought.
“Nothing we can do, Lieutenant.” Jezzy always had an uncanny way of reading his innermost thoughts. She joined him in a crouch under the spreading boughs of vegetation.
“I know, but still…. I don’t like it,” Solomon whispered.
“You already have people’s lives behind you, waiting to be saved,” Jezzy said, and when Solomon looked at her, he saw the hard glint in her eyes. Maybe that was why the ex-Yakuza agent was so good at reading him—she knew what it was like to make difficult choices between life and death.
Just like I made that choice about Matty Sozer, all that time ago, Solomon thought. He could feel the burn of shame over his crime, and the guilt-laden resentment he still felt. That was why he was doing what he did now.
I was the cause of that man’s death—one he shouldn’t have had. Solomon Cready wondered if no matter how many lives he would save in his career as a Confederate Marine, would it ever be enough to cancel out that one life he had failed?
“Lieutenant.” Jezzy nodded towards the palace, where a trio of cyborgs were patrolling. There were no humans with them, no sign of any operating controller dictating their movements.
“Who’s giving them their orders!?” Solomon gritted his teeth in frustration.
They did not speak as they walked, which did not surprise Solomon, as he had never seen the soulless man-machines speak at all. He didn’t know if they had any vestige of consciousness left in their bodies at all.
But they must have some way of relaying information, he thought. Otherwise, how would they know to march in perfect uniformity? Or to stop at the far end of the palace, one standing by the wall as the other stepped out, and then for both remaining to join the exposed one?
“They’re conducting searches,” Solomon said. Although without any apparent consciousness inhabiting them, he wondered if he could really say that ‘they’ did anything.
“You think they’re searching for us?” Jezzy breathed.
Solomon had no idea what inhuman cybernetic machines might want at all, but it made sense to his military training. “It’s what I would do,” he said. “And they seemed to converge on the palace pretty quickly and head for our barricaded lobby. That means that they must recognize the importance of the imprimatur and the ambassador, at least…”
“Aww, and here was me thinking they just wanted to get a better look at my handsome face,” Arlo Menier snickered over their channel.
“I’m sure they’ll get their chance, Menier,” Solomon muttered dourly.
But it was good news for them that they were patrolling, at least. That gave them a repeatable window to move when their patrol was out of sight.
“Groups of four or five. Follow the leader,” Solomon sent the message through the Gold channel, to then be sent down the line of refugees behind them. “Arlo, I want you and Wylie to stay with us until we’re at the ambassador’s ship, and then hopefully we can give the cyborgs a distraction to give your group time to get away from the palace.”
“Appreciated, Lieutenant,” Menier growled.
Solomon waited until the patrol had come back around the building, and then waited a few more tense minutes for them to repeat their patrol. With any luck, he hoped, they would do the same thing all night…
“Now!” he whispered, as he, Jezzy, the ambassador, and the imprimatur made a break out from their cover, across the flagstone path to the grass verge beyond, running ten meters or so until they skidded to a halt in the eaves of the next giant sculpted plant.
Solomon waited, breathing shallowly. No signs of pursuit. No shouting voices or screams. No fizzing of particle beams being fired against them.
“Good.” He looked back to see that Karamov was next, with a gaggle of about five Proximian refugees. It seemed that in his absence, Arlo had already organized his squad into one Marine traveling with groups of five. Maybe Menier really should have been a commander after all, Solomon thought, but it was once again time to move, and they ran across the grass to the next bank of lavender as Karamov’s group moved up to their vacated position behind them.
They leap-frogged like this down the palace gardens, with Ratko and Willoughby bringing up the next teams of five and six respectively into the umbral darks of plants and landscaped lawns.
That left just Arlo, with about another fourteen people to bring up on his own.
“Menier! Where are you? Have you made it into the grounds yet?” Solomon said. He, Jezzy, Ochrie, and Rhossily were at the final patch of cover—a line of pruned trees standing on their own island of raised mounts before the open lawn with its wide dirt patches of landing zones. The exact same place where Solomon had first stepped foot on Proximian soil.
“One team with Wylie has, I’m still with the remaining seven at the grotto,” Menier whispered back.
“Why are you attempting to bring up so many on your own?” Solomon asked.
“Because these fourteen want to stay. On Proxima,” Arlo said, and Solomon realized that Arlo had purposefully put himself last of all the groups.
“You’re a good Marine, Menier,” Solomon said after a pause.
“No, I’m not, Lieutenant. But I should tell you thank you. For believing in me,” Arlo said, just as there was the sound of scraping and a sudden, startled yell over both the channel and the night.
“What was that?” Solomon stood up in a half-crouch, peering into the dark.
“It’s one of Wylie’s lot. They tripped over the flagstones…” the Outcast heard Arlo say, and then saw the large shadow of the Frenchman break from the distant grotto to race, hunched, in front of the garden lights, skidding to grab a shape on the floor, drag it to its feet, and shove it into the waiting bushes—
But by then, it was already too late.
FZZZT! A bolt of purple-white light banished the darkness, clearly illuminating the half-standing Arlo in his power armor, as the bolt sailed past him to bust into burning fragments as it blew apart the upper branches of one of the trees.
Wylie’s group panicked, screaming and jumping up to run toward the next position.
“No! There’s only room for one group at a time!” Solomon was fully standing now, watching the mayhem ensue behind them.
Most of Wylie’s group skidded to the bank of lavender, displacing Willoughby’s group that was already hiding there, while other Proximians decided to just make a break for it entirely, running straight across the lawns to the rear of the palace grounds.
“No, stay down!” Jezzy said in alarm.
FZZZT! Another purple-white line of light found one of the running Proximians, throwing her from her feet and illuminating her like an angel, before she fell to the ground, dead.
“Too late now,” Solomon said, taking aim with his shotgun. “Get the ambassador and imprimatur out of here, Jezzy!”
“I’m not leaving,” Jezzy said.
“That’s an order, dammit!” Solomon fired and saw the bullet spark as it hit one of the patrolling cyborgs, and the force of the heavy shell flung it back against the wall. He had no doubt that it would get back up again in a minute, but he might be able to keep them down—
“YAAAAS!” Arlo Menier, apparently, had pretty much the same idea as Solomon saw him striding out of the dark to shoot his own shotgun at one, and then pump it to shoot again. He was laughing victoriously as he did so.
He’s insane, Solomon thought. But maybe it was the sort of insane they needed right about now.
“Sir!” It was Karamov, s
liding to a halt beside him as he managed to keep his small team of five mostly together. But it appeared that he was the only one, as the Proximians were now all breaking cover in their panic and running freely across the open, exposed lawn toward the rear of the grounds.
“All Outcasts, rear-guard action! Covering fire!” Solomon snapped, taking another shot at a further three-man cyborg patrol that rounded the palace walls, before slamming to his side and rolling out of the way as he fumbled at his belt for more shells.
BOOM! BOOM! Karamov’s shotgun took up the slack, as did others of the Outcasts as, one by one, they broke their concealed positions to fire up at the terrace balconies and the cyborgs coming out of them.
“Reload!” Karamov called, throwing himself behind the tree roots as Solomon now knelt up, looking for the next target.
There are too many up there, Solomon saw. Already there were three teams of three—several of them limping or stumbling as various parts of their bodies had been blown away—but they were too far away to perform accurate headshots with these ancient weapons.
“Get the people out of there! Fall back!” Solomon commanded, firing two shots and slumping to the ground. “Reload,” he shouted, knowing that Karmaov would take it as his signal to stand up and fire his two shells. This way, they could keep up a constant barrage of covering fire as the group ran.
Which they were doing. Solomon looked back over the lawn to see the thirty-odd Proximians already racing over the packed-earth of the landing pad. Streaks of purple-white light shot through the night and claimed a further two lives, three…
Is Jezzy alright? Did she make it to the end? Solomon thought desperately. Did the ambassador? Or were they one of the stilled human forms that were now scattered across the imprimatur’s lawn?
“Reload!” Karamov ducked, as Ratko, Willoughby, and Menier continued their assault.
BOOM! BOOM! BOOM!
Ratko and Willoughby had managed to make it to the nearest cover to Karamov and himself, Solomon saw, and were performing the same tandem two-Marine barrage he and Karamov were doing.
Outcast Marines Boxed Set Page 63
