Outcast Marines Boxed Set

by James David Victor

  “Good,” the general said. “As soon as the medic is finished, you and your Outcasts are going back to Mars.”

  What!? Jezzy thought.

  16

  The Judgement

  “Step forward, Ambassador Ochrie,” Tavin said seriously.

  They stood in front of the large booth-cubicles in the rear wall of the thoroughfare, with the line of Tavin’s cyborgs behind them.

  There was something different about these cubicles, however, Solomon saw. These three stood apart from the others and had higher, peaked archway openings with small container walls built out around them to provide a more private opening.

  I haven’t seen any of the Martians here using these ones, Solomon thought. His mind checked the surroundings for any modes of escape.

  The cyborgs had particle-beam weapons for their hands.

  The only person who actually had a gun was Tavin.

  “No,” the ambassador said firmly. “Not until you tell me what you are expecting to happen.”

  “You will be judged, of course—by the Ru’at,” Tavin said. “Everyone who converts is brought here, where the Ru’at will read your soul and make a decision about whether you are capable of accepting the new evolution of humanity.”

  “I’m not,” Ochrie said flatly. “So, if that means that you are going to kill me, then you might as well get it over and done with now, because I will never bend a knee to one of those things again!” She spat vehemence. “I am an officer of the Confederate Government. I demand an audience on equal footing with the aggressors!”

  Tavin was quiet for a moment before his voice returned, full of menace. “It is not up to you to decide if you can be useful to the Ru’at, Ambassador. Would you dare question a god?”

  “I would,” Solomon said, surprising himself even as he said it.

  “Lieutenant,” Ochrie looked at him sternly, “this is not your place. I am the civilian representative. It is my duty to parlay with them.”

  “Now you’re starting to sound like our host,” Solomon murmured, earning a dark look from Ochrie. The two locked eyes and held each other’s gaze for a long moment.

  “I won’t back down, Lieutenant. We might be in a strange environment, but the rules of Confederate-Marine relations still apply,” Ochrie insisted. “I am the ranking officer here. Stand down, Cready!”

  Solomon gritted his teeth. “I’m trying to save your life!” he hissed at the woman who he had been protecting for the last several days. “Both of your lives!” He nodded to include the Imprimatur of Proxima.

  “I fear that we have moved beyond that point, Solomon,” Mariad Rhossily said in a ghostly whisper.

  At that, the ambassador turned and walked into the booth.

  Solomon could still clearly see the woman’s back, still wearing the assistant encounter suit that she had donned to try and escape the Hausman-controlled Lunar base. But in front of her was shadowed darkness, and the suggestion of a veil.

  A low humming sound started as soon as she entered to stand before the veil. The lieutenant thought it might be the low-static hum of some big, electrical unit.

  “And again, Ambassador, through the veil, if you please,” Tavin stated.

  Solomon hissed in frustration. He wouldn’t be able to see what was happening on the other side if she did that. He wouldn’t be able to help her if—

  There was a sigh of fabric and a suggestion of movement from the other side of the veil in front of Ochrie. Was that a person? A shape?

  The humming grew louder, becoming a heavy, buzzing drone.

  “Ambassador, wait!” Solomon stepped forward.

  As Ochrie did too, and vanished into the darkness on the other side of the veil.

  The droning sound immediately clicked off, and there was silence from in front of them.

  “Ochrie!” Solomon was calling, stepping forward again so that his boots were almost crossing the threshold.

  Clamp! One of the cyborgs, moving as fast as a well-oiled machine, grabbed Solomon’s shoulder with its vice-like grip and wouldn’t let go.

  “What is going on in there?” Solomon asked. “What are you doing to her!?”

  Suddenly, the station lights flickered around them, as if a vast surge of energy had moved through the station, before the lights sprang back to normal brilliance.

  And then there was the ambassador, stepping back through the veil with a curiously blank look on her face.

  “Ambassador?” Mariad was the first to move to her side, reaching up to touch the woman’s shoulder. Even though the two women had never shown any particular friendship to each other—in fact, Solomon had heard them arguing more times than not—Ochrie did not flinch or resist the gesture.

  If anything, the ambassador appeared to not even register that the other woman was there.

  “Ma’am?” Solomon asked, struggling against the cyborg’s grip.

  Ochrie looked up at Solomon and met his eyes. She looked like the same woman that the lieutenant had seen walking into the booth just a few moments before, but there was something awfully, terribly different about her.

  All trace of the sharp, gray-blue stare was seemingly gone. Her perennial frown lines that had turned her every demeanor into one of quiet, calculating authority were gone. Instead, the woman was looking up at him with wide, clear eyes.

  She looked innocent. Remade. Carefree.

  “Ochrie?” Solomon said cautiously.

  “Ru’at hails you,” the ambassador responded with the ghost of a smile on her wan face.

  “What have you done to her!?” Solomon turned (as much as he was able) to round on clone-Tavin.

  “Done? Nothing!” Tavin declared. “She has seen the light. Haven’t you, Ambassador?”

  All eyes turned back to the usually fierce older woman, who stood for the first time seemingly relaxed and at ease. “I know what I have to do now,” she said evenly.

  “And just what precisely is that, Ambassador?” Solomon was saying through a tight jaw. The Ru’at have done something to her, he thought. They’ve brainwashed her or something…

  “Please, do not be alarmed, Lieutenant Cready,” Ochrie said with a nod. “I am still me. I am still the Confederate Ambassador. I need to return to Earth to negotiate with General Hausman about the arrival of the Ru’at.”

  “Negotiate?” Solomon asked seriously. “What is there to negotiate, exactly, Ambassador?”

  “Why, the integration of the Confederacy into the Ru’at, of course, Lieutenant!” Ochrie looked puzzled, as if that was the most natural answer in the world.

  “You’ve turned her into a stars-damned sleeper agent!” Solomon spat at Tavin.

  “Sleeper agent? Really, you are being far too melodramatic, Lieutenant Cready. This is the way forward. For all of us,” Tavin said. “We are just a young species, starting out on our journey of cosmic discovery. The Ru’at have millennia of experience and technology that they wish to share with us.”

  “And is that what the Proximians thought when the Ru’at bombed them from low orbit?” Solomon pointed out. “What about the Martians here, too?”

  “We’ve been over this, Lieutenant. There are always growing pains. And as you can see, the Martians here are happy with their new arrangement.”

  “Are they really?” Solomon muttered under his breath.

  And then he caught sight of Kol, the treacherous ex-Marine, out of the corner of his eye. He had betrayed the Marine Corps for his ‘side’—the First Chosen of Mars, the Red Planet’s independence fighters.

  Kol looked perturbed as he looked around at his fellow Martians.

  And Kol has a gun. Solomon saw the traitor’s stolen Jackhammer at his belt.

  He had an idea.

  “And just how free is Mars going to be under the Ru’at instead of the Confederacy, do you think?” he asked Tavin, but he saw Kol flinch as his words hit home.

  “Freer than they were before.” Tavin’s tone started to turn sour. “Now, this is getting tiresome
. Imprimatur Rhossily? Please step forward to be judged.”

  Solomon saw Mariad blanch paler than she had been before. She didn’t move. She can see as well as I can what is going to happen to her as soon as she steps through that veil, Solomon thought.

  “Tavin, there’s no need for this. You’ve proved your point, I’m sure,” Solomon started to try and barter for the sanity of the Imprimatur of Proxima.

  “The Ru’at demand judgement!” Tavin said as two of the cyborgs stepped forward, raising their humanoid hands to Mariad’s shoulders.

  “Solomon?” The imprimatur’s widened as terror captured her. She hissed the words quickly at him. “Tell my people, tell Proxima, that I fought for them!”

  “Wait!” Solomon said, looking not at Tavin or Mariad, but at Kol.

  Kol with his Jackhammer rifle.

  “This is wrong. The Ru’at won’t give you freedom. They’ve sparked a war and then are moving in to take over the dregs. They don’t care about your independence! Just look at Ochrie!” he pleaded with the man.

  But Kol was a traitor, Solomon should have remembered. Even though his eyes were shadowed and his brow furrowed—he clearly hadn’t drunk the Kool-Aid yet, Solomon realized in that moment—he gave Solomon one final, harrowed look of guilt and shook his head. He wasn’t going to get involved this time.

  “Kol!” Solomon snapped at him as Imprimatur Mariad Rhossily was pushed forward past the lieutenant.

  “Solomon!” Mariad gasped. Her foot crossed the threshold.

  “Take me!” Solomon attempted instead. “At least, please, at least let me go first.” Solomon breathed hard.

  If this is the only thing that I can do to prolong their freedom, then I’ll do it, he thought. Solomon knew that he had run out of options. That all he had left was his body, his life, and his mind. There were no scams or tricks or stunts that he could pull now to stop the inevitable takeover of Earth by this alien menace.

  But I guess I can stand up to it, face-to-face, he thought. That was what he had learned from the Outcast Marines. That honor wasn’t about following orders, or even doing well—it was about what you did when all the chips were down. When the odds were stacked against you, and you were tired and hurt and there didn’t look to be any way out.

  “I’ll go next,” Solomon said, and there was no denying the resolution in his voice.

  17

  Reunited

  “We received this message.” General Asquew was walking briskly down one of the corridors of The Last Call, on route to the main hold and, outside of that, the ships that would take Second Lieutenant Jezebel Wen and her Outcasts back to Mars.

  The general wasn’t really slowing down for the injured Marine that limped behind her.

  Jezzy had only just come from the treatment bay in The Last Call’s works canteen, and although she could barely feel anything below her right knee, her marching was still awkward.

  Am I even going to be of any use out there? Jezzy thought in frustration as her power armor picked up the packet of information that Asquew had sent to it.

  Incoming Message!

  SENDER: BGen. Asquew.

  Pattern Signature Recognition: Selenium, Oxygen, Lytase…

  “What am I looking at, sir?” Jezzy lurched.

  “It was a compound signature given off by a rogue Martian transporter entering Martian space,” Asquew stated. She had already told Jezzy about the arrival of the Ru’at jump-ships in Martian space, and the battle against what was left of the first Rapid Response Fleet.

  “Colonel Austin was a good commander,” Asquew stated. “He died in honor.”

  “Did no one make it out alive?” Jezzy breathed in horror. She had yet to see the Ru’at ships in battle.

  “As you know, all telemetries are delayed by the time it takes to send the radio signal, so we don’t know exactly. But this was the last coded message to reach my position while I was already on route here.” Asquew’s voice faltered over their suit speakers.

  She had been caught out, racing from one battlefield to another, and meanwhile, Hausman dropped the bomb on New York and the Ru’at decimated half her fleet, Jezzy saw. It was a classic pincer move—effectively exiling the only woman in the Confederacy who had the competency to do anything about the invasion.

  “Se. Ox. Ly,” Asquew stated. “S.O.L.”

  Jezzy stumbled, putting her hand out to steady herself against the wall. “Sol? Solomon?” Waves of relief flooded through her. Her commander, her friend, was alive.

  Maybe.

  “I believe so. The Outcast commander was, as you know, escorting Ambassador Ochrie and the Imprimatur of Proxima to brief the Confederate Council on the events of Proxima.” Asquew paused, turning to wait for Jezzy to regain her composure. “As the Confederate Council meets in New York, I had automatically assumed that Hausman had taken them out in his move for Terran domination. But it appears that I was wrong.”

  “And there’s no way this could be a random pairing of molecules?” Jezzy had to ask. The hope would be too painful if it was wrong.

  “I trust my officers, Wen. If Austin’s team thinks this is important, then I do too. I cannot see any other explanation than it being a message from Lieutenant Cready, letting us know that he is alive after all. If, indeed, he and the others had managed to get out of New York, then they might well have made for Mars to rendezvous with the Rapid Response Fleet.”

  “But why did they make planetfall instead?” Jezzy was confused.

  “Your guess is as good as mine, Marine. Which is why I am sending you to find out. The Ru’at jump-ships have, I presume, routed the ships I had stationed there. Perhaps the Ru’at are planning to do to Mars what they did to Proxima? Perhaps Solomon was attempting to stow away to the surface to help the survivors there? Or perhaps this is a clue—that he wanted us to know that something big is happening on Mars.” Asquew nodded to herself and continued marching as Wen joined her.

  “Either way, we have the last known coordinates of where the Martian transporter was heading, and you will be traveling, with a small team of personnel, to find out what is going on.”

  “Sir. Yes, sir.” Jezzy nodded, but she had one more thing to add. “I am more than relieved to find my commander alive, sir, but don’t you need all troops here? To fight off the Ru’at?”

  “What Ru’at, Marine?” Asquew stopped at the alcove where the corridor turned, where a large ovoid porthole looked out into space. This had clearly been the general’s intention as Jezzy stepped forward and looked.

  The Ru’at jump-ships had gone. “But…where?” Jezzy breathed.

  “Your guess is as good as mine. We believe they activated their faster-than-light drives shortly after the Oregon self-destructed.”

  Then Colonel Faraday died in vain… Jezzy felt her heart sink just a little bit lower, if that was even possible.

  “Which means that the major concentration of Ru’at forces, as last observed, is Mars,” Asquew said.

  “But, General…” Jezzy could see a gaping flaw in her plan. “If the Ru’at are all at Mars, and what’s left of the Rapid Response Fleet are here…”

  “Are you questioning my orders, Marine?” Asquew said severely, before softening her tone. “The Outcasts were always meant to be an expeditionary unit. Infiltration, extraction, incision. That is where your skills lie. I need forward scouts to get eyes on Mars before I commit my resources, and the Outcasts are the perfect match.”

  “Of course, General, sir,” Jezzy said.

  “And, after all, it’s not exactly like you will be going there alone, is it?” Asquew said with a wry smile as one of the bulkhead doors hummed open, and a gaggle of figures appeared. Jezzy recognized each and every one of them.

  “Malady!” she greeted the golem-like form first. Corporal Malady was the only remaining core member of the Gold Squad left—apart from me and Solomon, now, Jezzy thought as she stepped forward to rap her knuckles on his hard exoskeleton.

  Corporal Malady wore hi
s usual full tactical suit, and was, in short, a walking tank. Jezzy looked up at the strangely silent face of the man behind his faceplate. He permanently looked half-asleep, as he had been bio-chemically sealed into the full tactical suit for attacking a commander in his previous unit. Jezzy still didn’t know precisely what had happened and had never dreamed to ask.

  He is an Outcast now, like me, she thought. That was all that mattered anymore.

  “Lieutenant Wen,” the electric-sounding tones of the man-mountain said. And even though he appeared incapable of emotion, Jezzy was sure that she could hear gratitude in his voice.

  “Karamov…” Jezzy breathed.

  “He was given a military funeral, Lieutenant Wen,” Malady intoned. Jezzy knew what that meant—that he would have been buried in the icy rocks of Mars still inside his power armor, clutching his Jackhammer across his chest.

  “Good.” Jezzy nodded quietly. “He didn’t deserve to die. He was a good man.”

  “They all are, Marine,” Asquew said behind her, her tone serious. “There will be time for grief afterwards. For now, the memory of our fallen comrades has to spur us onward to greater victories.”

  “Sir. Yes, sir.” Jezzy nodded, and her response was echoed by Malady and the other two remaining members of the Gold Squad.

  “Corporal Ratko,” Jezzy greeted the smaller Outcast Marine. Ratko wore her power suit, like Jezzy, but hers looked pretty banged and bashed, scratched and scorched in places. She was a smaller woman than Jezzy, and a technical specialist—meaning that she was proficient in almost every aspect of piloting and engineering.

  “Good to be back, sir.” Ratko threw a very lazy sort of salute.

  The Outcast Marine Willoughby beside her was the next newer addition to Gold Squad. When the Outcast Marine base on Ganymede had been attacked—by none other than Kol, as it happened—the Marine Corps had lost a lot of personnel, and the Outcast ‘adjuncts’ had been upgraded to full Marine status. Ratko, Willoughby, and Arlo Menier had been added to Gold Squad, as the entire unit had to be redesigned.