It wasn’t something that Solomon had been thinking about especially, but it was something that had occurred to him in those moments on board the Marine scout as they fought Hausman’s fighters. He had seen the way Jezzy had worked with Ratko, Willoughby, and Malady, and even though he never wanted to lose them as his partners, he now knew how important it was to have trust between service men and women.
“You’ve earned their trust,” Solomon whispered. “They’ll die for you.”
“And so have you,” Jezzy breathed. “The rest of the squad threw themselves into battle without question at your command. You led us out of Proxima, remember?”
Solomon inclined his head. She was right at that, but right then and there, he realized why he had relinquished the boat to Jezzy. And why he didn’t think that he should command Gold Squad anymore.
“H21,” Solomon said heavily, and he saw Ochrie flinch as she overheard his name. “I know what I am, Jezzy, and I know what I am good at. Very good at, in fact,” he said. When he was younger, before he realized that he was a clone, he had always praised himself for his quick wits and his ability to think on his feet. For a while, he had even thought that those qualities had made him a good squad commander.
Maybe it did, he thought. But he also knew that the secrets lying in his blood were more important than just him. “The Ru’at have changed Earth. They—with the unwitting help of the mega-corps and the Confederacy—have changed human biology.”
Solomon took a deep breath. “If we’re still alive after all this, then there’s going to be a lot of work to do. Not just rebuilding and resettling, but also understanding just what the Ru’at have done. I think that it will be better if Gold Squad has its own, dedicated leader, and then I will be able to offer my services where I can.”
It hurt Solomon to admit this, but he had seen too much in the Ru’at colony to not say it. He had seen the caverns of Mars transformed into a living, alien landscape. He had seen whole groups of people brainwashed and enslaved.
“Your request is granted, Colonel Cready,” Ochrie broke into their conversation.
“Huh?” Solomon blinked as the commander-in-chief continued.
“As you say, it will have to depend upon whether or not the Marine Corps and the Confederacy survives, and we will also have to consult with General Asquew for her approval. But I will be forwarding you for command of the Outcasts and the rank of lieutenant colonel, as I intend to expand the Outcast expeditionary forces into a full battalion,” Ochrie said.
Solomon nodded. He felt flushed with pride, but it was also tinged with regret. I guess this means I won’t fight alongside my squad again.
Chief Ochrie must have sensed some of Solomon’s reservations, because he saw the older woman’s wry, wrinkly smile as she said, “Oh, and I wouldn’t worry about abandoning your friends, Colonel Cready. In the Marine Corps, even field officers have tactical battle groups and are able to deploy on missions. I am sure that General Asquew will want your wits and your abilities out there in the field anyway—with your battle group made up of hand-picked Marines.”
Which will, of course, be Gold Squad. Solomon turned to grin at Jezzy, who nodded.
Blip! There was a small flash of light from the black mirror of the ansible as the ripples coalesced into a single blue dot. Shimmering into view just above the surface of the obsidian-looking screen was a simple holographic set of words.
‘CMC Brigadier General Asquew Located: Contact?’
17
Interlude: The Conquest of Earth
In the darkness beyond the light of the sun, a small red light flared. It illuminated a rocky landscape pitted with craters and a singular antenna attached to a large dish. It was the dark side of the Moon, and one of the many near-listening posts.
Signals flickered and passed down the antenna array as the constant stream of sonar waves pinged off a shape. A very large shape. And it was approaching Earth at a stately pace, entering the Moon’s shadow, where it blocked most of Earth’s own electro-magnetic sensors.
Which was why the near-listening posts had been set in place, of course.
Ship Designation: UNKNOWN
Propulsion System: UNKNOWN
The simple computer on the Confederate listening device couldn’t recognize what the craft was, only its dimensions—almost two full kilometers across and almost two-thirds of a kilometer thick.
Other devices and equipment whirled into place. Miniaturized radio telescopes, deep-space cameras.
They bombarded the shape with sonar waves, guided magnetic waves, low-frequency sound-bursts…and the shape that came back was that of a giant disk.
It was the Ru’at mothership. And it had come to Earth to pay its respects.
“Incoming!” Alerts sounded up and down the main Moon base of Luna, under the other commander-in-chief’s control, or Brigadier General Hausman, as he was known.
In the main Luna command and control room, which Hausman had turned into his operational HQ, a low-grade panic was starting to spread. In front of computers and data-screens, the Marines of the Near-Earth Fleet struggled to understand what precisely it was they were looking at. They knew of the Ru’at, of course, and they knew of the takeover of Proxima, but they had never seen the actual mothership.
Hausman sat in his raised command chair and surveyed the rising chaos. He was a portly sort of man who liked to be on view before his subordinates. He wore a very-recently fabricated dress uniform that gleamed white and gold, with all his old general insignia and awards, plus a dozen new ones that he himself had a hand in designing.
Around the walls of the command and control room stood the motionless figures of the cyborgs created for him by Taranis Industries—a distant corporate sister of NeuroTech and AgroMore. Their part-metal, part-flesh faces were completely impassive, and the particle-beam hands at their sides were totally impassive. Just as they always were.
“Steady, boys…” Hausman muttered to his crew. He knew the deal, or what Taranis and the Chosen of Mars had said was the deal: The Ru’at would take the colonies, and he would have Earth. He had already made the final move of his operation: to nuke the Confederate Council in New York and declare General Asquew the culprit.
The Ru’at had seen to the end of Asquew’s First Rapid Response Fleet, Hausman knew, which only left Rapid Response Fleet 2.
But Hausman hadn’t been overly worried about RR2, as reports from Neptune had indicated that Pluto had been a disaster for Asquew. She had lost one of her best battleships, and the rest of the RR2 had been engaged in a skirmish-conflict with the Ru’at jump-ships.
And if just eight of the Ru’at jump-ships could destroy the Invincible, then Hausman rather hoped that the rest would have made short work of RR2.
But then, why has the mothership come here, to Earth?
“We got visuals, General,” called one of his soldiers at her station.
“Overhead,” Hausman said gruffly, maintaining his stern demeanor at all times.
On the central view screen at one end of the command and control room, there appeared the overlaid images of the near-listening posts. The picture fuzzed and glitched before settling into an enhanced-color image of the gigantic Ru’at mothership as it powered around the Moon without thrusters or plumes of plasma.
Its size was vast, and Hausman could see the complicated, moving internal machineries, although he couldn’t make out what their purpose really was.
“Near-Earth Fleet set to ready, sir,” called one of his tactical officers.
“Maintain their positions, officer!” Hausman barked. He didn’t want to start an interstellar war with his allies just yet.
“The ship is cresting the Moon’s shadow in T-minus ten seconds, sir,” his navigation officer called. “She’ll be registered by Earth’s defense satellite network.”
Hausman knew what his officer was saying. That the sphere of missile-loaded defense satellites would ping the mothership for identification, and after it received non
e, it would wait until the mothership had breached the customary no-fly zone and fire automatically.
“Cancel defense satellite auto-fire!” Hausman called. Maybe they had come to parlay. Maybe they had come to meet the new leader of the human race, as equals.
The Ru’at had come to do no such thing, however.
Bzzt! Under Hausman’s large hands, the control pad on his armrests buzzed an urgent call. Private channel.
Sender: Jump-ship #34.
Channel: Alpha-Gold 01.
Hausman accepted the message, patching it through to his wireless earbud. Jump-ship #34 was part of the strike group he had sent to seize the ECH and destroy the Test Fleet. Rather annoyingly, he didn’t have the Tier 1 higher command codes in order to activate the Test Fleet himself, so he had known the correct tactical decision had been to remove it from enemy hands.
There was no way he was going to let Asquew get her wizened hands on it, anyway. And once the automated fleet was down, he would have all the time in the world to crack the ECH’s command codes.
Just as soon as he found out what the Ru’at wanted, that was.
“Speak,” he said out loud, and the message from Jump-ship #34 began.
“Urgent Priority 1 message for Commander-in-Chief Hausman. Operation Salt has failed—”
“What!?” Hausman jerked upright in his chair, earning a few more worried glances from the people around him.
“Someone activated the ECH Test Fleet against us. Request immediate dreadnaught deployment to secure the area. There’s only one CMC fighter remaining of the strike group, as well as the Marine transport, and of course ourselves…”
“Off.” Hausman banged his hand on the armrest, not even bothering to give stand-down orders or recognition of their efforts. He was not the sort of man who rewarded, or even recognized, failure.
Asquew must have reached the ECH. Somehow, she managed to find the codes or hack the Test Fleet, Hausman knew. How much of a problem would that be?
“A major one,” the man murmured to himself. It wasn’t that the Test Fleet was particularly much of a threat to his control—it was a small number of ships, all told—but now Asquew would be able to coordinate strike raids with the help of the super-black surveillance network, which would cause him no end of trouble in the months and years to come.
“Why didn’t they do their job!” Hausman glared at the Ru’at mothership. It was supposed to take out Asquew for him. This was meant to be a partnership!
But the Ru’at didn’t recognize allies. Especially not from biological humans with none of their own DNA inside them.
All around the room, the cyborgs suddenly raised their particle-beam hands, and Hausman heard the whine as they cycled up.
“What is going on? Stand down! I command it!” Hausman managed to shout imperiously, just before they fired.
Outside the glowing curve of the Moon, the Ru’at mothership emerged from the darkness like a predatory shark as it crested into view above the cradle of humanity.
Earth.
From its underside emerged many small shapes, ejected from opening ports into the complicated body of the disk itself….
Ru’at jump-ships, dropping from the belly of their mother like a cloud of locusts. They had to number in the tens, twenties.
Perhaps even hundreds.
18
Endgame
With the many flashes and glares of erupting light, General Asquew and the last of her fleet rippled into the space around the ECH.
From the command chamber inside, Solomon watched the arriving stragglers, and his heart plummeted. They were a fraction of what they once had been. He could make out only two of the large, fat-bellied battleships, where once there would have been ten or more. He could see one—one!—Marine transporter loaded with CMC fighters on its docking arms. Perhaps eight or ten one-person fighter craft.
After that came a smattering of other sorts of craft, none of them enough to make their own battle groups—a few heavy bombers, a handfuls of scouts, and that was about it.
What did surprise him, though, was the fact that there was also quite a collection of tugs and hauliers that had arrived with them. These were civilian boats and completely unfit for combat.
“Administrator Ahmadi!” Jezzy said with a laugh.
“Huh?” Solomon had no idea who that was.
“She’s the Administrator of the Last Call, the Plutonian filling station. I helped her defend the Call from the Ru’at,” Jezzy said, indicating that all of the tugs were hers, as were the good-sized number of civilian jump-ships that Asquew had used to transport her straggling fleet.
“At least she’s still got the Resolute.” Solomon nodded at the giant pyramid of the Second Rapid Response Fleet’s flagship. It was a dreadnaught, just like the Invincible had been, and it gleamed bronze and gun-metal gray.
The dreadnaughts were almost as large as deep-field station-ships, because they were space stations and workhouses and garages and transporters all rolled into one. It was about four times the size of the entire ECH, but it already looked significantly damaged, with blackened lines indicating where entire floor levels had been breached.
“We came under fire in jump,” Asquew explained as her image flickered onto one of the overhead holo-screens.
“Inside jump?” Solomon gasped. “That’s impossible, isn’t it?”
“No.” Jezzy reminded him of how the Marine scout had been chased and caught up to by one of the faster-than-light Ru’at ships.
“Crikey… Right…” Solomon’s heart plunged just a little bit more. Was there no end to what the Ru’at could do?
“Commander Ochrie.” Asquew saw the form of the once-ambassador standing before the ansible. They watched as the general took to one knee and bowed her head. “Through blood and fire…” she recited the Marine Oath, and Solomon found himself murmuring the words alongside her.
‘Through blood and fire, I will still stand strong.
‘I will stand at the borders and the crossroads, I will stand strong.
‘Even with the eternal night before me, I will be the flame!’
“Arise, Brigadier General.” Ochrie bowed her head. “And thank you. Although I think that I may only hold this position until a suitable replacement is found. Right now, we are going to need a bit of that blood and fire.”
Tier 1 Alert!
Several of the ECH’s command screens flared into warning red signals.
“What is it?” Ochrie said, and it was Kol who raced to read the messages.
“It says here, ma’am…that the Ru’at are attacking Earth!” he said, his voice thin with panic.
So this is it. Solomon shared a dark look with Jezzy. It’s begun.
“What’s the ETA on that orb, Ratko?” Solomon called out, not wasting time. People were dying. Right now.
Corporal Ratko was working at one of the console benches with her set of tools, wires snaking out of the orb and into the consoles and computers around her. When her voice came back, it sounded uncertain. “I think…”
“I need facts, Corporal,” Jezzy said, and Solomon could tell he had made a good call in promoting her.
“I’ve isolated the subspace signal that the Ru’at are using to coordinate all of their craft, but it’s a modulated signal,” she said.
“What does that mean?” Solomon frowned.
It was Kol who replied. “A modulated signal means that it keeps on skipping and changing along a set bandwidth, but always within that bandwidth range. It means that it’s incredibly hard to isolate the signal alone.”
“Incredibly hard isn’t impossible,” Solomon said. “Kol, help Ratko on it.”
“Aye-aye.” Kol, amazingly, didn’t hesitate to race to the other technical specialist’s side. “We might be able to block off the bandwidth outer frequencies.”
“Yes!” Ratko said. “We can apply quantum interference, and thereby shorten the bandwidth down, forcing them into one frequency!”
“
But that will mean…” Kol said, looking up in alarm at Solomon, Ochrie, and the holo-projection of Asquew. “The Ru’at will know as soon as we start doing it.”
“Do it,” Asquew and Solomon said at once, before sharing a nod between them. There were people dying, after all.
“Initiating procedure,” Ratko said, starting to tease at the crystal wires with some sort of sensor as Kol’s hands blurred through holo-controls in front of them.
“Right.” Asquew cleared her throat, which was a weird thing to see a hologram do. “We know that the Ru’at have FTL drives, and it won’t take them long to trace what we’re doing.”
The command team raced into action. The Resolute was set above the ECH, where it could rain down fire against any attackers as the flights of CMC fighters and ECH Nightjars were arranged in loose battle groups in front of the hub.
Next came the assortment of Retribution and Vulture craft, along with the sporadic Rapid Response craft.
“Behind,” Solomon indicated on the command holo-map on board the ECH. “The Nightjars are automated—no life lost—so they have to be the first line of defense.”
“And our heavy cavalry—” Jezzy meant the larger fighters and bombers. “—can offer gunnery support when they—”
FZZZT! Out in the darkness, there was a flash of blue and white light as the Ru’at jump-ships rippled into space, already firing their weapons.
“Activate Nightjars!” Solomon shouted as he ran to the nearest command console and, just as before, the holo commands of the different battle groups jumped up under his fingers.
Outcast Marines Boxed Set Page 114
