“Break formation! Reserve weapons! Focus on engine readouts!” Captain Otepi’s voice also rippled through space on the marine narrow-band frequencies, and the widening net of the small strike group fighters moved off their flight paths on crazed, individual whirls and sweeps. Each one fired volleys of brilliant white beams from their nose cones, targeting the areas of the Exin mother craft that emitted the rising energy readouts.
It looks like Christmas, Dane would later think when he replayed the image. Not only because of the flicker of sparkling lights that exploded in the five separate places along the Exin hull (what they would later find out was a daisy-chained and networked set of reactor systems designed to work both independently and jointly).
But Dane also felt this way because of the relief that he remembered feeling at the time. This was the fifth or sixth direct engagement between the Orbital Marine space fleets and that of their oppressors, but this would be the first time that humanity did not merely strike, distract, and flee. This would be the first time that they had not fielded every available ship, whether military or civilian, in a desperate attempt to fend off their foe.
In short, it was the Pluto Strike that could be called the point when the Marine Corps could first act as a credible military power against the might of the Exin. They did not throw everything they had in some foolish, manic ploy at the enemy. Their commanders, captains, generals, and strategists could finally start to see their battle like a chess board—and they (quite literally) had the Queen.
The decoration of destruction was painted across the advancing mother ship, and she continued to turn and roll as her stabilizers went in brilliant plumes of plasma like solar flares.
“Massive readings on target three!” was the signal of the end from one of the Orbital Marine Strike Group, as a tremor shuddered its way through the vessel, and one of the networked reactors went critical. There was a brilliant flash, but the subsequent explosion that grew from its lower hull was slow, rising as a bubble of light that enveloped a full third of the vessel before dissipating.
This conflagration spread to the next networked alien reactor, and the next—as one after another lit up in a blister of light along one entire side. All five reactors blew, and when their light faded, they revealed a broken-open war ship, now as useless and crumpled as a used tin can. She spilled fragments, shrapnel, alien technologies, and alien bodies.
“Sol secured,” came the grim announcement from the Orbital Marine Strike Group leader, Captain Otepi.
14
Negotiations
“You want to what?”
The small and compact form of First Admiral Yankis seemed to bristle with rage, although it was hard for Dane to understand what he was angry about. Was it the fact that a lowly ranking officer like the sergeant had had an original and brilliant idea that could crack open the entire Human-Exin conflict? Or was it the fact that there was a nearly eight-foot-tall Exin standing in the marine command room?
Their group stood in the large outboard Marine Training Platform that was in stationary position outside of the Deployment Gate One. Even though there had been maximum security and confidentiality surrounding her arrival, with ports and bulkheads and entire decks cleared before she was brought in—word had somehow managed to spread among the marines, and Dane knew that her mere existence was causing intense divisions throughout the Marine Corps.
Just like it had with Hendrix, Dane opined for a moment.
The command room was broad and shaped like a wedge, with several levels at which worked the senior-ranking staffers, comms officers, and commanders of the Orbital Marines. An uneasy silence filled the room (despite the fact that they continued their work at their control boards) and Dane could tell that it was a silence that was pregnant with listening. Dane’s eyes flickered to the large, vaulted screen windows that curved along one entire wall, displaying the wheel of the Deployment Gate, and the flights of constant marine patrol fighters, racing across and between the slower-moving transport carriers.
So much has changed in so little time, Dane thought. If anyone had told him five or six years ago that he would be standing up here in space, looking close up and personal at the Red Giant and at a stolen alien station capable of creating custom-built wormholes—then he probably would have called them crazy.
But here I am, he thought. Humanity had risen to the challenge admirably and well, the necessity of war and the recovered Exin tech creating an explosion of military and scientific advancements.
But it still wasn’t enough, Dane knew. The Exin were still far in advance—a hundred years or more, by their top analysts’ reckoning—of humanity’s technological achievements.
Which is why we need the Travelers on our side! Dane glowered at the distant stars beyond their military hardware and human footprint and wondered what secrets and riddles the cosmos could still so easily hold.
“Sergeant, the first admiral asked you a question.” There was an annoyed grunt from Staff Sergeant Lashmeier, a pepper-and-salt man who was as genial as a concrete wall and who stood beside First Admiral Yankis, with Captain Otepi of the War Walkers at his side.
“Sir, yes, sir!” Dane stood up a little straighter and looked First Admiral Yankis, their highest officer, in the eye. There was no love lost between them, despite the fact that Dane had saved this man’s life on two occasions.
“I want to lead a scout party to the world of the Travelers, otherwise called the Passed On, in an attempt to negotiate an alliance, Admiral, sir,” Dane said steadily.
It was the only answer, really. He knew that they had fought well just yesterday—but that had been fifteen marine fighters versus only one Exin mother ship. A new and improved Exin mother ship too, apparently.
“Sir,” Dane continued. “The vessel that Captain Otepi and her three strike groups overcame showed that the Exin military threat is only increasing, not decreasing. They are upgrading their weaponry at the same time that we are. That is why we need to get our hands on some hardware that is so far beyond the Exin that they cannot even approach what we would be capable of doing.”
Just like how everything was against us at the start of the conflict, Dane quietly thought. And we were the ones who couldn’t even find our asses with our hands . . .
“And I take it that this . . .” The first admiral’s eyes flickered over the large form of the Exin queen beside him, who stood still and silent as a statue. “This crawdad is supplying that intelligence?” It was clear to everyone in the room just what the man thought of having one of the enemy in here.
And not just one of the enemy, but the dang Queen! Dane had to admit that he might almost have sympathized with the man, if he hadn’t known previously what a monumental jerk that he was.
But it was her, wasn’t it? Dane had to concede. The Exin queen. The one responsible for the assault on Earth in the first place. How many good men and women, old and young alike, had they lost because of this giant standing beside him? Dane’s eyes flickered to the Exin queen, and he saw her mandibles twitch a little, as if she were sneering at this smaller leader.
“It was in her ship’s logs, sir. Me and the rest of Gold Squad saw the footage ourselves,” Dane said.
He had already briefed them on the events of their mission—including what had happened to the Exin queen, where their ship had been sent, and the danger of the Tol’rumaa that the War Master Okruk was now in charge of.
“And how do you know that footage—any of that footage—hasn’t been faked?” First Admiral Yankis snapped. “How do you know that the Exin don’t have the sophistication to completely recreate drone and video footage?”
“Sir . . .” Dane gasped a little as he tried to hold back his ire. “We have brought the data back with us, sir . . .” (along with the entire Royal Mother Ship, also—and every bit of junked salvage that they could get from any Exin craft that they overpowered) “Your own technicians have corroborated the data as being genuine, footage!”
“Careful of
your tone, Sergeant!” Staff Sergeant Lashmeier suddenly roared at him. Dane didn’t feel sorry at all for questioning the first admiral, but he knew when he could see a court-martial coming and fell silent.
“This is highly irregular,” First Admiral Yankis grumbled (which Dane thought was a bit of an understatement and could describe all of their lives for the past five years) as he turned to pace the control room.
“How do we know that this isn’t a trap?” Yankis burst out as he turned around. “How do we know that there won’t be a flotilla or a blockade ringing the planet of these Visitors . . .”
“Travelers, sir,” Dane muttered his correction. Seriously. It was like the man hadn’t even been listening at all!
“Or that the Travelers,” Yankis shot him a sharp look as he said the words exactly, “won’t just decide to blow us out of the sky as well! There is not one scrap of evidence that they will be friendly to our cause!”
“Sir.” Dane took a deep breath, before realizing that all of these concerns were valid. He didn’t have the answers. He couldn’t provide the first admiral with the proof or certainty that he required.
But, as it turned out, apparently the Exin queen could.
“Human War Chief,” her voice croaked into the command room, sounding like grating knifes and the click and whine of something repetitive. But the translation software that had been hacked out of Dane’s translation bug had been linked into the Central Marine Servers, allowing them to understand her.
“You do not need to trust this man. Or myself. You merely have to ask yourself what you are willing to lose for your ambitions.” the Exin queen said in what Dane thought was the most measured tone that he had heard from her—as if she was schooling him.
The irony and the hypocrisy of this was not wasted on First Admiral Yankis.
“Tell her to shut up!” He suddenly turned on his heel and demanded of her, stalking towards her.
“If you dare to stand before me, in my command room, and lecture to me—then I swear to the stars that I will throw you out of the nearest air lock myself.”
There was a moment of intense silence between the two military leaders, broken only by the slight flaring of the queen’s mandibles, as if she were stifling a laugh.
“Take her to the brig!” Yankis barked the command as he turned back. A very well-armed and fully-suited squad of Orbital Marines surrounded the Exin queen with a forest of metal before escorting her from the room.
“Just kill him!” the Exin queen called back as she was being herded and shepherded through the door. “War Master Okruk. Whatever allies you need to make, just make sure Okruk eats his own intestines!”
And with a swish of the doors, she was gone, and Dane was inwardly groaning. It was obvious why the Exin queen was deigning to “help” them (although her form of help looked a lot like anyone else’s form of total belligerence)—now that she was a deposed monarch of her regime, humanity was her only chance at survival. She had to play the long game to try and survive as long as possible until her opportunities changed, didn’t she?
But now, Dane thought as he looked back at the incensed Yankis before him, now it looks as though the Exin queen is giving orders to us, to get what she wants out of this. It was a little thing, a small power play perhaps—but it was precisely the sort of thing that would sow division and discord between the commanding officers.
“As if I will do anything that crawdad suggests!” Yankis snarled, proceeding to turn to a command desk to thump it with his fists. Everyone in the room was silent for a moment, everyone wondering what decision Yankis would make.
“Otepi,” he suddenly said, not even turning around as he commanded her attention. “This Tol-rumaa missile asteroid. Have we got anything that can counter it? Fly a ship into its path? Blow it out of space?”
“Depends how fast it comes at us, sir,” Otepi stood up a little straighter. “And after reviewing the footage and taking a guess that the footage shows a standard size of object, with an estimated payload . . .” The military officer winced at all of the variables before them.
“First Admiral, sir.” There was, for the first time that Dane had ever heard in his life, an element of uncertainty to the icy redhead’s voice. “If War Master Okruk fired something of a similar size at the Earth, at this moment I am forced to say that there would be absolutely nothing that we can do about it.”
“Frack!” First Admiral Yankis swore and hammered on the control board once again.
“But sir,” Lashmeier stepped into the conversation. “We are working on recovering the available Exin technology from the wreckages. They have a working field ansible, a portable jump unit, enhanced pulse emitters. There could be something . . .”
“None of that will be any good if they knock Earth off its axis, will it!?” Yankis said in a deadly tone as he straightened up very slowly and turned to face Dane.
“You have your mission, Sergeant—but my faith in its success is limited.” The first admiral dismissed Sergeant Williams with a nod, and he saluted before turning to go. It was hard to keep the grin from his face as he left the command room.
Impossible odds? Check.
Last chances? Check.
Desperate measures? Check.
It sounded like everything that he had been trained to do, after all.
15
My Purpose Undaunted
“We’re going to have a three-hour window until the jump gate opens again—so that means whatever we have to say to these Travelers, or Passed On, or whatever they call themselves—we have to get it done fast.”
The words of Captain Otepi crackled across the suit-to-suit communicators as the commanding officer of the elite strike group known as the War Walkers buckled herself into the Gladius’s hold.
The Gladius’s fuel injections and connectors had been hastily refitted, and she was stocked with the latest armaments and batteries that the Marine Corps could provide—a feat that was impressive in itself. It could only have been performed by the man who now sat in the pilot’s seat, Joey Corsoni. The pilot was uncharacteristically silent for the moment, as he concentrated on flying their craft to the entry lane of Deployment Gate One. There was a lot on everyone’s minds right now, it seemed. A near impossible mission. An entirely new set of aliens to encounter.
And Joey was not the only returning face that Dane was pleased to see. As well as his own Gold Squad of Privates First Class Hendrix, Isaias, and Farouk, Staff Sergeant Lashmeier had insisted that Captain Otepi and Sergeant Bruce Cheng accompany them—meaning that they now had two sergeants for three marines, and neither Bruce nor Dane was the commanding officer on this mission, Otepi was.
This fact stuck in Dane’s throat a little, he had to admit. Especially when he had been working to tighten up his own Gold Squad unit, a process that required trust and shared experience. He didn’t think he needed an extra officer getting in the way of that.
But we are marines, he sighed inwardly to himself as the Gladius’s sensors pinged, and they were given the go ahead to begin their approach to the Deployment Gate.
Above all else, Dane knew that his men and his crew needed to be able to be adaptable. And if that meant suddenly taking orders from the coldest woman and soldier that he had ever met (Captain Otepi) than that was what they had to do.
“Marine Launch Team to Gladius. Final checks. Deploy in fifteen, fourteen, thirteen . . .”
The automated words sounded throughout their suits, linked as they were to the Gladius’s servers, and beyond that, to Central Marine Servers.
Outside, the wheel of the Deployment Gate had already been rotating at a steady spin. Now it increased in speed and velocity quickly—and an eerie crimson glow fuzzed its inner struts as its alien workings started to tear at the very fabric of space-time.
“They say we’ve almost cracked the ship-based jump engine,” Corsoni muttered as an aside, apparently needing the distraction. Dane saw his hands ease forward on the flight handles. Corsoni usually
wasn’t this reserved. Dane wondered if the constant responsibilities and duties of space combat that they had all been facing for the last couple of years were finally getting to him.
Or maybe he’s just annoyed at what I did to his ship! Dane thought that was probably more likely.
“When we do crack that . . .” there was a deep grumble of the larger AMP suit beside Dane from Sergeant Bruce Cheng, his first friend in the Assisted Mechanized Division, although they’d had their ups and downs. “The Exin won’t know what hit them!” Bruce said with a growl of threat.
Dane wasn’t sure. The Exin were a pan-galactic civilization. They themselves had only recently cracked ship-based jump capabilities. Even if humanity had the power to strike anywhere at will, he wondered whether the Orbital Marines were ready for a galactic war.
Well, that’s why we’re going to ask for help, isn’t it? He reminded himself as the countdown reached zero, and the hub of the Deployment Gate was now completely obscured by lurid crimson, as lightning bolts of static discharge surged around the blurring, spinning outer rim.
“Gladius is go. Go, go, go!” The launch team shouted. Corsoni hit the floor pedals.
Their ship was flung forward, towards an ancient future.
The light seemed to wash and flow, brilliant and dazzling. Dane saw long streamers of glare racing around and over them like vectors of wind lines as the Gladius raced along the wormhole.
These are stars, aren’t they? he realized. Corsoni had once told him that what this bright net was made of were all of the subatomic impressions of entire suns and stellar objects. The wormhole created a wave of displaced space-time which they rose inside, and so they were literally seeing the universe from under its surface, from the inside out. Their glittering tunnel was made out of stars seen through the prism of time, not location.
Metal Warrior: Ring of Steel (Mech Fighter Book 7) Page 10
