by Dan Davis
In Avar, Ram had traveled the world. Not just across the world but back in time, to Neolithic Harappa in the Indus Valley and to the Janapadas of the Vedic Period in Northern India, and to the mountains and forests of the shogunate of the Edo Period and the vast plains of the steppe where he had witnessed and taken part in the chariot conquests of the Andronovo. All virtual worlds, of course, created by Avarcheologists and other experts but it was real enough when experienced through Avar. And during his career with Rubicon, his cooperative, he had fought battles in Europe and the Middle East and North America. It wasn’t real, any of it, but Ram felt like he had been all over the world.
And now I’m here for real.
But was it any more real than Avar? He was completely separated from the environment in a hermetically sealed suit of combat armor so all his senses were coming to him second hand, through the sensors and tactile feedback systems. Even more, he was in a cloned body inside that suit, his mind downloaded into the brain after his previous, original head had been destroyed in the orb combat. If anything, the sensations provided by the Avar had seemed more real than experiencing it all through the armor.
The forest was dense. Some of the trees had great thick trunks and many more were narrow and yet most were still incredibly tall and the tops were lost in the darkness of the broken canopy above. He knew it was bitterly cold, with the coming winter’s snow well overdue, but he was warm and he was dry and removed from the world. It was almost as if nothing was real, as if he was back in his Avar chair and running a simulation of real life. A horrific thought rushed through him, making him doubt for a moment that what he was experiencing was really happening but he quickly shook himself from that notion. Many a heavy Avar user had lost their mind by starting to doubt their reality. It had never been an issue for Rama and he wasn’t about to start doing so in the middle of a mission.
“Do you really think those Hex gave up looking for us?” Stirling asked on their private command band.
“Unlikely. But then we don’t know how they think, let alone understand their doctrine. Their military operations during the conquest were inconsistent, sometimes carrying out massive aerial bombardments, other times sending in waves of ground troops to get chewed up by our guys.”
“Different commanders with different approaches.”
“That’s one hypothesis. Another is they were testing to see what was most effective, but the tactics never coalesced into a consistent approach. And after the world’s militaries were smashed, the Hex have sat back, fortified certain areas and left humanity to collapse all on its own.”
Stirling growled. “It’s like they don’t really care.”
“Maybe. Like I said, we just don’t understand how they think. They’re truly alien. Maybe we can never understand them.”
“Well,” Stirling sighed, “the biggest brains in UNOP are working on it in the outer system. If anyone can ever figure it out, it’s those lads.”
“Doesn’t help us much now, does it,” Ram said.
Stirling’s smile could be heard in his reply. “So, you’re saying you have no idea if the Hex and their pet traitor is looking for us, sir?”
“Whether it’s them or another unit or the entire bloody species, we knew we were at risk of being discovered before we could complete the mission. All we can do is carry on.”
“Aye, you’re right enough there, sir.”
The sunrise seemed to take an age, with the sky lightening behind them gradually as they stomped through the endless woodland, turning at irregular intervals so that they approached their objective almost like a sailing ship tacking back and forth obliquely against the wind toward a port. Color came into the world, first blues and purples filling the gray of predawn, turning to greens and browns in a dozen hues while the sky clouded over into a low blanket of swirling cloud the color of graphite. Wisps of snow whipped through the air as the cold front swept over them and Ram’s suit whirred to keep him warm in his protective armor.
Dragging his eyes from the harsh beauty of the landscape, Ram fought to control his wonder. He had to stay focused and watch for the approach of the enemy. Every step, he imagined a fleet of aircraft coming in overhead and firing down at them or disgorging teams of hex soldiers. Another fear was receiving sudden incoming fire from a distant and unseen weapon like artillery or from high altitude or orbital bombardment. Could it really be that the UNOP plan had worked, and the entry package launched by the Hereward really had confused the Hex so thoroughly?
All day they walked, kilometer after kilometer, and they saw nothing.
“Anything showing up on your drones, Cooper?” Ram asked in the afternoon.
“You can see as well as I can, sir,” he replied. “Not a peep on any of them. Not even a squirrel.”
“I want to see a bear,” Stirling muttered.
“Or a wolf,” Fury said.
“Fuck that,” Flores said. “We’ll have to shoot it. And I ain’t going to shoot a wolf.”
“Actually, they’re not dangerous to humans,” Cooper said.
“Yeah because I’ve got a grenade launcher,” Flores replied.
It was late in the day and they had been marching for hours when Ram called a stop. They crouched where they were, keeping the distance between them.
“Alright, time to eat. How is everybody? Anyone too tired to continue after eating?”
“You can see our vitals,” Cooper said. “We’re fine. Sir.”
“Shut up and eat, Cooper,” Stirling growled.
“I know we’re all enhanced in one way or another,” Ram said. “I can see your vitals and I studied your individual capabilities. And don’t take this the wrong way but none of you comes close to being my physical equal and I am feeling a little fatigued. I don’t want any tough guys here, okay? And I want us to reach the objective with the strength to make entry, by force if necessary. So, eat your rations and we’ll do the final five klicks at a faster pace. We will reach the objective in thirty minutes. Cooper? Send an aerial drone ahead now to scout the objective.”
While they chewed their rations, Cooper sent a tiny drone no bigger than a sparrow up and off toward the objective. There was a risk it would be detected but Ram was not about to walk into the situation blind.
“The final stretch is a rocky and exposed outcrop,” Ram reminded them, “with thin soil that can’t support big trees or even much in the way of scrub so we’ll be out in the open to some extent until we make entry into the outpost. The entrance is hidden. It will probably be a steel hatch, buried beneath soil or even covered with rocks. Speed is key so I want everyone searching the ground except Fury and Red, who’ll be watching the skies and the tree line. Understood?”
When his team was ready, Ram called Cooper. “Is the drone there yet?”
“I can’t believe what I’m seeing,” Cooper muttered. “What the hell?”
Ram felt a chill run down his spine. “What is it, Cooper?”
“It’s the objective. It’s not bare rock at all, not anymore. It’s a—”
Before he could finish, the thrumming of engines filled the air and Ram looked up to see a Hex aircraft passing overhead just a hundred meters away.
“Shit! Get down!”
4.
He crouched and sought cover behind a trunk, as did his men. Surely, the Hex had spotted them and were coming to finish what they had started. On his AugHud, his team’s vitals spiked and he noted how spread out they were along their route of march. That’s alright, he thought, if they come at us on the ground, I’ll order the center to fall back and our flanks can catch them in the crossfire. Ram hugged his weapon to his chest and readied himself.
But the Hex craft carried on along its heading, blasting over the treetops without slowing or turning, and then it was gone, leaving nothing but leaves and branches swirling in the vortices left by its passing.
“Jesus save us,” Stirling said. “That the same bastards from last night?”
“Same model of air
craft, at least,” Fury said.
“Whether it’s them or not,” Ram said, “it was heading in our direction.”
Stirling came forward from his position in the rear. “Surely, they can’t know about the outpost? It’s hidden, a klick or whatever deep inside that granite outcrop.”
“Maybe they’re just flying over. Routine flight?”
The sergeant scoffed.
“Sir?” Cooper said. “You have to see this.”
With that, he linked Ram into the feed from the drone he had sent on ahead.
“What the hell?” Ram asked as the video was overlaid on his AugHud and he had a moment to take it in. “Is that… a castle?”
Built from great blocks of stone, it looked just like a castle or a fortress from the ancient past. There were four towers, one on each corner, and a gatehouse near one corner and armed humans walked on the walls, looking out. One pointed into the air. Not at the drone but at something else.
“This isn’t our objective, is it?” Ram asked. “That’s where we’re going?”
“Coordinates are an exact match,” Cooper said.
“Well,” Stirling said. “Our intel must be wrong.”
“Out of date, at least,” Ram said.
“What, by five hundred years?”
“Shit,” Cooper said, “and there’s the Hex.”
Humming overhead into frame, the Hex aircraft slowed and landed on the trackway outside. Its engines idled and a door on the side slid open. Four Hex flowed down from it, their legs working away like some nightmarish machine with their weapons up near the thorax as if they were ready to fire.
“What is happening here?” Stirling said. “They going to attack that fort?”
“Is this a military facility, sir?” Red asked. “Or a civilian structure?”
Ram had no idea. “Can’t be military,” he muttered, almost to himself. “Can it?”
“Hex wouldn’t have let them live if it was UNOP or a national military structure,” Stirling said.
“Got to be civilian,” Fury said. “Got to be new, too. Our intel can’t be that bad, can it?”
Cooper scoffed and started to make a joke but he was interrupted by Flores.
“We should help, sir,” she said, advancing up the line toward Ram. “Before it’s too late.”
“What’s that?” Ram said, zooming in on the aircraft door behind the hex where something else moved.
Behind the aliens, the human collaborator in his long robes stepped down and the hex formed up around him like an honor guard and together they approached the gatehouse of the fortress.
When they were yet fifty meters away, the gate opened and a group of a half-dozen men strode out with rifles in hand. The people from the fortress were wrapped in warm clothing, wearing headgear, but it was all civilian gear, as far as Ram could tell. The two groups stopped within spitting distance.
“Can you hear what they’re saying?” Ram asked Cooper.
He turned on the audio and increased the volume. Through the hissing of the wind and crackling white noise, Ram heard the voice of the collaborator. He was speaking English.
“—failure to comply with the covenant will result in swift retribution as agreed—” The audio broke up and a gust of wind jostled the drone, shaking the image. “… may the masters bless you all.”
The aliens drifted back to their aircraft while the human party returned to their gateway into the town.
“Short and sweet,” Stirling muttered.
After the Hex and the traitor boarded their craft, the engines hummed and it took off vertically, turned and headed back out over the trees.
Ram ducked closer to his tree trunk. “Everyone take cover. Nobody move.”
But the alien craft did not pass over them, instead heading due east away from them and away from the structure and the people inside.
“What the hell was all that?” Stirling asked.
“Doesn’t matter,” Ram said. “Let’s go.”
“Where?” Stirling replied. “To that… fort? Why?”
“That’s our objective.”
“Sir, our objective was to gain entry to a secret outpost. Clearly, our intel was wrong.”
“Or the fortress structure is built over the outpost,” Ram said, “which means the entrance is still there, underneath it all. They might not even know about it.”
“They can’t have built an entire… whatever that is… you know, digging foundations, drilling into the bedrock, all that without seeing the entrance,” Cooper said. “They must know where it is.”
“But that doesn’t make sense,” Flores said. “If they found the entrance to a secret UNOP base, why build a fortress over the top of it? If you didn’t know what it was, you just wouldn’t take the risk of doing that, would you? Think about it. You find a hatch or whatever in the wilderness. You can’t get in. It might be anything. It might be a survival bunker, or weapons cache, or it might be a storage site for nuclear waste or for experimenting with virulent diseases. It might be a military site, which means you’d be a target for incoming missiles or anything.”
“What do you mean, Flores?” Ram asked.
“I mean, sir, that I doubt the entrance is there at all. Our intel is wrong. The mission is a bust.”
“That’s premature but I hear you,” Ram said. “Although, here’s the thing. We have no other intel to go on. We have no secondary objective. If it’s not there, you’re right the mission has failed, we can’t use the launch vehicle because that’s meant for the weapon, not us, and so we’re stuck here on Earth. But the only way to be sure is to look. So let’s go look.”
“Wait a minute, sir,” Stirling said. “That guy in the priest robes? He was… warning those people in there. The ones who came out to speak with him. He was warning them about disobedience. Talking about retribution.”
“Yeah,” Ram said. “I’m going to go ahead and assume traitorous human collaborators are not pleasant people.”
“But you know he was warning them about us, right, sir? That was the same guy who found our dropship. He’s been searching for us since. How much do you want to bet he dropped by with his squid goons to warn those people about us specifically?”
“What’s your point, Sergeant?”
“We know that guy in the dress is a collaborator. They were speaking to him. Even if they’re not collaborators themselves, they’re going to do what they have to.”
“He’s right, sir,” Cooper said. “They’ve got to call it in when they see us.”
“Or shoot us on sight,” Fury said.
“Let them try it.” Flores scoffed. “They don’t stand a chance.”
“I swore an oath and signed a contract to never harm a human being unless specifically ordered to do so by my commanding—”
“I know, Red,” Ram said. “We’re not shooting those people unless we have to.”
“What then, sir?” Fury asked.
“We’ll have to explain we’re on the same side,” Ram said.
Stirling sighed. “Have you seen us, sir? With all due respect, you’re a giant and we have a gigantic alien wheel as a team member. No offense, Red.”
“Oh, none taken, Sergeant Stirling,” Red said, waving a long-fingered hand in an affected humanlike manner. “A simple observation could never cause me to be offended because I am confident in my abilities and general usefulness to the team.”
“You have a suggestion, then?” Ram asked Stirling.
“We could drop them a line?” he replied, pointing through the trees at the fortress unseen a few klicks away. “They must have some sort of comms system.”
“Not detecting any so far,” Cooper cut in. “Can’t see any local comms on any frequency.”
“Just because they’re not talking now, doesn’t mean they don’t have a radio. Everyone has radio.”
Ram considered it. “That would just tip them off that we’re here. They could report us to the Hex right away before we ever got close to the outpost entr
ance. Or the Hex could even be listening, monitoring, and we would give ourselves away.”
“Maybe we could use our suit comms,” Cooper said. “Low power, encrypted, dissipates into nothing beyond half a klick and the squids wouldn’t be able to detect it. It’s a long shot and they would have to have the gear to decrypt us but we could maybe get within range and then try it out. What is it, minimum hundred meters between the tree line and the fortress?”
“Hundred-fifty,” Fury said. “More like a hundred-seventy.”
“Damn it,” Cooper said.
Stirling stood and strode a few steps in the direction of the fortress. “What if we send one of us in alone, to speak to them. Human to human. Maybe even without the armor, to show we mean no harm. I volunteer, of course, sir.”
Cooper snorted. “You’re not much less of a freak than the Lieutenant, Sarge. Send Fury or Flores, maybe. I’ll volunteer, no sweat, but if you send one of the old broads, they’ll have no idea a deadly warrior walks amongst them.”
Flores told him to shut his mouth but Fury agreed and said she would go.
“We’re all going,” Ram said, deciding and standing. “I’ll not risk sending one of you in alone, and certainly not without armor. Those people in that fort could be anybody. If they’ve been subjugated by the Hex, they might well shoot first and ask questions never and I can’t afford to risk any of you for no reason. We’ll all go, marching straight up to the front door, and we’ll all be ready to fight our way inside, if we have to.”
“Sir?” Stirling said. “With respect, that’s going to escalate the situation.”
Ram took a deep breath before answering. “I’d say the situation is already pretty escalated, wouldn’t you? Look, I don’t want anyone in there to get hurt but if what we’ve been told is true, underneath that fortress is an outpost with a weapon powerful enough to win the war. Powerful enough to get our whole planet back. We’re not shooting any human unless we have to. Look, I’m sorry, I wish it wasn’t the case, but if we have to kill every human in that town to get the weapon out, then we’ll have to do it.”
