by S. A. Lusher
So what was wrong with this picture?
Nothing very obviously, but...
Allan froze as the killer's immense hand shot out and grabbed someone's armored leg. There was a horrible sound of crunching metal, then a sick crack of broken bone, followed by a scream of pure, unfiltered agony.
It was Singer.
Muzzles flared in the darkness as the others opened fire. The killer sat up, pulled Singer down, grabbed her neck and crushed it in an instant. He dropped the body, stood, grabbed two helmets and smashed them together, literally crushing both helmets and the heads inside. Allan fell back instinctively with Poet, both of them retreating to the safety of the shadows once more, realizing that their weapons were now wholly ineffective.
The killer made short work of the Spec Ops soldiers. Limbs were torn off in sprays of blood and gore. Heads was caved in. Necks were crushed. He finished the whole thing off by snatching a corpse a hurling it up at the catwalk holding the trooper that had remained behind to keep overwatch. The body hit the cheap catwalk and destabilized it. The trooper pitched forward, falling two stories directly onto his head.
He didn't get back up.
Allan watched in silent horror as the killer walked over to the nearest jump ship, stalked up the back ramp and disappeared into the interior. A moment later, the engine flared to life and the ship rose into the air. It paused momentarily, then spun around and opened fire on the second jump ship with the minigun attached to the nose.
After twenty seconds of unbroken gunfire, the minigun abruptly fell silent. The jump ship turned and sped away into the darkness.
“You have got to be fucking shitting me,” Allan said after a long moment.
“Fuck,” Poet hissed. “Help me check for survivors.” He began making his way towards the bodies and Allan could hear him getting in contact with Montgomery. Numbly, Allan followed. They had failed. Or rather, they'd undertaken a mission that couldn't succeed. Did Montgomery have another trick up her sleeve? Nothing worked on this killer anymore. Not regular weapons or electrical weapons or even nanotechnology.
Did they have time to piece together another miracle?
He very much doubted it. The next fragments of time passed in bloody lassitude as Allan checked for signs of life and listened to Poet coordinate with Montgomery. After several minutes in the rain, they had found no survivors.
“Let's go check the guy who fell from the tower,” Poet murmured, seemingly satisfied that he would no living personnel among the dead in the heap of bodies. Allan followed numbly. They stalked across the pitted concrete, beneath the rusting husks of the refinery overhead. As they reached the body, Poet knelt and checked his vitals.
“I talked to Montgomery,” he said. “She's got us two ships. One to shoot the bastard down, to buy us some more time, and another to come pick us up. It should be here in about twenty minutes.” An era, Allan felt.
“What's the point?” he asked morosely, his voice thick.
Poet grunted, finding no signs of life, and stood. “There's...” he hesitated. “Another plan. Come on. We need to check the wreckage.”
Allan perked up very slightly at that. Another plan?
“What is it?” he asked.
“It's a bit extreme,” Poet replied uncomfortably.
They crossed the distance in silence, coming to the gently smoking wreckage of the second jump ship. It had survived mostly intact, though its frame was no more or less Swiss cheese. They moved up the back ramp, into the ruined interior.
“What is it?” Allan repeated.
Poet was silent as he came into the cockpit and checked to see if the pilot was alive. “Fuck,” he whispered after a moment. “Guess it's just us.”
He turned and retreated to the edge of the holding area, where he took a seat, legs spread out on the loading ramp. He took off his helmet, set it beside him and then extracted a cigarette. Holding the crumpled pack up to Allan, he asked, “you smoke?”
“No,” Allan murmured, groaning as he sat down next to Poet. “Please, tell me, what is this plan?” he asked.
Poet was silent for a long moment after lighting up and replacing the pack. He stared out across the wastelands, smoking quietly.
Then he began speaking.
“Back during the war, the government was experiment with what they call planet-killers. Well, no, that's not true. We've been experimenting with planet-killers for the past century or so. I imagine you get the concept,” Poet said, glancing at Allan.
“Yeah,” he said. His mouth felt dry. He didn't like where this was going.
Poet pressed on. “There's a couple of different kinds. One is pretty simple: it's just a big, big bomb. But I've heard rumors that there's also a different kind that basically drills to the center of the planet and opens up a temporary black hole. Sucks the whole planet up. Well...Lindholm was site to one of the more experimental pieces of technology. It's called a Gravity Destabilizer. What it does is, essentially, destabilizes a planet's gravitational well. So that it gets sucked into the sun's gravitational pull and, well, you get the idea.”
Allan felt sick. “Who'd wanna destroy a whole fucking planet?” he managed.
“Heh, you'd be surprised. It's one of those 'if I can't have it, no one can' last-ditch tactics. To my understanding, they built it here before Lindholm was even colonized. I mean, that was the point, they were going to test it. But then some mining companies wanted the planet and the government tried to play hardball and keep Lindholm out of anyone's grasp, but what could they do? If they kept raising a stink, everyone would get suspicious and start digging. And planet-killers...they aren't even known to the general public. I mean, they break all kinds of major fucking rules. But that's war and that's life, my friend. So they just...turned them off and let the miners have the planet. So...there you go. Our Plan Z. And Montgomery wants us to activate it.”
“We don't have much time,” Allan said. “We'll need to warn everyone, get some major evacuations going and-”
“No,” Poet said firmly. “No one can know. If we let everyone know, the target will hurry its ass up, I imagine. I think that it's moving so slowly because it clearly doesn't think we're a threat. It thinks it's got all the time in the world. And I mean, it does, really. We can't fucking stop it anymore...not without sacrificing this planet.”
“There's over a million people on this planet!” Allan cried.
“I know that. Montgomery knows that. But it's either kill this planet or kill the human race,” Poet replied grimly.
Allan was silent for a long time, considering the wretched situation.
“We have to do this, don't we?” he asked finally, his voice thick and hoarse. He felt sick, like he might vomit at any moment.
“Yes. We do.”
“How hard is it?”
“I've been briefed on the process. There are three consoles we need to find and activate. They're buried underground. Montgomery is working on getting the activation codes. She'll transmit them to us when we're on site. Listen, Allan...we have to do this. There's no way around it now. And it's going to be down to us. Got it?” Poet asked.
Allan glanced up. Their ride was coming in.
“I've got it,” he replied softly.
Chapter 14
–Desperate Times–
“Do we really have to do this?” Allan heard himself asking. It was as though someone else was in control of his brain. He felt severely dislocated from the world and events around him, as though he was watching a film of himself.
“Yes,” Poet replied softly but firmly.
“Ugh,” Allan groaned.
They were both sitting in the back of a jump ship, being flown towards the first Gravity Destabilizer. It was about two hundred miles to the west, buried beneath a mountain range, accessible only via a network of caves.
“What happens after?” Allan asked quietly.
“Well, I guess we'll see. It's not like the target can take the others offworld...at least I hope not.
The whole process should take roughly an hour. Once we've actually initiate it, I imagine Montgomery will institute some kind of evacuation notice,” Poet replied.
“Five minutes out,” the pilot said quietly through their radios.
Allan wondered where the guy had come from, if he even knew what was going on. Not that it mattered. They needed to complete this job. Poet pulled his helmet back on and began to reach for where he might have kept his weapon, then hesitated.
He laughed. “First job I've ever had where having a gun wasn't really a prerequisite,” he said. “At least since joining up with the armed forces. There hasn't been a problem I've run into really that couldn't be solved with a few bullets.”
“Yeah, it's pretty creepy,” Allan murmured.
They remained in silence until the jump ship began its telltale descend of both altitude and speed. Not much later, the ship had settled on uneven ground. The pilot reported that they were utterly alone there. Poet told him to wait for them. Allan hit the access button for the back ramp and watched it open to the rain and the darkness.
“Come on,” Poet said heavily.
They trudged down the ramp, their boots squelching into the mud. Poet led the way, likely following some kind of map superimposed over his visor via his heads-up-display. They stood in the shadow of an immense mountain, the peak of which soared so high it was out of sight, lost to the clouds. They made for a cave not far away.
More silence passed, stretched out as they made their way through a small network of caves. There were no lights strung up, no obvious markings, nothing to show that humans had ever been here. Until, finally, Poet reached a small service elevator at the back of one particularly long tunnel. He stepped onboard and fired it up.
“I'm surprised it still functions,” Allan murmured as he watched the control panel flicker to life, bathing them in a weak white glow.
“It, and the destabilizer, are powered by a generator that shouldn't run out for another hundred years or so,” Poet replied.
He pressed a button and the lift began to descend swiftly.
“Have you ever done anything like this before?” Allan asked as they shot into the earth.
“Once,” Poet murmured unhappily. “There was a bomb. Some psycho fringe group of 'freedom fighters' had taken some hostages in a manufacturing plant. Me and me team came in. It was either disarm the bomb or go after the bad guy and his group. There were twenty people down there. But this guy was important, he was the head of the whole group. He had data, tactical information, places, names...we nabbed him and lost them.”
“Jesus,” Allan muttered. “How'd you decide?”
“I didn't have to, not then. I wasn't in charge. And really, I'm not in charge now. If it makes you feel any better, we're following orders,” Poet replied.
“I've heard a lot of shit done in the name of following orders.”
“Yeah...me too. We're all just following orders, aren't we?”
The elevator abruptly came to a halt. They stepped out into a small tunnel that ended about ten feet ahead.
“This is it?” Allan asked as they moved slowly down it. He could feel the immense weight of the earth above him.
“Yes. All the equipment and machinery is buried underground. This is basically just the button you push to set it into motion. We need to do this three times,” Poet replied. “Now, I need you to pay attention, so that you understand the sequence to actual boot it up, in case I die or am otherwise incapacitated. First it needs to be primed, then you need to input the code, which Montgomery should have,” Poet explained.
“I'm ready,” Allan replied.
He watched as Poet went through a slightly complex series of button presses and switch flips on the workstation that was built into the ground at the back of the tunnel. Allan made sure to memorize the sequence.
“Do you have that?” Poet asked.
“Yes,” Allan replied, sure that it did. It wasn't too difficult. “They're all the same?” he asked.
Poet nodded. “Yes. Montgomery already gave me the password for this one, so we don't need to worry about that.”
He began punching in the code Montgomery had given him. Allan waited. There was a long pause after he pressed the final button, then the screen flashed green and died. Poet stared at it for a moment, then turned and began walking back to the lift.
“This is too easy,” Allan said softly as they came back to the lift and began to ascend.
“Yes, it is,” Poet replied uneasily. “Far too easy. But that's the real horror of it, isn't it? All this shit we do and build is so fucking dangerous that we need to be able to react to it quickly...and it keeps escalating so that the actions and counter-actions got so ridiculously powerful and out-of-hand that now we can destroy a planet by pushing a fucking button.”
“Killing millions of people with the push of a button...literally no one should have that fucking power,” Allan said.
Poet nodded, but added no more.
The lift brought them back to the cave and they navigated back out into the cold desert night in silence. As they began getting back on the ship, Allan saw that the cloud cover was clearing, and already, the dusky light of dawn was peering over the far horizon. Could it already be tomorrow? It didn't even seem possible.
“Come on, we've to get to the next one,” Poet said.
They walked up the ramp, made contact with the pilot, then sat down.
“Is it just us? What about Montgomery?” Allan asked as they buckled in.
“She's taking what remains of Spec Ops to the third one. We'll handle the second. Then we'll begin coordinating a planetary evacuation,” Poet replied.
The jump ship took off into the air with a jolt, and they were off again.
* * * * *
“You've gotta be shitting me, man...here? Really?”
They'd been in the air for an hour now and the sun was up, bathing the landscape in the dull, washed-out light of day. They were overflying a city now. A big one. There were hundreds of thousands of people down there.
“What could they do?” Poet replied. “They'd already built it here. Once again, they couldn't say 'No, don't build here', without raising suspicion.”
“I'm not sure I buy that. I mean, the government does shit like that all the time. And the military. Tons of stuff is off-limits, locked down or restricted, and they never explain why. Or even when they do, you can tell it's bullshit,” Allan replied, still looking out the window, watching the cityscape buzz by beneath them.
“This is different,” Poet replied. “They couldn't risk this getting out at all.”
“Until now,” Allan muttered.
Poet hesitated. “This isn't...exactly...officially sanctioned.”
Allan looked over at him. “Excuse me?”
“Montgomery was briefed on the bomb because they learned a while ago not to keep pretty much anything from the Spec Ops commanders. She has top-level clearance. Christ, if they knew she'd told even her own troops about this, let alone a fucking Security-Investigations guy...we'd all 'get lost' real quick. When I asked her about if this came from the top or not, she didn't say anything, just told me to do my job.”
“So this is illegal, and we're all traitors now, huh?” Allan asked.
“Doesn't matter much, we're all going to die. But it's do this or we lose the human race,” Poet replied bluntly.
“Yeah...” Allan murmured. “I guess so.”
The jump ship began coming in for a landing. They settled down on a private landing pad at the local starport. It was early morning, barely past six, local time, and as such, the starport was at the low tide. The back ramp opened and Allan and Poet walked down it, making for the high fence that surrounded the landing pad and docking area.
“We aren't going through the terminal?” Allan asked quietly.
“Fuck no,” Poet replied. “Getting enough looks as it is.”
And he was right, Allan realized. On an adjacent landing pad, a handful of ti
red maintenance men were working on a little cargo freighter had ceased their work and were staring curiously at the pair of armed and armored men. At the floor-to-ceiling windows in the second story of the terminal, a few tired travelers had taken note of them and were staring now. Allan picked up the pace, feeling not only uncomfortable but very guilty.
He might be killing them all.
They reached the gate and passed through it, then progressed across another two landing pads, both empty, and finally hit the perimeter fence for the entire starport. They passed through it, Poet briefly flashing his security clearance.
“So what do we need to do? Who do we need to talk to?” Allan asked as they stepped out onto a main street and began walking down the sidewalk.
“Nobody, thankfully,” Poet replied. “I know the location and I have the code for it as well. Just follow me.”
He stopped at a small, single-story structure tucked away in between a pair of apartment buildings. It was a gray, windowless shed that bore warnings against breaking and entering. Poet swiped his clearance again at the door and it slid open, revealing a stark interior that held a small repair station and a handful of crates.
“What's this?” Allan murmured as they stepped inside.
Poet secured the door behind them, the moved over to a hatch in the ground, opened it and began climbing down into it. “Government maintenance entrance to the sub-systems beneath the city. The power grid, sewage...utilities basically. That's how we're going to gain entrance to the elevator. It's not too far, thankfully.”
Allan followed. Briefly, he found himself nearly encased in a narrow metal tunnel lit by stark white light. A moment later they were admitted to a lengthy tunnel or more white light and clean metal. Allan followed Poet through the soft hush of the vacant tunnel network, his mind drifting constantly to the surface. He'd watched the people, the early-morning risers walking the streets or driving along, heading to work, to school, to their lives. The guilt was beginning to become a real problem. He could feel it crushing him.
