Star Soldier

by Vaughn Heppner

  “Come on,” said Marten.

  Exhaustion dragged at their muscles. They’d been tortured for many months, Marten not as long but to the point of death. So he allowed each of them another shot of Superstim. Turbo begged for more, until he noticed Omi’s haughty eyes. After that, the tall junkie slouched down the street without complaining.

  Luckily, they made a straight run to the Deep-Core Station. Most of the crowds streamed to a lower level, starting stampedes there. Marten wondered what would happen when they reached end of the line Sydney, Level Sixty.

  “There it is,” whispered Omi, who held up his hand to stop them.

  They peered around a corner at the bank-like building. The large plaza was empty, rather silent compared to the noises of only shortly ago.

  “If we charge across they’ll just shoot us down,” Omi said.

  Marten shook his head. “We have to bank this on PHC already being successful.”

  “Meaning?”

  “Meaning PHC will have taken this place out, killed everyone so there aren’t any witnesses.”

  “You can’t know that,” Omi said. “Maybe Deep-Core is in with PHC.”

  “I doubt it,” said Stick. “Remember how the Reform people hated PHC sticking their nose into their racket?”

  “Yeah,” Omi said.

  “What’s wrong,” Turbo jeered, “don’t have anybody to point a gun at?”

  Omi narrowed his eyes.

  “Oh, real tough,” said Turbo. “How about you watch this. Marten!”

  “What?”

  Turbo pointed at his pocket, the one holding the medkit.

  Marten thought he understood. Dubiously, he drew out the medkit, weighed it a moment and then handed it to Turbo.

  Turbo’s fingers flicked over the buttons as he pressed it to his arm. The medkit hissed, shooting him with more stims. “Ahhhh,” whispered Turbo, his face one of ecstasy. He pitched the medkit back and strode onto the plaza, his carbine ready. Then he broke into a sprint for the glass door.

  “Fool,” Omi hissed. “They’ll kill him.”

  They didn’t. Turbo made it to the door and bounded within.

  “He guessed right,” said Marten, who now broke into a sprint after Turbo.

  Inside they found more carnage. DCM personnel lay sprawled everywhere with laser holes neatly drilled into them. A few times, they found a red-suit with an ugly bullet hole in his skull or torso.

  Stick savagely kicked one. Turbo spat on them all indiscriminately.

  The door into the elevator room stood ajar. Blood and gore lay splashed on the controls, but the bodies had been cleared.

  “PHC beat us here,” said Omi.

  “So it would appear,” Marten said.

  “You doubt?” Omi asked.

  “No….” Marten said.

  “What then?”

  Marten looked up, swallowed. “We have to go down after them.”

  “What?” Turbo asked. “Down? How about up?”

  “Highborn say no,” Omi said.

  “Yeah? And how do you know that?” Turbo asked.

  “By thinking.”

  Marten thought Turbo would jeer. Instead, the lanky man shuffled off to sulk. Marten studied the controls. They seemed basic enough. He pressed a red button. Ping! The nearest elevator opened, and before them stood the plush box that could take them farther down into the planet than anything else possibly could. None of them, however, made a move.

  “I once heard an old, old saying,” Marten finally said.

  Turbo refused to be drawn. Omi grunted, but seemed lost in thought. Stick, who stropped his vibroblade on his pant leg, looked up. “Yeah?”

  “Those who would lose their life will gain it. Those who would gain their life will lose it.”

  “That don’t make sense,” the knifeboy said.

  “Here it does.”

  Stick thought about, shrugged. “Maybe.”

  “No maybe about it,” Omi said. “He’s right. So let’s go.”

  17.

  They plunged toward the center of the Earth, picking up speed until the elevator whined and vibrated so it shook their teeth. Speech was impossible. Turbo thumped against the nearest wall, cradling the grenade launcher between his bony knees as he stuck his fingers in his ears. He closed his eyes and it almost seemed as if he fell asleep. Stick sat beside him and stared fixedly at his vibroblade, switching it on and off with his thumb. Of course, it was impossible to hear its hum. Marten wasn’t sure the knifeboy could even feel its vibration. Omi stood and watched the depth gauge and heat-meter. His features showed an increasing dread and desperation.

  Marten clamped his teeth together on the nervous urge to laugh. He’d seen far too many people in the last while high on violence. He didn’t want to become as uncontrolled as they had been.

  Down, down, down they plunged, toward the molten core of the planet. Heavy oppression squeezed these lifelong underground dwellers. A sense, an aura, a feeling of extreme pressure bore upon each of them. No python ever tightened its coils like this. Breathing became difficult. Strange sounds, groans, hisses and screeches abraded their hearing, their very awareness.

  On the outside of the shaft, the temperature of the Earth increased thirty degrees Celsius for every kilometer they dropped. At one hundred kilometers it would became white hot. Then the rate of temperature increase would slow. No metal or ceramic substance man had ever used in construction could have survived the blasting heat of the deeper reaches of the Earth. Yet incredible heat was the lesser of the two problems. The greater technical difficulty lay in pressure, awful, mind-numbing pressure. Just as a swimmer in a pool experienced pressure as he dove as little as six feet down, so the Earth increased in pressure the farther down one went. At three hundred and twenty kilometers, it reached one hundred thousand atmospheres, twelve hundred times the pressure of the deepest point in the ocean.

  Omi threw an agonizing glance at Marten. Marten grunted and moved beside the gunman, watching the deep gauge and heat-meter. Deep-Core personnel were intensely trained for five years before they dared go down. Psychological tests weeded out over three-quarters of the personnel. Many often cracked after a little more than a week in the deep station. Not that any human could withstand one hundred thousand atmospheres. That was impossible.

  Omi tapped the depth gauge.

  Marten nodded.

  They left the Earth’s crust and entered the mantle.

  A solid layer of rock circled the outer Earth, its crust. On the ocean floor, the crust could be as little as sixteen kilometers thick. On the continents, the crust reached a thickness of forty kilometers. Basalt composed the ocean floor, a combination of oxygen, silicon, aluminum, magnesium and iron. The continental mass was mostly granite. Granite was of lower density than basalt. Thus, the continental granite plates floated on the basalt. The entire crust floated on the mantle.

  Twenty-nine hundred kilometers thick, the mantle was composed of molten olivine rock: iron and magnesium combined with silicon and oxygen. Overall, the mantle was solid, but under these terrific pressures, it behaved like a plastic. Under the slow, steady pressure the material flowed like extra-thick molasses, but sudden changes in pressure would cause it to snap and fragment like glass.

  Beneath the mantle pulsed the outer core. The Earth’s inner core was solid. Both halves were constituted mainly of iron in an alloy form with a small amount of sulfur or oxygen. Because of the heat and pressure, the outer core was molten iron, hot to a degree almost unimaginable.

  Heat and pressure of such extremes prevented the use of any known material in shaft construction.. Magnetic force alone formed the walls of the long narrow mine sunk deep into the Earth. Incredibly powerful magnetic shields shoved against the unrelenting pressure of crust, mantle and outer core. The terrible heat from the Earth itself powered these shields, and everything livable had to stay within them. Generators of brutal efficiency and power cooled the temperature inside the shaft. A breech anywhere along the lin
e would destroy the entire deep-core mine. This core heat provided Greater Sydney and much of Australian Sector with its energy needs.

  Therefore, the main safety feature was already built into the deep-core. The only way lava could possibly geyser up the mine and onto the surface was to send a tiny plug of it, like a man spitting—a little spurt of molten metal would destroy the magnetic tube behind it as it went. But such was the Earth’s ability to spit that Sydney and everything around it for fifty kilometers would be annihilated. The design and safety features of the mine ensured that process could only be triggered at the deepest section of human habitation, the bottom core station, which hung just above the Earth’s outer core.

  The bottom core station was the elevator’s destination.

  For a time, Omi and Marten watched the gauges. Suddenly Marten trembled. The psychological weight around him became more than he could bear. He staggered to a cot conveniently provided and slumped upon it. He shut his eyes and his breathing grew even. Exhaustion claimed him. He dreamed of being crushed to death, of Major Orlov sitting on his chest and smothering his mouth with a rag. He clawed against her brawny forearms to no avail. Then, sluggishly, with infinite slowness, he grew aware that he dreamed and fought to wake up. His eyelids unglued and his vision swam in blurry confusion. He groaned, but couldn’t hear himself. Nausea burned the back of his throat with threatened vomit. He concentrated, swung his legs off the cot and rubbed his eyes. A horrible headache pounded. He squinted. The blurs wouldn’t go away. A bolt of fear stabbed him. He bent his head between his knees and told himself to relax, to breathe deeply. He did, and he found that if he pressed his hands on either side of his head that he could focus.

  Turbo lay sprawled on the floor, drool spilling from his open mouth. He stared glazed-eyed at the wall. Stick squeezed his eyes closed with ferocious intensity and breathed in and out as if he were a bellows. Omi kept jerking the slide to his assault carbine open and shut, open and shut. Fifty cartridges lay at his feet, but he seemed oblivious to them.

  Marten willed himself to his feet, but found that he couldn’t move. Weird gusts of air puffed his cheeks. He frowned. Then he realized that he brayed moronic laughter minus the sound, or the elevator was too noisy to let him hear his own laughter. He slapped a hand over his mouth. Then, after he’d settled himself, he put his hands to his knees and slowly rose to his feet. Systematically he lurched to the depth gauge. The others ignored him. He positioned himself before it and concentrated with everything he had. It swam into view: 2850 kilometers. Just as slowly, he realized they were almost there. It seemed impossible that the pressure could affect them, no matter how terrific, when kept at bay by technology. Maybe man wasn’t conditioned to take it, or maybe some sixth sense felt the world’s weight. Millions of pounds of pressure per square inch… or maybe the awareness of being buried alive more horribly than any dream was too much for the human psyche. Only a superior will could stand it, only a stubborn mule of a man.

  There was something just on the edge of Marten’s awareness. It could help him, he knew, but he couldn’t think of it. Oh! Yes, of course. He dug the medkit out of his jacket and pressed it against his arm. The red light flashed and stopped. He hadn’t felt anything. Was it broken? Then a wave of cool relief flooded through him.

  He laughed, normally, although still without sound. He stepped beside Omi and put his hand over the gunman’s, the one working the slide. Omi squinted at him, but it didn’t seem that he saw Marten. So Marten pressed the medkit to Omi’s arm. No red light winked. Nothing. Marten checked the medkit and found that it was empty, or empty of whatever drug could help the gunman.

  Marten shook Omi.

  Omi scowled, but there still wasn’t any focus in his eyes.

  Marten went to each of them in turn. It was as if they were in cocoons, in their own worlds. He didn’t know the deep-core term for their condition, although he was sure there was one. One thing seemed to make sense, if they had gone schizoid then surely some of the red-suits had too—he hoped.

  Marten also hoped the drug in his bloodstream would last long enough so he could do the job. He readied his assault carbine. And on impulse, he went and pried the vibroblade out of Stick’s grip, sliding it in his boot. Then he went back to the depth gauge and watched.

  In time, the noise level lowered. He shouted, and was rewarded with a new sound: his voice. That made his heart pound. Here it was—savior of Sydney or just another loser to Social Unity. Marten didn’t know it, but a vicious snarl twisted his lips.

  The elevator pinged.

  Marten staggered to the door. It was like wading through gel, slow, difficult work. He had to concentrate to move.

  A hand on his shoulder caused him to whip his head around. Omi glared at him, a death’s head grin exposing his teeth.

  “Do it,” hissed Omi.

  The box shuddered to a halt, the doors slid open and Marten Kluge waded alone into the deep-core station.

  18.

  The floor of the deep-core station thrummed. A prickly sensation scratched at Marten’s nerves. He’d heard before from a news show or a spy video, he couldn’t remember which, that the discharges of magnetic force off the molten metal created strange electrical currents within the station. It felt as if spiders with sandpaper feet scurried across him. He kept rubbing his arms and rolling his shoulders. And he kept a sharp lookout for red-suits.

  The station was grimly utilitarian. Thick ablative foam walls, dull gray in color, sectioned the place into what seemed like hundreds of tiny rooms. The hall ceilings hung uncomfortably low. The light-globes embedded in them radiated almost no heat. Every time he entered a new room through a hatch, he had to duck his head.

  His mother had once taken him to a museum. He remembered seeing submarines from the Twentieth Century. It had been in a conflict called World War Two. The rooms and the narrow hatchways of the deep-core station seemed similar to those WWII subs. Gauges, dials, control boards and computer screens abounded everywhere. Emergency breathing masks hung on all the walls, along with fire extinguishers and heavy-duty tanks filled with construction foam. When sprayed and exposed to air, the foam quickhardened into a lightweight, durable wall. Riot police and soldiers used construction foam, as did firefighters creating a fast firebreak. Marten realized that fires must be a constant hazard on the station.

  He touched the ablative foam wall. Hot. He looked around warily. The foam walls seemed to mute sound. He barely heard his footsteps. They were muffled, almost noiseless.

  He crept down a small, steep set of stairs and peered onto the next floor. It was just like the previous floor. Then an odd clang sounded. It seemed to come from all around. An eerie c-r-e-a-k of ghostly quality followed. The entire station shuddered. In his fright and surprise, Marten almost lost his balance and tumbled down the stairs.

  His heart thudded as he hurried up them instead. Those noises didn’t sound good. He wondered if it was stage one of Major Orlov’s objective. Or was it merely regular deep station occurrences? He had no way to judge, but he felt that time was running out. Assault carbine at the ready, he hunted from room to room, straining to hear anything that would lead him to the enemy. The thick foam walls absorbed sound, so that the station seemed empty, lifeless, dead. It gave Marten an evil, creepy feeling. Was he too late to change anything?

  Then he stumbled onto PHC-created carnage. It looked like a kitchen, a food center with a microwave and a refrigerator. Pockmarked ablative foam lined the wall, where laser beams had hit. Gray smoke curled from each pockmark and gave off a horrible stink. Draped over several small tables were six bodies, each in the brown coveralls of Deep-Core. The laser burns that had killed them still smoldered.

  Rage filled Marten, at such wanton murder, senseless slaughter. He had to stop Major Orlov and her killers.

  He increased his pace, but it was impossible to run. The psychological pressure wouldn’t allow it. It felt as if he dragged his legs against a horizontal gravity. Then he heard a sound, a v
oice. He slowed to a creep, peering ahead so hard it seemed as if his eyeballs would spill out. He mouth went dry. His fingers stiffened.

  Two men spoke in monotone voices, and they were just around the hatch. They said that maybe they should rape the system specialist after the major was finished with her.

  Marten’s rage burned in him and loosened his stiff fingers. He rounded the hatchway and stepped through.

  Two red-suits sat at a small table. Their lasers lay in their laps as they stared at their drinks. They looked up as Marten stepped through the hatch. They had hard, tanned faces, like bloodthirsty weasels given human form. For a nanosecond, Marten and they stared at each other.

  “You,” one of them said in a dull monotone.

  Marten vaguely recognized the pointed chin. Yeah, that man had given the major the agonizer. That seemed like an age ago.

  The nanosecond ended, and the red-suits lunged out of their chairs, spilling their drinks. They were deadly as serpents, almost as fast. Their lasers lifted into firing position as red beams hosed the floor. Marten’s assault carbine spoke—a quiet cha-cha-cha. The two red-suits hit the floor dead, riddled and twisted into grotesque positions.

  Marten stepped over them, moving faster now. He was certain that because of the walls the sound of his gunfire wouldn’t carry far.

  The next moment a red-suit walking like a deprogrammed android almost bumped into him. Marten blew him aside, the red-suit only beginning to realize what had happened as his eyes fluttered for the last time. Marten moved like a killer robot now, a machine. Down a steep set of stairs, turn left, right, right. A red-suit tried to poke a stimstick between his own compressed lips. His face was filled with intense concentration, but he kept hitting his cheek or nose with the end of the stimstick. Marten gunned him down, thankful that the deep-core pressure was making them stupid.

  Marten kept striding, but it felt as if he moved through water. His head started hurting and it was hard to concentrate. So he watched his feet, willing them forward one step at a time. When had control of them again, he looked up, hunting, searching. He hurried through a hatchway—and he tripped over a foot. Marten threw out his arms to catch himself. His weapon went spinning, but he landed without knocking out his teeth. When nothing more happened, he looked back.