The End of Liberty (War Eternal Book 2)

by M. R. Forbes

  She jumped on top of him in a crudely suggestive posture, pinning his arms with her knees, taking hold of the rifle and unclipping one end of the strap. She lifted it up, bringing it down hard on his throat.

  Then she rose and turned, finding the other soldier still laying on the wet ground. She lowered the rifle to his temple and fired a single shot, his head muffling the noise.

  She took a few long breaths, trying to calm her nerves and heart. She scanned the alley for signs of more soldiers. Would they notice a few more had died? She had to be quick regardless.

  She stripped the two soldiers of their rifles and ammunition with practiced efficiency. Then she took the waterproof fatigues of the smaller one, happy to be able to shield herself a bit from the rain.

  When she was done, she returned to the dead female soldier she had shot. She eyed the small battery pack that lined her back and then looked down to synthetic muscles that snapped onto special clips that extruded from the flesh of her arms and legs. Light exo was for law enforcement and routine civilian control, intended to increase stamina more than power or strength.

  Christine was tired. Very tired. She would have given anything to be able to use the augmentation, but it required her neural implant to help keep it balanced and regulated.

  She sighed, bowed to the dead soldier out of respect, and then fled out into the night.

  14

  It hurt. Of course, it did. There was nothing painless about having an electric current run against your head and passed into your brain. There was nothing painless about having a piece of tech attached to your brain suddenly being stopped dead in its processing, shut off to receive new instructions, and then brought back online.

  The original output settings weren't high enough, and by the time Watson was satisfied the implant was receiving the instructions, there was a solid buzz in Mitchell's head, and he felt dizzy and nauseous. He struggled to stay calm and steady, to not show how the reset was making him feel, to be the Space Marine badass he once was. He had been getting soft being out of action.

  In the end, Mitchell survived, sucking up the pain and breathing through it while he watched his p-rat overlay return to a loading screen. It scrolled through thousands of lines of diagnostics until it reached one final initialization screen that had 'Riggers' written across it in tight lines of code.

  "Captain?" Watson said.

  Mitchell ran through his diagnostics, checking his biofeedback monitors, his chemical storage levels, his target tracking, all in a matter of seconds. He could feel the lethargy of this new system compared to what the engineer had installed before. There was nothing to do about it but adjust.

  "I'm fine," he said. His eyes crossed to Long and his officers. "Who's next?"

  "I'll go," Alvarez said. She crossed the space between the two crews and dropped to her knees next to Mitchell, putting her face close to his. "How was it, Captain?"

  Her eyes were expressive in a way that Mitchell understood. She wasn't as hesitant to commit as Major Long, and she was impressed with him. Or with his past exploits? The Battle of Liberty had named him a fraud, but he had still been a member of Greylock long before that, and it had been played up in the streams.

  "Not bad. You'll feel a little dizzy. Nothing you can't handle, I'm sure." He smiled at her, macho and comforting at the same time. She wasn't bad looking. Not at all. He remembered what Millie said in the corridor, and then pushed the thoughts from his mind. He needed a clear head now more than ever.

  Mitchell stepped back while Watson held the pad up to Alvarez's head. She didn't seem bothered by the transfer. Was she trying to show him up? Prove something to them all? Or maybe it was the adjustment that had caused the reaction, and he had suffered more than they would? Or had Watson added a little bit extra, passive-aggressively getting even with him for making him delete his vile stash?

  Assuming he had. Mitchell would take that up with him later.

  They underwent the procedure, each in turn, with Origin going last. The Tetron kept the amused smirk the entire time, appearing fascinated with the entire episode, watching the human interaction with a keen curiosity. When it was done, Mitchell opened the channel, and all of the p-rat identifiers were synced.

  "You won't be able to communicate with Alliance military without using external systems," Watson said.

  "The Riggers were in direct report with General Cornelius," Millie added. "All of our communiqué had secondary, top level encryption."

  "General Cornelius was in charge of our battle group," Major Long said. "He brought us from port in Delta Quadrant. I remember when his transport came in." Long's face dropped. "He's dead."

  "They all are," Borov said. The room fell silent in sudden mourning, as though the updates to their implants had bonded them.

  "Major Long, I'm sending you my command codes, signed and validated by General Cornelius."

  "Receiving," Long said. The silence on the bridge continued while Long opened the codes. He glanced at Millie, his tongue pushing along the front of his teeth. Then he bowed. "I have to admit Admiral, this is all a bit awkward. My apologies."

  Alvarez and Borov followed his lead. "Admiral," they said.

  "At ease. All of you," Millie said. "Like I told you already, preening like a peacock is secondary to getting the job done. I don't care if you call me Admiral, Captain, Millie, or Bitch. When the fighting starts, you give a hundred and fifty percent. That's all I ask."

  "Yes, ma'am," Long said.

  Millie smiled. "Now that we have that out of the way, I'm enacting protocol thirty-six oh four of the Alliance military charter. Captain Williams is being promoted to the rank of Colonel, and will act as my second-in-command. He'll also be in charge of our battle groups once we form them."

  "Yes, ma'am," Long said, lowering his head. He didn't look happy about the decision.

  "Major, I expect you to work with Colonel Williams as his second. You know the capabilities of your team, and can help him best utilize them. I understand you have doubts about his past. I assure you Major, what Mitchell accomplished as a pilot on the Greylock was no accident."

  "And the Battle for Liberty?" Long asked, looking up suddenly.

  "A military tactic," Mitchell said. "To gain support from the Alliance Council and push for increased military spending. I didn't take the Shot, my wingmate and commander did. She died in the Battle."

  Long nodded. Mitchell didn't know if he truly understood or not. He didn't care.

  "Feel free to spread out to the stations and take a seat if you want," Mitchell said. "I'm going to tell you a story and answer the rest of your questions. It's going to take a while."

  15

  "So, you're saying the Goliath was waiting for you to find it?" Major Long said.

  Mitchell had reviewed all of the events leading up to his victory over the single Tetron, starting with the point he had been shot on Liberty. The officers of the Valkyrie had listened intently, remaining silent while he described the assault on Calypso, their discovery of the clues that led them to the lost starship, and how it had come to be waiting in their time and space four hundred years after it vanished from Earth.

  "Yes."

  "And the alien technology, we can use it because of some rogue enemy that wanted to help us fight back?"

  "It isn't alien. It was created by artificial intelligence that was created by us," Singh said.

  "Yes. I forgot. Time travel. So, we created this intelligence, and then what?"

  "We died. They didn't." Mitchell looked over at Origin. He had remained silent through the entire tale, keeping his identity secret. "I don't know what the original timeline was like. Maybe we didn't create them for thousands of years, maybe millions. I don't know how long it took for them to evolve, or for them to create the eternal engine."

  "A time machine by any other name," Borov said.

  "What I know is that they used it to move ahead into the next recursion and destroy humankind, and they've been repeating the same act
ion for a long, long time. Maybe long enough that they don't even remember when or how it started anymore. There is an opposition in their ranks that has been working to prevent it. It isn't clear if they're acting in unison, or if there are individual intelligences that are manipulating the timelines independently to help sway the outcome. Somewhere in there, I got involved, and I almost stopped them. We're here to try again."

  "Try?" Long asked. "Clearly, you've never succeeded."

  "You can't assume that with complete certainty," Watson said. "Even if Mitchell won the war in one of the time loops and saved humanity, if the intelligence was created in the future of that timeline the entire recursion would begin again."

  "How do you fight a war that may never end?" Alvarez asked.

  "Like you fight any war," Mitchell said. "One battle at a time."

  "I'm trying to accept this," Major Long said. "I don't think I could if we weren't standing on the bridge of the Goliath herself." He ran his hand along the upholstery of the command chair. "You believe our next battle is on Liberty?"

  "We know it," Millie said. "Liberty is a foothold planet. A Tetron has taken root there and is using it to provide equipment, supplies, and numbers for their slave army while the rest of the forces move further into the galaxy. Hitting them from behind will help us free more military assets. The Goliath can match them one-on-one. We don't have the numbers or the firepower to attack them head on."

  Mitchell hadn't mentioned Major Arapo, her true identity, or her role at any point in his recounting of events, altering that part of the story to obfuscate their true goals. They didn't trust the Major enough to count on him backing a return to Liberty to find a single missing person.

  Borov groaned. "What do they need a slave army for if they can control our minds? The army is already wherever they are going."

  "Until one hundred percent of humanity has a neural implant, it will continue to fight back," Origin said, breaking his silence. Mitchell's eyes snapped over to him in warning. "We will fight back. It is a simple assumption that a machine would overcome this situation by ensuring that the odds against it are impossible, not simply unlikely."

  Major Long nodded in agreement. "So we'll jump into Liberty orbit and attack the enemy there?"

  "We'll come out of hyperspace close to Liberty to assess the situation first," Mitchell said.

  "Won't the Tetron pick us up on their sensors?"

  "No. We aren't going to get that close. I'll fly my fighter from the drop point and do a sweep of the planet. It may pick up a single ship, but it will still give us the element of surprise when we show up with a larger force that includes Goliath. If we consolidate our attack on the Tetron, we can destroy it and free the ships defending it before they destroy us."

  Origin coughed, the action drawing the attention of the assembled crew.

  "Is there something you wanted to say, Private?" Millie asked.

  "I don't believe spacial bombardment will be a viable solution, ma'am," he said.

  Mitchell had assumed the whole reason he had been led to the Goliath was to use it. "What do you mean?"

  "Permission to speak freely, Admiral?"

  "Always," Millie said.

  Origin smiled like an innocent child. He was playing his part with precision. "From what we have been able to ascertain, the Tetron weapons are mostly energy-based. From the images of the Tetron on Liberty, it is clear that it has buried at least part of itself into the planet."

  "So?" Borov said.

  "So, if the Goliath were to launch a bombardment, it would utilize its energy to both erect a shield defense, and to fire back on its attackers. As its stored energy began to deplete, it would need to gather it from somewhere else."

  "The planet's core," Singh said. "If it draws all of the heat and energy out of it-"

  "The entire planet is frigged," Millie said.

  "That is one part of it, ma'am," Origin said. "The other part is that while the enemy has a reserve power supply to draw from in its immediate vicinity, the Goliath does not."

  "So if we don't kill it right away, we're going to have to retreat," Mitchell said. "Which also gives it time to call for reinforcements."

  "Yes, sir."

  "Excellent observations, Private," Major Long said.

  "Thank you, sir." Origin glanced at Mitchell. "Not to mention, the collateral damage of utilizing the plasma stream on the planet's surface could be catastrophic."

  Mitchell winced. Assuming Christine were still alive, his gung-ho attitude might have gotten her killed.

  Stupid.

  "So what are we supposed to do?" Captain Alvarez asked.

  "If we can't fight it from space, we need to go down there," Mitchell said. "Hit it from the ground."

  And try to find Christine in the process.

  "Go down there?" Millie said. "Mitch, that's suicide."

  He smiled. "Isn't that what the Riggers do best?"

  Major Long was nodding. "Yes. I agree with Cap- Colonel Williams. There's no other way."

  "What about the forces on the planet? The friendly forces?" Alvarez's face had paled at the idea.

  "They aren't friendly," Mitchell said.

  "They aren't in control of themselves."

  "We understand that, Captain," Long said. "I don't think anyone in this room wants to kill our own people. It may be unavoidable." He turned towards Mitchell. "You did something to get us out from under its control. You can't do the same thing planetside?"

  "No. I used Goliath's communications arrays to broadcast. The signal won't reach that far."

  "The range is limited," Origin added. "Even against the incoming enemy ships, as soon as the Tetron assesses our strategy, it will back them off and fire from a safe distance."

  "What about bringing a smaller version to the surface?"

  "The power and processing requirements are extensive," Watson said. "We don't have a mobile asset big enough to carry the equipment or to supply the energy."

  "The Valkyrie-"

  "We'll need the Valkyrie to get onto the planet," Mitchell said. "That won't work very well if we have to divert thrust power to the antenna array."

  Major Long's face fell.

  "Sir, if I might," Origin said.

  "Private, if you have something to add, just say it," Millie said.

  "Yes, ma'am. What if we assembled a software package that we could deploy into existing broadcast channels. A stream station or something? Could we block local signals that way, assuming we could draw enough power from the infrastructure?"

  Watson nodded vigorously. "Yes, it might be possible. The range would probably be limited, but it could be enough to free up the Alliance forces closest to the Tetron."

  "Wouldn't that be a kick in the ass?" Millie said.

  "I hate to spoil the excitement," Borov said. "What are the odds the enemy isn't collecting the output of the power generators for itself?"

  "A likely scenario," Origin agreed. "We would need to sever its connection to the grid."

  "Can we?" Mitchell asked.

  "I don't know."

  "Do you have a guess?"

  "It has to be tapped in somewhere. A pipe big enough to siphon that kind of power would be exposed. Cut the pipe, restore the grid."

  "Piece of cake," Millie said.

  Mitchell knew it had sounded too good to be true. "Major Long, what kind of ground assets do you have on board the Valkyrie?"

  He heard the tone of a new channel opening to all of them.

  "I'm passing the file I put together on the Valkyrie's resources," the Major said.

  "I'll do the same," Millie said.

  The documents fell into Mitchell's p-rat. His eye twitched as he opened and scanned them. He was sure all of the assembled eyes were doing the same.

  "A standard mech star. Two Zombies, two Knights, and - oh. You have a Dart." Mitchell grimaced to see the designation in the asset list.

  "The four fighters from the carrier and another half-squadron," Major Long
said.

  "Along with my fighter, that gives us almost a complete squadron."

  "We'd need sixteen pilots to get everything operational. It looks like we only have twelve," Millie said.

  "We also have a platoon of grunts if we add in your resources," Captain Alvarez said. "That's a fair number of ground-pounders."

  "Consider it double the number," Millie said. "My men are the best there are."

  "The Valkyrie's squads aren't too shabby themselves," Borov added. "You don't get assigned to a drop team without being ahead of the curve."

  "Admiral, you didn't mention you had another high-ranking officer on board," Long said.

  "Colonel Shank. Yes."

  "It isn't clear to me why he isn't here as your second."

  Millie and Mitchell exchanged a look.

  "Colonel Shank is one of the best platoon commanders you'll find," Millie said. "He isn't well suited to this kind of leadership."

  "Oh. In what way?"

  "Let's just say he has a tendency to solve arguments with violence, and leave it at that."

  Mitchell didn't know what Shank had done to get himself shipped to the Riggers. Based on the comment, he could guess. He watched Major Long's face wrinkle up. The man seemed to be growing more displeased as he fell further and further down the chain of command. He smiled at the thought of subjecting the crew of the Valkyrie to the hazing ritual. In some ways, it was a lot more efficient at organizing the pecking order.

  "Let's get back to the problem at hand," Mitchell said. "When we get to Liberty we'll need to get a team onto the ground. It's obvious from our existing resources that we'll have to be as quick and quiet about it as possible. Four mechs, a walking target, and a platoon of grunts aren't going to cut it head on."

  "That's assuming we can even get them on the ground," Long said. "The enemy can fire at us from the surface, and who knows how many of our ships its got orbiting the planet."