Cherubim

by David Hallquist

  Finding a detailed list of everything the fight cost is a whole lot less fun. While no one died in the fighting, including my assailant, there’s a bunch of people being treated for lacerations and ruptured suits from the broken mirror. The mirror will now have to be replaced, and the wreckage of the Titan cleared before anyone will be able to use the landing pad again. All that, while we need as many landing facilities as possible for the ongoing relief efforts.

  Commander Rackham summarizes the damage while debriefing me in his office and then fills in the total cost in a figure that makes the room chill. It’s not just the cost, it’s also the fact that all that is going to end up being paid for by the people of Jupiter, somehow.

  Nice move, Michael, my voice echoes in my head, your little demolition derby cost everyone else a lot.

  The good news is, our mission has been successful, overall. Our task force is in orbit around Mercury, and the local space is secure. Transports have landed at all major settlements, supplies are being unloaded, and repairs are underway.

  We didn’t have to fight any spacecraft or surface emplacements, nor was there an organized resistance movement waiting for us. Aside from the incident with the Titan, the worst things that happened were a drunken brawl and an injury from an automated pallet jack. The guy who hijacked a Titan and went on a rampage snapped after realizing the same Jovians who were at the battle of Panex Tower were coming here. He’d lost his brother in the fighting there, so I can understand his anger, but he still attacked people in a transport bringing aid and supplies to him and his center, so I have no sympathy.

  Still, I’m probably going to have to pay for my part in all this.

  “Sir,” I ask as he finishes, “how much trouble are we in?”

  “A fair bit,” he acknowledges. “The Terrans are screaming about all the damage done, and the injuries involved. Still, we’re supplying their basic needs now, treating their injured and sick, and repairing their facilities. So they’re only complaining so loud. It might be a good idea for you to stay away from the locals here for a while, though.”

  I nod. There’s bound to be some punishment duty coming up.

  “I have a job for you,” he begins.

  Uh-oh.

  “Sir.”

  “You showed initiative in taking that Titan down with—despite what the Terrans are saying—reasonable force. You also kept your cool and didn’t pull anyone else off their positions.”

  This sounds like it’s going to be more than just helping with repairs, or an unpleasant patrol.

  “We need to thoroughly scour the network of ravines and crevasses that the locals call the Spider.”

  He brings up a holographic representation of the fractures radiating out of the center of the Caloris Basin for over a hundred kilometers. From orbit, it looks like a crazy set of jagged lines radiating from an impact fracture. Up close, the Spider doesn’t look any better. It’s an endless series of jagged, deep ravines that branch and switch back and forth and seem to go into the very depths of Mercury itself. There are places down there that have never known the sun, some of which reach all the way down to the mantle of the planet.

  “There’s excavations throughout the Spider that were dug by the Terrans and Saturnine. The locals say they were abandoned during the war, and Saturn pulled everything out. Still, we have to make sure. There’s still energy and magnetic readings down there, but our reconnaissance drones and overhead scans can only tell us so much. It’s possible that Saturn might have left personnel or materiel down there that could pose a danger to people up here. Also, Intelligence wants us to take a close look and see if we find anything useful.”

  “Sir.” I nod.

  “Get your squadron ready. You’ll have support from our drones, and there’s also a Marine transport that’ll be on standby to assist with any operations down there.”

  My squadron isn’t going to like this. Everyone was looking forward to a bit of rest, and no doubt a mocking celebration of my great victory over a mere mining robot. Instead, we’re in for a long, grueling search and patrol of the cracks in Mercury where the sun doesn’t shine.

  * * *

  The Spider stretches out before us. Cracks radiate out like a web from the rocky mound, splitting and rejoining.

  The area to search is vast.

  That’s not the problem. We’ve searched and patrolled areas larger than a planet’s gravity well before. But that was just open space. When we’re searching the surface of a world, we’ve got to be in way closer, because of the complexity of the surface, difficulties of surface features and the ease of targets hiding in the terrain. The more rugged the terrain, the tighter the search needs to be. The deep and spreading canyon networks of the Spider will require our entire squadron to search, and then some. Fortunately, we’re not going in alone. Every one of our frames is going to be escorted by a score of drones under our command.

  My squadron will split up to cover the area, first into flights, then into smaller units, each accompanied by a swarm of drones. We’ll make our way into the center of the crustal rupture, then split up to follow the various ravines and canyons. Drones and small remotes will explore the smaller cracks.

  We fly over the central crater and its mountain, which has already been well searched, since that’s where the Caloris Base huddles in the partial shade the young crater walls provide. Splitting into flights, we head toward one of the wide, jagged valleys in the stark, barren terrain.

  The gray and black rocks of the canyon rise up around us in terrible desolation. It’s actually smaller than the giant canyons of Mars, but the steep angles and ragged edges make it seem deeper and harsher than the canyons of other worlds. Sunlight gleams and flashes on mineral formations, while the shadows are an absolute blackness that could conceal anything.

  It doesn’t get much better using sensors. The high metal content of the Mercurial rock reflects radar readily, maybe too well. It’s hard to get readings in the chaotic terrain, and anything metal would blend in all too well with the surrounding iron-rich minerals. Infrared reveals the features of the hot rock in sunlight, and the freezing stones in shadow, so hopefully anything hot hiding in the shadows will show up. Magnetic fields are crazy here, as the solar wind rages against the planet’s magnetosphere, and the disturbed minerals in the ground give rise to the specters and ghosts of magnetic anomalies that could mean anything or nothing. Even radiation detection has issues, with protons and cosmic rays raining down from above, and rocks rich in radioisotopes below. Military generators are heavily shielded, so our only clue to a power source is likely to be from the sign of ghostly neutrinos.

  So far, nothing.

  Well, not nothing, just nothing dangerous. Gleaming tracks from an abandoned mining rail crawl down the sides of the canyon, heading toward the Caloris base. Broken down mining crawlers and talus piles clutter the bottom of this canyon, along with a few lonely-looking habitat shelter pods. The wreck of a Titan miner that tumbled over the edge long ago is scattered across the canyon floor. Here and there, mining tunnels have been cut into the sides of the canyon, or drill rigs on the canyon floor.

  Drones examine every structure and tunnel and find nothing. Everything is abandoned and quiet.

  We split up again, each of our frames taking off with a cluster of drones accompanying them.

  The canyon walls narrow. Jagged rocks are interrupted by weird geologic formations probably unique to this strange little world. The Caloris impact caused lava flows over the surface of the crater basin, and space-black frozen lava covers the floor of the canyon. My reflection shines in distorted waves from a wall coated in gleaming volcanic glass.

  I send off drones to examine this crevasse or that one, and one by one, the constellation of lights around me shrinks until I’m utterly alone. It feels like I’m the only person on this alien world, utterly cut off from any communication or assistance.

  It’s all an illusion, of course.

  Our satellite network overhead link
s my entire squadron and all our drones. I can watch as our search pattern spreads over the chaotic terrain, and see if any areas are missed, or what anomalies might need further investigation.

  The Marines are still ready in their transport, if needed, no doubt bored out of their minds. If that’s not enough for whatever trouble we find, we’ve got overhead support from the entire task force, and a wing of Cherubim-class frames.

  So I’m not worried…but this place is creepy.

  I get a signal from another quadrant. “Sir, we found something.”

  * * *

  The entrance to the hidden facility is before us. A partially excavated tunnel in the shadows of the cliffside leads back to an armored hatch of dead black composites. That’s not the suspicious part. We’ve found lots of storage facilities, bolt holes, and other things all along the canyons. Many of them were probably for hiding extra ore or supplies from the State of Terra, or for black market activities. We don’t care about that right now. What we do care about is that the stealth coatings on the door are of Saturnine manufacture, and diminish, but don’t quite block, the energy signatures coming from deeper inside.

  This is what we’re here for, some kind of facility or device Saturn left here and hoped we’d never find.

  The whole squadron is here with me on the canyon floor, along with a full platoon of Jovian Marines. It should be enough. I’ve got the transport waiting nearby in case we need to evacuate, and there’s swarms of drones, and another squadron on standby in case we need them.

  Hopefully, we won’t.

  Our AIs are trying to infiltrate the hatch, but it’s slow going. Saturnine software is as good as ours—some say better. If we don’t take it easy, we’ll end up sealing the hatch, and we might lose whatever data might be inside. Of course, microscopic sensor dust has likely already picked us up, and any enemy inside is likely ready for us and has deleted whatever data we hope to find. Still, you never know until you try…

  I hear a stream of cursing, and one of the indicators on my augments turns red.

  It didn’t work. The hatch systems realized they were under siege, set off alarms, then fused themselves into an inoperable wreck. There’s no way to open the hatch without brute force now.

  Fortunately, we’re really, really good at brute force.

  The tech team moves out of the way, and the demolition team goes in.

  Plasma explosive strips are placed over the weak points of the hatch and programmed to direct shaped jets of cutting plasma and magnetic force in precise reinforcing timed patterns to fracture the armored hatch. We’re not just good at brute force; we’re good at very precise and well thought out force, too.

  Once they’re done, they pull back.

  We all take aim.

  That hatch is large enough to admit our frames with ease, so something as large could come out at us. Anything could be waiting for us inside.

  The countdown hits zero, and there’s a blazing flash of blue light. The now glowing metal of the hatch shudders, and then splinters into a rain of sparks and shards onto the tunnel floor.

  Beyond lies only empty darkness.

  Nothing fires on us or comes rushing out of the tunnel. It’s as quiet, cold, and airless as if nothing had ever lived within.

  Slowly, cautiously, we advance into the silent structure.

  * * *

  We’ve been moving through the dark, frozen corridors for a while now. There’s room for our frames to move one by one, and we each have a Marine fire team and a small cloud of drones escorting us down the tunnel. Everything gets scanned and examined as carefully as possible.

  The bare rock has been covered over by black panels, reinforcing struts, and endless wires and tubes. Everything is off and cold, and hopefully will stay that way. There could be any kind of booby-trap here, from autonomous weapons, to mines, to a nuke.

  It looks like these large tunnels are the main access-ways, set for heavy vehicles and lots of traffic, not something you’d expect to see in a small base. As we come to junctions where our frames won’t fit, Marines in power armor check it out, and we wait. Even smaller tunnels and access-ways will only fit our smaller drones, but we pause to check those out, too. Intersections like this are the most dangerous places, but an attack could come from anywhere…

  …and it does.

  A bright white flash fills the world, and fragments ricochet off my frame. The explosion fades to a cloud of corrosive, opaque fog and jamming, while AI viruses try to tear our communication systems apart.

  Our automated weapons are already firing, as our drones, SPGs, and laser clusters engage the objects moving down the corridors toward us.

  After about a second, the fog clears in the hard vacuum. There are a number of chitinous black robots crawling or flying down the corridors that don’t fit with our databases of Saturnine military hardware, probably because they aren’t military. Even our low-powered laser clusters and rail carbines blow them apart. Still, they can be dangerous if they get close enough—many of them are carrying plasma explosives or canisters of caustic fluid.

  The enemy jamming clears. That was fast. It looks like they were using an old, out of date program from the start of the war, and our frames took care of it easily. We link our systems back up and coordinate fire on the incoming machines.

  In less than a minute, the hallway is clear of the enemy. All the explosives and weapons fire collapsed some sections, while craters and rubble mark the rest of the tunnels. Twisted and half melted robots clog the bottom third of the tunnels.

  No casualties on our side, just armor damage, and lots of ammunition expended.

  This wasn’t an attack by Saturnine military forces. If those had been combat cyborgs, or, worse, assault-battleoids, we’d have been wiped out. It looks like some kind of desperate, improvised defense by their civilian types. But if that’s so, why leave them behind if all the military gear was taken out? It doesn’t make sense to me; we’d get our civilian personnel out first in an evacuation. I guess the Saturnine don’t think the same way we do. Maybe these just got left behind and then decided to jump us when we showed up. They might have been waiting all this time to be rescued by a Saturn that long ago wrote them off and abandoned them. Then, when someone shows up, and it isn’t their rescue force, they decide to make a desperate last stand…

  A distant explosion rumbles though the ground, followed by another from a different direction.

  “They may be destroying their base and data. We need to keep moving, but don’t rush anything,” I send.

  Slowly and carefully, we advance deeper into the darkened fortress, as the occasional blast tremors shake the rock around us.

  * * *

  We’ve been moving ever deeper into the Saturnine facility. As we go, we’ve had the occasional ambush, but mostly it looks like the remaining cyborgs and robots have been trying to destroy their own base materials before we capture them. Explosions occasionally shake the ground, and we find cave-ins, ruined bays, and galleries.

  There’s also treasure the Intelligence Division will no doubt love. There are whole rooms filled with dead computer systems and still cyborgs, and biolabs filled with ranks of tanks bubbling with mysterious organic tissues within. We don’t touch any of it; there’s no telling what was going on here.

  Strangely, we find signs that the various Saturnine robots might have been shooting at each other, and we come across ravaged corridors and rooms that must have been battle sites. What were they fighting over? The Saturnine exist in a totally controlled cybernetic society. Is rebellion possible in such a society? Is it something else, a computer virus of some kind?

  The ground shakes—more tremors of distant fighting.

  We move fast but get there too late; the fighting is already over.

  Wrecked Saturnine robots clutter the halls, and blast marks and craters line every wall and floor. Even with improvised explosives and industrial lasers, it looks like there was quite a fight here.

  “Move
ment!” Our drones and scouts are picking up the vibrations and magnetic signatures of something approaching. The energy levels and size are about right for the various robots we’ve been finding everywhere.

  We set up, ready to lay down a devastating hail of fire at whatever comes down the corridor.

  The enemy come into view, more black Saturnine robots crawling and hovering along, and they…drop their weapons pods and tools.

  “Hold your fire,” I send out.

  The robots power down and settle to the floor, cold and inert.

  What’s happening? Are they surrendering? The Saturnine never surrender. We’ve tried to get them to, but they always fight to the last, retreat, or suicide. We’ve never captured any alive.

  We scan the robots for explosives, nanotech weapons, or anything else, but there’s nothing. It seems like the real thing.

  “Something else is coming!” Our sensors are picking up one object approaching us, approximately man-sized.

  It floats into view and hovers above the deck, a black sphere less than a meter across, with a single red camera-eye dominating its featureless front. Various segmented tentacles hang below, empty of any weapons or cutting implements.

  It transmits, “I am designated SID-7745, and I wish to defect.”

  * * *

  We’ve set up an impromptu debriefing of the Saturnine defector, while our Marines and frames clear the rest of the base and secure it. I can’t wait for Intelligence to get here to talk to the Saturnine first, since there’s still hostiles and booby traps in the place, and the little round cyborg could help.

  I’m still in my frame, of course, and the little cyborg is being watched by two Marines as well as me in a room with a locked door and sentries outside. Trust is hard to come by.