"Unbelievable," said Jones.
The rest of the Immortals began cheering as the doors slowly drew apart. Alita rushed forward and wrapped her arms around his neck.
"Would you really give it all, everything you have?"
"Yes, he would," replied the Guardian, "That is why he was accepted. He gave what no other was willing to give."
"You knew Irala came here, didn't you?" Taylor asked.
"Yes, I know all that Irala does."
"And will he know this upon our return?"
"Yes."
Taylor knew he would take it hard, as it questioned his commitment, as well as that all of the Aranui, but that was trouble for another day. He got to his feet and strode through the doors. A series of lights came on. The room was little more than a very secure vault ten metres square. At the centre was a plinth and stand holding what looked like some kind of pole weapon.
"What is this?"
As he approached, he could see that it was not a weapon at all, but a staff with a bizarre hollowed dome atop it that was covered in inscriptions.
"Is that is?"
"No," replied the Guardian.
"Don't say that," Alita said, "This has to be it, or what are we doing here?"
Taylor reached forward, grabbed the staff, and lifted it from the plinth. It was lavishly decorated and inscribed in a language he did not understand.
"What's the deal?" he asked, thrusting it at the Guardian. It took the staff and carefully studied it. The others waited impatiently for some news.
"Well?" Jones asked after ten seconds had passed, and they had heard nothing.
"Is it the spear?"
"No, Colonel."
"No!"
"But there are clues here that may lead you to it."
"This really was a wild goose chase," Jones said.
"Well, that's just fucking great!" Taylor snapped.
He stood there speechless and about to ask another question of the Guardian when the primary comms console on his arm lit up. He accepted the transmission and shouted angrily, "What?"
He immediately heard gunfire in the background, and muzzle flashes lit up Babacan's face.
"We are under heavy fire. We need immediate assistance!"
Taylor saw it was an open channel to all parties in their task force.
Oh, shit! Does it get any better?
"Just hold tight. We are coming!"
"Bring that with us!" he shouted at the Guardian and rushed back in the direction they had come from. As they ran, he hailed the Guam. Song quickly responded.
"Update me, Commander, what the fuck is going on?"
"Colonel, Babacan and his team are under attack. Our forces are attempting to reach them but are meeting heavy resistance trying to get into the village."
"They won't last long by themselves!"
"I know. What would you have me do? Every man, woman, and child in that little town is taking up arms."
"Do whatever you have to."
"Like what?"
Taylor stopped and took a deep breath, knowing he wasn't going to make it in time to make a difference himself.
"You can strategically strike from orbit with pinpoint accuracy, can you not?"
"Yes, we can, but at what target?"
Taylor took one last deep breath, realising what he was about to do.
"Target all grids with armed combatants, and neutralise."
Song could not respond for a few seconds.
"We'd have to wipe out the entire population to do that," she gasped.
Taylor nodded.
"I can't..."
"Yes, you can!" Taylor interrupted, "This mission and our people are more important than any collateral damage. We did not cause this fight, but if we must do it, then so be it."
Song shook her head in disbelief.
"This is my mission, and you are under my command. Do it!"
"We'll never be forgiven for this."
"No," he replied solemnly, "And now you know the price we must pay to win this war. Do it, Commander, now!"
Song nodded grimly and relayed the orders.
"Aye, aye, over and out."
The transmission ended, and Taylor rushed back into a sprint to retrace their footsteps. They could feel the ground rumble around them as barrages rained down from orbit, and they knew they could not get there in time to do anything.
* * *
The sun was low in the sky when Taylor finally reached the surface and made his way towards the Cingene town. Far off they could already see smoke arising from several areas, and half the structures had been flattened. A fire still raged at the centre.
"Oh, no," said Alita in despair.
"What have we done?" Jones murmured softly.
The odd gunshot rang out in the distance as they approached, but it wasn't the sound of war, but of execution and ending wounded lives. Several Human and Krys soldiers were being stretchered away to the Stormers, with more walking wounded behind them. Lieutenant Hartley stood on the outskirts. He was facing them, but seemed to look straight through them in a kind of daydream. His face was pale, and it was clear he was in shock.
Taylor strode up beside him and placed a hand on his shoulder.
"You okay, son?" he asked him.
"I will be," he finally replied with some confidence. Though Taylor couldn't tell if that was put on to save face. Taylor, who had first befriended the Krys, was accustomed to seeing their dead in great number, and it meant little to him unless they were friends. He had learnt to hate them so early on that no amount of their deaths bothered him. And yet he understood that it was a very different scenario for Hartley and the rest of them. They had grown up in a world where Humans and Krys were equals and lived together in peace. To him, it might as well have been Humans they had butchered.
"You did what had to be done, good work," said Taylor. He took his hand away and carried on to the rubble of the town. Bodies of fallen Cingenes lay scattered all around. There was none of their own amongst them. He hoped they had not lost any, but it was more likely they had been moved before he got there. A mound of rubble before him partially covered the bodies of two Cingenes. One that was clearly a youngster, and yet died with a gun in its hands which it was still clutching to.
He spotted Babacan at the centre of the village. Three bodies lay around him, and he stood frozen like Hartley had been.
"What the hell happened here?"
Babacan shook his head.
"There was nothing I could do. When the first shot had been fired, they would not stop."
"Well who fired first? Actually, no, don't tell me, it doesn't matter now."
Jones and Alita reached his side and were still looking around in absolute horror at the bodies all around them.
"Are there any survivors?" Alita asked quietly.
Babacan shook his head.
"You killed all of them?" asked Jones.
"We did what had to be done."
"You just massacred an entire town!" Jones screamed at him.
"That's enough!" Taylor barked.
Taylor needed to think for a minute. He knew this would weigh heavily on them all, and the only consolation would have been the discovery of the weapon they went in search of. This was going to knock morale, and he was trying to find some way to lessen the blow.
"Will this be a problem with your people, Babacan?"
"The Cingenes are not liked by many, but few would welcome the news of this."
"That's a yes, then."
Babacan nodded.
"These are nomadic people, right? Who is gonna come looking for them?"
Babacan shrugged.
"Then we bury the bodies and destroy what is left. Anyone who comes across this spot will assume they just moved on. In the grand scheme of things, no one is going to notice or care."
"That's it?" asked Jones, "Destroy the evidence and carry on?"
"It's our only play here."
"This isn't what I signed up for."
/>
"Yeah, well, Alita, there's plenty in war that you didn't ever hope or wish for. It just is!"
"You disgust me," she spat and stormed off in anger.
Taylor couldn't blame her for it, but neither was there anything he could do to ease her suffering.
"This is wrong, and you know it," said Jones, "This isn't the old war you used to know. This will be discovered, and it will bring more trouble than you can imagine."
Taylor nodded.
"Yeah, maybe, but I fail to see what I can do about it now. We can't report this. Just as soon as we gained a strong Alliance, it could once again falter."
"And maybe it should. If we can't be honest about who and what we are, what was it all for? We're supposed to be the good guys!"
Taylor laughed. It seemed so inappropriate and unsettling to Jones that it sent a shiver down his spine. He waited for Taylor to calm down and fully explain himself, but it wasn't what he wanted to hear.
"My friend, in war there are no good and bad guys. There are winners and losers."
"That doesn't make it right."
"No it doesn’t, but it isn't right or wrong. It is a tragedy, certainly, but we can neither change it nor make up for it. We can just go on doing what we know must be done."
"And what is that?"
"At its core, protect one another."
"Even when protecting each other means committing the most heinous of crimes?"
"If that is what is required to succeed, and survive, then yes."
Jones shook his head. He was starting to understand Taylor's logic, but it still made him sick to the stomach.
"You would do anything you had to, wouldn't you? You'd put a gun to our very own President's head and pull the trigger, if you thought it would improve our odds."
Taylor nodded. "I would, but I also have some limits."
"Yeah? Well we haven't seen them yet."
Taylor finally turned to look him in the eye.
"I would never sacrifice any one of you. I would do anything and everything to protect my brothers. You are my family, and so long as we remain strong, and we keep giving it our all, we have a chance."
"You talk as though we are the force that will tip the balance in this war."
"Aren't we?"
Jones was silenced as he thought back.
"I don't know who or what brought life into this world. All I can say is that somehow life has put me in this position. To lead, to fight, and to make a difference, but I can't do it alone."
Jones accepted it, but he still turned and left. He could not bear to stand amongst the bodies any longer. Taylor turned his attention to their alien friend.
"Babacan, dispose of the bodies and prepare the site to make it look right."
* * *
It was night by the time a hole had been dug by engineers’ vehicles brought down from the Guam. The bodies were piled high, in what could only be grimly described as a mass grave, and the stench of the bodies only masked by the fuel they had been soaked in. Taylor stood at the head of the Human and Krys troops formed up to pay their respects. In one hand he held a burning torch, in the other, the staff they had taken from the Aranui chamber. He paced up and down the line looking from the bodies to the faces of his own troops. Finally, he came to a standstill.
"This was a tragic loss of life! We did not come here to start a fight, and nor did we! But do not blame yourselves for this. The blame rests entirely on my shoulders, for I should have perceived the threat for what it was and handled it differently. That is on me. But when you have lived through as many wars as I have, you will soon realise that these are the horrible realities of conflict. None of us will get through this without blood on our hands. The blood we chose to take, and the blood we had no choice to. We didn't find the weapon we came looking for, but we found this!"
He held up the staff and the torch to illuminate it.
"This is the clue we needed to keep going, and it is the first proof that we are heading in the right direction. I am sorry it had to go down this way, I really am. But we owe it to each other and to the Alliance to go on in our mission!"
He turned and threw the torch into the grave. The fumes instantly caught, and flames spread across the huge pit. Highly volatile, it went up like a flash of gunpowder and burnt through in just one minute, until there was nothing at the bottom of the pit but ash.
"Fill it in," he said to Babacan and carried on back to his Stormer.
The Guardian was the only one beside the craft. He passed the staff over to it. It seemed to study it intently, as Taylor sat back against the nose of the craft and watched the hole being filled.
"Tane Mahuta," said the Guardian.
Taylor's eyes lit up at the name.
"Your grandfather?"
"Yes, this was inscribed and signed by his very own hand."
Taylor leapt up in excitement.
"And you never knew of this?"
He forgot for a moment that he wasn't actually speaking to Irala, but it didn't matter, as the response would be the same.
"No. He always said that the Pauri Tao was in that chamber. He made me memorise the route."
Taylor looked at the magnitude of fine inscriptions on the staff.
"He couldn't risk it, tell you the full truth, but he has led a trail of breadcrumbs that you would understand. You can decipher this. He wouldn't have done it any other way. It is a map."
The Guardian looked at the inscriptions further and finally responded, "Yes, it is."
"Then you can lead us where it goes?"
"Yes."
Taylor felt some hope return. He had begun to doubt the usefulness of the staff and the mission entirely.
"There may just be hope yet," he whispered to himself.
He looked back to see the machinery had already finished filling the hole.
"Everyone back to the boats! We have what we need!"
Few of them looked enthusiastic, but they were glad to be leaving the sight of such sorrow and regret. When they touched down in the docking bay of the Guam, no one was there to greet them. Taylor stepped out and held out his hand in front of the Guardian.
"Give it up," he ordered.
The Guardian opened its hand and the data sphere rose from its palm. He took it and left to head to the bridge with the Aranui staff in the other hand. No one followed him. Few knew what to do. He heard Jones order some equipment checks as he left. He entered the bridge and found a slightly lesser version of the despair and sadness he had just left. Song approached.
"Colonel, can I have a word?" she whispered.
Taylor shook his head.
"No, I'll have no secrets. Put me on with the fleet, with everyone."
She stepped back and did as he asked.
"This is Colonel Taylor. By now you all know what went on down on the surface. A lot of people died who didn't need to. We can't change that. But like this entire mission, you are sworn to secrecy. To utter a word of any part of this to anyone will be considered treachery, and will result in swift justice. I am sorry you all had to go through that, but it was not of our choosing. The important thing is that we are still on target and with minimal casualties. Stay strong. That'll be all."
He pointed to Song to end the transmission.
"The situation is what it is, no need to say another word. We have a mission to fulfil, okay?"
She nodded in acceptance as Taylor put the sphere down.
"Irala, you there?" he asked.
The likeness of the alien projected out from the object. Taylor held up the staff.
"Tell us what this means, and don't tell me you don't know."
"The wording is really quite clever. Only someone told the stories of my grandfather would understand what he meant."
"Yeah, it’s a code, I get that, but what does it say?"
"It says to go to a world that my grandfather told many stories of, a mining world that was the site of two great battles. It is called Aratoro."
"And you k
now where it is?"
"Yes."
"Great, then get us moving."
"I can give you coordinates, but you cannot jump directly to this world. It is beside the Whatitiri Nebula. It is too difficult to navigate through a jump gateway."
"Show us," said Song.
Irala pointed to a map on the console beside the navigation officer, Osborne. They finally pinpointed the location and displayed it on a large projection for everyone to see clearly.
"There is no planet there," protested Nichols.
"Not that you know of," replied Irala.
"This is ridiculous. If there were a planet there, we would have it mapped on our star chats. This is just pure fantasy."
"If he says it's there, it's there."
Nichols sighed but did not say another word.
"That will take us a few days," replied Song.
"Good, then set a course."
He picked up the sphere and went to leave the bridge. Song followed him to the door and stopped him once again to whisper more privately.
"We can't have another experience like that. The crew are not able to withstand it. If this location does not yield any results, we should consider cutting our losses and returning home."
Taylor frowned as he shook his head.
"We don't give up because of some set back, Captain."
He looked over her shoulder. Nichols had been listening in. That was the sort of trouble Taylor didn't need.
"Just get us moving, and let's see where this takes us."
He went back to his quarters and stripped off his armour, collapsing onto the bed with a long drawn out sigh. He just lay there thinking about it all. It was the first time he had been able to let it hit him; he had to keep it together for the rest of them. At first the sight of the dead hadn't meant much to him at all, but as he realised the dreadful effect it had on the rest of his comrades, it was starting to set in. He felt paralysed by it all. Two hours passed and he could not sleep. Then there was someone at his door.
"Open!" he yelled.
Mitch let himself hope for a minute that it would be Alita. He quickly sat up in anticipation of her walking through the door, but he had no such luck. It was Jones. He slumped back down onto the bed with another sigh.
Battle Beyond Earth: Insurrection Page 15
