Trail of Evil - eARC

by Travis S. Taylor

  The purples and reds swirled around her as all the light tunneled off further from her. She could still feel Rackman inside her and his hands against her buttocks tugging and pulling. She felt loved—superdy duperdy loved.

  “Princess, stay with us!” she could see the tears in her daddy’s eyes.

  From the look of it the crazy terrorist didn’t entertain much. “Would you like some food or something to drink?”

  Dee, the first rule of being a captive is to eat and drink if you get the chance, her AIC told her. You never know when you’ll get that chance again.

  Okay.

  “Why am I here?” Dee asked again. More and more people swarmed around the bloody body now in an operating room. Dee watched with casual interest.

  “Lights please, Copernicus. Make them sixty percent. And make all the windows transparent. Our guest has never seen the rings rise over New Tharsis. And please tell the buzzsaw bots to stand down,” Ahmi said out loud. Dee assumed that she was talking to her crazy AIC.

  As soon as the soldiers were out of sight Dee caught some motion from her peripheral vision. Davy Rackman’s gurney was rushed past the window of the OR to the one adjacent to hers and then a holowall turned off across the room. What had looked like a normal wall with a bust of some old bald guy in front of it wasn’t. The wall and bust vanished. Five men in black armored uniforms stood with their weapons drawn. Clearly, they had been there all along behind that imaginary wall. Dee realized that Elle Ahmi kept her bases covered and for some reason wanted her to know that.

  She could see that Rackman was still alert and screaming in pain. He quieted as the oxygen tubes and I.V.s were attached to him. Dee felt at ease knowing that Davy was alive. The doctors would fix him up. She couldn’t tell him how she really felt as there was no telling what her father would say or do.

  She turned back to the view from above and was fascinated by the sound of a three-dimensional printer zipping and whirring away on the counter next to some other equipment in the operating room. The shape that was beginning to print was very similar to a human heart.

  “Dear, stay with us.” Dee suddenly had an image of her mother’s milky white skin and long dark hair looking up at her from somewhere. Or was it her grandmother.

  “The heart is in place and ready to be initiated.”

  “I’d settle for a night of drinking and sex,” she smiled at Nancy, trying not to look at the new hand that was being printed. Nancy smiled back at her and patted her on the shoulder.

  “I’m a spy. Have been all my life. I’ve learned to pay attention to things that most people don’t.” Nancy told her. “Pay attention, Dee.”

  “You certainly are your father’s daughter,” her grandmother told her.

  What had looked like a normal wall with a bust of some old bald guy in front of it wasn’t. The wall and bust vanished. Five men in black armored uniforms stood with their weapons drawn. Clearly, they had been there all along behind that imaginary wall.

  Deanna Moore, you come back to me this instant, soldier! Bree shouted at her in her mindvoice. Dee! Dee!

  Dee felt her heart beating in her chest. It sounded or felt like the powerplant of a hovertank pounding through her powered armor suit. The voice of her AIC was buzzing in her head. Her heart continued to thump in her chest.

  “Copernicus, please tell the bots to stand down,” her grandmother ordered the crazy AIC. Dee paid close attention to her grandmother as they approached the wall.

  What had looked like a wall simply vanished. She then realized that Elle Ahmi, Sienna Madira, her grandmother loved her in her own weird, twisted, maniacal way and that she kept her bases covered and for some reason wanted her, Deanna Moore, her granddaughter, to know that. Dee paid attention as the wall vanished.

  Chapter 23

  November 8, 2406 AD

  27 Light-years from the Sol System

  Tuesday, 8:13 AM, Expeditionary Mission Standard Time

  “Attention!” Karen “Fish” Fisher shouted to the pilots assembled in the main aft hangar bay of the commandeered starship. “CAG on deck!”

  DeathRay nodded at his former wingman and saluted her. He smiled thinly at her as she saluted back. DeathRay and Fish had gone way back together. They had fought through some seriously bad shit in the Seppy Exodus and subsequent wars. She was as good a pilot as he’d ever had the pleasure to fly with. Deanna Moore was probably the only other pilot he’d flown with and trained with who was as dedicated and likely to ever exceed DeathRay in skills.

  “At ease.” Jack turned to the assembled pilots and approached the podium. “I’m glad to see all of you here today in one piece. As far as I can tell we are only missing three pilots from our ranks and all of them are expected to make full recoveries today. They will return to active duty in three days.”

  Jack paused for a second and thought about Dee. He also noted that the other two pilots were search and rescue (SAR) pilots whom also acted on rescue teams. They were moving wounded from the line the last few moments of the battle aboard the Madira. They were brought down by bots. Fortunately, according to the logs, the QMT teleporter started functioning just in time to save them.

  “My AIC has run an inventory of equipment that managed to make it here from the Madira. We only managed to save four FM-12s and that is it. Those planes were on patrol at the time we lost the ship.” DeathRay brought the equipment roster for the new ship up into his DTM.

  Candis, bring this view up to all the pilots.

  Roger that, DeathRay. His AIC said in his mind.

  “As you can see in your DTM views this ship is loaded with Stingers, Gnats, and Starlifters. Each of those are counterparts to what we are used to. The Stingers are a direct copy of FM-12s, Gnats of the VTF-32Ares-Ts, and the Starlifters are an older version of the SARS SH-102s. We have equipment.”

  DeathRay waited for a moment for the crew to catch up. “Look around you. The planes are right here in this hangar.”

  “I’m uploading protocols to each of you,” he continued. “The CHENG and his crew have hacked and loaded our flight protocols into the software. Your AICs should have a bird identified that is yours. You will also find a flight suit in the locker room. Again, I have uploaded your equipment assignments to your AICs. For right now we are to get dressed, find our planes, and get familiar with them. Training sorties are being scheduled as we speak and your flight schedules will be sent to you as soon as I figure them all out. One more note here—I have worked through this with General Moore and we have decided to mix up the Flight Wing the way we used to do it. Navy aviators will fly the Gnats and Marines will take the Stingers. Spare parts are no longer an issue. As for my service mixed squadron, the Archangels will go to the Gnats. This way we will have two Gnat squadrons and two Stinger squadrons.”

  DeathRay looked up at his pilots. There were forty mecha jocks and eighteen SARS and troop carrier pilots in the room besides himself. They were all seasoned pros. He knew they could handle it. Jack hesitated with his last thought but he had to ask.

  “Are there any questions?”

  More than forty hands went up at once.

  Shit. He thought.

  Roger that. His AIC agreed.

  “Go ahead Blue.” He pointed at one of Jawbone’s Maniacs.

  “Sir, what about personal stuff? I mean, all of my clothes and other personal hygiene gear is gone. My AIC has been uploaded with my new quarters assignment and there are Seppy uniforms in the stockroom, but do we expect to get real supplies soon? I mean, sir, as a U.S. Marine, sir, I hate being out of uniform.”

  “Yeah right,” general agreement echoed in the hangar.

  “How are we expected to fight under these circumstances,” Lieutenant Cory “Skater” Davis, Poser’s wingman added.

  “Listen up!” Fish shouted to quiet the room.

  “Alright, I get it.” DeathRay held up his hand palm outward to calm everyone down. “We’ve been on this strange ship for thirty-six hours and we are living with twen
ty-year-old Seppy junk. We have water and we have nonperishable foodstuffs. We have mecha and we have weapons. We’re soldiers and we are in the middle of space with a newly commandeered fleet that we must protect. For whatever reason, this fleet is here and what that suggests is . . . well, I don’t even want to speculate. So, I promised the general that I would have our flight regiment ready to protect us at a moments’ notice if we need protecting and that we would start standard patrols immediately. Now I’m certain the general is working out how to get our personal amenities brought up to Navy, Marine, and Army standards as soon as he can figure that out. If any of you have a problem with how the general is taking care of things then you have my permission to take it up with him.”

  With that last statement all the hands went down. DeathRay hated to invoke a threat of “the general” but no single person on the ship wanted to second-guess Alexander Moore.

  “Any other questions?” DeathRay waited for hands. Only one went up. It was Jawbone.

  “Lieutenant Colonel Strong?”

  Delilah stood up. “With all due respect Captain.” She stared across the room with a look that could cut through steel. The colonel appeared to be ready to begin a good old-fashioned Marine Corp ass whuppin’ if anybody crossed her path. DeathRay suspected what was coming. “Sir, firstly, I’d like to apologize for my Maniacs sounding overly needy. I will deal with that.”

  “Very well, Lieutenant Colonel Strong.” DeathRay was glad that he wasn’t Blue at that moment. He suspected that the Marine wouldn’t get a break for another twenty four hours or more for his question. “Is there anything else, Jaw?”

  “Yes, sir.” Delilah replied gruffly. “I was just curious at what point you squid pilots were gonna quit whining so that us Marines can get back to work!”

  “Oo-fuckin’-ra ma’am!” somebody else shouted. Obviously, it was one of the other Marine pilots.

  “Hooyay, sir. I can personally guarantee the CAG that the Navy pilots of the Demon Dawgs are good and goddamned ready to get at it.” U.S. Navy Commander Wendy “Poser” Hill stood up too. Poser glared as menacingly as Jawbone had at her pilots. “Dawgs?”

  “Hooyay,” all of the Navy squadron affirmed enthusiastically or frightened or both.

  “Go to your assignments.” DeathRay said dryly. “Dismissed.”

  What the fuck have we gotten ourselves into, he thought

  Don’t worry, Jack, they’re all good troops. Candis replied.

  “Dismissed!” the XO released the bridge crew and several of the support teams as he turned to the COB. “Chief, this is straight from the general. I want you to personally take a squad of AEMs, a fire team, and an engineering team and scrub another one of these ships from top to bottom. Make sure it is bot free, report to me, and then move to the next one. Got it?”

  “Be my pleasure, sir. You know I spent some time on some old Seppy haulers after the war. Those were rustbuckets. But I gotta tell ya, Firestorm, these ships look good as new for them to be twenty years old.”

  “Weird as hell, if you ask me, Jeff,” Firestorm replied. “Be careful over there.”

  “Roger that, XO.”

  “XO, we have brought the fleet to a stop at a parking orbit ten thousand kilometers from the planetoid facility and one hundred thousand kilometers from the last location of the Sienna Madira.” Nav officer Commander Penny Swain said over her shoulder. “We’re tracking the debris field for any trajectories non-Keplerian. If there are any bots left over out there we’ll find them.”

  “Good, Nav. We should be plenty far enough not to worry about any stray bots. If you find any, you have open fire permission to call DEGs on them. Ground Boss?” The XO then turned to commander of the Ground Combat Mecha U.S. Army Brigadier Gen. Tonya “Hailstorm” Briggs.

  “XO?”

  “As soon as Warboys is ready to check out the Warlords on the Orcus droptanks you are clear to go. I’d like for them to have another go on that facility down there just to see if there are any other bots outside. Then we’ll sweep it again with the AEMs. The general wants to make this our staging ground.” Firestorm turned and sat down in the oversized captain’s chair. She really wished the general would get back up there with details of what the next step for the expedition would be. Were they going home or pushing forward?

  “Roger that XO. General Warboys says they are two hours from being ready to drop,” the ground boss replied.

  “Well, kick him in the ass and tell him to get a move on it.”

  Chapter 24

  November 8, 2406 AD

  27 Light-years from the Sol System

  Tuesday, 8:15 AM, Expeditionary Mission Standard Time

  “Do we need to kick you in the ass so you’ll get a move on it?” Rondi said to the CHENG. The Marine had never seen Buckley this way. He’d been moping about for the past day and a half like somebody had shot his dog and killed his grandma both at the same time. The Sienna Madira had been his true love and now it was gone. Rondi had forty-five minutes before she had to report to duty and she had hoped to spend a few minutes having lunch with Buckley.

  “Rondi, there is so much to do here that I don’t know where to start.” Buckley looked at her and shrugged his shoulders. The two of them were in what Joe had commandeered as the CHENG’s office door closed.

  “It’s like eating a bear or running a marathon, Joe,” Rondi told him. “One bite at a time and one step at a time. Just find a place and start moving forward.” Sometimes the Marine had little patience when folks just wouldn’t put one foot in front of the other. But that likely wasn’t Joe’s problem. Joe was the hardest-working engineer she’d ever met. Rondi had seen him work for seventy-two hours without taking a nap until the doctor forced him to.

  “I could run the marathon; I just need to know where the starting line is.” Joe shrugged again.

  “Okay, if this was your first day on the Madira what would you do?”

  “Uh . . .”

  “Wait Joe, that is it. Your AIC has the logs. Your first day on the Madira what did you do? Just start there.” Rondi looked him in the eye and could see that he was tired and sad. “You couldn’t save her Joe. Even frying yourself with X-rays wouldn’t have saved her. She was overrun with a hostile enemy force and there was nothing we could have done.”

  “Uh huh.” Joe grunted. “You’re right, though. My first day on the Madira I ran a diagnostic on the propulsion systems. Then the weapons, SIFs, and powerplants subsequently.”

  “There ya go!” Rondi smiled and winked at him. “Maybe I’ll ask for a promotion to CHENG.”

  “You wouldn’t like it. It’s not dangerous enough for you and you never get to eat your own vomit. Maybe you should consider being a mecha jock.” Joe finally smiled. She knew that her puking deathblossom in a freefalling AEM suit had become infamous in her squad and figured it would make its way around the ship soon enough. Apparently, the story had already made it to engineering.

  “With all due respect, CHENG, sir,” Rondi grinned with a raised eyebrow. “up yours.”

  “Gunny, if you need anything, and I mean anything, you only have to ask for it.” Alexander looked at Tommy Suez and held out his hand. Tommy shook it like a Marine. “That is not a platitude, Tommy. I mean that from all my heart. Thank you for what you did for my little girl.”

  “With all due respect, General,” Tommy stood stiffly. “Your little girl was giving the bastards hell like any good Marine. I was proud to be there fighting with her, sir and I would by God do it again. And that young SEAL was a hardened ass-kicker too, sir.”

  “Yes, I will be talking to Lieutenant Rackman soon.” Moore rubbed at the stubble on his chin and then he tugged at the Seppy uniform. He hated that thing. He would change into a Marine uniform as soon as the first supply ship returned from Earthspace via QMT. Supply teams should be coming in literally as they spoke. He made a mental note to send his chief of staff after a uniform. “By the way, Gunny, what were those two doing out there in the abandoned part of t
he ship? I mean, what were they doing when you found them?”

  “Sir, uh, they were doing the same thing I was.”

  “And that was?”

  “Close quarters techniques, sir,” Tommy replied. Moore wasn’t sure he believed it, but it wasn’t the top sergeant’s place to out two officers. “Thanks, Top. Why don’t you take a three day R and R and snap-back home?”

  “If it’s all the same to you sir, I don’t really have any family and I’d just as soon stay here.” said Tommy.

  “Suit yourself, Top. But, I don’t want you hitting a lick at a snake for three days and that’s an order.” Moore saluted the Marine and then shook his hand. “Dismissed.”

  Alexander waited for the senior NCO to leave his newly acquired office. The captain’s office just off the bridge was fairly spacious with a very large window on the port side. He looked down at the planetoid facility below and wondered just how much longer it would be before the Warlords dropped as he had ordered.

  A lot was going through his mind. Dee and Rackman had been working on the A-recon team together for eighteen months nearly and it was common for teams to hang out off duty. But if Dee and Rackman were involved they shouldn’t to be on the same squad. Moore didn’t care who his daughter fraternized with as long as it didn’t put either of them in danger. He had come down hard on Dee’s boyfriends in the past, but that was before she was old enough to know how to handle them. Alexander trusted that she was a full-grown woman how and as Top had just said, one hell of a Marine. She could take care of herself. The memory of her as a little girl telling him that she wanted to be like him flashed in his mind.