by James Walker
Yun swiveled in his chair to face his superiors. “But Colonel, the Sunderland is separated from Hongpan by the Krizeen Strait,” he objected. “If we can't get airborne, how...”
“The transcontinental tunnels,” Pierson said.
Yun tilted his head. “The what?”
“I forgot. You grew up on DEEN, didn't you, Yun.” Guntar walked to the front of the bridge so he could gesture over the map. “It was before your time, when the atmospheric processing was still incomplete. Back then, all the settlements had to be self-contained—domed cities and underground complexes. The Sarisan radiation was a problem then, too. Safest way to avoid it was to stay deep underground. So, to enable safe transportation, they built underground tunnels to connect the various settlements. Some of them stretch over a thousand kilometers.” He traced his finger from the ship's current position to the city of Hongpan. “There are even tunnels that run across the ocean floor, like from Hongpan to the Sunderland.”
“But the question,” Pierson said, “is whether those tunnels even still exist. They haven't been used in decades. At least, not that we're aware of.”
“Um.” Yun's lips twisted into a sardonic smile. “Following a possibly-collapsed underwater tunnel for hundreds of kilometers sounds... safe.”
“We don't have much choice,” Pierson said. “The force that attacked Port Osgow will likely be swarming all over this place soon.”
Guntar turned away from the viewscreen. He crossed his arms and let out a long sigh.
“Something wrong, Colonel?” Pierson asked.
“I'm just thinking.” Guntar stroked his scraggly beard. “If the Cage is that important to them, they've probably assigned one of their top commanders to retrieve it. And that attack on Port Osgow was particularly ruthless.” His brow furrowed in concern. “I wonder if our opponent is the infamous Pirate Hunter—Admiral Andre Maximillian.”
Pierson smiled. “Somehow I doubt it.”
Guntar cocked an eyebrow. “What makes you say that?”
“Call it intuition. Maximillian may be ruthless, but I don't think tearing up a civilian spaceport is his style,” Pierson replied. “More importantly, we need to get moving immediately. I saw some canyons to the north as we were coming down. They should provide some cover from aerial reconnaissance. I suggest we make our way there as quickly as possible.”
“You're right,” Guntar nodded. “Before we leave, let's prepare a little present for our pursuers while we're at it.”
*
A dropship touched down on the deck of the Onyx Down's hangar. Landing clamps secured it in place with a resounding echo, followed by the falling howl of the engine cycling down. The boarding ramp extended and several squads of marines filed down. Last came Omicron, his face twisted into a furious scowl.
As Omicron reached the bottom of the ramp, the inner launch gate rumbled open. The floral visage of Lambda's Ghost appeared, sporting two smoking lacerations in its torso. The Ghost maneuvered to a corner of the hangar and set down on the deck.
Omicron disengaged his magnetic boots and pushed off in the direction of the Ghost. As he drew near, he reactivated the boots and dropped to the floor. He looked up as the Ghost's canopy hissed open and Lambda climbed out. She pushed herself toward the floor and landed lightly in front of Omicron.
Lambda broke the airtight seal on her helmet and pulled it off. Her golden hair, normally held up tight, floated about chaotically due to the lack of gravity. Her face gleamed with sweat and her breath came in heavy, ragged gasps. Omicron recognized the early stages of linkage fluid's aftereffects.
“What the hell is this, you dumb bitch?” Omicron inclined his head at the Ghost's damaged torso, which was already being sprayed with fire-retardant foam. “How did you get your Ghost trashed fighting a bunch of subbie hicks in hacked-up civvie models?”
“They had an ace pilot in their squad,” Lambda gasped in between labored breaths. “Or... maybe two... I'm not sure.”
“Huh?” Omicron leaned over his diminutive counterpart. “What the hell are you talking about?”
“The leader of their exosuit squadron,” Lambda said. “He had skill that could only come from natural aptitude and years of battle experience. He might even have been an augment, like us. And there was another one. He didn't seem experienced in battle, but he handled his suit well, and...” She frowned. Despite her pain, her eyes grew distant with thought. “It's almost as if he could see me. Even though I was cloaked, he followed my every move. I don't think they had any active optics on their suits.”
“I don't want to hear your lame excuses,” Omicron exclaimed. “You had a state-of-the-art model, and they were in jacked-up construction suits. You should have been able to wipe the floor with them. We're Chi strain. We're supposed to be the best. This makes us both look bad.”
Lambda's head drooped. “You're right. I won't let it happen again.”
Omicron clicked his tongue. “Won't even stand up for yourself.”
A broadcast over the intercom cut the exchange short. “Lieutenant Lambda, Lieutenant Omicron,” came the stiff voice of Commander Ryu Koga. “Report to the ready room at once.”
“Great,” Omicron snapped. “We're about to get chewed out 'cause you screwed up.”
“You mean we screwed up,” Lambda replied. “You didn't accomplish your mission either.”
“At least I have an excuse,” Omicron said. “One lousy platoon against an ambush by an entire heavy infantry company.”
Rather than continuing the argument, Lambda pushed off the floor and floated toward the elevator, trailing droplets of sweat. Omicron glared at her retreating form for a moment, then moved to follow her.
Lambda and Omicron returned to the ready room. Lambda stumbled to the nearest locker, fumbled it open, and extracted a bottle of pills. With shaking hands, she shook several pills out from the bottle and started to raise her hand to her mouth when the screen on the wall flashed to life, displaying Commander Koga's displeased face.
“At attention,” he barked.
“Ah, s—sir,” Lambda stammered. “I just need to take the c—counteragent to the linkage flu—”
“I said at attention, Lieutenant,” Koga hissed.
Lambda looked at the commander in dismay. The pills fell from her slackened hand and clattered to the floor. She took her place next to Omicron in the center of the room and stood at attention, trying to master her trembling muscles.
“Well.” Koga looked at them both in contempt. “Seven marines dead. Eleven wounded. An entire platoon of attack drones wiped out. Extensive damage to one of our most cutting-edge exosuit models, rendering it unfit for combat. And what do we have to show for these losses?”
Lambda and Omicron said nothing.
“SAL made a lot of promises about you two,” Koga went on. “Chi strain is supposed to be the best unit of augments yet. I'm extremely disappointed by your inaugural performance.”
Still, they said nothing.
Koga continued, “Nonetheless, we're not giving up the chase that easily. The terrorists had an escape craft hidden on the hull of Port Osgow. They've landed somewhere on the surface of Chalice. It won't take long for us to hunt them down. Once we have their location, you'll get a chance to live up to SAL's inflated promises about you by subduing their remaining forces and recovering Charlie. You are to remain on standby until further notice. Omicron, change into your flight suit. Lambda, since it will take some time to repair your Ghost, you're being reassigned to an Arrow-3. That is all.”
As soon as the screen went blank, Lambda dropped to her knees, swept the pills off the floor, and popped them in her mouth. Omicron went to his locker and pulled out his flight suit.
“So, we get a chance to redeem ourselves, huh.” He glanced at Lambda out of the corner of his eye. “I don't envy you if you have to shoot up on death juice twice in one shift. Better rest up while you can, killer.”
11
A seemingly endless journey at three gs follo
wed by a jarring landing that felt like it would break the ship apart, if it didn't break the passengers first. Now at last, the terrifying escape was over.
Vic glanced from side to side at the rows of SLIC troops packed into the ship's narrow passenger compartment. Many of them were smiling and cracking jokes about their narrow escape. Vic closed his eyes and leaned back in his seat. How had it come to this, that his life lay in the hands of these maniacs?
Vic's mood grew even worse as he heard a familiar voice approaching. He opened his eyes, tilted his head to the right, and saw Eric Hound's giant form squeezing through the narrow aisle, yelling at the passengers as he went.
“Come on girls, those Theran bastards aren't going to wait for us. Get down to the cargo bay and grab weapons and provisions. We'd better be far away from this ship by the time they find it. Get moving!”
Eric brushed past Vic without sparing him a glance, while the SLIC troops unfastened their restraints and began filing out of the compartment. After a moment, Vic forced himself to unfasten his own restraints, got painfully to his feet, and let himself be swept along with the crowd. The aisle was so narrow that he caught his feet on one of the seats and stumbled, but he managed to regain his balance before he held up the line.
He followed the SLIC troops through a few turns along a narrow corridor, emerging in a cramped cargo bay. The rebels stripped off their vac suits and began pulling rifles, backpacks, armor, and provisions off the walls. As Vic removed his own vac suit, he scanned the rows of supplies until his eyes alighted on a bare wall to his right. Confused as to why an entire wall would go unused when everything else in the ship seemed so space-efficient, he made his way through the crowd for a closer look until he saw the mass of foreign writing adorning the wall.
It was the Cage, laid on its side.
Vic stepped up to the Cage and placed one hand on its surface. So much destruction had been wrought over this thing. And these foreign writings, the strange carvings, so out of place on a product of the Theran Union. What was this thing? If only he could read the writing on its surface, perhaps he could glean some idea of its nature.
As he contemplated this, a powerful hand grabbed his shoulder and pulled him away from the Cage. He spun around and found himself once again facing the disagreeable face of Eric Hound.
“Stay away from this thing, grounder,” Eric growled. “If you don't want me thinking you're a spy, that is.”
Eric turned away and started for a nearby supply wall. Vic glared at his retreating back, but the anger in his eyes quickly faded into confusion.
“Hey,” he called. “Hound.”
Eric stopped and glared at Vic over his shoulder. “You got something to say to me?”
“Just a question,” Vic said. “We worked together on the construction crew for a couple of months. I never suspected you were a member of SLIC. How long have you been with them?”
Eric opened his mouth for an angry reply, then stopped. His expression grew suspicious, but he answered reluctantly, “About four years now, I think.”
“That long?” Vic paused. “What made you decide to join them?”
“You really want to know?” Eric turned to face Vic full-on. “My family was wealthy once, you know. Started a business out here in the colonies, and we did well at it. But we made one fatal mistake. We didn't grease the right palms. We found out just how foolish that was when an inspector from Colonial Admin showed up out of nowhere and found the business in violation of a dozen trivial regulations. Windows a couple centimeters too narrow, didn't get our soap from approved sanitation suppliers. Ridiculous bullshit, and he ended up fining us all the way into bankruptcy. Then the C.A. seized all our assets and left us broke, out in the cold.”
Vic listened to Eric's story in silence, both curious as to his motives and wary of provoking him with an ill-chosen reply.
Eric continued, “We lived like paupers after that. Abandoned by Admin, barely scraping a living with the worst kind of jobs. It pissed me off, so I joined a protest outside the governor's office in the capital. It was a peaceful protest. We didn't hurt anyone. We didn't destroy anyone's property. We were just voicing our frustration at Colonial Admin taxing and regulating our lifeblood away.”
Eric's hands tightened into fists. “That damn Peace and Security Agency. That name, what a sick joke. They let a unit of battle drones loose in the middle of the protesters. It was a massacre. The worst part is, the media never even bothered to report it. Anything that makes the Union look bad never happened. But we Liberators remember the Tragedy of Hongpan. I joined SLIC right after that.”
His eyes narrowed as his anger focused on Vic. “You Therans don't give a damn about us colonists. We're only here to be exploited, to feed your bloated stomachs which you can't feed yourselves anymore because you've exhausted your resources. I can never forget that you come from that world of parasites.”
For reasons he could not explain, Vic felt shame burning deep inside himself. “I never knew the Union was doing things like that,” he said. “I wouldn't have believed it, until today. But don't forget, they tried to kill me too, up there in the station.”
“Only because they figure no Theran in his right mind would be mingling with the colonists,” Eric said. “And you know what? They're right. What kind of idiot would want to climb down off his ivory tower and slog through the mud with the dregs?”
He thrust a finger at Vic. “Story time is over. If you're going to tag along with us, you'd better pull your weight. Stop fooling around with the Cage and get equipped.”
Vic spared a final glance at the Cage, then moved to the nearest supply wall. There were rifles, magazines, armor components, all kinds of provisions—he hardly knew where to begin. How much was he supposed to take? For that matter, he didn't even know the right way to wear most of this equipment.
Vic looked to either side, hoping to find someone to imitate, but the SLIC troops so filled the cramped space that he could not clearly follow the movements of any one individual. He turned his attention back to the wall, tentatively removed one piece of equipment, then changed his mind and reached for another.
Someone laid a hand on Vic's shoulder. He turned around and found himself facing a young, freckled face topped by curly dark hair. The young soldier's eyes, magnified by round glasses, lit up with a friendly smile.
“Hey, kid. Are you Vic Shown?”
Vic found this a strange greeting from someone who looked several years his junior, but he let that pass. “Yeah,” he answered. “How do you know my name?”
“You kidding? Since I came down from the bridge, your name is all I hear out of half these guys' mouths.” The soldier dropped his hand from Vic's shoulder and held it out. “I'm Huan Yun, by the way. Pilot extraordinaire. If it moves, I can drive it. I'm the one who got us down from orbit in one piece.”
“Well, we all owe you thanks for that.” Vic shook Huan's hand. “But what do you mean, all you hear out of everyone's mouths is my name?”
“They say you're a civilian who got caught up in our battle with the Union. They say, even though you don't have any battle experience, you helped Major Cutter protect the Cage from a Spacy augment in one of their latest suits. And...” Huan dropped his voice to a whisper. “They say you're from Thera.”
Vic's manner became guarded. “I understand that doesn't make me too popular in present company.”
Huan waved his hands in protest. “Oh, no. I didn't mean that. I don't have a problem with it. I mean, all our ancestors were Therans, weren't they? We've all got Theran blood in us, even the ones who can trace their heritage to the colony's founding.”
“I guess,” Vic said.
“Hey, you having trouble getting equipped?” Huan asked. “Here, I'll show you how it's done.”
“Um, yes. Please.”
“Put the vest on first.” Huan removed a vest from the wall, pulled it over his head, and fastened it into place. “Now you can start attaching other stuff. Canteen, extra
magazines...”
Vic watched Huan equip himself and mimicked his moves. As he got his gear in place, Huan continued making conversation.
“What's it like?” he asked. “On Thera, I mean.”
The question caught Vic off-guard. He gave it a moment's thought before answering. “It's a world that outgrew its ability to sustain itself, and now it's slowly falling into ruins,” he said slowly. “The vast cities are split into pristine wards and disintegrating ghettos. The cities are slowly draining thanks to strict population control laws, but legal Theran citizens keep getting pushed into smaller wards, so overcrowding is still a problem. Outside the wards, the ghettos keep expanding, year after year. No one in their right mind ever leaves the safety of the wards. It's complete anarchy out in the slums.”
“I always pictured Thera as some kind of forbidden paradise,” Huan said. “The way you describe it, it doesn't sound like that at all.”
“Not particularly,” Vic said. “There's all the virtual entertainment you could want, but as soon as you step back into the real world, there's nothing, really. Just a rusty civilization machine, its cogs endlessly turning according to an ancient design that nobody remembers.”
“Speaking of which,” Huan said, “have you been vaccinated? Even though all the life on Chalice was originally imported from Thera, there have been a lot of rapid mutations.”
“The xeno-adaptation effect,” Vic said.
Huan nodded. “So you know about it. Some of the diseases here are really bad. I hear the first wave of colonists was practically wiped out by a massive epidemic.”
“It's all right. The vaccine's required to enter Port Osgow. Plenty of germs get transferred between the station and the moon by the orbital elevator.” Grunting from the weight of the gear, Vic grabbed a rifle, slung it over his shoulder, and turned to Huan.
