Into the Maelstrom

by Loren L. Coleman

  Instantly forgotten was Sergeant Tousley. The late display caught Romilsky with her flank exposed, and now Raymond Sainz intended to bury his teeth into her. “Vanguard guarding a facility that isn’t supposed to exist? Bearing its insignia?” He let his disgust show. “All a hoax, meant to trap the Union. To discredit the Mexican Contribution Forces. Isn’t that what you maintained? Not a bad lie, for all the fact that it was a lie. The posturing and petty games. You knew that monster would turn up the draw! You’ve known from the start where it was headed, and you put us right in its path. What do you call that, Katya?”

  The Neo-Soviet colonel had seemed to recoil into herself. Now she sprang back with virile intensity. “Duty!” she nearly yelled. “Everything is about duty to the empire—duty above all! Your precious belief in honor on the field was a key to the Seventy-first. It would have destroyed you in the end. You are alive now only because I found it in the better interests of my nation to kill that monster out there rather than follow through on my original plans.”

  Sainz tried not to show that she had struck a nerve. “And the Neo-Soviet assaults on our moonbases? Tycho was heavily damaged and critical areas of Tranquillity are in Neo-Soviet control. A strong coincidence that just as we are planning a strike with Freedom against the Sleeper, your countrymen interrupt that operation. Do you want the creature dead or not? What game are we playing now, Katya Olia Romilsky?”

  Her eyes narrowed as she digested the information given her. “Believe what you want, Colonel Sainz. I have not been in contact with the High Command, and I think you know this.”

  Her reaction suggested that she had not known of the moonbase assaults. But then she might not have been told. The question was whether she had passed the information to her superiors. Sainz didn’t think so, but then she had surprised him too many times already. A shriek echoing up from the shallow canyon below shivered through all of them, and reminded all of the main problem. “We needed those bases to task Freedom’s missiles for any accuracy,” he said, then couldn’t help slipping in his own oblique threat. “We would have to saturate this area now to hope for any effect.”

  That stiffened her spine. “Any attack that results in damage to the Fifty-sixth Striker or Chernaya Gora would be construed as a formal act of aggression and break our truce.” The chill in her voice left no room for debate. “I would see both our commands smashed before allowing Chernaya Gora to be destroyed.”

  “Your Sleeper is stirring down below. Without the both of us, it would smash your weapons facility regardless and then continue on. Yslad Power Facility? The Tolsky spent-fuel dump? That heads it straight into the city of Igarka, doesn’t it, Colonel? Perhaps then it turns toward Noril’sk.” He left his ultimate point unspoken. That she couldn’t be certain who else could be moved into position to stop the creature.

  She obviously reached that conclusion on her own. The Union colonel could almost read her thoughts. That if Sainz were making a point of it, then he had not discarded the possibility of keeping to the truce and his bargain. Her frigid blue eyes narrowed to study both him and Rebecca Howard. When she spoke, it was with a recaptured degree of control and calm. “What are your intentions?”

  Howard fielded the question. “Being back in touch through Station Freedom is helpful,” she said, reminding Romilsky that the Seventy-first could defer to a higher authority. “Union Command has recommended that the assault group break off and try to make a rendezvous for extraction, though they always leave such decision to the on-site commander.” She shrugged with forced casualness. “My recommendation is to leave this fight in Neo-Soviet hands.”

  Sainz nodded. “I am tempted to leave you to your problems.”

  Romilsky’s frustration could not be kept from her face. If the Seventy-first chose to pull back, she would be caught between engaging them or the Sleeper. In the former case, she might take the enemy with her but was guaranteed to lose Chernaya Gora. The latter would risk an empty death, but at least the possibility of saving the facility was there. “I spared your life and saved your command, Sainz,” she said in a calm whisper. “You owe me.”

  Definitely not the way to win friends in this company. “I owe you nothing!” he stormed at her, letting the implication prick him where any demand or casual insult would have been ignored. One Vanguard flinched, and for a moment it seemed as if the tableau might erupt in wholesale slaughter, but the infantry managed to hold themselves in check.

  “Nothing,” he repeated, slipping back into Russian again. “Everything about you was a lie. You assisted my command to further your own goals, Romilsky. You think you can buy my loyalty, even with saved lives? Well, it isn’t for sale. Whatever my command owed you, they paid back yesterday when your Lieutenant Detchelov’s treachery cost unnecessary lives.” That stung deeply, parading her lack of control over Detchelov in front of her Vanguard. “All you have to rely on now is my word that we would help.”

  “And that is of much less value today, is it?” she hissed, striking where she knew it would wound. “If your honor is conditional, then it has no absolute value. Then you are—just—like—me.” She snapped off those last three words with a kind of ruthless pleasure.

  Was that what he was? What every officer had to be? There was just enough truth in her words to make them sting, but not enough to convince. Sainz drew himself up proudly, knowing Tousley would despise him for it and that Rebecca would task him over his attitude later in private. But it was necessary to paint the image to Romilsky. “My word is just as good now as it has ever been,” he promised. “Your lack of honor does not negate my own. That would take a much stronger purpose. We’ll help you kill the Sleeper, Romilsky, obliterate it—if only to make sure the creature never falls into your hands for study. But we’ll do it under my planning, this time, with your review and proposals for alteration afterward. But nonnegotiable is that your forces will buy us the time to task Freedom’s weapons for a pinpoint strike.”

  “If one missile falls on Chernaya Gora—or if any of them are nuclear—”

  “I think you are mistaking us for a Neo-Soviet unit.” That comment earned him a hard glare, which Sainz shrugged off easily. “You have my word that we’ll help you bring down the Sleeper. Now you can take it, or you can handle this problem yourself.”

  The Fifty-sixth’s CO obviously did not care for the way the meeting had run, but in the end she had little choice. “Very well,” she agreed, nodding abruptly. Then she spun around and stalked back toward the Zephyr. The Vanguard fell in around her, backing away to watch the Union forces until the last moment.

  Sainz felt the hollowness claw at his insides—the struggle within him over for now and the vanquished fleeing. Duty and honor—yes, Romilsky had been right about that. But everything was conditional. Sainz had always known and respected that, and there Romilsky made her biggest mistake. His reputation that she counted on so much was built on a knife’s edge of difference. He would have walked it forever if that had been possible.

  But here, pressed by events that had spun so far beyond any one person’s control, the edge ran too fine and it cut, bleeding out his personal honor in favor of his oath. Forsworn either way, and knowing that for the first time in a long career he would have to break his word.

  25

  * * *

  O n the bridge of the Icarus, Major Randall Williams sat down heavily in the nearest chair, feeling like his legs might give out. It was Captain Paul Drake’s seat, but he wasn’t using it. The captain was occupied at the ship’s weapons station, making certain everything was primed and ready. Just in case.

  The violent scene played out on the forward monitor in eerie silence. The crew said little as they went about their work, glancing now and then at the screen. This new revelation was phenomenal, more even than the discovery of the abandoned asteroid base. Only Paul Drake continued to speak in a normal voice, letting his people know their commander was not afraid, even if he was. Especially if he was, thought Williams, but even he had t
o admit it made him feel better.

  On the monitor, two alien races faced each other in a nightmare battle between landed spacecraft. Detail was difficult to make out—the Icarus’s video-imaging array being thirty kilometers overhead—but it wasn’t hard to recognize the tactics and weapons of warfare. Individuals moved as parts of smaller units, and the smaller units jockeyed for position against the enemy. Gouts of hellish energies—pulses and streams ranging from violent red to burnt orange—lashed out from one side to scour the other. Large pieces of land would suddenly geyser upward, scattering bodies and debris. Sometimes a body would seem simply to disintegrate.

  Drake had uttered only one direct comment to Williams so far. “Now we know,” he’d said, walking over to the weapons station. The same words Williams had spoken about the asteroid base. Williams nodded, knowing there was nothing more to say.

  Now they knew that aliens were still alive in the Maelstrom.

  Now they knew that the creatures were just as warlike as Earth-descended man.

  The planet the Icarus orbited was the smaller of the pair the team had intended to survey on the return leg of their journey. It was the size of Mars, with no indication of breathable atmosphere. Not the world Williams would have chosen, except that one of the science staff had found a weak signal of ultrahigh-frequency pulses they now recognized as coming from the crystalline formations. The chance to observe a third specimen or group of specimens, and these existing on a much larger mass, was not an opportunity to be passed up lightly.

  Brygan Nystolov and the captain had argued against it, however. Drake was obviously remembering the two men he’d already lost, but Brygan Nystolov did not state his reasons. Williams had observed Nystolov showing more and more agitation the further they got into the mission. Probably feeling the pressure of having to decide whether to remain with the Union or accept their offer to return him to the empire, he thought. Even Drake conceded that Brygan’s skills were of value, and doubted they were put to full use by the Neo-Soviets.

  Randall Williams had made the final call to survey this ruin of a planet. What they could see of the surface looked pummeled to a barren wasteland by asteroid strikes, as if the world had already made several orbits through the dense asteroid fields of the Maelstrom’s Central Ring. Other spots reminded several of the scientists of large, strip-mined areas. There were the tailings of digging and massive earth movement, though on an impressive scale. The crystalline formation was one of the largest yet, sprawling over thirty square kilometers in interconnected patches. Its signal was weak, though, as if triggered from a low-power source or for only a short period of time. That might also be a function of size, Williams thought.

  Then the ship’s communications specialist picked up strange transmissions as the Icarus’s orbit reached halfway round the planet. A weak signal, but definitely modulated. A sign of intelligence.

  They traced the transmission to an enormous crater on the planet’s far side. Large enough to be easily measured from space and coming in at roughly the size of the Union’s American District of Texas, it looked less the result of an impact than like something had ripped away a colossal chunk of the planet. The hole punched down into the planet’s crust so deep that all atmosphere had drained into it, like water slowly draining down to the lowest point.

  And in that small pocket they found the warring aliens.

  The doors to the bridge slid apart, a diamond-shaped aperture growing until the final angles disappeared back into the wall. Brygan Nystolov stepped into the control room, escorted by one of the Icarus’s crewmen—a combat-rated Marine, not a technician specialist. Brygan seemed intent on the main monitor as he walked in. No doubt he’d been observing the battle back in the science stations. His expression showed a troubled, almost sorrowful frown rather than the shock other bridge members were displaying.

  Williams rose from his seat at Brygan’s entrance, borrowing from the other man’s near-indomitable strength.

  “The science probe is almost down,” the comms specialist announced calmly. “We’ll have a picture in ten.” She waited several seconds, calling out the final, “three, two, one.”

  The video feed did not last long. The probe transmitted its last hundred meters as it swept low into the battlefield, trying for a close-up shot. It fell in behind a trio of humanoid combatants, wearing some kind of angular, blue-glowing armor. They seemed to move stiffly, though it was hard to tell because of an area of distortion that extended around each one. Then a carmine spray of pulsing light hit the forward-most of the three, and his form erupted in a cascade of blue-and-green-tinged lightning. The remaining two scattered, opening up a clear shot of the opposing force. Also humanoid and uniformed in gray, they wore a kind of metal armor of black and burnished bronze.

  Then one of the two blue-armored aliens spun about and pointed at the probe. The air shimmered, and the transmission cut to a static feed.

  Drake strode over to communications and punched in a link to the main science station. “Isolate close-ups and route them to the bridge,” he ordered. Drake shot Brygan a suspicious look that Williams thought was unwarranted. “I want to see faces.”

  The reply came back immediately. “Already have them, Captain. Best we can manage, anyway. The distortion makes detailed pictures of the first aliens impossible. But the second”—an awkward pause—“well, you’re not going to get a face, sir. I don’t think they’ve got much of one left.”

  The main monitor split off to one side, allowing the bridge occupants to keep tabs on the battle on the main screen while a still image was pasted up on the smaller one. Williams drew in a sharp breath at what he saw. The alien looked a cross between some rotted mummy of ancient Egypt and a technological nightmare not unlike a Neo-Soviet Class F mutant.

  Gray bandages swathed its head and arms, though they’d unraveled enough about the face to show a bare skull and one eye socket set with some kind of black gem. The being wore a black robe clasped at the waist with an ornate skull buckle. A mass of hoses was strapped into an evacuated stomach region. Bronze metal had been plated on over the alien’s left shoulder. A small bronze tank set with gems had been buried in the other shoulder and now stuck out awkwardly. That arm hung limp. Metal tubing ran from the tank to the side of the alien’s head, and then again from the head to the stock of the rifle it carried in its left hand.

  “Good Lord in heaven,” the corporal sitting communications murmured loud enough to hear.

  Her words seemed to break the spell holding Paul Drake in check. He rounded at once on Brygan. “How long have you known about these creatures?”

  Williams first thought Drake was reacting out of his own fear and ignorance. Then he remembered Brygan’s look of sorrowful acceptance—that lack of surprise. If there was any doubt, Brygan now gave himself away. He looked guilty.

  “Never,” he said. He stared at the creature still framed on the monitor, then looked a silent entreaty to Major Williams. “I never knew of these.”

  A half-truth, Williams felt certain.

  Drake, too. “But you suspected, Brygan,” he pressed. “You’re observant, like all scouts have to be. How long?”

  Brygan’s eyes widened as Paul Drake tagged him a scout rather than a scientist. He was sharp enough to understand that it was no mistake. Drake wanted him to realize that they knew his true identity. Williams could hardly believe that Brygan had deceived them beyond his initial identity. They had tried so hard to make him feel accepted.

  “How long have you suspected, Brygan Vassilyevich, that the aliens might be so hostile?” the major asked.

  The man’s voice was a deep whisper. “Two days.” He started to speak again, but shied off.

  Paul Drake turned away, not waiting to hear more. “We’re getting out of here. Helm,” he called out, “swing us out of orbit. Best speed for Luna, and watch for shifts in our approach vector.” He looked over at Williams. “We should get this information back to Luna and Earth as soon as possible, don’t yo
u agree, Major?”

  Williams swallowed dryly and nodded his assent. Brygan had been right, back at the beginning of the survey flight. Some things a person should never want to know. He had thought to reach the scout’s loyalty—damn it, he had! He couldn’t be wrong about that. But apparently not deeply enough.

  Williams glanced to the warring aliens on the forward monitor, and then to the augmented corpse of the alien framed on the split screen. Were the Neo-Soviets so alien, too, that there was no reaching them? Was this what mankind had to look forward to, always fighting each other even as new threats appeared?

  It was with no small measure of sorrow that Williams spoke to Brygan. “Go back to the science stations and help with the video analysis,” he said.

  Brygan looked from one officer to the other. “Maybe it better that I confine myself to room.”

  The Union scientist was not about to let Brygan retreat so easily. Especially now, while vulnerable. Williams thought he might still reach the Neo-Soviet scout, and even if not there was the matter of whatever information he had learned of two days before to point at warring alien races. And more since? The scientist frowned. This would take careful handling.

  A caution which Paul Drake was ill inclined to give.

  The Marine kept his back turned on the Neo-Soviet, studying the ongoing battle. “That has always been your choice, Nystolov, and apparently you made it two days ago.” Williams thought he detected a trace of wounded sorrow in the Marine’s tone, though it was cloaked by harsh words. The captain then paused, as if sensing too late the delicate moment. “The science stations are Major Williams’s domain. If he allows you their use, I’ll not override him. But you are no longer welcome on my bridge.”