Walborski waited for the last man of Jemmison’s platoon to push through the mirrored surface, then took the step himself. He was now an old hand at wormhole travel. Still, the slight nausea fought with the total disorientation which seemed to stretch him out over time and space before he came to be back in a single location.
“Get the men squared away, Top,” he told his First Sergeant, a small man of Filipino extraction named Renhard Fujardo. He looked around the large cavern, carved from the rock by the lasers of the construction robots the engineers had employed. It was about a hundred meters wide, and forty high, with numerous smaller tunnels leading off. “I’m going to give the place a once over. Tell the officers and senior NCOs we’ll meet here in an hour, after they make sure their areas of responsibility are secure.”
The Top Sergeant nodded and turned away. There was none of that saluting in the field nonsense in the Rangers, and they were considered in the field at this point. Cornelius moved to a far wall and opened his suit, climbing out as soon as everything was fully extended. He felt better moving around without the cumbersome armor, despite the advantage in strength. He was faster and much more agile without it, and that made him feel safer going into combat than any amount of armor protection.
He turned and reached out to touch the wall, feeling the almost perfectly smooth surface under his hand. The stone had been fused by laser, then sprayed with a nanoseal, creating an ultrathin layer than was diamond hard. The cavern was now much stronger than the granite overhead, making it a very effective shelter, which was what it would be used for in the near future.
The Captain linked into the computer system that ran the com and environmental systems of the cavern. It was totally shielded, only accessible through a series of short range nodes scattered throughout the complex. He looked over the cavern, which extended beneath most of this range of mountains, and whistled at the size of it. Of course it had been a natural system of magma vents, formed when the range had from volcanic activity. The engineers had just expanded it, but what an expansion. There were sixty-three of the hundred meter wide caverns, connected by hundreds of tunnels. More than enough room for the rest of the regiment when it arrived, and for the other troops that would be assigned to this location.
Walborski found what he was looking for after a few seconds, and jogged toward that tunnel entrance, getting his body used to the gravity field of the planet, just slightly above Earth normal. It would only take his men minimal time to get used to it, at most a day, and then they would move around on the surface like they were natives.
The tunnel sloped up, leading into a room that had a ladder on one wall heading up to an opening in the ceiling. Cornelius went up hand over hand, four hundred meters, breaking a sweat but not tiring.
“Sir,” said the Ranger who was manning the observation post on the upper slope of the mountain. The man was dressed in a high tech ghillie suit, one that used no electronics, but did a very good job of camouflage with nanomaterials. The observation post itself sat under a shelf of rock, and there was plenty of cover to duck behind.
“Anything to report, Ramirez?” he asked the man, settling down on a rock seat and pulling his glasses from their case.
The Corporal looked down at the plains he and his squad had been watching for the last week, coming in with the engineers and gathering the information as only living eyes could without giving off an electronic signature. They had cameras mounted on several points of the mountain which gave off almost no signature, only enough to be picked up from meters away. But people were still better observers, able to pick out patterns where computers struggled.
“They guard that camp like it contains an army threatening their own rear, sir,” said the Corporal. “Almost all of their attention is turned inward, making sure no one escapes. Even the patrols out on the plains seem to be more concerned with escapes than anything coming at them from outside.”
Cornelius nodded as he swept his glasses over the camp from one side to the other. It would make sense that the Cacas would feel secure here, in a system guarded by their fleet. He wasn’t sure if any of the Cacas that escaped from the last offensive in the Empire had carried the news of the assault carried out by wormhole gates. These Cacas would know about the gates, and about how the humans had used them on planets they had already occupied. But it was possible that these hadn’t guessed at the way humans could use them to invade other planets.
“Patrols random or set?”
“As far as I can tell, mostly set, though they can throw a random monkey wrench in the mix. But rarely.”
“Let’s just hope they stay set in their patterns when we strike.” Cornelius started looking over the plain, which was not a totally flat region by any means. There were numerous gulleys and small valleys, cut by the multiple streams that ran from out of the mountains. Most of the plain had been farmland, but there was a smattering of Terran native woods forming wind breaks around the fields, and to the north a rolling forest of native vegetation.
Cornelius’ quick mind started sizing up the possibilities, how he could get his men close to the camp, how he could evacuate the people there. It would not be easy, but he saw a lot of possibilities. Of course, it would not be entirely his call. As a lowly company commander, he would be given an area of operations for the day, and could make up his plans as they fit into those of the rest of the regiment, and the fire support plan. But he could present his ideas to the Colonel, and from what he knew of Montaigne, the man would listen.
Turning the glasses back to the camp, he felt his rage rise as he saw several wagons full of bodies rolling along one of the internal paths. He wanted to go charging into that camp with the force he had, to rescue those poor captives who were being treated as cattle. He wanted to charge in himself, alone, and kill the first Caca he came to with his bare hands. He knew he could do none of those things, that the only thing he could do was to stick with the plan and wait for the proper time. But he would enjoy the killing in this one. Just as he knew his soldiers would.
“I want you and your squad down at my HQ in an hour. One of my other squads will take over the duty.”
“I’ll let the Sergeant know,” said Ramirez, who was only a team leader for his group.
Cornelius put away his glasses and crawled away from the opening, standing as soon as he was clear and heading for the hatch down. He knew he had a lot of study to get in before the mission. Pictures to look at, vids to review, people to talk with. And patrols. Those would go out immediately, and they would face just not the chance of detection from the Cacas, but the deadly life forms of this world as well.
Can’t be any worse than Azure, or probably not even Sestius, he thought, climbing down the long ladder. He dismissed that thought in an instant. There were some really big and fierce creatures out there, and it wouldn’t do well to underestimate them. Just as it wouldn’t do to underestimate the Cacas.
* * *
Cat stared at yet another set of carts being pulled from the camp by harnessed humans, and wondered when the nightmare was ever going to end. She recognized one of the adults on the second cart, her dead face staring up to the sky while blood seeped through her curly blond hair. Ms. Thomas had been a teacher in Cat’s school, and kind but firm woman who seemed to really love her students. And now she was just another slab of meat on her way to the processing plant.
“When is this going to end,” whispered the child, putting her face in her hands. She didn’t want to die, but this waiting was worse than death. Her family had already been taken, those who hadn’t been killed in the invasion. She might still know some people in this massive camp, but she had not been able to find them. And the Cacas came and harvested, looking at a list, then killing selected humans, with no seeming rhyme or reason to it.
“Cat,” said a small voice in an almost whisper. “Is that you?”
Cat looked up, feeling a smile stretching her face for the first time in months. Her face almost seemed to forget the interplay
of muscles needed to present such an expression, one she had used to produce with regularity before the coming of the Cacas.
“Elizabeth?” she said, hardly believing her eyes. Elizabeth Caronones had been her classmate for the last three years. And, while they weren’t best friends by any means, they were friends, and had played with each other on occasion through all of those years.
“Cat,” said the other girl, a smile on her face. She looked up at the pale skinned man who stood next to her. “Daddy, this is Cat. Cat was in my school, and she was in Ms. Thomas’ class with me this year.”
“How nice to meet you, young lady,” said the man, whose eyes only lay on her for a moment before resuming their darting back and forth, as if he were charged with watching the entire crowd.
Cat thought there was something strange about the man, but she didn’t know what. He seemed nervous, hyper vigilant, or at least more so than was normal for the camp, where everyone was just a bit paranoid.
“Where’s your family, Cat?” asked Elizabeth, grabbing onto her hand to get her attention.
“I, don’t know,” said the child, shaking her head, closing her eyes tight, still refusing to go to the place where her family was dead, even as she knew they were.
“Can she stay with us, daddy?” asked Elizabeth, looking up at the man, who turned his cold eyes on Cat. “She has no one, and you can protect her, just like you do me.”
The man looked like he was thinking for a moment, then nodded his head as a strange smile graced his face. “Of course, little Beth. In fact, I think she will come in handy.”
Cat really didn’t like the sound of that. She also didn’t like being alone, with only her own wits to rely on. She was only a child, with no one to look after her, and everyone else looking out for their own, or maybe even only themselves. She was always hungry, since the Cacas only made a lackluster effort at grain and vegetable distribution, and made no effort at all to see that everyone got fed. After all, these were just cattle to them, so why worry about the health and wellbeing of beasts in the slaughter yard.
“My daddy was a policeman,” said Elizabeth, grabbing Cat by the arm and steering her the way the pair, father and daughter, had been going. “He knows how to handle people. We always have enough to eat.”
And I wonder how you do that? thought the other child, looking up at the tall man once again. She dismissed that thought in an instant. If it filled her stomach, what did it matter?
“Call me Rory,” said the man, glancing down at the child. “Or Mr. Caronones. It doesn’t really matter which.”
It was hectic as usual at the food distribution point, with people jostling and shoving in line, while a few of those appointed to maintain order tried their best to keep things orderly. The men and women who unloaded the stacked boxes looked as tired and hopeless as ever, going through the motions more than anything, but still getting the produce on the table for people to get at, while a couple of stern looking men, people who looked like they hadn’t missed any meals, watched carefully so that no one took too much.
Mr. Caronones pushed past people to the front of the line. Some protested, others made as if to grab him, but a stare of his cold eyes silenced them all. He proceeded to the front and starting picking up food from the table, handing some down to his daughter, then to Cat, before taking what he wanted.
Cat was delighted to find that she had an apple, a banana and a small bag of wheat, as well as a real bottled water. She ignored the stares of others who would be lucky to get one piece of fruit when it came their turn. She had been hungry long enough. Why shouldn’t she have a full stomach this night? That the meager rations wouldn’t have filled her before the present turn of events didn’t even register. Her stomach had shrunk, and anything she could put in it was welcome.
As night closed down on the camp and everyone went to their tents, Mr. Caronones led them deep into the camp, to a large tent where a lot of men and women were talking. He sat outside, out of sight, listening. Cat couldn’t hear much of anything, and wondered if the man had augmented hearing. Such was not uncommon among the police, and she wouldn’t be surprised if he did, but she still had to wonder what they were doing here.
After a time the man closed his eyes, face taking on the concentrated look of someone in link, while Elizabeth held onto Cat’s arm as if afraid she might disappear. Some minutes later the Cacas came, grabbing the people in the tent and executing them on the spot. The carts came and the bodies were hauled away, the Cacas not wanting to waste any of the protein. Mr. Caronones looked at one of the Cacas, who nodded at him slightly and moved off. Later that night another packet of rations was delivered to the man in his tent, and Cat was pretty sure she knew what was going on.
There was a term she had learned in school, in history class. A strange word, and one which she had never expected she would ever need to know. Collaborator.
* * *
Great Admiral H’rastarawaa really hated this place, but found it necessary to come here to make sure progress continued at the pace he had set. Even the males who worked here came to hate it. Not from any sympathy for the humans. More from their own beliefs. Though the large carnivores were natural born killers, death on this scale, this personal, was something even they were not used to. Here they saw the dead, smelled the dead, realized that these creatures who they were converting to food were actually intelligent beings. After a time it weighed on those assigned the task, and they slowed. So here he was, to let his males see that even their supreme commander was willing to see and smell the horrors.
“We are working as fast as we can, my Lord,” said the ship commander level officer assigned to the running of this factory. Lines of bodies, hanging from their feet by the belt that moved them through the cooking rooms, lined both sides of the walkway. The heat rose from the opening of the chamber those bodies moved into, infrared convection cookers that would thoroughly heat the protein in the time it took to pass through them.
“That is not good enough, Captain,” said the Great Admiral to his subordinate. “Do you want me to assign another male to this task, and give you duties more suited to your delicate sensibilities?”
The other male blanched at the pronouncement. The Great Admiral knew the Captain would rather have just about any other duty. But the veiled threat in what the Great Admiral had said was that he would be given an assignment that came with a reduced rank. And no male would be able to put up with that.
“I will make sure that the line works to capacity, my Lord,” said the Captain, crossing his upper arms in salute. “You can depend on it.”
The Great Admiral looked over at the nearest of the lines, moving through at a rate that would process eight thousand bodies in a day, enough to feed a conquest fleet, with the slow metabolisms of the Cacada, for that day. The two lines would process sixteen thousand humans a day, though not all of the aliens were equal in their amount of protein. The males were much bigger than the females on average, and had more protein and less fat. There were also the smaller forms of children on that line, and even a couple of infants.
For a moment the Great Admiral thought about ordering that only adults be harvested, but without the adults, the children would probably die, and that would waste their protein. But if they had to evacuate the system in front of an invasion by the human Empire, the adults they hadn’t processed would have been wasted in favor of other bodies that could not provide the same amount of nutrition.
The Great Admiral led the way down the walk, taking a turn before they got too close to the cooking chamber, then taking the walkway around it. On the other side the bodies came rolling along the track out of the chamber, where they were dropped by the clamps into the padded trough below. Here, robots pulled each body out and carried it to one of the disassembling tables to the side, where a stationary robot moved quickly to process the body, removing the bones to drop onto another conveyor, which carried them to a grinder to process the calcium. The robot placed protein into a containe
r that held a hundred kilos. When the container was full, it closed up automatically, sealing in the protein in, and dropped through a hatch to a temporary storage chamber. When one of the containers was full another slid into place, over and over, as the Ca’cadasan military machine made sure that its obligate carnivore males were fed from a species that possessed compatible proteins.
There were twenty-five processing plants on the planet, with a combined capacity of three hundred and seventy thousand humans a day. And over seven hundred million humans on the planet in their camps. Which meant that it would take over five years. There was no way the humans in the Empire were going to give them that long, unless his command received major reinforcements.
I want a meeting with all of the factory administrators scheduled for tomorrow morning, he said into his link, making sure his aide received his wishes and could schedule to his desires. There had to be another way to process the humans they had here. Some field expedient they could use. And perhaps a meeting of the minds could come up with one. Otherwise, it would be a waste of a biological resource, and according to his religion that would be sinful.
Chapter Nine
The whole course of human history may depend on a change of heart in one solitary and even humble individual - for it is in the solitary mind and soul of the individual that the battle between good and evil is waged and ultimately won or lost.
M. Scott Peck.
NEW TERRAN REPUBLIC, APRIL 2ND, 1002.
“Are you ready, Admiral?” asked President Julia Graham of the New Terran Republic. Her nation had only been free of partial Ca’cadasan occupation for a little over a month. The systems that had been taken were either completely dead, or total wrecks in which the few survivors were still trying to recover from the shock of the Caca processing plants.
Exodus: Empires at War: Book 8: Soldiers (Exodus: Empires at War.) Page 12
