Precursor Revenants (The Precursor Series Book 1)

by Cain Hopwood

  “There is no aiming equipment on Ka-Li weaponry, they are complete as they were supplied to you.”

  The human used one of his puny claws to scratch his head fur. “So how do you sight the weapon accurately over long distances?”

  Katona had no idea what the colonel was asking. “What do you mean by sight?”

  “How do you adjust the elevation and angle of the barrel to account for projectile drop, wind, air density and other factors?”

  “Ka-Li are capable of doing that almost from birth. All the martial castes can.”

  “Now it is my turn to be surprised,” said the colonel. “We must use optical accessories, and computers to assist us in placing our projectiles precisely on target. Would it be possible to arrange a demonstration from one of your warriors? Such a demonstration would also serve the secondary purpose of familiarizing the unit’s soldiers with the various castes we may be working with in the future.”

  Katona considered the request. He had expected it would come, but not quite so soon. Could it be that the humans had already settled into the camp in chamber seven and were already craving new experiences. The centarch had warned him they were a volatile, flighty race.

  “Of course,” he said. “I’ll have my sergeant at arms come by next mid watch. He will answer any questions your men might have, and demonstrate weaponry under the Ka-Li claw.”

  “Thank you,” the colonel said. Again he gave the curious up and down bob of his head. “On the subject of weaponry, we are having some trouble with our own weapon systems, specifically the sighting systems I mentioned earlier. The additional gravity is causing the ballistic calculations to be incorrect. Unsurprisingly, Earth’s engineers didn’t consider that they might be operating in anything other than Earthly levels of gravity.”

  “Will you be able to correct that before we begin operations at Marbel?”

  “My chief engineer has some ideas. What we need to do is not a typical field modification. But we will work it out.”

  “Very well colonel, do you have anything else to report?”

  “Nothing of note admiral. Is there anything I need to know?”

  Katona chuckled. The colonel always asked this question at the end of his reports. Katona invariably replied in the negative, and usually summarily dismissed the human. In fact, the colonel appeared to be readying himself to leave. But this time would be different.

  “There is colonel. The starship will be jumping into the Marbel system at exactly mid watch, watch after next,” Katona said sliding a flimsy across in front of the colonel. “This is a translation of our usual jump readiness form. Please make the zero gravity security preparations described, complete it, and return it by next watch end.”

  “Zero gravity?”

  “Yes, power fluctuations during the transition to and from jump space, mean the grav-plates across the starship need to be shut down.”

  “How long does the shutdown occur for?”

  “Usually only a parsa or two. Though once, in battle during the Chonai insurrection, the starship I was stationed on lost gravity for a whole watch. That was very unusual though.”

  The colonel reached out, taking the flimsy in his soft clawless hands. He scanned the document, then twitched his shoulders. “This all looks simple enough. I’ll make the arrangements. The troops will find this interesting, or nauseating. Either way it will be educational.”

  — 19 —

  “Are you sure you can hit it from here?” asked Jon. He eyed the green wall of vegetation, it was a good sixty meters away.

  “Sure.” Skip lazily tossed a rock in the air and caught it again. “No worse than a long outfield throw. Besides, it’s not like we’re short of rocks.”

  Peggy jittered back and forward from foot to foot. “Come on you two, I want to explore. We’re due a change from this red waste.”

  “Not until we know what’s holding all that vegetation back,” said Jon. He gave Skip the nod.

  Skip gave the stone one more toss, then wound up, and hefted it on a long high arc. The rock sailed through the air, passed through the invisible barrier without incident and landed about five meters beyond.

  “Well, that settles that,” said Peggy. She started marching towards the wall of jungle.

  “Hold on, one more test,” said Jon in a tone that stopped her in her tracks. “Skip, detail one of the obs-drones to fly in there. I want telemetry from the other side.”

  “Are you sure, sir? The colonel wanted me to be extra careful with these. We don’t have many.”

  “The colonel told me to be extra careful with you guys as well. I’m fairly sure he’d be more pissed off if we lose Peggy here, than one of your drones.”

  “Okay sir.” Skip pulled an obs-drone from his pack, then tapped his wrist bringing up the drone’s manual controls. With a whine the hummingbird sized device shot off toward the greenery.

  Everyone watched closely as the tiny machine hurtled toward the barrier. It gave a little lurch as it crossed the invisible line between desert and jungle, but it kept on flying. Skip brought it to a stop.

  “Still have comms,” he said.

  Jon looked over Skip’s shoulder at the diagnostics streaming from the obs-drone. “It’s cooler, humid, and plenty of oxygen. Could be safe.”

  “And looks a whole lot more pleasant,” said Peggy, resuming her march toward the jungle.

  “What the fuck’s gotten into her,” muttered Murdoch.

  Skip shook his head. “She was like this in Brazil.”

  “Brazil?” asked Murdoch. “There’s more jungle there than anything else isn’t there.”

  “When we were first deployed, sure,” said Skip with a sad shake of his head. “Then the contras dropped that bloody nano-phage on us. Until we’d got on top of it, the province was a wasteland. Still, it made those contra nuts easier to find. Can’t hide in a desert.”

  “Can’t hide in a desert? Tell that to a top end ghost. They can sneak up on anyone, even in this shit hole.”

  Jon had been watching Peggy marching towards the jungle while Skip and Murdoch nattered on. He pitched his voice to carry. “Sale. Hold up! What’s your plan?”

  She looked over her shoulder, but kept moving. “Plan?”

  “Yes, plan.” He double timed it to catch the briskly striding pint-sized sergeant, then fell into place beside her. “What if you collapse on the other side? Are you just going to walk through the barrier?”

  She slowed. “Good point. I guess I’ll run an arm through first, see what it feels like. Then I’ll step through but leave an arm this side. You can pull me back if you need to.”

  Jon nodded. “If you’re hell bent on getting in there. I guess that’s at least a little cautious.”

  She picked up the pace, and in a few moments they were at the boundary. This close, the barrier’s artificiality was as plain as day. Just a couple of meters away, a lush fern sprouted out of the leaf litter and reached to just in front of Jon’s boots. Only the occasional stray, withered looking leaf was on this side of the invisible line that separated the lush jungle, from the bone dry red desert.

  Peggy stood just in front of him. She swung her arm in an arc through the barrier and back.

  “Anything?” he asked.

  “No. Just a little bit of a tingle. Although I could have imagined it.”

  “Okay then. Whenever you’re ready.”

  She took a couple of deep breaths. “Right, I’ll hold my breath. If something strange happens, pull me back.”

  Jon took her by the hand and braced himself, making sure he knew exactly where the invisible barrier came to. He didn’t want to inadvertently step through just yet.

  Peggy took a breath, then stepped through, letting the arm Jon was holding dangle back. Nothing happened for ten seconds. Then he saw her breathe out and finally take a single small breath.

  She turned, and tried to shake off Jon’s hand, but he wouldn’t let go. She seemed to be breathing normally and was smiling widely.
Then her mouth moved. She was speaking, but Jon couldn’t hear her.

  For a second, just a second, he thought she was pranking him. But, when her eyes widened in surprise he knew something was up. He was sorely tempted to yank her straight back onto his side of the barrier. But he resisted as she didn’t appear to be in any distress.

  So he stood there, holding tightly to her hand.

  Peggy’s lips moved, and she spoke soundlessly. Then her eyes narrowed. A moment later her jaw moved, and she double tapped a tooth to activate the tac-link.

  Her mouth opened again. This time he heard her intake of breath, though it came through his audio implant. “Okay, that’s really strange.”

  “The barrier must block sound I guess. You’ve taken a few breaths now. How do you feel?”

  “I’m fine. The air’s nice, it smells green, a little like broccoli. Makes a change from sand and dust.” She gave the air a thoughtful sniff, as if testing it. “It’s cooler, not by much though, and a lot more humid.”

  Jon let go of her hand and she drew it back to her side of the barrier. Then she took a step back.

  “Don’t go too far,” Jon said. “I want someone on this side within one breath’s range of you until we’re sure it’s safe. We’ll give you five minutes.”

  “Sergeant canary reporting for duty sir.” Peggy’s arm snapped up in an exaggerated salute. Then she slowly lowered it. Her eyes widened again and a big smile spread across her face. “Oh, I think you guys will want to come over here.”

  Jon heard shuffling as the rest of his squad started moving closer.

  He snapped his hand up. “Hold on! Sergeant canary here gets her five minutes first. Then you guys can go in.”

  “She’s acting kinda funny,” said Skip.

  “Could be something in the air,” added Murdoch. “She said it smelt different.”

  Skip leaned in close to the barrier. “Can’t smell anything different this side.”

  “That might be why we can’t hear her. If air can’t get past the barrier, then sound probably can’t either.”

  “What’s she doing now?” asked Skip.

  Peggy was waving her hands about making a fair imitation of a sea anemone. Then she held her hands out like a tight rope walker, and stretched up onto tip toes for a moment before settling back down. She repeated the movement a couple of times.

  Jon tapped open the tac-link. “Sergeant, are you okay? How are you feeling? And, what are you doing exactly?”

  “Oh I’m fine. Just getting a feel for the place,” she said. Then a sly tone crept into her voice. “You guys are seriously going to want to come over here.”

  Jon didn’t like the way she was behaving, but she didn’t seem in any immediate danger. They wouldn’t discover anything out by pulling her out now. He decided to humor her, but make sure she stayed close in case her state deteriorated.

  “Yes, we’ll join you shortly,” he said in a casual voice. “But we’d better give you your five minutes first. Make sure it’s all safe otherwise the colonel will hand my ass to me. He’s attached to you jokers for some strange reason. So stay close huh.”

  “Sure lieutenant. I’m not going anywhere.” Peggy smiled beatifically. “Well, anywhere but up that is.”

  With that he saw her tense and coil. She shrank slightly, then jumped upwards. To Jon’s surprise, instead of a normal leap she kept rising and rising, until she was at least three meters up in the air.

  Jon heard a sharp intake of breath from the rest of the squad. Peggy was well above what anyone would consider a safe height to fall from, even in earth gravity, let alone the hundred and twenty percent gravity they’d grown used to on the starship.

  But, instead of plummeting down, Peggy just drifted back to the ground. The serenity of her descent was only marred by her spinning her arms backwards to stay upright. She landed lightly, stumbling back a step to get her balance.

  Her eyebrows gave a cheeky twitch. “See what I mean. I said you’d want to get over here.”

  “And we will,” said Jon. “But let’s get you checked out first. You’ve been there a couple of minutes, so we should have enough data for Captain Lepok to look at.”

  Jon tapped into Peggy’s biometric feed and packaged up the last few minutes of data. Then he opened a tac-link back to base, direct to Captain Lepok. “Sandy, how are you?”

  “Jon, good. Hey, aren’t you supposed to be trekking and incommunicado”?

  “Yes, but there’s always exceptions,” Jon said. He slipped Peggy’s biometric data into the link. “I’ve got something interesting for you. We’ve made it to the end of the chamber, and it turns out to be a jungle of sorts. It’s separated from us by a force barrier.”

  “Ah, so that explains the thin green line.”

  “Yes. What’s more interesting is that while the barrier doesn’t stop us moving through it, the atmosphere on the other side is different. The obs-drone reported it safe, so sergeant Sale has gone through. She seems okay, but I’d like you to run your eye over her vitals, before anyone else joins her.”

  “Well, there’s only so much I can glean from bio-feed traces.”

  “I understand, I’m just being over cautious. Do what you can.”

  “Okay, give me a moment. Shouldn’t take long.”

  Jon waited, watching Peggy bounce up and down like a fairground attraction. She was getting the hang of jumping in the low gravity, because she was no longer windmilling her arms in mid air to keep upright.

  Thirty seconds later Sandy came back on the line. “I ran her feed through the usual filters, and nothing’s flagged. I also looked over the traces by eye, and everything seems normal. Her skin conductivity has gone up, which is odd.”

  “She said it was more humid.”

  “Humidity! Oh wouldn’t that be nice for a change. If that’s all it is, then you’re probably fine to go. We’ve got the absolute best blood nano money can buy, so I’d doubt there’s much that can get past that.”

  “Thanks Sandy, I was just double checking,” said Jon.

  “It’s always best to double check,” she replied.

  Jon closed the link, and addressed the rest of the squad. “The doc said Sale seems fine, so the rest of you can go on in. But just in case, I’ll stay back here.”

  The squad whooped like a bunch of teenagers who’d just been let off school. They launched themselves through the barrier.

  Jon stood on a small hillock a short distance back from the barrier. It was a good position from which to watch his squad as they roamed the jungle, and its canopy. He had enough distance, and a good field of view. He’d have plenty of warning should anything approach them. But, he was still close enough he didn’t have to worry about accuracy and shot placement, should he need to cover a hasty retreat.

  It was an ideal situation for practicing the zen like state his academy instructors could drop in, and out of, at will. The state, once achieved, was perfect on extended watch duty, or patrol. Time passed, and alertness was maintained. But, like sleep, he’d always had trouble slipping into the slippery state of mind.

  Today was no exception. He’d stood on this hillock for the best part of half an hour and never quite made it. As always, instead of staying empty, his mind would wander, and the state eluded him. He sighed with relief when his wrist comp vibrated with an incoming override communication.

  His datatacts lit up, and the colonel’s holo shimmered into place beside him. “Moss, how goes the trek?”

  “Good sir,” said Jon, his eyes not leaving the squad. “We’ve dawdled a bit here and there. But, I’ve pushed them for a couple of half days, and they’re performing as well as they ever did in Brazil.”

  “That’s good. Keeping the unit’s fitness up was hard in Brazil. This place is not that different mind, that’s why I chose it. If they’re doing well here, then we’ll be ready for Marbel.”

  “You chose this place sir?”

  “Yes I did. As you’ve found out, there’s a number of differe
nt environments on this starship. None of them match Marbel though.” The colonel’s image waved a hand lazily toward the jungle. “I contemplated basing us in there, it’s a lot more pleasant than this. But that light gravity…”

  Jon watched Peggy and Skip. They were standing on a huge moss covered branch seven or eight meters up. In a move more typical of her arboreal ancestors, Peggy leapt off the branch and sailed through the air, sprang feet first off another lower branch, then grabbed a vine with one hand and dropped lightly to the ground.

  Moments later Skip attempted to copy her fluid movement. But he misjudged the jump, over rotated and hit the lower branch awkwardly, before sliding down the bough in a slow motion tangle of arms and legs.

  In the high gravity of the red desert chamber, or Earth for that matter, Peggy’s jump would have been impossible, and Skip’s probably fatal. Here they just laughed and leapt back up to the original branch in a single bound.

  “I agree wholeheartedly sir. While that looks fun. I can’t see low gravity reflexes being any use to us on mission. Marbel’s gravity matches this chamber, right?” Jon pointed at his feet to emphasize that he meant the desert chamber they’d been in for the majority of their journey, and not the new jungle one the squad were enthusiastically exploring.

  “That’s correct Moss. It’s just a shame it doesn’t have the same climate as Marbel, that will be a shock once we arrive.” The colonel paused, watching the jungle. “Is everything all right? You seem to be keeping a closer than usual eye on your squad.”

  “I’m fine, sir. I just don’t know what’s in that jungle. It worries me.”

  The colonel’s tone was pensive, distant. “I’ve been told there’s nothing here that will harm us.”

  Jon took his eyes off his men and looked at the colonel’s holo. He took a moment before replying. “You don’t sound sure about that sir. Is something bothering you?”

  “Nothing specific Moss. Just seeing all this makes me wonder. I’ve asked our hosts why these two chambers are uninhabited. That jungle chamber gets occasional recreational use by one of the races on the starship. But the one we’re in gets no use at all.”