The Terminal War: A Carson Mach Space Opera

by A. C. Hadfield

  “Good shooting, hero,” she said calmly.

  Mach’s heart raced hard. Too hard. He still had a stim shot left, but he suspected there’d be more suitable situations to come yet.

  “Those Guardians…” Beringer said, stepping shyly toward them. “What a way to go. It’s not right. None of this is right, you know that, Mach? This is so messed up.”

  “I know you’re out of your comfort zone here,” Mach said, “but we need you sharp, old man. If we’re going to survive this, we need you to help navigate through this place. We can think about the dead later. Right now, let’s focus on saving the Saviors.”

  Beringer nodded and stepped over the pile of corpses, inspecting the walls. After a few long moments of inspecting the textures, trying to get an understanding of the strange vestan-built system, the archeologist finally found something.

  “Here,” Beringer said, dashing to the very end and skidding to a halt at the end of the passageway. Its glossy walls reflected like dark mirrors, showing the three of them huddled there. Mach’s eyes were wide, attentive for movement.

  “The temple’s behind this panel,” Beringer said, shining his helmet light on the configuration of smaller panels, communicating some kind of sign in the form of varied textures. “We just need to find the mechanism…”

  Adira turned and kneeled over the body of the closest Guardian. It had its long, lithe hand reaching out. Around its wrist was a manacle, the polished metal surface one of the few clean surfaces in the grim tableau. Adira quickly removed it from the guardian’s thin wrist and tossed it over to Beringer. “Here, do something with that, hotshot.”

  While Beringer tried to work out a way in, Adira and Mach stood either side of him, covering for any potential attack. “Come on,” Mach said, hurrying the archeologist up as he considered the manacle in too slow a manner.

  A keening noise came from the opposite end of the passage, and then the narrow space became even narrower as two more protos rushed through on all fours like feral war dogs. Mach brought the rifle up and aimed and was about to fire when the protos, seemingly sensing Mach’s intentions, leaped forward, their bodies elongating like meaty spears. Mach tried to readjust his aim, but their arcing movement so close made it difficult for him.

  They were just a few inches away, claws extended.

  Chapter 19

  A booming thud came from behind Mach. A hand grabbed his arm and dragged him inside a dark, cool place. The panel slammed shut just millimeters from his outstretched hand, closing the protos out and them inside.

  Mach turned round. Above them, a circular light fitting switched on. A cone of yellow light sprang forth, pushing the shadows to the very edges of the circular space. It must have been at least twenty meters in diameter, and in the middle was a tall construction of translucent material made from eight interconnected cylinders two meters high at a minimum.

  Inside the cylinders were creatures Mach had never seen before.

  “My God,” Beringer whispered in hushed, reverent tones even as the protos continued to assault the panel behind them, the material of which wasn’t giving in to the onslaught.

  “It’s them,” Beringer said. “It’s them… the so-called Saviors, the vestans’ makers.” The archeologist reached out an arm to point at them as though they were easily mistaken for something else in the empty circular room. His arm trembled, and his steps toward the Saviors were unsteady, a toddler taking his first steps to his mother or father.

  The creatures were even taller than their vestan creations. They must have been at least three meters tall. Like their prodigies, these things were willowy to the point of emaciated, their many ribs sticking out of their white cloth robes that clung so tightly to their limbs, one could see every knee joint, elbow, knuckle, all long and thin, speaking of some otherworldly creation.

  Their faces were no less disturbing; ethereal expressions that were the embodiment of inscrutability gave no sense of what they thought if anything at all.

  Mach knew they were dead, only their minds alive, but still, he had a sense that they could move at any moment, reanimate their desiccated forms and shape the world around them as they had done so many millennia ago.

  In some lights, Mach thought they almost looked human, but as quick as the thought had arrived, a contradiction replaced it, telling him that despite being bipeds, with two arms and a face that had two eyes, a nose, and a mouth, they clearly weren’t. No ears, though, which seemed initially strange, but then Mach realized that the dead don’t need ears.

  “Holy fuck,” Adira said, with less reverence. “Just look at those damned things… how in the hell are we going to get those lanky freaks off this godforsaken planet?”

  Mach didn’t have time to respond as a thin, reedy voice spoke through their comms as though it were being transmitted from an entirely different plane of existence.

  “The Guardians have fallen,” it said. Mach couldn’t tell if it had a gender. It had no accent that he recognized, and despite it speaking in Salus Common, the words sounded so otherworldly, it might as well have spoken in a different language.

  Beringer stopped short of reaching the cylinders. Adira stepped closer to Mach, her body stiffening. “You all heard that, right?” Mach said although it was clear they had. The protos were still bashing something against the panel, trying to get in. The voice continued in its weirdly calm and to-the-point manner that reminded Mach of a captain he had once fought under.

  “Terminus has come to its conclusion,” the voice said. “Our… mistakes of the past have come to claim what they feel is rightly theirs. I know all about your mission and what you tried to do for us, but I need to ask yet more of you if we are to ensure our combined survival.”

  “Okay…” Mach said, staring up at the eight ghostly Saviors, wondering which one he was speaking to, or whether he was speaking to the combined mind of all of them. Whichever it was, their tone of voice had the effect of calming Mach, despite the chaos that was going on just outside of this temple. “So what do you suggest? We only have a shuttle; it’s gonna be a tight squeeze to get us all on, but—”

  “No,” the voice said. “There’s insufficient power in the shuttle to get us all off the surface and maintain our chambers. We need to use some of the mechanisms here in the temple.”

  “Right,” Mach said, not quite sure what to say next. Then, regaining his confidence and having come to terms with what he was dealing with, he said, “Listen, old chap, no offense, but we’re gonna do this my way. The protos will get through soon enough, so you’re going to tell us how to get you and your lot to the shuttle using an alternative approach. Once you’re safe inside the shuttle, we’ll deal with the power issues. I’m assuming you can communicate with us at will?”

  “Only while the temple stands,” it said. “The central communication model is below your position. I’m transferring a map of the facility to your HUDs. We must move quickly before our… children find the shuttle.”

  “Children?” Adira said, her face curling in disgust.

  Throughout this conversation, Beringer had circled the central system of chambers that were holding the Saviors. He was inspecting the mechanism and looked up at Mach with a smile on his face. “I can see how to move them,” he said. “Going to take some effort, but I’m sure we can do it.”

  Mach nodded and addressed the Savior again. “So, what do we call you?”

  It seemed to think for a moment before replying, “For the purposes of this communication, you may refer to us, collectively, as Hanos. Now that we’re understood, I would implore you to carry out your plan immediately. Our children are swarming, and we won’t have much time.”

  Mach’s HUD glowed with a new map overlay. A route, picked out in red, showed them the alternative and thankfully quicker route through the facility to the shuttle bay. They were going to go below one level, hopefully, safe from the swarming ‘children.’

  They dragged each savior through the tunnels beneath the facility
until they came to an elevator that took them up to the docking bay. They communicated with Mach, showing him where to replenish their weapons: yet more laser rifles. He, Adira, and Beringer took one each.

  After twenty or so minutes of hot, sweaty, grueling work, they finally got the eight Saviors into the shuttle. Out of curiosity, Mach tried the controls after hooking the ethereal creatures’ chambers up to the shuttles power source and confirmed that the small craft wouldn’t have enough power to get everyone off the surface.

  “There’s a reactor core at the base of the temple,” Hanos said via Mach’s helmet speaker. “We have updated the position on your map. It’ll require two of you to remove the core and bring it to the shuttle. We will also require the twin couplings from the reactor unit. There’s a tool kit within a maintenance bay nearby that you will need for this. You will find instructions in the file we are sending to you.”

  “Got it,” Mach said, trying not to be daunted by the proposition of carrying a volatile, vestan reactor core through an underground labyrinth.

  “I’ll stay here with them,” Beringer said once he finished wiring up the chambers. They were stacked atop each other in the rear of the shuttle, leaving the cockpit free for Mach, Adira, and Beringer. Not ideal, but he’d traveled in worse conditions. “Make sure nothing comes to get them.”

  “Right,” Adira said. “Mach and I will be back in no time. Hold tight, Beringer. Stay quiet and don’t do anything stupid.”

  Mach and Adira checked their weapons and swept around the docking bay to make sure it was free of any protos. Satisfied, they snuck back beneath the facility and headed for the core. They traveled quickly and silently, listening to the varied booms, cracks, and explosions around them as the protos were trying to find ingress in the fortress of the Saviors’ glorified mausoleum.

  Worse, however, were the tremors from beneath.

  The generator rods were now heating the great icy fissure on top of which the Garden of Remembrance stood, the fissure being the most solid part of the planet. That wouldn’t be the case for too much longer at this rate. Mach tried to put that to the back of his mind and focus on the job at hand: get the reactor core.

  They followed the Saviors’ directions and found the toolkit without too much trouble. They crossed a long access tunnel that led back to the temple: the epicenter of the facility, beyond which lay the reactor core. Mach approached the sliding door to the temple. Noises came from the other side. Wet, rending noises. Pushing the door open a few millimeters, he peered through the gap to see a couple dozen protos chowing down on the remaining Guardians that they had dragged into the middle of the temple.

  Mach stepped back and checked his HUD again. There was no alternative route to the reactor core. They needed to cross the temple to get to the next access tunnel.

  “What is it?” Adira said, her voice only audible in Mach’s ears.

  “Company,” he replied. “Couple dozen of them in there, camped around the empty cylinder sockets. We’re gonna need a distraction and then run like hell to the access panel on the far side.”

  They both checked their laser rifles, making sure they had a charge in the chamber ready to go. Mach was carrying the toolkit in a pack on the back of his suit. They didn’t have enough fuel left to blast their way over the top of the protos; they were going to need all that fuel for the air the suit was generating. They only had enough for about four hours at this rate, which, should they be able to get to the reactor core and back, alive, should be plenty. The thrusters, however, used up far more, and he couldn’t risk them dying of asphyxiation.

  “I’ve got a plan,” Adira said. “Give me your first laser rifle. It’s still got a bit of a charge, right?”

  Mach checked and handed it over to her.

  “Good,” she said, shouldering her weapon then fieldstripping Mach’s with expert speed, removing the battery from the rifle’s power chamber. She placed the remaining parts of the weapon quietly on the floor and weighed the battery in her right hand.

  “These are volatile once outside of their chamber,” she said, following up her statement with a grin that told Mach all he needed to know about her plan.

  “We move on three,” Mach said. “Don’t stop… we need to get through that access panel. Okay?”

  Adira just nodded, then glanced at the makeshift grenade.

  “I mean it,” Mach said. “Don’t go all bloodlust kill-mode on me; there’s too many of the fuckers out there, and I need you in one piece with all your limbs intact.”

  “Just my limbs?” she said with a sultry wink. Mach always got a little worried when she was in this kind of mood. She would do stupid, reckless things, but he had to trust her. She knew the stakes.

  “On three,” Mach said, bracing his shoulder against the door to the temple. His suit weighed down on his back with the tools, making the fabric chafe in places he didn’t want; it would only slow him down. Nothing he could do about it, though.

  “Three,” he said, barging in, rifle raised.

  Adira quickly followed behind. They got halfway toward the center of the temple, hugging the far left wall when Adira threw the volatile charge unit as far to the other side as she could. The protos were so busy ripping the Guardians apart and feeding on the resulting viscera, that they hadn’t noticed its trajectory.

  The charging unit clattered against the wall with a thud.

  Every single proto in the room flicked its attention to the sound, becoming still.

  “Go, go, go!” Mach shouted through the comm unit.

  He and Adira moved quickly and as quietly as they could. The charging unit hissed, smoke billowing from it. A couple of the protos had approached it before it exploded. They were caught full force and screamed terribly. The rest of the group spun round as though the scream were coming from all directions.

  They clocked Mach and Adira, and the hunt was on.

  “Fuck!” Adira said, over and over, in time with their strides.

  The protos had formed a kind of wild pack now, chasing after them on all fours like the others, their long, black forms reminding Mach of the hideous panthers that the horans breed for sport.

  One of the protos, quicker than the others, leaped at Mach.

  Swiveling the rifle up with his left hand, he fired a short auto-burst over his right shoulder, catching the creature in the waist and legs, sending it squealing and tumbling away.

  Adira raised her rifle up and over her shoulder and fired blind while she ran toward the access panel, which waited just a few meters away.

  With barely a second to spare, Mach crashed through it, thankful it wasn’t locked or had some intricate mechanism, the manacle that Beringer had given to him providing security credentials. Adira followed quickly behind after emptying her rifle into the face of the closest proto.

  Panicked, Mach kicked the access panel closed and watched as it buckled with the force of the pack smashing into it from the other side, yet it remained sturdy, secure. But for how long he wouldn’t have liked to guess.

  Adira helped him up.

  “You okay?” she asked.

  “Yeah,” Mach said. “Not sure my heart can take much more of this, though.”

  “The reactor core is just up ahead to the left. Let’s get a move on. The quicker we get to it, the better.”

  “But how are we going to get back with that lot outside?” Mach said.

  “We’ll cross that bridge when we come to it.”

  Mach wasn’t confident of their chances. They were down to just a single rifle with half a charge against dozens of protos, with more swarming around outside. They had to find an alternative route. He took a breath and analyzed the map on his HUD.

  Beyond the reactor core was another room that had something, a straight pipe perhaps, that went up through the pyramids and beyond into the open air.

  The map didn’t show how wide it was, but it was clearly too narrow to crawl through. Mach wondered if there was perhaps another one of these maintenan
ce tunnels running from it that would help them across the temple section without having to face the protos.

  “Change of plan,” Mach said, highlighting the room on Adira’s HUD. “We’re going to check that place out before going to the core. It’ll take a minute to see what it is, and we might have an alternative route.”

  “Agreed, lead the way.”

  It took just a couple of minutes to negotiate the narrow passages to the new room. The dead guardian’s manacle provided entry. Inside, a console desk ran three meters or so across the back wall. The floor, walls, and ceiling were plain white and similar to the briefing room where they had first been introduced to the Guardians.

  The difference with this space was that the console table was familiar, in that the controls and iconography were similar to his vestan-designed Intrepid. And, more importantly, Mach recognized a communication system when he saw it. It made sense now what the rod on the HUD map was: an antenna. “Must be the equipment they use to run the shuttles and other systems,” Mach said.

  “Funny that the Saviors didn’t mention it,” Adira said, knowing they were likely listening in despite them agreeing on radio silence to the shuttle to keep it protected from eavesdropping. The protos had proven far cleverer than their wild appearance indicated.

  “Probably still under the illusion they could keep this place a secret,” Mach said. “But fuck their secrets, we need help. Can you cover the door while I get to work?”

  “Sure,” Adira said, making sure it was securely locked first before taking Mach’s rifle and training it on the doorway.

  Although the system was familiar in terms of its operation and labeling, it still took Mach a few minutes to figure out how to turn it on. Once connected to the antenna, a holographic screen came to life, showing him various functions. He pictured Kortas manipulating these controls, ordering a shuttle from Vesta and sending information to Morgan.