by David Adams
“Any time now.”
CHAPTER XI
Phase Two
*****
Operations
TFR Beijing
Orbit of Qadeem
IT WAS A NEW SENSATION for Liao, observing a ground battle from above with little she could do to contribute. Iraj was coordinating the ground assault. She was in charge of everything else. She double-checked the next set of targets, red dots on a field of sand.
“Fire.”
The Beijing’s missiles streaked toward the surface, falling stars striking antiorbital guns and throwing up roiling clouds of dust. Railgun slugs slammed into the ground, their path marked by trails in the sky, like the fingers of some giant god pinching and crushing a target on the surface.
“Missiles away,” said Jiang, a chant that had become their mantra. “Impact in fifty seconds. Loading.” She frowned, and her hesitation broke the rhythm. “Weapon crews report a jam in missile tube two.”
“Lock down that tube,” Liao said. “Load all remaining tubes. Charge the railgun capacitors. Engage targets of opportunity as they appear.”
“Aye aye, Captain.”
Liao turned to Saara. “Engineering, how long until we can shut those damn constructs off?”
[“The command authorisation has been approved,”] said Saara, her face scrunched in confusion. [“The order was given to switch them to autonomous mode, to no effect. They are still being directed by some third party.”]
Liao looked to the room. “Options.”
“Broadcast a jamming frequency,” said Ling. “That may force them into autonomous mode. They’ll still fight, but they won’t be anywhere near as coordinated. It will interfere with our own communications, but by using microburst transmissions, we should be able to cut through most of it.”
A worthwhile risk. “Do it. Advise our teams on the ground before they begin.”
Ling worked at his console. The delay seemed intolerable to her. Every second the Bevra drones on the surface were active was another second the precious few Human Marines, augmented by the occasional Kel-Voran volunteer, fought and died.
The Marines were punching above their weight class, but they were Tiger tanks. The Toralii Alliance could produce Bevra drones far more quickly than the surviving Humans could breed and train more soldiers.
“The signal is active,” said Ling. “Minimal effect.”
Saara worked at her console, a faint hiss escaping her lips. [“This makes no sense!”]
“Hold on.” Liao touched her headset, routing the audio through Saara’s console. “Beijing to Washington.”
The reply that came through was scratchy and distorted, no doubt due to the jamming signal. “Anderson here. Send it.”
“The access codes are being accepted, but they don’t seem to be shutting down the drones. We need a better option.”
“There’s one,” said Anderson. “Decker-Sheng might know a way.”
Liao grated at the thought of involving him in the mission, but with her soldiers fighting and dying below, this was no time for her pride. She forced away her doubt. “Ask him,” she said. “Get the thing fixed.”
Anderson muted the line for a moment. “He says he might have a solution.” Decker-Sheng was there, physically, in the room with him? Knowing that rankled Liao further, but she said nothing. “He says to instruct your engineer the following: instead of placing them into noncombat mode, override their power setting. Make them think they’re out of juice, and they should go into maintenance mode.”
Saara said nothing, but her frantic typing increased. [“Initiating,”] she said, and the whole Operations room went quiet as they waited.
Qadeem
Cheung clicked the detonator on the claymore mine. It exploded with a thump, sending a spray of steel ball bearings out into the sand; hundreds of projectiles dug into the sand, kicking up dust and dirt, while others tore into the drones’ metal, punching them full of holes.
Smoke, flame, metal and blood. She shouldered her borrowed rifle, scanning for more targets.
“See anything?” asked O’Hill.
The sand below their feet shifted, and as though refuting his answer, a metal claw reached out and snatched O’Hill’s leg.
Cheung twisted a dial on the rifle, loading armour piercing instead of high explosive—at such a tiny range, it would not detonate anyway—and blew the claw away.
O’Hill fell back off the wreckage as the drone reared up, sand pouring off it like water. It regarded the two with bright-blue eyes, cold and unsympathetic, as its weapons hummed and charged. Cheung lined up the sights on her rifle, pointed to centre of mass, and squeezed the trigger.
Click. The breech was locked back, jammed.
Instinct took over. She tried to clear it, but the inside mechanism was completely clogged.
“Welp,” she said, tossing down the useless hunk of metal, “that just happened.”
O’Hill scrambled for his weapon. The drone lined up its weapons on her, and then, with a soft groan, twisted and jerked, and the light in its eyes died. All around her, drones fell, suddenly unmoving and inert, slumping over like drunks. The tac-helm couldn’t differentiate between destroyed and deactivated drones, so her vision was still filled with fields of red squares. She looked up, searching for some explanation, but Cheung saw only falling stars drifting out of the sky, leaving thin white trails behind them, smaller cluster munitions breaking off and falling to the ground separately, a metal rain upon the barren desert sands. Each warhead went in, unerringly and with palpable force, and the ground beneath them shook and shuddered as a seismic shockwave passed by them, fading to a rumble as the planet stilled, returning to its natural state, a calm sea of desert.
“Well,” said Cheung, touching her talk key while patching in O’Hill and the pilot, “can’t fault your timing, sir.”
No response. That was not entirely unexpected. Kamal had a lot on his plate. Inhaling the high-oxygen air her suit was feeding her, Cheung reached out and clapped her newfound Ranger friend on the shoulder. “O’Hill? You fight pretty good for a capitalist pig-dog.”
“And you do pretty good for a dirty red commie.”
They laughed, then the moment was interrupted by the search-and-rescue Broadsword Archangel moving overhead, the whine of its engines changing pitch as it levelled out. Men began fast-roping down from the bird, and Cheung and O’Hill stepped off the wreckage, moving out to the inert drones.
“We should find some way of permanently disabling them, just in case the bastards get up. In their default configuration, these drones are supposed to be autonomous, after all.”
O’Hill casually kicked one of the silent machines. “I think if they had that capability, they would have exercised it by now. Best leave them intact for intelligence to comb over.”
Although she wasn’t entirely happy with it, Cheung nodded reluctantly. “Yeah. The temptation to just pile them all up and thermite-bomb them to ashes is pretty high, I gotta say.”
O’Hill smiled. “I know the feeling.” He nodded. “Anyway, I should find my squad. Y’all take care of yourself, a’right?”
Cheung saluted crisply. “I gotta go make sure my German friend hasn’t bled out. Good hunting, O’Hill.”
“Good hunting, Cheung.”
It took her almost ten minutes to walk back to the place she’d left Keller. As she put boot after boot, she felt the painkiller her suit had administered begin to wear off, and the burning on her face returned.
Adrenaline kept her moving. It would take more than a few superficial burns and bruises to slow her down. However, with the threat of battle fading, other thoughts returned, dark thoughts. Cheung walked through the pain, cresting the rise where she’d left Keller and the Iranian corpsman, relieved to find them still there.
“Hey,” she called, waving an arm as she approached. “We won.”
The look on Keller’s face, though, stole the levity from her. Cheung turned to the corpsman. “How is she, doc?
”
“Not good,” he answered, “she’s lost a lot of blood. I’m giving her an emergency transfusion, but the wound is severe. She needs surgery. I put her out for now, to try and keep her heart rate down. It’s risky, but it should pay off.”
Cheung crouched beside him. “I’ll make sure Archangel swings by and picks her up. I’m not going to let her die out here.”
“Neither am I,” the corpsman said, “she’s German by her uniform. Did you work together on the Knight? The Rubens, perhaps?”
Cheung shook her head. She wanted to say more, but for some reason, it seemed inappropriate, as though drawing a personal connection would make it less likely Keller might pull through. “I just really hope she makes it.”
“Me too,” the corpsman said, his gaze returning to the prone woman, her light skin a ghostly pale. “I hope so too.”
Cheung touched her radio. “Beijing, this is Cheung. We’ve secured the facility.”
Iraj’s voice came back to her. “Well done, Lieutenant. Away teams are being dispatched from the Washington. Have your teams proceed into the structure.”
“Of course,” she said. “We are ready to proceed.” She hesitated, looking down at Keller’s bloodied form. “I have wounded people down here. Mind if I catch a ride back up to the Beijing?”
“Stay on post,” Iraj answered, which was the right call. “Secure the perimeter. Let the teams from the Washington take care of the interior.”
“Roger,” she said, watching as they loaded Keller into the Archangel. She reached out and took one of the weapons from the medics—her second borrowed firearm of the day—and checked it was loaded. “Securing perimeter.”
Operations
TFR Beijing
Liao’s console was quiet. No more targets appeared for the Beijing’s missiles, and the comm chatter was about operations—casevacs, medical treatments, and reports from each section head.
They had won the day. Phase two was in session. The Marines from the Washington were sorting through the facility’s storage records, searching for the valuable samples the Iilan wanted.
Why, then, could she not shake the feeling that something had gone horribly wrong?
Almost as though answering her unspoken question, the long-range communications line lit up. “Brigadier General Decker-Sheng to Beijing.”
With the bombardment complete, Liao took the call directly. “This is Beijing actual.” Liao kept her tone polite. “Report.”
“Captain Liao, I’m in the storage facility on the surface. We’ve found something here, and I think you’re going to want to see this in person.”
She had a ship to run, but Iraj could do that. Her reluctance was more to do with his phrasing, offering her nothing and expecting her to obey his vague commands. “Can you elaborate?”
“It’s the plants the Iilan told us to pick up. They’re all here, but we need your help. The vault can only be opened with a Toralii hand.”
“A Toralii hand? What do you mean?”
“I mean,” said Decker-Sheng, “that the lever to open it has grooves that can only fit a Toralii hand. It’s probably some kind of deliberate mechanism to delay us, considering they knew we were coming. You—in case you’ve forgotten—have a Toralii hand.”
That was technically true. She flexed the metal fingers by her side. “Can you bypass it?”
“I’m not sure,” he said, “I’m sending up a picture. Captain, we don’t have much time.”
There was a delay. Saara caught her eye. [“This is sometimes done,”] she said. [“But why would the Alliance not simply destroy the material instead of delaying us?”]
“Because,” said Iraj, realisation dawning in his voice, “they want us to be here when they show up.”
That made sense. Liao turned to him. “Get the ship out of here,” she said. “But prep a Broadsword for departure. I’m going to get what we came here for.”
[“Wait,”] said Saara. [“Send me instead. I can open it.”]
“No.” On that, Liao was firm. She would not let Decker-Sheng get the better of her this time. The timing was convenient… too convenient. She flexed her fist. It had to be her.
“Send along the package as well,” she said. “I’ll meet them down on the surface.”
“Roger,” said Iraj. “I’ll make sure it’s shipped with you. Allahu akbar.”
“Thank you,” she said, and with the confused stares of her Operations crew behind her, moved toward the hatchway and out toward the hangar bay.
Boarding the Archangel was a blur to her, her breathing slow but shallow. She sat in the cargo area, occupying one of the foldout seats, and two Marines carried in the scorched, bright-yellow container holding the virus they were going to plant.
It was a squat, metal thing, the size of a drum, round and dented. Data cables dangled out the top as though it had been pulled from a computer. The plugs were intact. What purpose did they serve?
She looked up as a shadow appeared in front of the loading ramp, a person clad in manacles and flanked by another set of Marines.
“Good evening,” said Ben as the Marines pushed him into one of the chairs and attached his manacles.
“Yes, very good,” Liao said as the whine of the Broadsword’s engines grew and the loading ramp was raised, sealing the ship with a hiss. “My people fought and died for a bunch of plants. We’re about to do something truly terrible, and you… well, you are going to help us.”
The outside pressure gauge began to drop as the hangar bay was decompressed. Ben gestured to the drum. “You’d trust me with that thing?” A wide, dark smile crossed his features.
Seeing Liao’s own face leer at her was unsettling.
“Brave. Foolish. I’m not certain which yet.”
“We don’t need your help with that,” she said. The ship lurched slightly as it took off. “That’s the easy part. No…” Liao steepled her fingers, regarding the mirror that sat opposite her. “You’re helping us in another way.”
“Another way?” Ben raised an eyebrow. “You’re going to upload whatever’s in there to me?”
She didn’t understand his comment. “I’m not sure what you’re saying. The plan is, we’re going to slather this stuff all over you and leave you here, so when the Toralii arrive, they think you’re me… or are curious enough to investigate at least, and they’ll get close enough to be infected with the contents.”
“That,” said Ben, gesturing with a bound hand, “is an emergency data core. It’s a construct’s mind—less evolved than my old one, probably a ship’s computer or something equally mundane. Possibly some kind of sentient program. If you’re thinking of overwriting my mind with that thing, it won’t work.”
Liao’s eyes fell upon the drum. “You’re lying,” she said. “Lying as you always do.” It was a virus, a weapon. That’s what the plan said. That’s what everyone was assuming.
“Actually,” said Ben, rolling his shoulders. “If I can recall correctly, I almost invariably tell the truth.”
Pinocchio’s nose was not growing. Liao felt something odd creeping in her spine, a feeling, a feeling of terrible truth. Ben wasn’t tricking her.
She had to know.
“Open it,” she told one of the Marines. “Carefully.”
“It’s a solid block of metal, Captain,” he said, and she could see that it was so. Apart from the data plugs…
Liao stood. She placed her prosthetic hand on the edge of the drum, mentally flexed the imaginary muscle that would give additional power to her grip, and—with the groan of twisting metal—peeled off the outside.
Inside were cables, boxes, blinking lights, still powered. She vaguely recognised it, a dim memory dragged out of the past. It was a similar model to the one Summer Rowe had accidentally activated although that one contained a star chart in one of the Beijing’s cargo holds on its very first mission.
However, after that incident, it had been turned over to Fleet Command. Who would have given it to…
That was it. The same hardware, painted yellow. She had been fooled by a coat of paint.
“It’s not a bioweapon,” she said. “It’s a computer. But… how is this going to hurt them?”
Ben shrugged helplessly.
She grabbed the data cables with her prosthetic. “Can you talk to this?”
“Probably,” said Ben. “I have parts of me that are still synthetic. But how will you trust anything I say?”
“I won’t,” she said, “but anything’s better than knowing nothing. And like you said… you typically tell the truth.”
“Very well,” said Ben, beckoning her forward. “Bring it here.”
She dragged the drum over, horrible metal-on-metal screeching echoing in the Archangel’s cargo hold. The vessel shook slightly, almost as if in response. She knew it was entering Qadeem’s atmosphere.
They didn’t have much time.
Ben extended his hand, palm up. Worms grew from his skin, thin cables from which light shone. They found the data cables on the drum and, for a moment, nothing happened at all.
Ben began to laugh: snickering at first and then full-on laughter, shaking in his restraints, a wild, manic laughter. “Oh, Captain Liao!” Tears ran down his face as he fought for air. “It’s both! Don’t you see?”
“No,” she said, her voice flat, “I don’t. Explain. And hurry.”
Ben gasped for air, struggling to talk. “It’s a limited construct, something reverse engineered on Earth with primitive technology by humans. But it has a singular purpose: find all the ships, travel between them, and then when the time is right, cause their jump drives to malfunction.” The laughter faded. “Watch,” he said.
His voice suddenly became different, genderless and empty, synthetic. The construct was speaking. “A million singularities, blossoming all over the universe, and then silence. Trade is the veins of the Alliance. Without ships, the species will wither and die. This is my purpose.”
