by Ben Winston
“Is Carter still with Gunny?” John asked.
They both nodded, but the one on the left spoke up. “He’s coming around, and she’s helping him with his armor, Sir.”
“Great, have them report here once they get him back online. Until then, I want the two of you to stay here. Look around, and see what you can learn from this stuff. Don’t touch anything, but record all your observations for the techs,” John ordered. “When Gunny gets here, he’s in charge.”
“Understood Sir!” they said in unison. John grinned at them, and ran from the room, once again, he had a guide indicator in his vision so he could find where he was going.
In what the computer told him was the lowest room of the complex, he found Chloe and Will, and four other Marines inspecting the equipment in the room; at least they had learned to keep their hands to themselves and not mess with shit they didn’t understand.
John stepped up to the console that William had shown him and began to translate the readings he was seeing. “Okay, from what I’m seeing, the package was designed to be lowered into position and detonated. When it was activated, the package began to be lowered. According to the reading on the console, the bomb was only a third of the way down the shaft,” John said. At that depth it was too shallow to vaporize the planet, but it would still cause enough damage to consider the planet dead.
“I don’t see any controls to bring it back up, or to remove it from the shaft,” John replied.
“Wonderful!” Chloe said. “Do you have any good news?”
“Uh, the exotic matter is still stable, and it isn’t moving anymore?” John said reasonably.
“Do we know how much exotic matter we’re talking about?” William asked.
“It wouldn’t matter, really. Even a gram of the stuff would be enough,” Chloe replied. “You keep telling me it’s stable, but exotic matter, by its very nature is unstable. Containment fields can only hold it for a given amount of time.”
“I understand that, Chloe, but I’m only telling you what the console is telling me. Maybe the snakes have a way of stabilizing exotic matter that we don’t?” John said. “Either way, we need to talk to the eggheads back at command before we try to do anything else. If we fuck with this, it might be the last thing we ever do.”
“Yeah, us and a few hundred million innocent civilians on the surface that have no idea what’s going on,” Chloe replied.
“Well, Mark is supposed to be evacuating the planet, so we can only hope that we have bought the time to complete it,” John said. He reached up and touched a series of buttons on the console.
“Wait!” Chloe said, taking a step toward him.
“Relax Chloe, I was only setting the control so only this terminal can access it. That way, a Tammerain ship can’t jump in system and set it off,” John explained. “Damn you’re jumpy!”
“Look, if I’m going to die, I want there to be enough left of me so my ashes can be spread over Earth,” Chloe replied.
“You don’t want much!” William said. “At least I chose a planet that we can still get too.”
Chloe shrugged. “When I retire for good, I want to go home.”
“That’s not unreasonable,” John said, looking at her fondly. “I’d be willing to take you there.”
“Yeah, because you know it would be a one way trip!” William said. “The Tammerain would make sure you’d be staying there with her.”
John shrugged. “It’s irrelevant really, it’s not something that’s going to be happening anytime soon, I hope.”
Chloe smiled. “I love you too, John.”
William sighed. “Okay, so what’s our action here? Obviously we can’t leave this simply hanging there waiting to drop.”
“I don’t plan to leave it there. I’m waiting for Carl and Alice to get comms back for us,” John explained. “Maybe we can do something about it once we get the R and D folks on the line. Somehow I think the Royal Explosive Ordinance Disposal folks would be a little out of their element here.”
“Gee, ya think?” Chloe responded, ever the smart ass.
“John, we sent the kids back to collect all the relays Gloria dropped, and we’re resetting them. We’re running them up through one of the closer basements to the surface. We should be back in touch shortly,” Alice reported.
“Great work!” John answered. “We really need that connection. There’s a problem down here that requires more brain power than we have.”
“Ah, you need your boots retied? I thought Chloe was with you?” Alice said.
“Smart ass, just set up the relay and leave the insults to Chloe. She knows me better,” John said.
“Comm relay check, tango-golf-zero-four to Command, copy?” Carl said over the channel.
“Solid Copy, tango-golf. Relay good. Stand by for network restore.” Came the reply. Then, a moment later. “Tango-golf command network on-line. Resume normal functions.”
“John?” Mark’s voice was heard.
“Mark, good to hear you. We have a problem. We got the timer stopped, but the device itself is still dangerous. We need some heavy thinkers on this,” John continued by filling him in on the situation.
“The town above you has been evacuated. Leave guards on the device, and in the control center, and return to the surface. We’re sending specialists to take over the project,” Mark explained but Chloe interrupted him.
“What ‘project’? Highness, this is exotic matter, hanging over a hole that goes all the way to the core! When the exotic matter finally erodes the stasis field, it’s going down, and this planet becomes the home of the Dodo bird!”
“What’s a Dodo bird?” Mark asked. “Never mind. The Tammerain have a method of keeping exotic matter in a safe and controlled stasis field. It’s the main reason their ships are more powerful than ours. If we can understand how they do it, we could finally be on par with them. We can’t lose this opportunity!” Mark replied.
“What about the people living here Highness? We can’t have them return to the surface while this could fail and kill them.” William asked.
“No, they will be temporarily relocated to another planet while the research is going on. This is not a long term project, guys. We’re talking a month at the most, two if you want to count travel and construction time.”
“Compliance, Majesty,” John replied, formally.
Mark sighed. “Look, I know you don’t like this decision, but we really need this. I have all the ships I could commandeer on the way to get those folks off the planet. I won’t release them until we get them all home either, so rest assured that I do intend for them to go home. Now, how is Gunny Skarsgaard?”
“Recovered, and back on line. Highness,” Gunny replied himself.
“Good to hear Gunny, Great work,” Mark said.
“How long will we need to remain on guard here, Mark?” John asked.
“The Flyer will be returning in two days. I had them jump to Vesta 3, and begin making arrangements for the refugees. Vesta is a very small colony world. It’s still in the invasion corridor, but it was the closest we could find, and we thought that would be more important for now,” Mark explained. By the time the Flyer returns, the fleet should be dropping out of hyperspace. The Marines can relieve you then.”
“How are our kids doing?” John asked.
“All of them made the trip to Vesta, and are in their medical facility there. Mary called it almost medieval, but they are doing well enough. Corporal Curran is being fitted with a virtual leg while hers is regrown.
“The rest of the kids are off line for the time being while the enhancements repair the damage. So, all of them will be making a full recovery.” Mark replied. “Since the evacuation orders went out, there have been a few problems, but we’re handling them.”
“Didn’t you just issue those orders?” Chloe asked.
“About an hour ago, as soon as John told me about the device. Why?” Mark asked.
“Nothing, I just thought that the evacuat
ion order couldn’t have been that old, and was wondering what kind of issues you could be having already. I was wrong.” Chloe said.
“Time flies when you’re underground,” Mark said. “Set your guards, and go get some rest, that’s an order.”
“Yes Sire, is the minisub back at the farm?” John asked.
“I had Gloria hook back up with the barge since it would be faster, it’s in station keeping mode in your lagoon,” Mark replied.
“Okay, I’ll contact it when I get to the surface and have it come to the Marina,” John said. “You heard the man, everyone. Gunny, set up a guard rotation, everyone else, rendezvous by the Glass Bay Marina ramp.”
“Yes Sir!” Gunny Skarsgaard replied.
Chapter 17
Waiting. The one thing every soldier throughout history has had to do in abundance, and that no soldier has ever enjoyed. Waiting for orders, waiting for information, waiting for the rest of the unit. Waiting for the universe to go insane again.
John had always felt that the Tammerain had agreed to the armistice far too easily. He felt that they had agreed in order to buy themselves the time they felt they needed to annihilate the human race once and for all. When he had shared that thought in a report to command, he was quietly asked to keep that opinion to himself.
He could understand the reason for that order, but it left him wondering if command had agreed with him or not. Then three hundred years later, John was sent to a remote system on the opposite side of the realm from the border with the Tammerain. What he found there restored his faith in his superiors.
Admiral Gains brought him into the Admiral’s office and sat him down. “Major, you submitted a report stating your concerns about the armistice with the Tammerain. This system is the result of that report,” the man said as he brought up a hologram of the system.
“This is the core of project ‘Gotterdammerung’. Our purpose here is to build warships, weapons and the materials we will need to counter the might of the Tammerain.
“Currently, there are two fully staffed fleets of ships, whose sole duty is to keep themselves up to date with advances in technology, while maintain combat readiness. Three more fleets are currently under construction, and the next one will be finished in another year.
“On the fifth planet, there is a fuel cell processing facility that is gathering and compressing fuel cells in massive quantities and placed in stasis. On the fourth planet, we have factories building Mecha; war machines that looked like walking tanks, and performed mostly the same function. They also built a variety of fighters, and ground force weapons.
“The third planet is devoted to nothing but research, and testing is handled on the second planet. You are sitting in the center of the most closely guarded secret our military has at this moment,” the man finished.
John nodded his understanding. “It’s truly amazing, Admiral, but why am I here? My orders only told me to report here, not what I was supposed to do.”
“You were brought here on the orders of his Majesty, and by my request,” the man said. “I was the one that had to ask you to keep quiet about your thoughts on the armistice. I agreed with you completely, but I couldn’t say that. I petitioned the crown for an audience with the King, and presented your report. This system is the result. I felt, and His Majesty agreed, that you, of all people, should know we took your report to heart.
“As members of the Temporal Guard, you and your team are the most experienced of our soldiers. As such, your thoughts and instincts are as valuable to us as a spy report or any other intel we could receive. That was the reason all of you were required for the guard detail at the signing ceremony. We needed you there to assess the situation. You did exactly as we hoped you would do, and every member of your team independently supported your instincts.
“We have only bought ourselves time, not a true peace yet. This system, and all of its secrets, are the insurance against that day. We pray it’ll never come, but we will be ready,” Gains explained.
Since that tour of Project Gotterdammerung all those centuries ago, John had never thought about that system. He knew his ship, the Flyer, had been built there. It was very advanced when compared to the rest of the ships in service, but most of its systems were still unknown to anyone, even the ‘younger’ Marines they always brought with them.
However, he considered what Mark had told him about readying their forces. He knew that that isolated and lonely system would be an orchestrated chaos of activity right now. Admiral Gains was still in charge there, and he was a good man.
It had been two days, and he and Chloe stood, watching the Flyer descend from the sky to land in the water at the end of the pier. It was the only place in the area with enough room for the ship.
As soon as the gangway had touched the pier, Mary came running down it and all but tackled John.
“Hey! I thought you were staying on Vesta?” John asked. “Where it’s safe.”
Mary released John, and hugged Chloe just as tight. “Nope, RMS Serenity arrived yesterday morning and took all my patients. I was going crazy just sitting there, so I stowed away on the ship to come back.” RMS stood for Royal Medical Service. Serenity was one of the battleship sized, flying hospitals built exclusively for the Medical Service. It has top of the line defenses, but not a single offensive weapon.
“The point was to make sure you were safe, Mary,” Chloe said. “It most certainly isn’t safe here at the moment.”
“What did you guys find? Obviously the bomb didn’t go off, since your still here,” Mary asked.
“I thought Mark would have kept you in the loop,” John asked.
“Well, he told Gloria, but I was a little busy until just before we left Vesta,” Mary explained.
“The bomb timer has been shut down, but the device itself is still there. Because of the type of device it is, it could very easily still detonate and vaporize the planet with little or no warning,” Chloe replied.
“So, what’s next?” Mary asked.
John pointed to a bright looking star near the curvature of Bethel. “We need to go up there, and check out that part of the installation. It’s probably fully automated, but we still need to check it out,” John explained. “As soon as the Marines from the Twenty-Third get here, we’ll load up the kids, and head up there.”
“Skarsgaard to Aster, Major, you on?” he heard over his comm.
“I can’t be ‘off’, Gunny. What’s up?” John asked.
“I don’t read ‘snake’, so I’m not sure of what this says, but I think we might have a problem. From what we can tell, three Tammerain ships just dropped out of hyperspace at the edge of the system, and are making their way towards Bethel. They have very low energy signatures, but the scope down here picked them up. Probably a function of their version of the IFF.” Gunny then shot him an image of the scope with the three targets on it.
“Damn, two battle cruisers and one assault cruiser. It’s a fuckin’ scout party,” John said. “Thanks Gunny, I think I better call the boss.”
“I thought Chloe was with you?” Skarsgaard replied.
“Everyone’s a fuckin’ comedian!” John replied. “Thanks Gunny, good work.”
“Skarsgaard out.”
“What’s going on?” Mary asked since she couldn’t hear what the Gunny had told John.
“Come on, we have a problem, and we need to talk to Mark,” John said and led the two ladies back into the ship.
“John, I’ll go talk to the Flyer, maybe I can get her to find them, so we have data to give him,” Chloe said.
John nodded. “I’ll be in the briefing room.”
Chloe nodded and turned into the control center across the hall from the small briefing room.
John sent an inquiry to Mark, and was connected immediately. Mark’s hologram appeared sitting in one of the chairs at the small table. He looked tired, and haggard.
“You’ve looked better,” John said.
“Gee, thanks, I love you too,” Ma
rk said sarcastically. “I’ve been trying to deal with the Tammerain ambassador, as well as riding herd on the military situation. I assume you’re not calling just to see how I’m holding up?”
“Not really, no. Three Tammerain cruisers have crossed the border and are making their way to Bethel. The Flyer hasn’t detected them yet, but the control center in the Lizard base shows them as heading in system. It could be they are here as a recovery team for the base crew, or they could be a scouting party for the fleet.” John said. “Chloe’s talking to the Flyer right now to see if she can tag them with our own scanning suite.”
“Fuckin’ Tammerain!” Mark said, swearing. “We have a probe in position to monitor that fleet closest to you. They are starting to spread out, which means they’re getting ready to jump. The good thing is that our fleet will be dropping out of h-space in a couple of hours. Those cruisers are toast, I want to send a clear message to those assholes that we won’t be played with anymore. If it crosses the border without permission, it won’t be coming back.” Mark tuned away for a moment. “Get me Admiral Surry on the Gladiator. Add her in here when you have her.”
“So, you should be getting relieved in about three hours,” Mark said. “Are you going to head for the Hammer, or do you want the fleet to take care of that?”
“No, we’ll take care of the Hammer. It’s what we do after all.” John said. “I guess I’m not retired anymore.”
Mark actually smiled tiredly at that. “Well, not at the moment, no. But it did give me a solution for the soldiers like you that can’t be downgraded.”
“Oh?” John asked.
“Before I make it a law, I’ll send you all the details so you can go over it, and tell me what you think. Since, for now, the only ones affected are the Temporal Guard, I’ll leave it to you to bang out the issues with it. When you do, keep in mind that this will apply to any future Marines that may have the same problem,” Mark said.
Chloe entered the room. “Got them, the signal was so weak that Flyer thought it was just background noise, but once I told her what to look for she found them.” She tapped on a holographic keyboard on the table, and a hologram appeared showing the three ships in relation to Bethel, and Bethel’s Anvil.
