But still…there’s something in my head. It’s like an itch I can’t scratch. Something about pangolins.
Zandra suddenly linked her mind to his. “Father’s still digging. They haven’t found anything yet. He’s given us just one order.”
“What’s that?”
“Delay them as long as you can.”
Unity of minds made issuing commands almost unnecessary. They flew from hiding and attacked without another word.
Zelity skimmed across the surface of the plane, raining pulses of light into the mass of troops assembling on the plain. The others attacked key fracture points, performing harassment action.
To his right, Zandra raced behind a series of rocky outcrops, firing whenever she had visuals on a target, hiding to avoid retaliatory fire. Rocks exploded and splintered all around her.
It was as useless an action as ever undertaken in war. There were millions of tons of metal out on the ground there, equipped with state of the art weaponry. They were too many, too well armored. They were just running out the clock until the inevitable moment when they had to retreat.
But they could buy minutes. They could buy seconds. Soon the swarm would descend on the digging site, and that would probably be that. They’d reverse engineered some Vanitar shields, but those would almost certainly fail against the kind of firepower the Solar Arm possessed.
Zandra heard and felt a railgun go off, and the Sphere to her left burst apart in a starburst of fire.
“Shit, we’re taking casualties,” she thought to Mykor. Drones were flying low across the ground, and she banked hard left to avoid them.
“Confirmed.”
“I don’t want your confirmation! Give us a retreat call before we’re all killed!”
Mykor didn’t think back at first, but she felt his disapproval like the weight of a fist.
“Please let me be blunt – getting killed is sometimes part of the job.”
There was a sharp whine to her left, approaching like a supersonic sneeze, and she dived to the ground at the last moment to avoid a gaggle of guided drones – short-barreled rockets flying on autopilot. She spun around and fired six shots, downing four of them. The explosions trailed from the sky.
We need to get out of here. She coloured the thought with desperation and fear. You’ve sent us into a nest of vipers.
Don’t leave. Kill as many as you can.
She swore furiously.
A blizzard of bullets ripped across the ground in a straight line, coming straight at her. She banked hard, G-forces rolling the Sphere nearly three hundred and sixty degrees. More drones screamed past. She fired indiscriminately, they were so thick in the air that it was hard to miss.
Several of her shots emitted flashes in the air before they struck their targets, and she realised that she was intercepting bullets in the air. There was another pulse from a railgun, and a Sphere to her right exploded.
What’s your father saying? Zelity asked. Are we getting out of here?
She closed off communication to her father, and spoke only to the surviving scouts. Yes. Retreat. Go first – I’ll cover you.
Mykor had no right to decide who lived and who died.
The Doorway – March 18, 2136 - 0900 hours
At the Beacon, Spheres were digging ceaselessly. Since abandoning the floating fortress, they’d set up a particle digger – an elaborate fusion of human and Vanitar technology. It would blast a superheated hole in the ground, wait several minutes for the plasma to cool, and then upsuck several tons of dirt and aerosolize it into the air. They were literally moving mountains, and finding nothing.
All of the thirty or so Defiant kept up a brilliant show of optimism, for Mykor’s benefit. He did not allow despair, or wavering from the line of duty. Once you started to feel like the cause was hopeless, you became far more likely to be a defector. Nobody would allow such a finger of suspicion to fall on them.
“We’re in a fortunate position,” he told his first lieutenant, Emeth. “We now have a window of several hours before either of the moons pass overhead. We can bore as many holes as we need to without worrying about earthquakes. If there’s something here to find, it’s just a matter of playing the odds.”
“Aye.” That aye left much unspoken.
Except for the enemy out on the flat, ready to bury us in a tide of metal and flame. Except for Sarkoth Amnon and the Sons of the Vanitar. Except for the fact that the Wipe is just a hypothesis, and if it exists it might destroy us no matter what we do.
Doubts didn’t matter. They’d beaten their heads against failure for thirty years, and kept pushing forward. No doubt they’d beat their heads against their graves, if it came to that.
“Sarkoth Amnon’s still on the station.” Mykor said. “Along, as luck would have it, with our spy Nyphur. I’ve given him permission to be a wrench in the gears. I doubt he’ll manage to kill Amnon, but he might be able to slow him down a little. That’s what this is all about. Gaining more time.”
The site was full of glowing metallic orbs. They worked in rotating shifts, shoring up earthworks and changing coolant in the machines. The Spheres didn’t rely on human power as the Vyres did, they absorbed thermal energy from Caitanya-9. The planet’s constant tidal flexing produced massive amounts of heat not far below the surface, and it was a matter of hours for a Sphere to recharge from that abundant energy source.
But at the moment, hours were in very short supply. If a Sphere ran out of power, it would likely stay out of power. Forever.
Just then, his daughter spoke. “They’re coming towards the digging site. We cannot stop them. I’m retreating and I do not care what you think about that. Worry about saving yourselves.”
He cursed.
“Any reason why we aren’t raising the Vanitar Shield?” Emeth asked. “Any second now, hell’s going to rain down on us.”
“Once the shield goes up, we’ll have shown our hand.” Mykor said. “At the moment, they think we’re witless aliens. So long as we keep them thinking that, we have the ultimate advantage in war.”
“And what’s that?”
“Knowledge asymmetry. We know things that they don’t.” Some would argue that missiles tipped with antimatter warheads are the ultimate advantage in war, but what do they know?
Then he heard and felt an oath from Zelity.
“We have visuals on ten thermobaric missiles aimed at digging site! About thirty klicks away! Throw the shield, or you’re all dead!”
It was standard doctrine against an entrenched position – a hard hit to draw blood, and then in with the armor.
“Where are you?” Mykor asked.
“A few hundred meters away. Your daughter’s a few kilometers further out.”
“Hurry. When you’re under, I’ll throw the shield. Tell her to stay outside, and to be our eyes on their movements.”
When the Shield went up, entrance and exit would be impossible. He strongly didn’t want Zelity to be left outside..
He was a brainwashed offworlder, and if anyone captured him he might be recognized. If that happened, the Defiance would be exposed, along with the man who controlled it.
I haven’t seen Sarkoth Amnon for thirty years, and I see no reason for that number not to go to thirty one, Mykor thought.
She smiled with approval as he saw the recon Sphers whipping through the air like a grapeshot from a cannon, landing in the dirt of the digging site.
“Throw the shield!” Mykor’s command was an authoritarian bellow that made everyone on the site wince.
He’d never thought he’d use a Vanitar Shield in battle. Since he’d plundered the weapon decades ago from a chance-discovered cache, it had never been used except for brief training exercises on the dark side of the planet – the better to avoid detection by the colonists.
On foot, a lone human touched his hands to what seemed like an overgrown plant made of liquid crystals. Even though it was a warm day, the surface was so cold that it took exercise of will to keep to
uching it. As he did, tentacles spilled and sprawled out, dense meshes of particles gathering into long tendrils like vines. Vanitar artifacts were curiously interstitial, treading the middle ground between technology and biology.
They crackled with energy. They breathed with life. There was no contradiction between the two.
A humming sound began, like the warbling of the Spheres, and then a dome of light erupted from the device.
It was small, but expanded outwards, turning into a mushrooming sheet of impermeable energy. Anything trying to break through – a missile, a tank, a man – would be instantly obliterated by megawatt range lasers.
To the east, the missiles were soon visible as tenebrous streaks against the dull sky. Soon, their shrieking was audible.
“We need to keep the base of the Shield shored up tight with rocks.” Mykor communicated. “Leave holes for ventilation, but be ready to close them at a moment’s notice. There might be smoke, or poison gas.”
The missiles’ screeching ascended to terrifying decibel levels. With the superhuman instincts the Sphere gave him, Mykor could easily compute their approaching range.
3000 meters…
2000 meters…
1000 meters…
The Defiance expects that every man do his duty. Mykor said.
The first missile hammered home, exploding in a fireball that wrapped almost entirely around the Shield. It crackled, its warbling taking on a strained quality, but there was no breach in the silver surface.
With no time to draw breath, the second missile struck, then the third, then they all blurred together in a deafening staccato.
FWOO-FWOOO-FWOOOOOM!
From inside, they were encased in a wall of flame. It billowed and buffeted every surface of the dome, licking with a million hungry tongues and nibbling with a million hungry teeth. It was like being inside a fishbowl of air, in a universe of fire.
But then it was over. The flame coalesced into smoke, white and red turning into gray and black, and then it disappated.
“That was fortunate”. Mykor said. “We’ve never tested the integrity of the shields under that type of pressure. Conservation of energy suggests that it can’t withstand infinite force, but we don’t know exactly where its line is.”
“Were you worried?” Emeth asked.
“Not really. If it failed, I would no longer exist to regret my mistake.”
The Spheres went back to work, twenty of them digging, and another ten using particle beams to help shore up the earthen escarpments.
The rest carried on with the digging.
They had to find the Doorway. Had to.
Hours passed under the dome as more artillery pounded them. The Defiant cowered, eyes cast anxiously upwards, their shield looking fragile and weak against the firestorms engulfing it.
But something appearing weak doesn’t mean it cannot survive.
Konotouri Delta – March 18, 2136 - 1200 hours
In the dark of the prison section, Amnon stood before the suspended body of Andrei Kazmer.
“So, do you accept my offer?”
The battered marine raised his head, and glared.
Amnon looked eager to face more umbrage, more insults, more verbal abuse.
Instead, he got one word.
“Yes.”
Amnon was taken aback. “Yes, what?”
“Wipe my brain. Throw me into battle. Let me disappear.”
Amnon nodded, a little disappointed. He’d hoped for begging and pleading. “Very well. Sabrok, release him from the particle beam. Then find a Black Shift capsule and purge him of his memory.”
Now that his entertainment had vanished, he felt full of places to be. He wanted to know how the attack was going, and he wanted to see it.
The Chief of Security switched off the beam, and Andrei collapsed from the position he’d held for almost two full days.
He was limp on the ground, as if his muscles had sensed they were no longer used and had vacated the premises. Two men picked him back up.
They started to drag him towards the elevator.
He looked up, seeing the faces of the Konotouri guards, their faces as cold as stone-cut statues.
Enoki Kai was there too, observing the scene not with disapproval but with naked, grotesque satisfaction.
At a certain point, you just stop wanting more information. Andrei thought. This is for the best. Amnon, just wipe my brain. Make it all go away. I don’t even want to remember my name.
He tasted salt on his mouth, and realised tears were rolling down his face. Like the attack that had felled him, they’d sneaked up on him unprepared.
They reached the doorway of the prison level, and then…
…Stopped.
“Can I be of assistance?” He heard Amnon ask.
Wake blinked away his tears, and saw that Private Ubra Zolot was standing in the path of the sad little parade. She had her arms crossed over her chest.
“Yes, you can.” She said, no fear in her voice. “You can explain some things to me. Like why you call yourself Second Minister when you use the Constitution for toilet paper.”
Amnon gave an exaggerated sigh. “Remove her,” he said to the two guards.
They shoved Ubra out of the way. She was a soldier, but she was also one hundred and fifty centimeters tall. Just a little leaf before a thunderstorm. Andrei hated it. Hated how gallant gestures never meant anything.
Ubra half-fell and then righted herself on a metal bar. Her eyes blazed. “I heard what you plan to do. Wipe his brain with Black Shift technology, and give him memories of your own devising. You can put me on the ground, but I can pick myself back up. You, Chancellor, will be crawling with the slime forever.”
“Sabrok,” Amnon said. “Please suspend Private Zolot in the particle beam until I decide what to do with her. I find her quite irritating.”
“I find you despicable.”
A baton crashed down on Ubra’s shoulder, and she fell like a ninepin.
The baton was in Amnon’s hand. He hadn’t had it even two seconds ago. One of the guards clapped his hand down to his side, where a baton had just been unclipped. He looked shocked.
“Experimental phage therapy,” Amnon said, handing the baton back to the stunned guard. “My fast-twitch muscles are now over 30% faster than they were in my twenties. A lot of problems have fixes now, honestly. There’s a fix for you, Yath, and a fix for you, Kazmer. I love being a guy who finds solutions. Is there any problem with you, Kai? You don’t look entirely happy.”
Enoki Kai’s lip curled. ”I’d prefer that you didn’t assault anyone on my station.”
“I’d prefer that I didn’t have cause to assault anyone, but our preferences sometimes go unmet.”
On the ground, Ubra glared up at him, clutching her shoulder. “There’s a traitor on the ship. And you’re mind-blanking the one guy who can help you find him. Plan on ending up dead, asshole. Stupid people are the only ones who get what they deserve.”
Amnon smiled, but now his smile was one of black anger.
“It’s the start of a war, and I’ve lost patience with both of you.” He said. “Chief Sabrok, execute them. Immediately.”
As the guards drew their pistols, Wake resigned himself, willed himself into their heads.
I’m dead.
Then the lights went out.
Then the sprinklers went on.
Amnon, Kai, and the guards shouted in unison as they were hosed down with foul-smelling water.
A man’s voice bellowed over the intercom. It took him a second before he realised it was Nyphur’s voice.
“Andrei! Ubra! Take them out!”
Strange bedfellows indeed.
Wake launched himself at the place where he remembered Sabrok had been. But the man moved, and he thudded painfully into a metal pipe. And he heard ominous sounds from his left…a pistol clearing its holster…
Ka-pow!
The muzzle flash lit up the scene momentary. The round went wild,
pinging off a metal pylon and vanishing into the hold. The recoil destabilized the shooter on the wet surface, and they heard the thud of the gun being dropped.
“Don’t shoot until the light’s on, idiot!” Roared Amnon.
By the flash of the gunshot, Ubra acted. On instinct, using muscles she wasn’t sure she could trust, Ubra lunged in the direction of the fallen weapon.
She missed, landing hard on the wet floor. Chemically-treated water stung her eyes as she groped blindly in the dark, hoping her hands would succeed in finding the gun as they’d failed her so many times in life.
With a shout of triumph, she finally closed his hands around it. Smooth. Cold. Latent energy, ready to coil and unleash.
Then Sabrok was on top of her. The man topped two hundred and forty pounds, and she could not move. A hard punch took what little wind she’d recovered out of her lungs. Then, he drew a serrated knife from his belt, and pressed a button on the hilt. It crackled to life, a razor-edged blade made of electricity. She knew about these weapons. One touch would paralyse her for several hours.
“Wake! Help me!”
He was grappling in the dark with the two remaining guards, fighting hand to hand on a slippery surface.
Sabrok swiped down with the blade. She gripped his wrist as it came down, stopping the knife an inch from her face. She smashed a tight-fisted blow into his face. His ugly face was even uglier with a broken noise, but he still pressed. The knife inched inexorably downward.
They both heard Amnon climbing the stairs, and knew he was getting away. The fight was a greasy smear of blue-white light, illuminated by Sabrok’s knife. Kai was scrabbling in the dark, yelling about due process. He found a wall-mounted computer console, tried to gain access to switch the lights back on.
“ACCESS DENIED.” A cool robotic voice said. “PASSCODE INVALID.”
Why Nyphur was helping them was a mystery, but he clearly was.
Wake body-slammed one of the guards to the ground with bone-cracking force, and tried to get over to help Ubra. The remaining guard barred his way, settling into a fighting stance. He fended off Wake’s first punch artfully, and then sent the man sliding back with a hard uppercut.
Black Shift (The Consilience War Book 1) Page 14
