He recalled the warm evening breeze and the streaks of light that washed across the hood as the Vendetta slid with liquid grace beneath an endless row of street lamps. He even remembered the music that played as Eddie walked away from the car. Chad Bruce, ‘Something in the air.'
The mental images that followed were smeared by the unsteady paintbrush of fear and adrenaline. A sudden drum-roll of gunfire. Red flowers that blossomed on the lapel of Eddie's grey jacket. Window exploded in a shower of diamond-like fragments, angry streaks burning through the air. Eddie reaching for the open door with bloody fingers. All a blur.
The one detail Jenner remembered clearly was the sight of Eddie's eyes wide with fear as the Vendetta lunged forward, leaving the gunfire, and Eddie's fading scream, in a cloud of dust.
There Jenner's memory sank into a dark, muddy pool, surfacing eight days later in a rancid, back alley dumpster on the tail end of a drug-slurred haze. Eddie, the Vendetta, the Rage-- all gone. Sold, lost, snorted... hell he had no idea. All he knew was that every streetrat in Diablos would be looking to sell him out for the money that would already be on his head. Eddie had friends.
Crusted with wet garbage and vomit, Jenner had staggered from one shadow to the next until he saw a small screen hawking travel to distant worlds. The sign sputtering overhead read Recruiter, something called the ORA. By the time Jenner sobered up he was showered and shorn, on an Army transport to some godforsaken place called Balratha.
Helluva career move there, Dave.
Jenner looked around the freezing tunnel as he flipped the collar of his jacket up around his neck. A soft cloud swirled with his every breath. At just under six feet in height, the lanky private felt lost in the oversized milspec field coat. Yet he was thankful for the thick insulation. The meager bristle of hair left on his scalp did nothing to keep his head warm.
He pawed at the quilted sleeve to reveal his watch, certain that he'd been wandering for hours. Instead, just over forty minutes had ticked away although he felt no closer to the destination typed across the transfer.
Special Detail, Driver, HM-1. The gruff Duty Sergeant had called for a volunteer to drive some kind of garbage truck; not a popular job the Sergeant stressed, but one that would opt the volunteer out of any frontline infantry duty. Garbage detail sounded nasty, but it beat getting shot. Jenner had taken the deal in a flash.
The deal was a little clearer now, Jenner thought as his mouth curled downward. The son of a bitch sergeant never said anything about driving the garbage truck somewhere near the planet's core.
Stuffing the transfer into his pocket, Jenner hitched the backpack higher on his shoulder and set off in search of Garage 39-D.
The geeky seismo guy in the commissary had told Jenner that the entire planet was a series of natural caverns stacked one on top of another. Often as not, miners had only to bore down through the floor of one cavern to break through the ceiling of another below. The network of caves and tunnels made the mining operation a lot easier to run, and that made Balratha a very lucrative planet for the Outer Rim Alliance.
For the hundredth time Jenner wished he had taken the longer route through Cathedral. Named for its gothic size, the massive cavern was nearly half a kilometer long with a ceiling that reached up several hundred meters.
Jenner didn't know shit about caves and cared less. But as big holes in the ground went, he had to admit that Cathedral was impressive. A maze of stairs and suspended catwalks transformed the space overhead into a hive of activity. Every scrap of level ground was jammed with mining equipment and machine tools. Brilliant panels lined the jagged ceiling, creating a timeless and unchanging light.
Rather than weave through the twisting gauntlet of men and machinery, Jenner had opted for the side tunnels that were supposed to cut straight through to the loading bay at the Cathedral's south end. The guy on the elevator had even drawn him a map. "Keep the reactor to your right," he had said with dismissive confidence, "you can't miss it."
Yeah. Right.
Thus far the so-called map had proved as useful as a graffiti-covered wall. Jenner paused in a dimly lit section of the tunnel and slowly turned to look back the way he had come. Back toward the world, toward light and air.
Ahead, the coffin-shaped passage sloped even deeper into the abyss. Jenner hesitated, his right foot tapping against the wet stone floor. Something in the back of his mind began to whine.
Overhead the glowing panel flickered anemically and without warning, darkness lurched in from all sides, straining to engulf him. With a sharp hum the light surged bright again, shadows drawing back between the pipes in reluctant defeat.
Jenner's heart skipped a wild beat as he looked up at the stuttering panel and hissed. "Don't even think about it."
As if in disdain, the fluorescent panel abruptly gave way and the opposing walls of darkness slammed together. The impact sucked a gasp from Jenner's lungs. He fought to catch his breath, expecting his eyes to adjust, but as he blinked he could find no difference between open and closed.
Jenner inched forward, sliding his feet across the rough slab floor. The feral part of his mind began to claw at the bars of its cage, its pathetic whimpers growing more desperate. Relentless panic rising, his slow shuffle came to a gradual halt. He reached out to steady himself, wordlessly praying for the light to return.
Quivering fingers touched the wall and slid through a layer of something cold and slimy. He snatched back and wiped his hand feverishly on the front of his coat.
"It's just the dark," he stammered, fitfully wringing his hands, "just the dark, just--"
A harsh, static buzz crackled somewhere overhead and Jenner's heart leaped with desperate hope. "Yeah, that's it. C'mon baby, come back on, just give it a second."
But the darkness survived for seconds, maybe for minutes. In total black, Jenner had lost all sense of time. Even the sounds of the tunnel had changed. Distant groans and metallic creaks whispered in the darkness.
Was that the reactor, or something else? The thought burned through his mind. What if the tremor was stone shifting somewhere overhead, the dull scrape of millions of tons of rock inching toward the floor like a huge hydraulic press. Crushing. Unstoppable.
In spite of his heavy jacket, a cold sweat broke out across Jenner's body. In a frenzy of motion he furrowed through the cargo pockets of his BDUs, fingers desperately sifting through identifiable shapes. Allen wrench. Pocket knife. Pack of gum.
"Where's the fuckin' flashlight?"
With a lurch, he shrugged the backpack off his shoulder and fumbled with a snap-lock that closed the main compartment. It popped unexpectedly and the pack slipped in his grasp. Items spilled from the bag in a blind cascade of metallic clangs and shallow splashes. The sounds scattered and echoed in all directions.
"Oh, son of a BITCH!"
Jenner dropped to one knee, now frantically pawing at the darkness. His fingers bumped into the pages of a field manual, then the familiar bristles of a hairbrush. Canteen, smooth and oval. Shapeless rumpled clothing. Couple of MREs in their crackly foil packaging.
Something small and damp flopped against the back of Jenner's hand and scuttled toward his wrist. The shriek exploded from his throat even before his conscious mind understood the prickly feel of tiny legs against his bare skin. Panic exploded.
Jenner flailed his arm, slamming it against the unseen wall. His head struck something hard, a glancing blow that bit sharply into his scalp. The taste of copper swirled faintly in his mouth.
With the mechanical crunk of a distant breaker, the tunnel lights snapped back to life. The glare lanced through Jenner's dilated pupils and burned fuzzy stars across his vision.
Like a carp out of water, his mouth moved but no sound came out. Caught in the sudden light, a four-inch cockroach scuttled off Jenner's arm and vanished into the shadows.
Tremors shook Jenner's body and the acrid taste of vomit bubbled up in his throat.
He was not cut out for this underground shit at all.
CHAPTER 3
Crimson eyes burned above a row of stainless steel teeth. The snarling rodent was clad from nose to tail in riveted plate armor. Reared on its haunches in a defiant posture, the creature brandished a fistful of stiletto-blade claws. The words "RAT Squad" stood out in bold red letters. Around the perimeter of the circular crest, a black ring bore the legend: Rapid Assault Team.
Ridgeway took a great deal of pride in the unit patch. RATs had been developed to conduct precision strikes in confined environments, places where tanks and jets couldn't go. Operating under a vapor-tight shroud of secrecy, RAT squads quickly established themselves in roles ranging from hostage rescue to counter-terrorism, demonstrating a unique ability to surgically excise a variety of armed malignancies in areas where traditional assault was not an option.
Looking up, Ridgeway's attention swung to the cable-covered uprights where a suit of deep grey armor stood at rigid attention. The figure, menacing even in repose, looked like a medieval knight on steroids.
The curved plates fit together like reptilian scales, with a precision that could neither be cast nor machined. These plates had been assembled one carefully-placed molecule at a time.
Carbonite was the trade name for the material, a term that proved easier on Ridgeway's tongue than the mile-long scientific handle. Unlike the metals historically used in field armor, carbonite wasn't really a solid. At some microscopic level the stuff was a dense matrix of hollow carbon nanotubes, each just a few molecules wide. Tougher than hell, Ridgeway was told to think of carbonite as the bastard child of steel and diamond.
A broad shadow slid across the charging station, the silhouette unmistakable. Ridgeway's gaze remained fixed on the armor, his voice flat. "So what do you think?"
Monster never bothered with bullshit. "It's gonna be a real bitch."
Ridgeway nodded quietly. No sugar coating there.
In this case though, he conceded, ‘a real bitch' might be a charitable characterization. For a brief instant Ridgeway flashed back across the countless times that he and Monster stood poised to enter the Hyperball Cube. The old sense of anticipation tingled in Ridgeway's spine and he could feel the acceleration of his senses, a process that would build to an electric blur by the opening gun.
Appropriate choice of phrase, he noted with a dark sense of irony. Still, Ridgeway could not dismiss the assurance that came with a friendship that spanned nearly a century.
Monster had gone on to play pro ball after college, while Ridgeway followed his family tradition into life as a Marine. For nearly six years Ridgeway had followed Monster's stellar career, at times with considerable envy.
He remembered the day that celebrated career had come to a screeching halt. The hyperball world stood on end when league testing confirmed that Monster had used genetic augmentation, expensive and illegal manipulation of his genetic code, to further increase his already considerable size and muscle mass. Looking for an edge in a sport where the extreme was never enough, Monster had crossed the line and got caught.
Ridgeway saw his friend plummet from superstar to pariah; banned from the sport and bombarded with lawsuits from his team and former sponsors. Monster's life spiraled into a cloud of depression, synthehol and violence that nearly swallowed him.
With only the rank of Lieutenant at the time, Ridgeway had pushed his limits petitioning the Corps to arrange an opening for Monster, and had assumed personal responsibility for the outcome. It was only with Grissom's backing that the powers-that-be agreed, with the strict understanding that any blowback would fall entirely into Ridgeway's lap. The career-ending implications were obvious.
Ridgeway never regretted the decision and watched his friend absorb the culture of the Corps with all of the fierce intensity that had marked his play as a defensive lineman. For the last fifteen Waking Years, Monster had become a walking, talking embodiment of the super-Marine ideal.
Ridgeway tipped his head toward the cases set in a wide arc around the room. Open lids revealed an assortment of weapons and explosives. The RATs moved purposefully among them.
"We ready?"
Monster replied with a wicked grin. "We were born ready."
A faint smile creased Ridgeway's face as he saw the look in Monster's eyes. Hunger for the fight. Prep was well and good but at the end of the day, fighting was what brought them to the dance. It was time to cue up the band.
"All right partner," he emphasized with a thump of his fist against Monster's chest, "rally the troops. Full briefing in five."
"Roger that." Monster turned crisply and strode toward the team. Bodies accelerated at his approach.
Some men leave change in their wake, Ridgeway thought wryly, Monster projects change in front of him.
Five minutes later, the entire squad was seated around a featureless black cube roughly a meter square. A volumetric hologram floated in the air, rugged terrain modeled in exacting detail. Color-coded symbols marked a variety of waypoints and objectives. The image rotated slowly on its vertical axis.
"It's a quick strike op." In his usual fashion, Ridgeway jumped right to the meat of the briefing. "Confined space environment, highly restrictive ingress and a strict timetable."
He tapped the remote and curtains of data flowed around the hologram. "You are looking at Vostok, a huge mining colony on the Outer Rim planet Balratha. It represents a key economic resource for whoever holds it. Fleet wants it intact, so traditional tactics like orbital bombardment are out."
"What's the non-traditional approach?" Stitch asked the obvious question in his usual wary tone.
"Sudden overload. Brass wants to airdrop two thousand Marines directly into the complex. With luck, the fight will be over before the Rimmers have a chance to react."
Merlin half-raised a hand. "Firehawk drop?"
As Ridgeway nodded in reply, the crease between his brows deepened. "Yeah, that's still the fastest route from space to surface. But we all know the catch; they're vulnerable as hell when they transition from ballistic freefall to aerodynamic flight. The Rimmers have outfitted Vostok with a solid air defense grid. If it's online, it'll burn a shitload of Marines out of the sky."
"And guess who gets to kill the grid." Darcy rolled her palms up like a game show hostess presenting the Marines behind Door Number Three.
A shadow played across Merlin's eyes as he nodded slowly. "Gonna be tight."
"More than you know," Ridgeway said, not at all surprised that the engineer connected dots that hadn't yet been shown. "Throw the switch too early and the Rimmers might get backup power online. Too late and--" The image of flaming debris and dead Marines raining down from the sky flashed through Ridgeway's mind. "Too late is not an option."
Darcy leaned forward and braced her elbows on her knees. "So where's the light switch?"
Ridgeway had no way to sugar coat the answer. "The target is a reactor in an old section of the mining operation, roughly two kilometers below the surface."
The room exploded with an outpour of questions and Ridgeway paused, allowing the team to vent it's understandable surprise. Confined space missions were one thing, he had told himself several times already, but deep-core tunnel ops were quite another.
Using the hologram as a battle map, Ridgeway covered the insertion, the mission objectives, and how they expected to get out. With each phase the display zoomed and rotated. Textured surfaces dissolved into clean, color-coded wireframes to provide subterranean views. At the end of the presentation, Ridgeway sat back in his chair and folded his arms. His steely eyes looked around the table. "Any comments?"
"Even if we do get past the bloody door, and crikey that's a cocked-up plan, it'll be a real open slather."
Five Marines turned to look at Caslin's replacement, Lance Corporal Nigel "Taz" Kelly.
His odd, amber-colored eyes snapped quickly from point to point on the hologram. Their unusual hue, coupled with his sharp features, gave the young Australian a distinctly feral appearance. The spikey brown stubble that sprawled across h
is scalp only added to the effect. While unremarkable in terms of height and weight, he projected an aura of wiry toughness.
The junior Marine continued passionately, oblivious to the stillness. "We'll have to root the bastards out of every cranny along this part, and in the slim chance the whole bloody dunny doesn't fall on our heads, we still have to--"
Taz paused, suddenly falling as silent as the room around him. His eyes screwed shut as he muttered under his breath, "Oh bollocks."
Ridgeway suppressed a grim smile. "Intermittent failures of military protocol" was how it read in the personnel file. But the often volatile Marine's history had been equally marked by uncanny scores in marksmanship and hand-to-hand combat. In replacing Caslin, Ridgeway wasn't screening for decorum.
On the other hand, he mused, gritting his teeth against the grin tugging at his cheeck, maintaining professionalism was one of a Sergeant's many tasks, and one which Monster took as a personal measure of excellence. Even now Monster's entire mass flexed as he leaned forward only slightly, his right hand closed the arm of the chair. Metal and grey plastic creaked pitifully.
With the slow deliberation of someone reversing out of a minefield, Taz eased back into his chair. Both Merlin and Stitch shifted their gaze back to the hologram and remained motionless.
"It all hangs on the feint." Darcy placed a thin datapad on the briefing table as she spoke with analytical authority. "If the Rimmers don't spook when the mortars start falling, we're screwed. But if they slam the door, we're screwed as well."
Ridgeway glanced at Darcy with unspoken admiration, recognizing the none-too-subtle diversion she had thrown on Taz's behalf. While nothing would get him completely off Monster's hook, it spared the new guy a longer squirm on center stage.
Ridgeway snapped back to the plan. Regardless of her motivation, Darcy's conclusion was dead-on. He answered the implied question with a tone of confidence. "That's why the mortars have to come down right on top of us. Nowhere to run means no time to think."
Another rumble of questions erupted and Ridgeway fielded them in turn. The difficulty was undeniable, but while he shared his team's concern about the make-or-break nature of the entry, Ridgeway also understood what was at stake. He stood abruptly.
Dominant Species Page 3
