“Doesn’t count if it’s not a human, Caden.”
“Always counts if they’re MAGA, Tiny.”
“Cheeky son-of-a-bitch.”
Caden chuckled to himself at Throam’s indignation while Eilentes ducked behind the counterpart, trying not to let him see she was smirking.
“Shard Caden?”
Caden turned to see that the lieutenant was looking at him expectantly. Behind the officer the platoon had split into squads and fire teams, now spaced wide around the landing zone.
“Lieutenant…?”
“Lieutenant Volkas, Sir. First Platoon, Bravo Company—”
“I just wanted to know what to call you, Lieutenant Volkas.”
“As you wish, Sir.”
“What’s your game plan?”
“Establish a base of operations here, before sending probes to scout the target location. Once we have eyes on the target we can correlate current features to mapping, and think about establishing a perimeter.”
“Can I just stop you there?” Caden’s tone indicated he definitely would anyway.
“Well… yes.”
“Hammer already scanned the site from orbit, and we’ve both of us performed a fly-by. The place is empty. In fact just look around you: this whole planet is totally uninhabited.”
“It is my understanding, Sir, that the purpose of this mission is to establish the presence of enemy forces.”
“Involvement, rather than presence. I know it’s close, but it really isn’t the same thing.”
“Be that as it may, I have to assume a hostile force is in occupation.”
Caden closed his eyes in exasperation, and counted to three silently. He sensed in this soldier’s manner a reluctance to break with protocol, a desire to be seen as competent and capable, the need to secure a reputation as being a safe bet. Not just for his superiors, but for the men under his command as well. Chances were that this was a newly promoted officer and he was determined to make his mark quickly.
“Okay. Good luck with that.” Caden turned on his heel and walked back towards Throam, who immediately tossed him a Moachim assault rifle. Caden did not even bother to check the clip before mag-tagging the weapon to his armour.
Eilentes saw the cue and ducked into the rear compartment of the shuttle, returned carrying a long range rifle, and closed the hatch.
“See you when you arrive,” Caden called to Volkas.
“The three of you are going ahead alone? Are you insane?”
“No. Just really, really impatient.”
Volkas could only gape as the three walked away from the landing zone, towards the artificial structures cresting the horizon.
As they trudged across the dusty plain, Caden heard shouting behind them. One of the troopers with Bruiser was yelling “Sarge, he’s doing it again!”
He looked back to see the Rodori lumbering after them, his fire team clearly unsure what to do about it.
“Stop him then!” Their squad sergeant bellowed.
“Begging your pardon Sarge, but you try to fucking stop him.”
“Been there son; I’m not making that mistake again.”
Volkas was turning red, although Caden was too far away to tell whether it was with anger or embarrassment. Either way, he was impotent in the face of the Rodori’s decision to come after them. The lieutenant trotted towards the fire team and waved his arms at the leader. “Corporal, just… just go with them, yes?”
“Yes sir!”
Not quite so by-the-book then. Or at least, not sufficiently authoritative to put the entire book into practice. Caden smiled. It might have been nice to have a whole platoon with them, but they would have most likely just got in the way. A few extra eyes and hands and magazines would be perfect.
The fire team caught them up after a few minutes, and the leader beamed at Caden from under his tactical helmet.
“I’m Daxon, Corporal Brokko Daxon: fire team Charlie. These reprobates are Brohidder and Norskine.” He nodded towards the other two humans.
The first touched two fingers to the rim of his helmet. “Call me Bro.”
The second thudded her fist off the centre of her chest and flashed a quick smile.
“Who’s your insubordinate friend?” Eilentes asked.
Daxon, Norskine and Bro passed a look between each other and smirked. A second passed before the Rodori’s link fed out the translation.
“I am The Bruised Heart of Faith in Others.”
“That’s quite a name,” Eilentes said.
“He’s quite a guy,” said Norskine. She gave Eilentes a wink.
“These ones call me Bruiser.”
“And you live up to your name, don’t you big fella?” Bro said.
“Indeed I do.” Bruiser revealed his teeth.
Caden could not help himself. “Is that a smile?”
Bruiser turned towards him, and his mouth opened even wider. There must have been hundreds of teeth in it.
“Yes.”
“It’s really awful.”
“Your face looks just as hideous to me. So why don’t you kiss my cloaca.”
“Classy!” Throam said.
• • •
They had seen the first signs of damage even when they were still some distance away. Now, at the perimeter of the site, they could appreciate the full extent of it.
The compound comprised dozens of low buildings, mostly pre-fabricated plasteel modules which could be erected quickly yet withstand the trials of weather and time. Around the outside of the compound ran a continuous wedge-shaped deflector designed to reduce the damage from sand storms. Its smooth curve was broken in only one place, where it buckled upwards into the air and formed an arch that framed the compound’s only entrance. Or at least, it was supposed to form an arch. A hole had been punched through the top of the structure, so that the seared arms of the deflector reached raggedly up into empty air on each side of the entrance.
Even from outside the site, they could see the damage. Windows were cracked and smashed, walls peppered with holes, and two of the nearest modules were completely burned out. Pieces of equipment were strewn across the ground, most of them smashed beyond repair as if thrown and then trampled underfoot.
“Looks like you were right,” Throam said to Caden. “This place has been hit hard.”
“Not very much like Gemen Station, is it?”
“Not at all. That place looked like they’d spent a week cleaning up after themselves.”
The seven of them stood before the entrance to the compound, all rifles at the ready. Caden did not anticipate an ambush, and he was not particularly eager to credit the overly cautious Lieutenant Volkas with being completely right, but at the same time it was not his intention to take any chances.
“Let’s do this,” he said. “Throam and Norskine on me. Eilentes in the watchtower. Bruiser and Bro with Daxon.”
The two groups moved forward, entering the compound in silence. When it became clear that the entryway was as abandoned as it looked, Caden gave a signal and Eilentes moved away from the others. She mag-tagged her sniper rifle before scaling the ladder of the watchtower nimbly. The simple structure was only two stories high, nestled up against the inside of the deflector wall, but from the raised platform she would have a good view over the entire compound.
Once she was in position, with her rifle and scope balanced on the guardrail, Caden gestured to Daxon. The corporal nodded and veered off to the right with Bruiser and Bro.
Caden went left, Throam and Norskine keeping formation with him while he padded as quietly as the compressed grit would allow.
Here and there were the tell-tale signs of conflict: scorch marks on walls and containers, ugly rents in the sides of modules, windows that had shattered and thrown jagged glass in all directions.
He came across a module with a curving line of shallow holes in its outer surface, the dents angled steeply away from him. He brushed his fingers over the indents, and looked down. On the ground at
his feet were several small metal cylinders.
“Breakers,” he said. “From a geo-survey field kit, by the look of them. They were trying to fight back.”
Norskine screwed up her face in a way that spoke half of disdain, half of pity. “They were shit out of luck if this was the best they could come up with.”
“I think they might have been more prepared than that.” Throam jerked his head at something out of their view. “Check this out.”
Caden and Norskine moved up to where Throam had positioned himself, covering the end of the module and the paths beyond, and peered around the corner.
“Well I’ll be a world-less wanderer…” Norskine said.
“Viskr,” said Caden. “No doubt about it.”
The planet Echo had not been kind. The corpse was desiccated, its flesh dried and eroded by weeks of exposure to the harsh sun, the dry winds, and a steady onslaught of coarse sands. But it was unmistakably a commando of the Viskr Junta. The remains of the uniform, the brown of the exposed bones, the ridges and protrusions of the skull, the shape of the hands: they were all of them dead give-aways.
The body was slumped against the rear of the module, leaning to one side as if the commando had sat down to rest his eyes and never woken up. Only the painfully awkward angle of the head and the two visible vertebrae suggested otherwise. The neck had been snapped, and viciously so.
Throam spat on the dry ground. “Looks like someone fought back quite well.”
Caden’s link chirruped.
“Daxon here. Nothing moving on the east side of the compound. We have two dead Viskr: one with a dented skull, one with a crushed chest.”
“Acknowledged,” said Caden. “We have one here as well. Broken neck. Finish your sweep and we’ll rendezvous back at the entrance.”
“Sir.” The channel closed.
Throam eyed Caden quizzically. “You’re not expecting to find much else, are you?”
“No.”
“Want me to call it in? Stiletto should let Brant know what we’ve found.”
“Do it. If we find anything else of note we can update them as and when.”
“Consider it done.”
• • •
You have no idea what is happening the horizon swinging violently from one side to the other, back again, You’ll fail and people will die a sickly yellow-white aura clinging to the periphery of his vision, nauseating and disorienting, always there with eyes open or closed, burning and distorting whatever he looked at, Don’t even try to understand and the humming sound, all at once distant and nearby and… everywhere.
Caden waited it out, and after what felt like hours found himself kneeling in the dirt. He felt as though he could retch, but nothing came up. His vision was still swimming, his ears rang, and he could not yet stand. This had been a particularly bad one, although it was mercifully short-lived.
He remembered thinking about the vulnerability of the scientists, how the Empire had essentially left them to their fate. He had felt a pang of regret, almost a vicarious stab of guilt. Then nothing else coherent, just the flashing, noisy episode that had assailed his senses. The visual and auditory distortion, and the ground swinging from side to side, the stumbling, and in amongst it all — as he had half seen on Herros — a figure standing before him.
There had been boots, he remembered those. Black military grade boots such as might be worn by anyone who was on the planet right now, or on the starships waiting patiently high above him. Then combat pants, again black, with empty webbing and mag-tags, large pockets, a canvas belt. Again, those could have been worn by almost anyone who had arrived with Admiral Pensh’s task force. Then began the abdomen, the torso — a charcoal base layer and black under-armour flexible panels. Combat gear. That narrowed it down to, oh say just two thirds of all those people.
The body had melted into the creeping black morass at the centre of the hallucination, as it had done during his episode at Gemen Station. He had seen more of it this time; instead of just a pair of legs that fused with living shadow, this time he had seen legs and a body. He still had no idea who it was, or what it meant, but it was progress of a sort.
The thudding at the back of his skull was subsiding, and he took stock of his surroundings. In front of him stood a row of stone cairns which he had constructed himself; one for each of the expedition members lost on Echo. Even one for Amarist Naeb, since she could barely be said to have survived.
The others had watched for a while when he started working on the first cairn, then helped find stones which they piled nearby as he began on the second one. When they realised his full intentions they drifted away, presumably finding better things to do. Caden had continued to build while they waited for Volkas to deem the compound safe for occupation by his platoon.
Caden was not especially interested in anything Volkas had to say about the site. The lieutenant could secure and record whatever he wanted; Caden already had the essential answers he had come for. The Viskr had played a part in the extinction of this facility, and nobody had been here to stop them.
Except maybe for one being. The dead commandos had not been shot, cut, or stabbed; they had been battered. Caden had formed his suspicions quickly, and he had tasked Bro and Bruiser with searching the entire compound for a particular system. They had found it in a module right next to the compound’s organic produce regulators: a bio-charger station, used for powering combination technology. The compound staff had undoubtedly had some kind of android among their number; most likely for maintenance or difficult manual tasks. It made sense, with them being a geological survey team. Presumably someone had been able to relax some of its behavioural protocols, and then turned it loose upon their attackers.
He had shuddered when he realised this. The idea of having body parts crushed by a deliberate blow from a machine was unsettling at best, grotesque at worst. Exactly where the android was now was anyone’s guess.
He heard the crunch of boots on dusty gravel behind him; someone was coming. Someone real, with real boots. Wiping the sweat from his brow as subtly as he could, he rose slowly from the ground.
“Are you okay?” Eilentes said.
“Bit of a migraine,” said Caden. “It’s so dry here.”
“You do look pale.” She stared at him for a few long seconds, and he got the sense that she was weighing up his explanation. He wondered what she saw when she looked at him. Were his eyes red? Was he swaying?
“Well, we’ll be leaving for Aldava soon enough,” she said. “Brant has been apprised of the situation and he’s passed it along to Eyes and Ears. We’ve got everything we came for.”
“Nothing more of note from the compound?”
“Just one small thing.”
“What’s that?”
“Volkas had one of his men dig out the researchers’ inventory. They should have a small stock of xtryllium here. It’s gone.”
Xtryllium, the so-called divine currency. The material was extremely difficult to manufacture, yet its unique properties meant so very much to the galaxy. Among other applications, it allowed artificial gravity and wormhole invocation. Caden wondered why they would have needed it here. “It is very valuable. It would have been stupid to leave it behind.”
“It would be at that,” Eilentes said. She gave him another lingering look. “Are you sure you’re okay?”
“I’m fine,” he said. “Let’s get back to the others.”
He turned as if to leave, to walk back to the compound, and stopped when he realised she was not following. She stood motionless, staring thoughtfully at the cairns.
“This would be a very lonely place to die,” she said after a long silence.
“The loneliest,” he agreed.
“What do you think happened to them?”
“I have no idea. But Amarist Naeb somehow found her way back; perhaps the others will as well.”
As Caden started walking away, she turned to follow him.
“I hope so.”
&n
bsp; • • •
Elm had been waiting for the whole day, although to his young mind it might as well have been for a century. The light outside had faded hours ago, and throughout the centre of the house the safety lamps had turned themselves on to illuminate the corridors and hallways.
He rolled back the covers and clambered down from his bed. Treading softly amongst the discarded paper and presents that were scattered across his bedroom floor, he once more went to the window and looked out upon the grounds.
Below, the softly lit grounds were empty and still. Two rows of small solar lanterns described the graceful curve of the main driveway, leading away to the gates of the estate. As before, there was nobody there.
He sighed and went back to his bed, scooping up one of his new toys. It was a destroyer much like the one Brehim had, for which Elm had felt such a strong sense of envy. He made it soar through the air, firing its inert missiles at the bed covers.
It was actually much less fun than he had expected. So much time spent in longing, for what was essentially a piece of plastic. Still, it would be fun to finally be able to play with Brehim on a more even footing.
For now though it was a hollow experience. He felt a yawning chasm over his stomach, and pushed the loneliness down as hard as he could. Crushed it into a single point and hid it way down deep, before it could do the same to him. Father had to be home soon, and then everything would be better.
He had been promised that Father would return for his birthday. He did not know the time, but he knew it was late, and the promise was starting to look like it might go unfulfilled. He could not help but feel disappointed; Mother and Father were traditionalists, so much so that they still observed the Solar year for birthdays. It was incomprehensible to him that Father would not have moved the many worlds to ensure he was home in time.
Maybe Father had come home and Elm had simply not heard. Father might have decided it was too late to come and wake him. After all, he would not have known that Elm was still awake. He got back out of bed and put on his dressing gown.
Elm padded quietly along the top corridor in his slippers, heading for the main staircase that led to the grand hallway. As he reached the top of the stairs, he could hear the faint sound of music drifting from one of the reception rooms. At least one person was still awake then; perhaps Father was back after all. He hurried down the stairs and crossed the grand hallway, moving towards the only open door. Light and warmth spilled into the hall invitingly. When he reached the door, he stopped and looked in before entering.
Books One to Three Omnibus (Armada Wars) Page 12
