Books One to Three Omnibus (Armada Wars)

by R. Curtis Venture

  “I could wake Omin—”

  “No, let him sleep. I’m the one with the training.”

  “When he wakes up, I’ll tell him to come and take over from you.”

  “Fine. In the meantime, you get some rest too. I don’t think anyone here needs a round-the-clock vigil any more, and we need to be ready to move at a moment’s notice.”

  Delanka willed his reluctant body to move, and struggled to his feet. He took one last look around before leaving the way he had come in.

  Outside, the light was beginning to fade. He was still able to see unaided, and picked his way back to the fallen section of the Bremer barrier. It was not long before he had reached the outer wall, and he clambered back up the stone steps to the battlement.

  At the top, he stopped and reached out with his hands to steady himself. Light-headed, he sat down carefully with his back to the stone, conscious of the risk of tumbling back down the steps. He concentrated on breathing. His body was starting to protest against his determination to stay awake.

  The next time he opened his eyes, it was dark.

  The air was cool and damp, and a gentle breeze wafted over the wall. For a moment he was disoriented, unable to make anything out, then he realised that he was surrounded by a thin fog. Somewhere in front of him, hidden in the vapour, the wall came to an abrupt end and gave way to empty space. He decided not to move.

  There was a slight sound off to his left, and his head jerked towards it. Someone else was up here with him.

  His eyes were adjusting rapidly, and he could see a figure standing a few metres away, fully exposed and staring out over the plains.

  “Omin?” He whispered. There was no reaction, and he tried again, louder this time. “Omin!”

  Omin stayed where he was, looking out over the surrounding grasslands. In the distance, the tops of the splinters stared back at him blankly, across the ocean of mist to which they had almost certainly contributed.

  Delanka gripped the top of the wall, and hauled himself to his feet. Keeping low, he edged forward until he was next to Omin.

  “Hey.” He took hold of Omin’s forearm.

  “I can hear Him.” Omin’s gaze was unwavering. “I can hear the song. Our song.”

  “What are you talking about? Hey, NO!”

  Delanka lost his grip on Omin’s arm as the young man suddenly started forwards, placing his hands flat on the top of the wall and swinging a leg up as if to climb over the edge. Delanka grabbed, and managed to take hold of Omin’s arm again, pulling it out from under him. Omin began to topple backwards, and Delanka gently but firmly pulled him down to the floor.

  “He’s calling me,” said Omin. “Me!”

  “You’re not going anywhere.” Delanka placed a knee on his chest.

  “Omin? Junn?”

  Halfre’s voice floated through the mist, somewhere below them.

  “Up here,” Delanka called. “Be careful on those steps.”

  Moments later, Delanka saw Halfre’s form emerge nearby.

  “Omin… I can’t find him, Junn.”

  “He’s up here,” Delanka said. “Tried to step off the edge of the wall.”

  “What? Why?”

  “I don’t know. He kept saying someone was calling him. Help me with him.” Delanka shifted across to create space for Halfre, stepping over Omin. “We need to get him down from here, before he hurts himself.”

  Freed from under Delanka’s knee, Omin tried to get up. Halfre took his hand and pulled his arm towards her, wrapping her own hands around his. He did not resist.

  “Can’t you hear it?” Omin asked her.

  “I can’t hear anything, Omin. Nothing. There’s just silence.”

  “Oh, you poor thing.”

  Halfre looked at Delanka. Their eyes met, and Delanka knew that she was beside herself with worry.

  “Let’s get him back down there.” He hooked his hands under Omin’s arms.

  Between them they managed to half carry, half guide Omin back down the steps, a much less difficult feat than Delanka had anticipated. The young man was compliant, and allowed them to direct him this way and that. Delanka did not know why, but he had been expecting Omin to bound back up the steps and leap for the edge at the first opportunity.

  Together they walked him across the void between the outer wall and the Bremer barrier, the mist swirling around their legs. It was much denser nearer to the ground, but even so it was difficult to see much in front of them. All around was an eerie stillness, the night completely devoid of any sounds. Delanka searched for the gap that led into the camp.

  As they came closer he saw it; an empty space in the grey barrier enclosing what remained of Camp Camillion. He manoeuvred Omin in that direction, and Halfre followed suit.

  They were a few paces from the gap when he heard a soft crunching noise; the sound of feet grinding down the dirt. He stopped, and felt Halfre stop with him. Omin stood almost motionless between them, his head swaying as if he were simply intoxicated.

  There it was again, up ahead. Someone — or something — was just on the other side of the barrier, slowly and quietly moving through the blankets of mist.

  Delanka reached down slowly with his free hand, and quietly grasped the grip of his side-arm. The mag-tag released it with a soft click, which to his ears might as well have been a resounding boom.

  He pulled the weapon from his thigh holster and raised it in front of him, silently thumbing off the safety. He held it close to his chest, his trigger finger resting against the guard.

  Delanka checked himself just in the nick of time when the girl stepped up onto the fallen concrete block.

  “Oh!” Halfre gasped, and then began to laugh.

  “Shit the bed,” Delanka vented. “My nerves! I am really starting to regret coming to this planet.”

  “What are you doing out here?” Halfre asked. “You should be back where it’s safe.”

  The girl stared back at them, wide-eyed and shivering. She had been walking with her arms clasped around her body, but now raised one hand to point out into the fathomless mist.

  “He… left,” she said.

  Those were the first words Delanka had heard the girl say since they had found her in the transit hub. He looked towards Halfre, and saw that she was torn between Omin and the child.

  “Go on,” he said. “I’ve got Omin.”

  Halfre released her grip and went to the girl.

  “What’s your name?”

  “Caela,” she said.

  “Well, Caela, we need to go back now. It’s not safe out here.”

  “He left me,” Caela said, her gentle voice plaintive. “I was all alone.”

  It did not take them long to get back to the shelter of the plasteel module. Halfre grabbed a couple of blankets from the bunks, and wrapped one around each of Caela and Omin. Suster was nowhere to be seen.

  “Will you be all right if I go after him?”

  Delanka was already checking his weapons, and he looked at Halfre expectantly.

  “How are you going to find him out there?”

  “I’ve a pretty good idea where he’s going. Will you be okay though? With Omin, I mean.”

  Halfre looked at her partner, who sat on the edge of a bunk. He rocked backwards and forwards, staring at a spot on the floor.

  “He’s stronger than me,” she said. “If he tries to go, I won’t be able to stop him.”

  “How would you feel about restraining him?” Delanka pulled a cable tie from a pouch.

  She eyed the plastic cuffs reprovingly.

  “They won’t hurt him,” Delanka said. “It’s for his own good, anyway.”

  “I suppose.”

  Omin barely resisted when Delanka bound his wrists together; he almost seemed not to notice. When the private was done, Omin’s arms encircled a metal support pillar that reached from floor to ceiling.

  Delanka scooped up his helmet from where he had left it when they first arrived, and quickly checked the self-
diagnostic routine.

  “Please come back,” Halfre said quietly.

  He paused, and looked up. She gazed steadily back at him, her expression neutral, but seeing her sat there he was struck by how helpless she really was. On the one side of her was a terrified child she had snatched from the jaws of death, and for whom she had adopted responsibility. On the other, her partner; whatever his current condition signified, it was obvious that he too was now dependent on her. Without Delanka, Halfre might not be able to keep them safe. Or herself.

  “I will.” He donned his helmet, snapped the visor down, and a heads-up display melted into cohesion before his eyes.

  Back out in the dark, Delanka felt much more comfortable with his helmet on. He mentally chided himself for not having taken it with him to the battlement wall. The damp chill of the fog was now gone, thanks to the seal, and the visor helped to enhance his vision. It marked obstacles for him, enhanced edges, and occasionally picked out the tiny heat signatures of Guathelia’s nocturnal animals.

  If Suster had started behaving like Omin, then judging by the way the younger man had been moving, Delanka guessed that the corporal would be ambling along at a relaxed pace. He set off at a jog, estimating that he would cover twice as much ground as Suster in the same time.

  He aimed directly for the forest of splinters.

  — 01 —

  Settling Dust

  Elm Caden was both powerful and ineffectual. He was fearsome and reluctant. He burned with fury and was chilled by fear.

  The Emptiness had left him to deal with a whirling morass of contradicting thoughts. Only it hadn’t left him; not really. It had finally grown beyond its boundaries — the ones which Caden had imposed on it since childhood. It had shattered its constraints, and forced him to integrate all the negative emotions he had banished within it over the years. It had been a frighteningly noisy chaos at first, followed by a deep and abiding silence.

  Silence.

  Fill the silence, Amarist Naeb had told him. One of the strange people on Aldava had said the same thing. Exactly the same. What silence? His silence?

  Coincidence: the contemporary occurrence of incidents of a similar nature. In his line of work it was a concept he regularly fell back on. Today though its comfort was lacking, and the mere word struggled to satisfy him.

  He looked out along a deep, smouldering furrow carved through the remains of an already dead city, and sighed.

  The battleship ICS Hammer had been shot down over Woe Tantalum while buying him time to complete his mission. A victim of her own tactics, she had been pummelled by the planet’s orbital quarantine platforms and eventually slammed into the ground. It was likely that few aboard had survived, if any.

  And what had he achieved?

  He had found a mere handful of the weapons stolen from Gemen Station. The others were gone already, and he knew not where. His only lead had been Medran Morlum, and that unfortunate wretch was no longer in a position to answer questions.

  Caden instantly remembered his behaviour, how he had forced Morlum — at gunpoint, no less — to reveal information that would obviously cost him his life.

  And Throam. Loyal, dependable Rendir Throam. Caden had spoken to Throam as if he no longer trusted him. He struggled to think of any way he might have cut his faithful counterpart more deeply.

  “Fuck!”

  He shouted it into his helmet’s faceplate. Again, drawing it out this time, as loud as he could manage. It was all he could really do to vent the sense of shame.

  Woe Tantalum did not care. The winds continued, and the planet still turned.

  After a while, finally realising that Corporal Daxon was trying to contact him, Caden un-muted his link and trudged back towards the others.

  • • •

  Rendir Throam worked tirelessly and without complaint — as he always did — hauling crates of kit from the storage compartments of the lander Eilentes had piloted. The dropship had somehow landed under fire, without exploding around them, but there was simply no way it was going to fly again.

  When the ICS Hammer had come down, the small shuttle Caden had borrowed from Fleet Command was still in her hangar, and everything they had left stored in it was destroyed along with the ship. Throam felt it prudent to recover every piece of inventory he could from this other damaged vessel while he still had the chance.

  He hissed through clenched teeth as he lifted one of the plasteel containers, remembering how much time he had invested in loading their kit aboard that requisitioned shuttle back on Hammer. Nobody had thanked him, either. It would not have felt so futile a task had they used more of the gear. He was glad the weapon cases had come with them when they dropped to the surface with Bravo Company: most of the other equipment they could easily replace, but there were not many places he would find a working Lancillon Industries compact mini-gun. Not any more.

  The winds of Woe Tantalum gave no respite, and he breathed hard in the confines of his closed helmet. The visor was incredibly resistant to misting up, but he could still smell his own musk in the filtered air. Sweat was held inside the helmet by the same foam lining that cushioned his head; there was no getting around it. Even with a dehumidifier shunt built into his respirator, he felt clammy and unclean. The little machine could only draw so much moisture out of his helmet, and Throam — who often sweated just through the huge effort of holding his body upright — was almost panting.

  “I know you want to get down there and help, but you’re just not equipped for it.”

  Caden’s voice came over the group channel. Throam looked up, and saw the Shard talking to Corporal Daxon and Private Norskine.

  “Let the search and rescue teams from Disputer handle that detail themselves.”

  “More hands are always appreciated,” Daxon said. “They’ll be thankful for the leg up; Hammer is a big ship, and the sooner they search the wreck the better.”

  Caden’s reply was terse. “If you think your combat armour will protect you against radiation leaks and pressurised fires, be my guest. Don’t say I didn’t warn you.”

  Daxon mumbled something in reply which — even through his link — Throam could not quite make out.

  Caden was completely right, of course: Hammer lay burning on the ground, and what remained of the battleship was undoubtedly a death trap. There was no way of telling what damage had been done to the fuel lines, reactors, or superstructure, to say nothing of the ordnance bays. Best to leave that detail to the Life and Rescue specialists ICS Disputer had sent down to the surface.

  But Caden’s tone was off. Before, on Echo — and later on Aldava — he had bonded effortlessly with the troops of Bravo Company. Ever since they had fought their way through the ruins of Woe Tantalum, and confronted Medran Morlum in his makeshift staging area, the Shard’s whole attitude seemed to have changed.

  And what was it Caden had said to Throam, right after that encounter with Morlum? Oh yes: I really need to know that you’re in my corner.

  What in the worlds was that all about?

  • • •

  Even the turbulent, bruised skies of Woe Tantalum looked beautiful to Aker Santani, when at long last a square piece of the outer bulkhead fell inwards and clanged heavily on the deck. After being stuck in the dark for nearly two hours, utterly reliant on a respirator and unable to move, she welcomed natural light of any sort, or of any feeble strength.

  “Captain Santani?”

  The blinding white beam of a flash-light settled on her face. Wisps of smoke curled lazily through the beam, and settling dust shone brightly where the light caught it.

  “I’m alive,” she said, squinting. She brought up her free hand to shield her eyes. “But I can’t move.”

  “We’ll have you out in no time.”

  “I’ll be fine; I don’t think I’m bleeding — just pinned. Check the others first. I’ve not heard anything from some of them for a while now.”

  The brilliant beam swept around what remained of the command de
ck, hovering momentarily over each of several slumped forms. Santani followed the beam with her eyes as best she could, craning her neck to see. The emergency lighting had failed shortly after their impact with the ground, and this was the first time she had seen the full extent of the damage.

  A limp, grimy hand raised into the air shakily, accompanied by a raspy, gurgling cough. The beam landed on it and stayed there, wobbling as the owner of the torch wriggled through the still-glowing hole that had been cut from the hull.

  “Klade,” Santani said. “Is he… is he going to make it?”

  The rescue worker knelt down by Santani’s executive officer, and pressed a sensor paddle against his chest.

  “If we get him out of here quickly. Cyanotic, apex beat is in the wrong place, and he’s got a right rattle going: looks like a perforated lung. He’s probably only alive because of how he’s positioned.”

  More rescue workers were coming in now, blocking out the planet’s meagre daylight as they stepped carefully through the orange-rimmed hole.

  The one by Klade signalled to another. “Priority.”

  The second approached Klade, opened a medical kit, and went to work. The first crept cautiously around the tilted deck, moving from person to person.

  “Dead: mark for recovery. Concussion: low priority. Fractured ulna and two broken ribs: stabilise. Dead: mark for recovery.”

  She knew it was an essential process, triaging the crew who lay injured and dying about her, but Santani could not help but wince at the cold descriptions of her fallen crew members’ injuries. There was a sharp stabbing sensation deep in her gut.

  Trapped beneath the cross-beam that had collapsed on her command station, unable to help her own crew members, she lay in the dark silently and felt warm tears run down her cold cheeks.

  • • •

  Euryce Eilentes had found yet another group, this one — like the others before them — standing inert amidst the ruins. She flagged the location on her rifle’s scope, copied it to her holo, and then sent it to Volkas via her link.

  “Enjoy,” she murmured to herself. She raised the scope back to her eye. “Plenty more where they came from, it seems.”