Starship Paradiso (Helltroopers Book 3)

by Isaac Stone

  “Makulah going to make it?” Theo asked as Ash sat down at the table with them. They could tell he was bothered by what happened.

  “So long as we get him to a surgeon when he thaws,” Ash replied. “At least he has a chance, unlike Ester.” They’d lost her some time ago.

  He turned to Haddo. “Why didn’t you let us know what waited for us on the station?”

  “I didn’t know until you sent the image of that sigil back,” he explained. “I contacted one of my allies on the Other Side and they told me what happened. Someone used a swarm of demons to infest the crew over there. At least you made it out with only one loss. I was concerned none of you would make it back. If there had been a larger crew, I don’t think you would have, though I see your experience with other undead spellbound corpses was proven useful. Knowing their weakness does empower one to combat them more effectively.”

  6

  The Paradiso made the jump to Mars orbit a few hours later. Haddo made certain everyone was quiet. He consulted his seer stone privately before he let them know it was a clear path. He refused to talk about how he was able to do this and it seemed important to him to stay silent. Ash didn’t care, but the sooner they took out the Hell Beacons, the less he would need to worry about what needed to be done in regards to the corporation. They had yet to be contacted by EAC.

  Ash hadn’t been near the Red Planet for many years. Although he came of age on the colonies, it was something he didn’t like to think about it. The years he’d ran with gangs, was forced to endure the taunts from other kids about his mentally unstable mother was hard on him. It didn’t help he lacked a father. Kids could be cruel, but they were especially rough on him. As soon as he passed his tests, Ash was off the planet and onto bigger things.

  After years in corporate security, he’d saved up enough to start his own company, Team Omega, which is what led him on the chase to find Haddo. Now Haddo and he were allied to stop the sadistic EAC Corporation. It was a strange alliance and he didn’t know who benefitted from it. So long as his crew followed him, he felt confident in his mission. However, the crew would only follow him so long as he took care of them.

  “It’s on the surface of the planet this time,” Viktor let him know the moment they came out of the jump. “I know you’ll ask why we can’t blow it up from orbit, but we’d take out a major city in the process. Hard to narrow down a plasma beam or nuclear weapon for one small object, and you’ve seen how wantonly destructive the EMP pulsifier can be. And as to your next inquiry, it resembles the one Makulah destroyed on the station you left behind.”

  Ash stood below the screen as Viktor projected it overhead. He watched the profile of the hiding place come up on it. He remembered this place. It wasn’t something he visited a lot; his lousy family situation kept him close to the neighborhood until he came of age and managed to get out. But there was no mistaking the place shown to him on the screen. Everyone around Mons Pavonis knew what it was used for in the past.

  Ash decided this was a job he needed to do by himself.

  “I want everyone to stay put,” he told the crew when they were assembled in the main control room. “This won’t take me too long because they’ve hid the beacon near my hometown. I’ve gone over the diagrams with Viktor and can do the job alone.”

  “Shouldn’t one of us go down there with you for back-up,” Jack questioned. “I’m sure you know the place, but wouldn’t it be a good idea to have one of us on stand-by while you’re on the surface.” He was concerned and it showed in his face.

  “Negative,” Ash told him. “I know the people down there. Viktor says the beacon looks the same as the last one. I’ll take a flame sword and hide it in an umbrella case or something. Once I find the beacon, I’ll carve it up and return. The shuttle is waiting for me, so just stay put all of you until I get back.” He walked out toward the corridor that led to a shuttle.

  Once again, he was off by himself.

  Ash felt a little bit strange when he was alone in the shuttle with no armor. Normally, he made the drop with his crew while armored up with several weapons close by. This felt as if he was on a tour of a historical location. In fact, Viktor convinced the government of this part of the Mars colony that someone was going down to see an important historical site. They still hadn’t figured out where the identified the starship, but Ash knew there would only be a few hours before the flight control people in Mars orbit alerted the surface.

  Once again, Viktor guided him down with ease. It was a slow descent and the outer skin of the shuttle barely registered the heat of entry. They stuck to the commercial lanes and received clearance to make a landing outside an old military base no longer in use. Ash sighed as he saw the red sands of Mars show up beneath him when the clouds broke.

  By the time the shuttle was ready to land, the old fortress was fully on display. It haunted him all the years he lived on Mars. The huge structure was fought over many times during the Colony Wars until a truce was signed that concluded that phase of the war. Some people said the wars never ended, but went into a new phase after the shooting ended. His family moved to the Mars Colonies right in the middle of another round. Today, there were no wars on the planet. But it could always change.

  Ash sat still in his acceleration chair and took in the view of the Blue Lotus Fortress as the flight controllers cleared the shuttle to land in a space reserved for tourist traffic. The old fort still received its share of people who wanted to see the massive installation fought over at the time of the Colony Wars. It was a massive construction designed to guard the pass at the base of Mons Pavonis, one of the tallest mountains on Mars.

  No one knew how many men died in the battle for control of the pass between the Zhang Republic and the Syndicalists. Each side sent one human wave after another into the fight until they ran out of troops. Mass graves existed for the ones who never made it back. It was considered the bloodiest ground battle in the history of humanity.

  After they were cleared, the shuttle touched down at the landing field. Ash waited until Viktor filed the necessary communications with the air traffic people before he left it. Once Viktor let him know it was alright, Ash made his way outside to the promenade in front of the old fortress.

  The air was warm and pure that morning. Ash was struck with a sense of nostalgia again as he left the shuttle and made his way to the front of the Blue Lotus Fortress. He reached down, picked up a handful of dirt, and let it strain through his fingers. This was what he remembered: the red sand of Mars. Even after all the terraforming accomplished by the first colonists, the basic color of the Martian dirt appeared to be red. It had something to do with the amount of iron oxide in the soil he was once informed.

  It wasn’t hard to locate the beacon. It was hidden in a storage shed for the maintenance crew, the same place Viktor showed him on the map. While he was there, Ash wondered around the fortress and read some of the placards, which detailed the troop movements of the early battles. He needed to blend in with the other tourists. After Ash stared for a while at the old plasma cannon, no longer in service, he moved on. No one paid him much attention and there were plenty of families who took the good weather as an excuse to visit Blue Lotus fortress.

  Once inside the shed, he closed the door behind him and found the precise location of the beacon with the help of a pocket light. It was located next to a hot water heater and between two electrical panels. Ash was careful as he remembered what happened to Makulah on the orbital station over Old Earth.

  This time, no crazed reanimated corpse attacked. He waited to ensure no one was around and pulled out his flame sword from the umbrella case. The weather on Mars was irregular this time of year, so taking an umbrella along to a large outdoor historical site was not out of the ordinary. He wasn’t the only one here with one.

  The darkened room was illuminated when the rod of the flame sword heated. Ash walked over to the beacon and sliced it in half. Just as the other one had done, it sparked and crackled. To be on
the safe side he sectioned it several more times. When Ash turned off his flame sword, the cube lay in eight different pieces.

  He pulled out his pocked communicator and saw a positive sign from Viktor. The beacon was out of operation and he could return to the shuttle. Good. Ash slid the cooled flame sword into the umbrella case and left the storage shed. He took care to lock the door behind him.

  It was time to get back to the shuttle. The flight people allowed him four hours on the ground, but he’d finished his reason for being here. Viktor could make up some story as to why he needed to leave early, it didn’t matter to him.

  Relaxed, Ash almost walked into the woman who stood by the door.

  “Pardon me,” he said to her. “I needed to find something I left in there yesterday. I will be out of your way.” He assumed she was connected with the site for some reason.

  “Now that you’ve taken out the latest beacon,” she said to him. “Perhaps you would like to know the real reason you need to prevent the corporation from seizing control of the human race.”

  For a minute, he thought she was Barbara Ann, but she was obliterated back on Mercury. This woman was almost her sister, but her hair was black and she wore the uniform of a tour guide. Ash clenched the umbrella case he carried with him. He still had the flame sword to use if this was some kind of trap.

  “And you don’t have to worry,” she told him. “I only want a word with you, so leave the flame sword in the case. Good way to hide it, but the security units are watching you from the parapets, so be careful when you leave.” She smiled at him.

  “Who are you?” Ash demanded. What the hell was this about?

  “An interested party,” she told him. “Haddo played too close to the fire and was singed. He’s lucky; most of the people who went that far never came back. The only reason he helps you is to keep Chronozon away from him. He doesn’t give a damn about the human race.”

  “What do you mean?” Ash demanded.

  “Chronozon, the Guardian of the Abyss,” she explained. “It wants Haddo and he wants to escape. But Haddo will betray you if it’s to his advantage. The forces from beyond the gate have no interest in humanity, but they don’t take kindly to people who mess with that gate. The corporation is just as foolish. He’s right about what will happen if they try to open the gate all the way, but what’s on the other side has no interest in what happens on this side.”

  “So how do you fit into all this?” Ash still fingered the umbrella case.

  “I’m an interested party,” she told him and walked around a corner.

  Ash followed her, but the woman was gone by the time he rounded the corner after her. Somehow, this wasn’t too much of a surprise.

  He thought about her on the trip back to the starship. As he expected, Viktor arranged for a sudden departure and the flight people were able to clear him for orbit. Who was this new woman and what did she represent? It didn’t bother him about her revelations. He never trusted Haddo. So the old necromancer was doing this to save his own skin.

  7

  Ash didn’t think about her again until the shuttle cleared the surface and was on its way back to the Paradiso.

  “They bought the story about the sudden departure,” Viktor let him know from the ship. “I’ll have you back up here in under a half-hour. We need to get out of orbit for your next objective, the beacon near Jupiter. The Mars Colonial Flight Control people are asking me questions I don’t want to answer. They are concerned about the sudden appearance of a very big ship. We still don’t know if government that built it has connections on Mars.”

  “Just keep me informed of anything unexpected,” Ash told him. “Let the rest of the crew know I took out the beacon down here with no effort. I hope the remainder of them will be as easy, but I doubt it.”

  “They won’t, you know that,” Ash heard a voice next to him and turned to see the same woman from the abandoned fortress. She sat next to him. It was same features and build, but she didn’t wear a tour guide uniform this time. She had on a dress similar to the one Barbara Ann wore when they found her.

  “You always appear without announcing yourself?” Ash asked her. He’d felt something in the air before she appeared, but didn’t think it important to tell her.

  “Only when it’s necessary,” she replied. “There were people looking for me in Blue Lotus and I decided it was time to leave. Now that you’re isolated, we can talk.”

  “You can begin by telling me who you are and how you figure into this whole adventure,” he demanded. “I don’t like sharing information with people I don’t know. There is no reason I should trust you at the moment, unless you give me one.”

  “Somehow I knew this would be your reaction, Ash,” she responded to his demand. “Always the one with the big ideas. Always the man who had to be there before anyone else. And the first one who passed through the academy to start his own security company. You do know the corporation is determined to see you dead, don’t you?” She smiled at him in her own little curt way that he found infuriating.

  “It doesn’t surprise me,” Ash told her. “I’ve suspected they were planning on our elimination since we discovered how they were torturing people on the Inferno station. Our testimony alone would get them shut down and their assets cannibalized. Hell, most of the people who work for their company will quit once they find out what they’re really up to inside those boardrooms.”

  “They’ve been at it for a long time,” she explained. “Once the corporate managers found out they could replace human ingenuity with beings from the other side of the gate, they were quick to eliminate people. Demons don’t complain or want higher wages. They don’t even strike. Haddo showed them ways to control demons to so they could get what they wanted. He cut a deal with Chronozon and was supplied with all the infernal beings he needed. Then Chronozon wanted something in return and Haddo tried to run. This won’t end well.”

  “I didn’t think it would,” he replied again. “I’ve thought a lot about what my goals were ever since we found those people frozen to death at the Inferno. EAC thinks it can become the master of this universe with the help of those things.” He looked away and began to speak his mind. “Haddo needs us and only helps because he thinks it’s a good way to keep them away from his own worthless ass. I need him because he can help us get out of this alive. Both of us have to stop the fiends from crossing the gate or this universe is finished. However, I still don’t understand where you fit into all of this.” He turned again to look at the mysterious woman.

  She’d changed once more. In this version, she was a young girl of no more than fifteen who had red hair and an innocent look on her face. It wasn’t the change that bothered him. What terrified Ash was the blood, which dripped from her mouth. And the fangs that protruded from it. The eyes turned into the orbs of a skull as her flesh melted away from her face and flowed down her gown.

  “What the hell…”Ash swore and reached for his flame sword. He prayed it would activate in time to save his life.

  “I wouldn’t do that, Ash,” she said to him. The woman had changed back to her first form, with the age increased to mid-twenties. Gone was the adolescent hell creature. “Turn on the flame sword and you might make a mistake. Miss in your swing and you’ll cut through the hull of this shuttle. Puncture the surface and the decompression will kill you right away. Do you want that?”

  “Who are you working for?” Ash demanded. He still made sure the flame sword was in arm’s reach.

  “I told you,” she reminded him. “I’m simply an interested party. I have no desire to see things messed up and out of balance. EAC is going to destroy the fundamental building blocks of this universe. Haddo will be tempted to steal a few universes for himself. I can’t let that happen. My name and who I’m with isn’t important. Stopping the corporation and keeping Haddo from his greed will be helpful. I’m here to let you know you have our support.”

  “Will I see you again?” he asked her.

  �
�No,” she told him. “But you don’t need to see me again. You’ll have all the help you need very soon.”

  And then she disappeared.

  Ash waited a few minutes, not knowing if he had finally gone insane or if this was just another in a long line of bizarre occurrences, maybe it was both. The screen showed the Paradiso as the shuttle approached it.

  “Viktor,” Ash called to the AI, did you notice anything unusual inside the cabin of the shuttle?”

  “No I didn’t,” he responded. “You seemed to be muttering to yourself, but, last time I checked, that still isn’t a crime.”

  “The demons let through the gate have already sapped humanity of much of its strength,” a voice told him next to his head. Ash turned but there was nothing to see.

  “You have to stop them,” the voice said as it faded away.

  The next beacon was supposed to be hidden in a chunk of methane near the orbit of Jupiter. They found the frozen gas cloud floating around the planet soon after dropping out of the jump. Viktor had carefully used his coordinates to take them as close as possible to it after checking with Haddo before they left. As usual, Haddo insisted he always be consulted before a jump took place to make sure there were no “traps” inside the hyperspace tunnel the starship employed to fold space.

  “At least we can blow this one open and not have to get inside it,” Kris pointed out as they watched the chunk float up on the screen. It was a distinctive green color and translucent as it floated in orbit around the gas giant.

  “Do we have a strong signal from the beacon?” Ash asked Viktor as the starship maneuvered into position.

  This time Haddo wanted to be on standby when the beacon was destroyed. He was present in the control room, but said nothing.

  “It’s not the strongest one I’ve found so far,” the AI responded. “I would expect it to have more power this close to the beacon, but it’s in the right location. Funny, there seem to be many neutrino background emissions. Let me power up the cannon and I’ll….”