Zero Star

by Chad Huskins

  Some of the four-armed drones made it past the warhulks, and slaughtered five or six contrite brothers before Meiks’s people redirected their fire at the drones. Enemy drones danced in the storm of bullets, and Paupua brought one down with his sword in a welter of blood before grabbing up a dead soldier’s Fell and rushing into them, screaming, “Paupau!”

  Once the centipedes had all been killed or subsided, they had temporary control of a place on the map called Zubria Avenue.

  “Battalions, report!” Lyokh called, rushing over to help a contrite brother drag a soldier who had lost his leg. Morkovikson was jogging right beside them, readying a nantie-infused gel patch to staunch the bleeding and prevent shock. They dropped the soldier off at a mobile medic site, where med bots were already suturing the stumps of missing hands, then giving the soldiers a nanite injection and some go-pills to boost them, releasing them to go fight as hard as what life was left in them would allow.

  “This is Meiks,” a static-filled voice said. “I’ve got twenty dead, almost as many wounded, infantry ammo at half, hulks are doing a little better, and one Ravager is done for. Over.”

  “Takirovanen here, doyen. Twenty-seven dead, nine wounded, but three of them are getting back in the game. Ammo’s still good for us. Ravagers virtually unharmed, and our Mantis has—” He broke off for an explosion a mile overhead, a Nova getting shot down by clawcraft. “Our Mantis has a nice high vantage one street up, monitoring a large target group. Over.”

  “Copy that,” said Lyokh. “Ziir, get me an EyeSpy to monitor the group ’Vanen’s talking about. Paupau, report.”

  Silence.

  “Paupau, report!”

  Another static-filled transmission came through, “Haven’t…ammo’s good…warhulks banged up…can’t…will have to…Paupau! Over!”

  “I copied some of that. Check your gear, make sure you’re not being jammed. If you are, switch to ping signals and use brevity code. Over.” He switched over to a private channel with Ziir. “Ziir, any word from the High Priestess? I thought we would’ve seen her task force by now.”

  “None so far, doyen,” said Ziir. “It’s possible they’re lost in here, or else got taken down as soon as they entered. I can’t even find their short-form transponder IDs.”

  “Copy. Keep me posted of any changes.”

  Lyokh moved among their temporary camp, his feet sometimes slipping in a resin being secreted from a floor that was neither metal nor organic, but a solid thing made by some other alchemy. First Sol Cohort had gotten good at setting up defensive posts along this occasionally slick surface, holding them for a while, but moving on before the enemy could develop a coherent battle plan for dealing with them. It seemed to be working, this idea of never sitting still for too long. Lyokh didn’t know if his instincts were correct, but he had this feeling that the drones inside this world moved through giant arteries beneath the ground, rarely using these lanes between structures. Some vast machinery beneath their feet was being used to move massive amounts of these drones. That took time and energy.

  So if we keep moving, and don’t get too settled in, then they have to keep expending energy and resources to move their large armies around.

  It wasn’t much of an edge, but every little bit counted in war.

  Lyokh moved in a crouch over to where Second Sol Cohort had set up a defensive post, its warhulks and Ravagers out front, forming a wall of compristeel. As he moved, he caught glimpses of the edge of this huge platform they were on—and beyond it, a massive dropoff onto another platform, one that went on for miles, disappearing into a conglomerate of low-lying clouds that curved, climbed up the side of the wall, and flowed into those clouds that sometimes obscured the dome overhead. The entire “city” they had been moving through was just one of hundreds of platform-cities in here, according to the scanner reports of those Novas and ’rakes that had advanced deeper into the worldship.

  Takirovanen was near the front of the defensive wall his battalion had built. He had his Fell rifle extended in sniper configuration, and aimed downrange at another void-black street.

  When Lyokh clapped him on the shoulder, Takirovanen didn’t budge or take his eye from his scope. “Anything new?”

  “Negative, doyen. The enemy horde is keeping a healthy distance.”

  A flash of light lit the world. There was no explosion, which could only mean one thing: it came from the battle happening outside their world. Lyokh looked up, and saw the Kneeling Penitent Man come apart, in fast-forward, in a blistering fire of superheated gases.

  “Ziir, any lock on that signal?”

  “Sending the update to you now, doyen. But you’re not going to like it.”

  Lyokh saw the update to his map. Ziir was right, he didn’t like it. The waypoint showed a destination two hundred miles away.

  His heart sank. They were nowhere near where they needed to be. The target’s proximity had been grossly miscalculated by the Nova pilot that had directed the drop-off. How many dozens of men and women were now dead, fighting a battle in the completely wrong area? “Ziir, why are we just figuring this out now?”

  “Like I told you when we landed, Captain, the energy signatures are huge, and from far away they kind of…combined as one. Sir,” he added weakly.

  This changed everything.

  Lyokh looked up at the battle happening in the sky above them, and the all-out war happening beyond that.

  He opened another channel. “Sol Actual to Tamer Command! Come in Tamer Command!”

  “This is Tamer Command,” said a familiar voice. “Go ahead, Actual.”

  “Artemis, we need a pickup, ASAP. Large contingent. I understand you’re occupied at the moment, but whatever you can spare.”

  “Copy that, doyen. We’ll do a staged retrieval. I’ll see if I can get some of the Novas to help with the extraction, and get the ’rakes to hold the clawcraft off long enough to pick you up. But expect heavy resistance when we come to grab you, we’ll likely have enemies all over our asses when we do the pickup.”

  “Copy that, Tamer. The wall.”

  “The wall, doyen!”

  Lyokh checked the images from the multiple EyeSpys floating around. High up, there were banks of clouds that stretched like a white sea to the dim, dim point at which the super-city vanished in the distance. The clouds were partially made by industry, multiple structures puffing out chimneys of exhaust, and helped to create a weather system. A light drizzle came and went.

  While he was looking over it all, a weapons sergeant named Duffey came up beside Lyokh and tapped his shoulder, handing him three full clips for his rifle, likely taken from the dead. Lyokh accepted them with thanks, reloaded his Fell, and switched radio channels. “Morkovikson, say status.” A bout of silence. “Morkovikson? Are your people ready to be mobile again?”

  It took a moment for the Brother Penitent to answer. Lyokh imagined he was temporarily put off by the vision of yet another Brotherhood ship being obliterated. “Yes, Sir Captain. I patched together two more soldiers to return to Third Battalion, and the rest are at least doped up enough to run for their lives.”

  “Copy that. Good work. Knight Companion, are we good for an extraction?”

  “Clearing an LZ for the wyrms now, doyen,” answered Tsuyoshi.

  “Hoy up, Knights! We’re moving out!”

  “A-HOO!” cried nearly nine hundred voices as one.

  Two hundred miles, he thought. We have to traverse two hundred miles. And they were still just on one platform, they hadn’t even set foot on any of the others, hadn’t done much but run, murder, settle, then run more, murder some more.

  Two hundred miles. It seemed impossible, but then, everything they had done so far seemed impossible, too. A broodling destroyed, and the resurrected Knights of Sol plunging into the heart of a worldship, where no human had set foot before. Well, one perhaps. He was thinking of Kalder, the man that brought them all to this. If I survive this, the man will have a lot of explaining to do. Lyokh rea
lized that was a big if, though.

  He checked the time on his HUD. It had been almost two hours since they had landed inside the worldship.

  And we still have so very far to go.

  KALDER WAS IN the War Room down from CIC, poring over the latest intel with Desh and Donovan. Kalder had allowed Donovan back into their circle, more because he required the man’s skills than out of any sense of forgiveness. Brother Penitent Tulsa, captain of the No Forgiveness, was present, too, as two months ago, during the battle over the gas giant Culmqor, Kalder had learned of the man’s former life as a naval strategist and intel analyst, before he’d been sent off to the Isteninyahu Penal Colony for murdering his wife and children in a fit of rage.

  It had been difficult at first, getting them all to work together, and Kalder had stretched himself thin running their small War Council, dealing with the negotiations of multiple Deirdran governments, and coordinating with two separate alien fleets. Some of that hard work had paid off in the destruction of a second broodling out near Vesterpul, one of the outer gas giants, leaving only one to combat Task Force Three. Two broodlings now encircled Thustra and Torrence, and were getting equally harassed by a new group of Faedyans, and the Isoshi had promised a second Breckinger-class, but it hadn’t shown up yet, and they feared it had been lost in the Midway, fighting a Brood ship.

  It had been nearly four months, all told, since the battle began, and since then they had employed a plethora of battle strategies and tactics, ranging from the tightly planned to the outright desperate.

  “Operation Deep Plunge has commenced,” said Desh, pulling up the map of the Versterpul-Veronica system, which dealt only with the Legrange points associated with the gas giant and its sun. The man had finally shaved, but his hair was moppier than ever.

  “The Faedyan ship is maneuvering through the debris field of the slagged broodling, and Ecclesiastes and Marie-Anne Wang are engaging the lone broodling. Captain Utica has deployed Nuerthanc and the greatwyrm is carrying twenty Knights from Seventh Sol Cohort. They’ve seen an opening in the broodling’s hull, and they’re going on a possible suicide mission to tear open the hull wider, and see if either Wang’s Pacifier or the Faedyan ship can hit its guts with a plasma beam. If not, they’re going to detonate seven of UCP’s nukes themselves, killing themselves in the process.”

  Kalder nodded, and when he did, the white feather tip of his beard tickled his collarbone. “Very good. But make sure Utica pulls Nuerthanc back as soon as he drops off the Knights.”

  Donovan looked across the table, and through the holographic display, his horrified face shimmered in pink light. “That’ll strand the Knights.”

  “And save us a greatwyrm for the duration of the war, as well as give them extra incentive to detonate the nukes should the broodling begin its escape into the Midway, or an FTL bubble. Once it’s done, success or fail, have Task Force Three shoot for Torrence. I want this system’s Dyson swarm protected.”

  “Surely that can wait. We’re in the middle of a war—”

  “A war that has now lasted months, and may go on years, and if it does, we’ll need a good energy supply. Keeping the Dyson swarm’s integrity is in our own best interests.”

  Desh nodded to Donovan, essentially giving him the order to handle it himself. Donovan left the room in a huff. Once he was gone, Desh turned to Kalder. “What’s the news from the Isoshi?”

  “They want direct control over the entire war,” said Kalder, rising. He waved his hand, and brought up an image of the lead Breckinger-class ship, which had a long alien name that essentially meant Pride of Our Ancestors. “But I will not cede control over to any corpus alienum. It’s obvious the Watchtower has chosen us to protect, it came to our rescue, not theirs. This is our moment, and we will control it, orchestrate it all, and demonstrate that we are not so inferior as they think.”

  He shrugged.

  “Besides, the Isoshi have a history of pissing off the Faedyans, and right now, the only thing keeping each of them involved is the fear that the other will somehow make away with advanced Brood technology. They will not stand for that. So, they’re committed to stay, I’m sure, they won’t leave now. They see the possibilities this coalition brings, the chance at delivering a massive blow to the Brood and stealing some of their tech.”

  “What about troop deployments? Did you talk to them about that?”

  “The Isoshi famously got several dozen of their own commandos onto a worldship before. Nearly all of them died in the escape. Neither they nor the Faedyans want to risk lots of good people. Besides, they like the progress we’ve made with the broodlings.”

  “But it means nothing if that worldship doesn’t go down,” Desh warned. “Right now, the worldship is still focused on the Watchtower, all its firepower is focused there. It’s afraid of the Watchtower, and the broodlings are busy harassing us, so that we don’t focus our full might on the worldship.”

  Kalder pulled up a holopane showing the Watchtower, now more than sixty miles tall, and absorbing high-yield plasma and particle beams, as well as raw artillery, missiles, and nukes. The thing was still generating the protective Safe Zone bubble, so that even if the worldship did try to destroy the humans, or the Faedyans, or the Isoshi, a lot of their firepower would not penetrate. However, some large energy beams were piercing the veils, and the readings for their yield was literally off the charts, completely beyond the capability of human tech to measure.

  “We need to find a way to protect it,” said Kalder.

  “How can we protect the Watchtower?” asked Desh. “The firepower hitting it is beyond anything we’ve ever experienced.”

  “I don’t know how, but we’d better think of a way. If it falls, there will be nothing stopping the worldship from turning on us.”

  There was a chime at Desh’s side. He checked the mini-tactical display on his holotab, and sighed. “The Faedyans are requesting a chance to take a breather. They need to back off and let someone else hold the broodlings off for a while. Two new ones just shot in over Deirdra’s south pole.”

  Kalder nodded, rubbed his temples. He scratched himself because his fingernails were getting long, and filthy. He was barely taking care of himself, so consumed was he with the work. He reached into his pocket, found a packet of go-pills there, opened it, swallowed them, and said, “What assets do we have available to pick up the slack after the Faedyans fall back?”

  “Well, we could push Pride of Our Ancestors to the fore, rotate them in early,” he said. That’s how they were fighting this battle. In shifts. Engines of war huffing and puffing, pushing themselves to the max and having to rotate back out to swallow more resources for each ship’s fab room.

  “I’ll see if the Isoshi will go for that,” Kalder said.

  Desh nodded. “All right, then. Next thing. If the Isoshi do as we ask, then the Faedyans could go to Vesterpul and be support for Task Force Three, and however the operation goes, they can get what resources they need from the planet’s rings. Might be enough ice and other resources there to help them out…”

  THE ENEMY HAD detected a change in tactics, Lyokh was certain, for they had sent a fresh wave of drones at them just as the wyrms and Novas were coming in for a landing in the zone they had cleared for extraction. The fighting had been fast and fierce, and over in seconds. But the attack had forced the Novas to bank away, and now First Sol Cohort waited for them to turn around while the wyrms fought something else a block or two over.

  There was this brief calm while they all waited. Lyokh held Abethik in his lap. The man was dying, his chest pierced by the enemy’s blade. Morkovikson said there was no helping him.

  “Wyrms…coming back around, doyen?” Abethik asked.

  Lyokh nodded. “They’re coming back around, just sit tight.”

  Abethik clutched ineffectually at Lyokh’s arm and tried to speak some more, but it was all strained whispers and hoarse moans. Lyokh tried to allay his fears, and looked honestly into his eyes as he drifted a
way. “It will not all be for nothing,” he swore. “It will not.” Abethik died looking at some far-off thing that seemed out of reach, and perhaps always will be for us, or maybe only attainable when finally we draw our last breath.

  For a short moment, Lyokh just held him. His Fell rifle lay beside him, its usual shimmer marred by scrapes and dents from collisions with the enemy. The world seemed to go quiet. A sea of mist drifted through the forest of alien structures all around them. The ground beneath his feet vibrated. Doubtless, vast and unknowable machinery was moving underground.

  Lyokh laid Abethik gently down on the ground, then grabbed the spare ammo from Abethik’s Fell and belt. He stood, feeling the cloak of exhaustion that was always draped over a group of soldiers after prolonged pitched battle.

  And they still had so far to go.

  “Heads up!” Meiks yelloed. “We got our boys incoming!”

  Lyokh’s attention was wrenched upward, and he saw Rabastiik and the hatchlings coming in with their wings wide, providing cover from clawcraft overhead. As soon as the wyrms landed, Lyokh’s mind was back where it needed to be. He cried, “Hoy up, Knights! Move out! Double-time it!”

  He took one more look at his fallen friend, a body they couldn’t afford to lug around with them, not if they wanted to finish the mission. Maybe later, if we have time, we can come back for him. Abethik joined a growing group of soldiers being abandoned on the battlefield.

  They moved with rehearsed precision, clambering up the sides of the great beasts, using either their armored scales or the crampons embedded in their sides for footholds. The wyrms undulated in ways that helped some of them on, the opposite of a dog shaking of water, their tails even reeling them in. Thrallyin, like all hathclings, only had one main house, and Artemis was presently seated inside it, encased in one of the huge armored scales, directing a team of sensor specialists around him. Rabastiik was large enough to have an extra sensor suite on his belly, manned by just one intel analyst, whose windows were stippled with bullet holes.