Prox Doom

by Michael Penmore

  TABLE OF CONTENTS

  CONFIDENTIALITY CLAUSE

  CHAPTER 1

  CHAPTER 2

  CHAPTER 3

  CHAPTER 4

  CHAPTER 5

  CHAPTER 6

  CHAPTER 7

  CHAPTER 8

  CHAPTER 9

  CHAPTER 10

  CHAPTER 11

  CHAPTER 12

  CHAPTER 13

  CHAPTER 14

  CHAPTER 15

  A FEW WORDS FROM MICHAEL

  SHARE YOUR OPINION ABOUT THIS BOOK

  ALSO IN THE JANE POOLE GENESIS

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  COPYRIGHT NOTICE

  PROX DOOM

  A Prequel to the Jane Poole Genesis

  by

  Michael Penmore

  CONFIDENTIALITY CLAUSE

  The following reading describes events which in effect led to the decommissioning of United States Space Marine Corps (USSMC) and transferral of its manpower, equipment, information and resources under the jurisdiction of Earth Expeditionary Forces (EEF). All mentions of Project Ender and the USSMC Proxima Centauri D Military Installation shall remain in the sole domain of the reader and are not to be disseminated in the interest of planetary and public safety under threat of instant dismissal from service and/or other penalty as directed by the Office of Secretary of Expeditionary Affairs.

  By order of the Earth Council,

  Admiral __________________________

  Vice-Secretary of Expeditionary Affairs

  * 1 *

  ‘Private’ Danny Pendersohn did a stellar job on the last leg of the Colonial recon squad’s journey. It had taken them down on a tremulous descent through the semi-atmosphere of the Proxima D planetoid - a scarcely habitable and largely inhospitable small world - and performed admirably in the extreme conditions of a geomagnetic storm. Danny was a decade-old space shuttle of the Pendersohn class.

  “Who in the right mind would want to live here?” said Private Selnov, former junior scientist at the Ring of Saturn military research branch of the USSMC - the Space Marines; an unlikely defector to the Colonial Army and the only male member of the squad, he was a temporary addition for the duration of this mission due to his unrivalled insider knowledge of the enemy. In others ways, he was grossly inadequate for fieldwork.

  “That’s exactly the reason why they built a base slap bang in the middle of nowhere., Private. They don’t want any uninvited guests,” explained Major Remorra patiently. She was the no-nonsense leader of the Widows platoon, an all-female assault and recon elite formation of the Colonial Army. They were the toughest, meanest, best trained and equipped soldiers in all the force, which was down to the Major’s unbending discipline and almost magical ability to squeeze out munitions through the army supply throat. To be sure, army supply was a mediocre and underwhelming promise of establishing a proper institution in some kind of undefined future, like most of the Colonial Army - a mismatched rabble of independent and assorted freedom fighters under a nominal central command.

  “I wish they picked a tropical world,” Selnov moaned. Danny Pendersohn jolted on an upwind and the Private made his ready-to-puke face. His direct neighbour shimmied her boots away, cramming them into the bulkhead separating passengers from the pilot.

  “Don’t you dare throw up on me,” Corporal Nadine Chu warned.

  “What’s up, Nadie? Afraid of a little colour?” asked Sergeant Una whose big frame tried its darnedest to look like a boulder chucked straight in from outer space. No matter how hard she tried, the uniform never exactly fit her shape, sagging loose or stretching taught in all the wrong places, which served as one way of explaining her foul moods. Back on the mothership, she kept threatening to go on the mission in her civilian clothes, but on the day she stepped out in the grey-and-white winter gear they were all wearing. Una was a proper Sergeant, and loyal to the Major come what may.

  “How about we switch places?” Nadie offered back with a snide smile that couldn’t be seen for the black helmet. They were all wearing helmets on their heads, with reflective visors to the front, so they could see their respective reflections. The only exception was Selnov who refused to ‘can himself’ until the last second.

  “Thanks but no thanks. He’s your responsibility.”

  “Major, requesting transfer of duties to Sergeant Una.”

  “Request denied, Corporal,” Major Remorra replied. “Stick to the plan.”

  “What is the plan?” Selnov groped his way back into the conversation.

  Major Remorra rolled her good eye, which again no one could see. The Private tested her patience on a daily basis, and on the mission day hourly with impressive timekeeping skills. “We land, we follow the signal to whatever it leads, we get the intel, we infiltrate the enemy base, we take out the weapon and we ride away into the setting star of Proxima Centauri with our good ol’ Danny. The details were all in the briefing I gave six hours ago, but of course you had your own pressing appointments and didn’t make it. No doubt you were again cavorting with the civilian staff.”

  “Her name’s Mandy… I think.” Selnov smiled. He was an exceptionally good-looking man with a well-maintained head of black hair, not the balding, vision-impaired, socially awkward type of scientist peddled by holo entertainment and mass media of old. His audience were all disgusted and grim, feelings conveyed by murmurs in the silence. “What? Can’t a man look for his soul mate?”

  “Soul searching is over, Private. Now you’re gonna pay attention and do what Corporal Nadie tells you to do, or you will not be coming back from this rock, do you understand?”

  “Clear as the Sun, your majorliness. Hey! Whoa!” Danny jumped violently in an air current and Selnov slid down his bench and into Nadie’s side. She wanted to ward him off, but her hands were busy fighting against the pull of the bulkhead on the other side.

  “Why didn’t you strap yourself in?” she complained.

  “I don’t like restraints.” Selnov pulled back eventually, though the feeling of violation remained inside Nadie as the shuttle settled. “Would you like a drink from my stash?” He horrified her further by producing a glass bottle from inside his vest and shaking the muddy hooch within. “Cephalian whisky. Wanna try?” Major Remorra reached and smacked the bottle out of his hand. The container landed on the floor with a dull thud and skedaddled under Una’s bench. Selnov dived for it but the Sergeant put her foot on one of his shoulders and shoved him back without prejudice. “What did you do that for?”

  “Get back on your ass and strap yourself this instant, Private!” Major Remorra roared like an angry bear. “You’re gonna rue the moment you step back onto the mother ship, I swear it.”

  “Yeah, yeah, yeah.” Selnov went back and put on his safety harness. He grumbled for a while because he didn’t get his bottle back. Nadie found it funny that she couldn’t detect the smell of alcohol on his breath. That must have been because of the ridiculous amount of mints he’d been popping in. Then he got it in him to be brazen. “What are you gonna do, Miss Tough-As-Nails? Report me to the Colonial command?”

  “No. I will permanently assign you.”

  “WHAT?” three incredulous voices raised in unison. Selnov went as white as purified chalk. Nadie and Una exchanged looks, it was a bit tough to read each other through helmet visors, but they laughed.

  “What a joke,” Una said.

  “I don’t usually joke. He’ll be assigned to clean the toilets for the duration of the war,” Remorra reiterated her statement.

  “You can’t do it! I’m not a girl!” Selnov spoke in high-pitched tremor, he was almost hyperventilating.

  “We are not girls, we’re grown up women. You’re handsome enough to pass as one. Nadie can help you apply makeup.”

  Na
die came in. “I don’t wear makeup.”

  “You don’t have to. He will be. Private, from this moment on you’ll be cavorting with the male staff exclusively.”

  “Stop it! It’s not funny! I haven’t signed up to be mocked like this!” Selnov went into a full-blown red-in-the-face ballistic meltdown. Nadie and Una enjoyed his discomfiture. They knew the Major wasn’t seriously considering Selnov for a permanent placement, although she sounded absolutely serious throughout. It was a trick to lure Selnov and then wipe the floor with him.

  Sure enough, Remorra abandoned her hoaxes and administered some serious drilling. “I will stop when you pull your head out of your ass and start acting like a soldier, Private. I need you to be at your best down there. There’s no turning back and looking for someone to replace you, and I don’t have the bloody time to babysit you. You’re going into battle son, against harsh environment and a battalion of professional killers armed to their teeth. They won’t care if you’re ready or not, they’ll just cut you on their plate like a piece of delicious soft pork belly. Better grow up, pay attention and maybe you’ll have a sliver of a chance that you’ll come back home alive.”

  Selnov’s lip trembled. He was preparing to say something in response, thought better of it and slumped against the wall, upset. Nadie looked at him for two seconds, then turned round to inspect her gear. She knew his type; all arrogant bravado in search of the spotlight, no discipline or insight into the consequences of his own actions. Unfortunately, she was the one stuck with the job of looking after him. It was going to be a very long day at work.

  “Squirrel, what’s our ETA?” Major Remorra asked their pilot via radio.

  “Just making the final sweep. I found a cosy ravine to drop in. Conditions should get a smidge better down there.”

  “Good job. You heard it, girls. Let’s prepare for touchdown.”

  Nadie got herself ready, then made sure Selnov had everything prepared for immediate departure. She ‘canned him’ in his helmet and fastened the chin strap too tight on purpose.

  “Do you, OUCH! Do you trust him?” he asked.

  “Who?”

  “You know who. The Messenger.”

  Messenger was their secretive source of intel about the USSMC Proxima Centauri D Military Installation and its nefarious purpose. They didn’t know who it was - a man or a woman, soldier or scientist. They basically knew nothing of the Messenger’s identity and they were jumping headfirst into a sea of unknowns instead of dipping their toes to check its currents.

  “I trust no one, certainly not a guy who refuses to sign his messages with his real name.”

  “You’re not supposed to say that. You’re supposed to say yes, I trust him, his intel’s been good so far and there’s no need for me to be concerned.”

  Nadie faked delving into deep thought but her stance on reassuring Selnov was firmly set to ‘I don’t care’, so she did it only to exacerbate the effect her next callous words made. “No. I’m still concerned.” She knew Selnov was a nervous lump, hence the hooch, and the ludicrous mints the smell of he was spreading everywhere he looked. She wouldn’t make his insecurities go away by lying. If he wanted a comforter, he should talk to Una; she would frighten his nerves away, replace them with tangible fear of broken bones if he wasted her time again.

  “I believe in him,” Selnov said with a faith Nadie hadn’t expected even from him. She wanted to ask him for the reasons behind this ardent belief, but then Danny Pendersohn landed with a copious amount of a shaking and whirring and it was time to move out.

  * 2 *

  The radio tower was smothered from every side by a slurry of continuous yellowish-white specks falling from the sky, Proxima D’s equivalent of snow. Captain Rhys Dreyfus of the US Space Marine Corps, Security Force Regiment gave up looking through the windows a long time ago. He was on graveyard shift; didn’t have to be, but figured he had to. There was a solar outburst way above him, affecting the scant ionosphere of the planetoid, and apparently the meteorological patterns too; everyone had been called off from their posts on the ground; communications systems weren’t operable; it was the perfect setting for a sudden strike.

  Some in the battalion derided Rhys as paranoid, but he was still the Captain, a person of authority, so they kept their grumbling to the minimum as he issued orders to keep rigorous inside watch of every entrance door. He chose the most experienced operators to keep him company inside the radio tower; the best of the best had to man the radars and scanners to give the instruments a fighting chance against the egregious effects of the storm. One of those operators detected a disturbance.

  “Are you sure it’s not just a bad reading, GS? There’s a lot of interference going on right now,” he spoke over Gunnery Sergeant Holly Welby’s shoulder.

  “No, sir. I re-calibrated the system three times already,” said the woman. She brushed her auburn hair away and not for the first time Rhys thought it wasn’t the prescribed length. He wasn’t going to do anything about it but his friend was asking for the CO’s attention. She definitely wouldn’t like what the misogynistic Colonel John Hellraiser Duke had to say. “Something’s definitely out there.”

  Rhys stared at the green screen, coalescing his thoughts. A blip kept turning up at a location not very far from theirs. “That’s good enough for me. Thanks, GS. Keep checking for any signs of movement. I’ll take care of this.”

  “Aye aye, sir. Will you be going out, sir?”

  “That’s what I have in mind, yes.” Part of him didn’t want to. Interior of the radio tower was warm. Outside looked like he would freeze to death.

  “Look after yourself, sir. We can’t afford to lose you.” She slipped off the mask of professional indifference a little. Rhys gave her a small awkward smile and looked around. Other operators had their eyes fixed on him. All that attention made him acutely self-conscious.

  “Thanks. I appreciate it. Help me do my job by doing yours,” he squeezed out the words.

  Rhys left by a winding stair hugging the outer wall of the round tower. He passed a spare dormitory and a storage for spare equipment and parts. Spare tower, that’s what they should call it, he thought. On pace on the ground level, he picked up his coat from a peg and put on its fur-trimmed hood. He stretched a mask with dark goggles over his face, for protection from the wind as well as for improving his vision. Thus prepared, he confronted the door into the outside world; wind was whistling in the cracks, ensuring the persistence of cold in the room.

  “I am ready,” he convinced himself and opened the door. It tried to run away with his arm, and a sharp sensation of pain visited his shoulder; the door bashed against the tower’s outer wall, having pivoted 180 degrees, and almost flew off its hinges. He was definitely not ready for ferociousness of this magnitude.

  The sky was normally a dark red, like fine wine; now it was shrouded in heavy cloud and arced with frequent low-altitude flickers of white and blue cracks in the fabric of existence, cracks which disappeared without a trace as quickly as they manifested themselves somewhere else; discharges in the base’s protective forcefield which should have remained see-through, almost invisible, strong and unaffected. Rhys was confused, he didn’t expect it becoming so bad. The barrier was no longer effective and the base was exposed to the raw elements. Snow kept falling in whirlwinds. Rhys stepped out, shuddering. He couldn’t see the main building which should lay just 100 yards in front of him, so he walked in its direction blind, putting his hands out in front of him. The wind, unable to pick him up, was determined to knock him down. It battered him from every side. The going was slow and tough, and soon he fell into the snow.

  He would not have gotten up if it wasn’t for the flagpole. They didn’t fly any flags at Prox D, but there it was right in front of him, a disused tall finger pointing at the sky. Rhys embraced its base and struggled to his feet. His mouth was full of snow, slightly rough to the tongue and warmer than what he knew from winters on Earth. He spat it out, mindful not to swallow any
of it. It never melted; it was not made of water.

  He took a deep breath of frozen air and regretted doing it; a thousand icicles prodded at his lungs, throat and palate at once. He ran, not sure of his direction, slipped, managed to keep himself up and raced onwards. He might not stand up if he fell again. A shape loomed just in front of him and he bounced off an empty speeder, alone and abandoned in the storm. No one had bothered to drive the vehicle into a garage. He abandoned the thought of taking refuge inside and walked around it, holding to the chassis for support. He almost didn’t want to leave it behind.

  A minute or so later he reached the sturdy composite wall of the main building and whooped briefly. He walked along it, grateful for the support and barrier from oppressing wind at one side at least. He found a door and banged on it with his fists. There should be a lock there but he couldn’t see it. He was at the mercy of the people inside. They were not in a hurry. His knocking lasted for millennia before the door opened with the scraping of metal against a rocky threshold.