Homeguard

by Jason Cordova

  Not knowing what else to do, Gabriel shut down his visual receptors and used the Leviathan cortex to tie into the suit’s scanners instead, which would allow him better visual acuity while the suit tried to repair the damage to his eyes. The suit struggled to counter the swelling that was causing the ocular nerve issue. Gabriel wasn’t going to sit around for six hours and wait until the suit cleared him to move out, however. He had things to do, the first of which was to track down any surviving marines in the subway tunnels and eliminate them before they could hurt the civilians who might still be trapped underground. Afterward, Gabriel would begin the hunt for his longtime friend, Beeker.

  Once he turned on the suit’s visuals, he realized he was in a destroyed office area. He deduced it was either part of the subway line’s offices, or part of the Mauser Tower that had remained somewhat intact after it had fallen. Either way, it was ruined, and would probably never be used again.

  Looking around, there seemed to be two different paths Gabriel could take. He wanted to fire up the HUD and figure out which way was east, but he knew it would probably continue to interfere with his vision, so instead he picked the one that appeared to be less damaged. The artificial tunnels created by the debris were narrow and winding, but were safer than falling through a street, Gabriel decided, as he followed the path on his left.

  “Esau? Warcat Actual, come in, over?” Gabriel called out over his comms. Nothing. He was either too far underground for anyone to hear him, or the rubble was blocking his transmission somehow. Not knowing what else to do, Gabriel tried something else. Using the limited red comms for the first time, he commed Beeker. “Beeker? It’s Gabriel. Do you read me?”

  “I hear you,” Beeker replied almost instantly. “Congratulations on surviving. You have a strong heart and will to live.”

  “Why are you doing this?” Gabriel asked as he picked through a partially-collapsed portion of his path. Gingerly moving aside a large chunk of drywall, he continued on his way. “No emperor has been legally declared yet. You can sit this out.”

  “I owe him my loyalty,” Beeker replied in a calm voice. “He’s the Royal Family.”

  “But he’s not the emperor,” Gabriel protested. Beeker’s laugh wasn’t mocking, but it was a little condescending to Gabriel’s ear.

  “We’re tasked with obeying the emperor and protecting the royal family,” Beeker reminded him. “That’s the job of a Wraith. A Darkling is assigned to one of the members of the royal family as personal guard, remember? Who were you assigned to, my brother?”

  “Nobody,” Gabriel replied as his pace increased. The comms were getting better in quality, and stronger the farther he walked, which suggested he’d picked the correct path. “I was given an infiltration assignment and shipped off.”

  “And you never wondered why?” Beeker asked.

  “No, never,” Gabriel admitted. “I followed orders.”

  “I did, after I completed the Cleansing process and donned my first Darksuit. I asked that we be assigned together,” Beeker told him. “The commandant himself told me that wouldn’t be possible. It sounded as though someone in the capital feared your destructive capabilities, which made a lot of us laugh. There was a belief you couldn’t be controlled, and the emperor’s decision to bring you into the Home Guard to become a Darkling didn’t please anyone. Choices were made. I went to Prince Ezekiel’s side, to watch him and protect him, while you were sent as far away as possible—to the Heart Song star system to infiltrate the rebel world of Maelstrom. Quite a mess that turned out to be. The Vengeance barely got out of there in time.”

  “Nobody bothered to tell me there’s a time dilation problem with the system,” Gabriel stated as he ducked beneath a protruding iron rod. He found the body of a marine on the other side behind a large rock. The dead soldier still had his combat rifle on him, so Gabriel helped himself. The Darksuit anticipated his needs and magnetized his leg so he could stick spare magazines on it. He also picked up a few stray bits of metal fragments, but they didn’t affect the suit’s mobility.

  He quickly inspected the rifle and found it to be in good working order. The Han-24 was a fairly reliable weapon, light enough for the standard marine to carry, and it packed enough of a punch to make it worthwhile. The smaller caliber rifle could fire about three hundred rounds per second for almost two hours before the barrel would grow too hot and warp. With a muzzle velocity that exceeded three thousand feet per second, it would hammer through anything other than heavy armor. The issue for Gabriel was that the smaller caliber rifle was pretty worthless against Wraiths and, usually, Darklings.

  If not for the Wraith’s Lynx cannons and the Darkling’s standard issue Velico gun, the Han-24 would be the most lethal firearm for any soldier in the Dominion of Man. Unfortunately, the variant that allowed for large caliber rounds which could actually hurt Wraith suits were in short supply. Or fortunately, from a different point of view. Gabriel, for one, was very happy the large caliber Han-24s weren’t present on Belleza Sutil.

  Which surprised him. Whoever had planned this op had to have known, after the destruction of the Icewind, that there’d be Wraiths responding to the invasion. They couldn’t have believed Goliaths would stop all of them, and the marines would have had to fight the Wraiths eventually. Gabriel had expected the Goliaths, which was part of the reason he’d left the Behemoth suits on Solomon. They’d have been easy targets for the railguns on the Goliaths.

  Which meant the person on the other side of the field didn’t care about the marines and viewed them as nothing more than fodder, or the individual was a tactical moron. Judging by how quickly the tanks had managed to drop the Mauser Tower and wipe out a good chunk of Wraiths, Gabriel was betting on the former. It made sense, after all. Imperfects who weren’t cut out to be Wraiths had to do something with their lives, and since the second-class citizens were considered sub-human by most of the Core worlds’ populations, it made sense that a military commander would throw them away as if they didn’t matter. Because after a while, in the commander’s eyes, they didn’t.

  Gabriel didn’t know why this infuriated him. He’d never singled out Imperfects before his diagnosis, even though said diagnosis had turned out to be false. His family had hired them to work the fields during the harvest for at least two generations, possibly more, and had paid them good wages and offered housing in the bunk houses during their work time. Gabriel’s mother had even fed them for free, since she loved hosting and had always enjoyed cooking for an army. Then again, he also hadn’t had any Imperfect friends. At least, not until he became a Wraith.

  A sudden thought gave him pause. The emperor had targeted Kevin and tried to fake the results of one of his children’s genetic tests to control the incoming representative. What if this had been done before? There was no way to determine if the testing was accurate. Everyone simply accepted the word of the Bureau of Medicine whether they’d passed or failed. What if more tests had been falsified? That thought gave Gabriel chills, but the more he thought about it, the more believable it became.

  It was common knowledge across the Dominion that there were far more Imperfects in the Core worlds than on the Fringe, simply due to the massive population difference. However, there were only five Core worlds, compared to twelve on the Fringe. The population difference shouldn’t have been all that great, Gabriel realized. Yet for some reason, planets like Solomon and Copernicus hardly ever had Imperfects diagnosed. Nobody had ever figured out why.

  What if someone is using the genetic testing to control a large population of citizens in the Dominion? Gabriel asked himself as he looked around the tunnel. The thought terrified him, but seemed extremely plausible. Keep a good chunk of the citizenry ignorant and under the control of the Praetorians, who weren’t constrained by any laws when it came to how they treated the Imperfects in their “care.” Gabriel knew the individual responsible for the Praetorians was none other than the now-dead “Space Pope,” who had been accidentally killed during the Iblis
s Massacre.

  Who’s the Praelictor now? That was an interesting question, but one for another time. Gabriel had other things to do. He had to find and kill a friend.

  “Gabriel? Are you ignoring me?” Beeker asked. Gabriel, who’d been lost in his thoughts, didn’t know what else to say, so he answered truthfully.

  “Yes.”

  “I thought so,” Beeker replied. “Either that or you found a few of my marines still alive down here, and you killed them.”

  Down here? Gabriel’s ears perked up at that bit of information. Is Beeker down here as well?

  “How’d you spoof the Wraith suits’ comms from down here, anyway?” Gabriel asked as he followed the tunnel further along, his right hand easily carrying the rifle. His left, still operating at less than full function, remained empty for the time being. If it came to combat, he’d switch hands and wield the rifle in his off-hand so he could stab his enemies in the face with his right.

  “Trade secret,” Beeker stated. Gabriel, not knowing what else to say, simply grunted. Beeker chuckled darkly. “Can’t tell you everything, isuwula.”

  “Tell me where you are, then,” Gabriel suggested. “That way we can end this quicker.”

  “I have things to do before you find me, my brother,” Beeker countered. “I might not survive our encounter, but I promise you won’t.”

  “Tough words, coming from someone hiding in the dark,” Gabriel taunted. The only reply was silence. He waited for a few more seconds before killing the connection and sighing in exasperation. “Leave it to the Zulu to not let me get in the last word.”

  Whatever the suit was pumping into his system was helping with both the pain and the swelling, he realized. Whether it was the concussion or the damaged eyes, he wasn’t sure, but the suit was beginning to slowly back off as his sole source of vision. The HUD slowly came back on, a dim blue screen at first, but as his eyes grew accustomed to being used again, the display became brighter. This allowed the heightened external sensors of the suit to dial back up to their full strength.

  Gabriel was surprised. He hadn’t realized the suit had turned down the sensors for him. While he’d been aware the HUD was down so he could use the externals unencumbered, it had never occurred to him it would dampen its sensors to keep from overwhelming him. The Leviathan cortex was helpful, but he’d never known it could make command decisions when it came to the suit and his health. It was something to look into once he was safely back on Solomon and could dig deeper into the cortex’s software updates.

  Gabriel could see the heat patterns of footprints heading in the same direction he was currently moving, as well as other heat signatures through the walls. Some danced about and changed temperature rapidly, which indicated fires smoldering in the underbelly of the ruined area. Others remained constant, but fading, though there was no movement to them. Those he marked as either dying or deceased individuals. There was nothing he could do for them. Whether it was a marine or a civilian didn’t matter. Gabriel was not equipped to treat anyone with serious wounds. A Darkling was for killing, not for healing.

  At long last, his suit picked up something other than smoldering fires, the dead, and the dying. A large group of heat signatures were clumped together roughly two hundred feet ahead. Chameleon program activated, Gabriel was a ghost in the darkened tunnels, and practically invisible to the naked eye. He moved in silently, his feet easily avoiding stray stones or metal that would alert them to his presence. They were unknowns, and Gabriel wanted to get closer for positive identification before he either helped them escape or killed them.

  Closer, Gabriel could make out the voices as almost all men, which didn’t bode well. There was a rather large heat signature in the middle of their group, which suggested they’d built a large fire to keep themselves warm as they waited for rescue of some type. With the light source, the suit dropped thermal and went to standard vision.

  Marines, Gabriel thought as he recognized the uniforms. There were a few officers in their midst from the looks of things, but mostly it appeared to be a cluster of NCOs and privates. He checked their surroundings and saw the place they’d picked was a fairly defensible position, with a narrow entrance from his direction, and a long, wide tunnel going the other way. There were two sentries between him and the rest of the surviving marines. The suit began to tag each of them with a number as it suggested a priority kill list. There were forty marines in the dark who were about to meet Death.

  Gabriel slowly brought the Han-24 up to his shoulder before lowering it, aware the sentries couldn’t see him yet. The muzzle blast from the rifle would definitely alert them to his location, and there was no way for the Chameleon program to hide that. While it could provide visual distortion with his blade, gunfire was out of the question. Stealth was where the suit excelled, not a stand-up gun fight. No, he would approach this situation differently.

  Along the subway tunnel he could see little alcoves in the shadows, maintenance tunnels which spread out in different directions. Gabriel didn’t have a map of the maintenance tunnels on his cortex, merely an overlay of the existing subway lines and proposed ones. He frowned as he continued to look at the openings in the wall, and an idea began to form. It would take a little bit of luck, which had been in awful short supply lately, but perhaps a little gamble would pay off.

  Moving along the edge of the wall, he slipped inside the first alcove. Inside, he found the expected—stray boards left over from when maintenance couldn’t be bothered to clean up their work space, a tin can that looked like it had once held snuff, and a stray monkey wrench half-buried beneath an oily rag. Grinning, Gabriel picked up the monkey wrench and tested its weight. At almost five pounds, it was one of those wrenches angry mechanics used to beat a non-compliant piece of machinery. Or a supervisor’s head, he thought.

  Checking the angle of the alcove, he realized it was perfect for what he wanted. The wrench would ensure he wouldn’t lose his blade, leaving him completely unarmed, if he missed. While he had the Han-24, he was uncomfortable using it while he still had the element of surprise. The goal was to eliminate as many of the marines as possible before they were aware of his existence.

  First, however, he had the two sentries to deal with. He stepped near the entrance of the alcove and looked at the sentries, who weren’t within sight of the camp they were supposed to be protecting. Poorly trained or simply stupid, Gabriel wasn’t sure. It was to his benefit that they appeared to be one of the two, and it was a situation he’d definitely take advantage of.

  Using all the strength in his suit, he hurled the wrench as hard as he could at the lead sentry’s head. The targeting reticle on his HUD had told him precisely where to throw, and the cortex had “assisted” his aim by guiding his release point. The heavy metal object flew through the air with enough force that, upon impact, the man’s head split open like overripe fruit. The wrench bounced onto a thick layer of dirt with barely a sound, most of it covered by the noise of the sentry falling down.

  His compatriot looked down, confusion etched upon his face. That lasted a second before something small struck him in the temple. A small lug nut, travelling at almost fifty meters per second. Entering the softest part of his skull, it killed him almost immediately.

  Nobody heard a thing, Gabriel realized, as the second body fell next to the first. The sentries were down, and the rest of the camp remained blissfully unaware. It was time for Death to go to work.

  Moving closer, Gabriel stayed in the shadows. In the light, he could have been vaguely noticeable to the naked eye. He was counting on the ruined night vision of the marines around the fire to help him stay invisible for as long as possible. Killing the marines wouldn’t be enough to sate his thirst for revenge, though. He wanted them to be terrified of the dark, fearful of the monster that lurked in the shadows, and remain so until their very last breath.

  Long before, on Ibliss, Gabriel had pushed a Wraith suit to its top speed in an open run, covering the distance between himself
and an armed group of Abassi in less than two seconds. The suit had clocked him at over 80 km/h, which was impressive for a combat suit, and much faster than an un-augmented human being could manage. The Darksuit, which was technologically advanced and featured superior mobility, could almost double that.

  The men and women gathered around the fire didn’t have the slightest worry in the world. They knew, after all, that the sentries would alert them to anyone approaching from the narrow entrance. Nobody could possibly navigate their way from the opposing direction. A few senior NCOs were nervous about the ranking officer’s “wait for rescue” approach on a planet known to be hostile to the occupying forces, but none were willing to say anything for fear of punishment. The marines, while not the Navy, were still very hierarchical within their own structure. Family names meant more than achievements on the field of battle, thanks to the inherent nepotism that had infiltrated the marines decades before. None of them had heard the fall of their sentries, too busy with their own conversations or dreams. It wouldn’t have changed the inevitable, though, merely postponed it.

  When the first marine was dragged, screaming, into the darkness, it shattered their peace and reminded them they were in a warzone. Eighteen men and women were on their feet with their rifles up, pointing outward in all directions, as they struggled to find the source of the danger. The cries for help from their abducted compatriot were abruptly cut off with a gurgling sound.

  Nervous and unfamiliar with the planet, none of the marines knew precisely what they were facing. Everyone knew Belleza Sutil was a fairly cultivated world with few predators and an abundance of eku, which had driven the planet to near-ecological decay before the arrival of humanity and the later colonization attempts. With the wild deer-like creature’s population culled to a more sustainable level, the ecosystem had recovered and flourished once again as humans spread out across the planet.

  The occupiers had heard rumors, though. Unsure whether they were true, they’d scoffed at them. Tales of large creatures, not quite man, but not exactly beast, roaming the unfinished underground tunnels meant for the subways. Rats as big as horses devouring the lost and the damned. Feral packs of wild dogs hunting anything they could eat. They’d believed these stories to be rumors or legends.