by Ian Douglas
The battle was going to be over, with 1MIEF wiped out of the sky, if someone didn’t come up with something damned fast….
* * * *
RFS Alpha
Aquila Space
1215 hrs GMT
Garroway stood on the bleak and dusty gray surface of the asteroid, looking up. The Marines of the 55th MARS were queued up to board a Brigid-class shuttle, which would ferry them back to the Samar, which was stationed a few thousand kilometers off of the asteroid RFS Alpha, along with other troopships, with the hospital ship Barton, and with other noncombatants like the supply vessels.
The light from the battle at the Stargate had not yet reached the Euler planetoid, but a window open to the platoon channel was showing a scaled-down running commentary, showing lists of the ships engaged, of the damage they were taking, of the orders being issued to them.
It looked like one hell of a fight.
“Jesus,” Corporal Chu said. “We’re losing!”
“When are they going to put us into the fight?” Sergeant Ernesto Delgado wondered.
“I don’t think there’s a hell of a lot we could do if we were there,” Takamura pointed out. “Shit! They just nailed the Osiris!”
Marine training had emphasized the use of SAP capsules to deliver Marines to the interior of large enemy vessels, where they could cause considerable mayhem, up to and including planting nuclear charges deep in the target vessel. That training was based on the experience of multiple encounters with Xul ships, but the most recent of those encounters had still been over five hundred years ago. Would such old tactics even work nowadays? The Xul weren’t supposed to be very innovative, but still, they must do something besides sitting around waiting for another threat species to show up….
Whole starships were being wiped away out there. What chance did individual Marines possess in that hellish combat environment?
“Hey, guys!” Ran Allison called, pointing. “What the hell is that?”
Garroway turned, looking up. That was an oddly shaped vehicle of some sort, dust-gray, like the asteroid’s surface, and looking something like a smoothed and somewhat elongated asteroid itself, an egg shape in clay squeezed and misshapen under a giant’s hand. Garroway’s helmet display gave a readout on the thing—20 meters long, with an estimated mass of 35 tons. It was rising above the asteroid’s horizon.
“That is an Euler spacecraft which has just emerged from a tunnel complex on the other side of this asteroid,” Achilles told him. “Specifically, it is a craft they refer to as a ‘trigger.’ It creates a powerful warp bubble similar to that of a ship under Alcubierre Drive.” There was a hesitation, as though the AI didn’t quite understand, or quite believe the information it was passing along. “If the information I am receiving is accurately translated, the Eulers use devices like this to induce a nova in a star.”
“Jesus, Mary, and Joseph,” PFC Emilio Santiago said.
“What,” Chu said. “They’re going to blow up their star?” He indicated the blue-white beacon of HD387136 hanging low above the asteroid’s impossibly near horizon. “That star?”
“Unknown,” Achilles told them. “The Eulers have suggested using the device to blow up the local sun. General Alexander has refused, however. Too many MIEF vessels operating now do not have FTL capability, and would be caught and destroyed by the blast. We do not yet know if they intend to comply with General Alexander’s wishes.”
“I wonder what the chain of command is where aliens are concerned?” Master Sergeant Barrett wondered aloud.
“Not our business,” Lieutenant Kaia Jones, the platoon CO, said. “Keep in line. Get on board the shuttle.”
But Garroway couldn’t help thinking that it damn well was their business, if the aliens were about to flash them all into cinders in the light of an exploding sun….
* * * *
UCS Hermes
Stargate
Aquila Space
1220 hrs GMT
The battle was going badly. Ten MIEF ships had been destroyed already, and three others were badly damaged. The fighters—Marine squadrons off the Chosin and the Lejeune—were pressing home their attack at point-blank range, and two of the Xul craft, one Type I and one Type II, appeared to be crippled, but the MIEF could not keep sustaining casualties at this rate.
There was a possibility, though. Definitely a long shot, but better than watching the entire MIEF being chewed to pieces. He shifted his attention to the Euler trigger, as Cara called it, which had just emerged from RFS Alpha.
“Admiral Taggart? I suggest that it’s time to go over to the offensive.”
“What the hell are you talking about?” Taggart growled in his mind. “We’re not holding them as it is!”
“Old Marine maxim,” Alexander replied. “When things get desperate, attack. Cara? Connect with the Eulers. See if they can use that trigger against the Xul star, the one on the other side of the Gate.”
There was a pause, maddening as the battle continued to swirl in front of the stargate. The Xul Type I rammed by Judur finally collapsed in upon itself, devoured by the black hole running wild at its core. Nuclear blasts from fighter-launched missiles were savaging two more hunterships…but the much larger Nightmare-class hunter appeared virtually untouched. For several minutes, now, Mars, Chiron, and Ishtar had been concentrating their heavy lasers on the largest Xul vessel, but the damage inflicted so far appeared minimal. The Nightmare had returned fire, however, and Chiron had been badly hurt.
“General?” Cara said. “There is a problem. If I understand the transmission correctly, the Eulers cannot control the nova trigger once it passes through a stargate.”
“Damn…”
“However, Gunnery Sergeant Ramsey is still inside RFS Alpha, and has been monitoring our conversation with the Euler. He says that the nova trigger might take a human pilot…and he has volunteered.”
“Ramsey has been in communication with the Eulers?”
“Yes, sir. He appears to have exchanged a substantial amount of data with them. We are still evaluating most of what he has passed on to us.”
Alexander thought for a moment. “Okay…let’s try that. But I don’t want Ramsey at the controls. I want him brought back safe so the xenosoph people can download everything he’s learned in there. Am I clear?”
“Yes, General.”
Alexander checked the swarming icons around the Euler asteroid. There were a number of Marines in open space, preparing to board a shuttle.
“Ask Ramsey to find out how difficult piloting that thing should be.”
“Gunnery Sergeant Ramsey says he has already discussed this with his…hosts. He says a simple program could be downloaded to a Marine’s implant hardware that would give him full control of the trigger.”
“Let me ask this. This…trigger makes a star explode. Does the trigger get destroyed too?”
“That is unclear, General. The trigger is, in effect, a small starship under Alcubierre Drive. The warp bubble triggers the nova. The ship might be safe inside that bubble but…there are numerous unknowns.”
Unknowns? About diving a tiny one-man ship into a star? Imagine that.
“Okay. Cara, put out a request for volunteers among the 55th MARS Marines still on the asteroid.”
“Yes, General.”
“And Admiral Taggart? Start rounding up your ships. We’re taking 1MIEF through that Gate!”
* * * *
RFS Alpha
Aquila Space
1234 hrs GMT
In the last few moments, the light from the battle had reached the Euler planetoid. There wasn’t much to see…a delicate twinkling against the stars, but Garrison knew that each momentary pinpoint of light was another nuclear detonation, or a dying ship.
And then the request for volunteers came through.
“They want a volunteer to do what?” Master Sergeant Barrett said.
“Someone to pilot the alien ship,” Lieutenant Jones said. “That volunteer will steer t
he ship through the Gate, then engage the Alcubierre Drive and take it through the star on the other side. That should trigger the star into going nova.”
“Yeah, Lieutenant, but what’s the point?” Delaslo said. “How does that help us?”
“The MIEF is preparing to break through the Gate, through to Starwall Space. That’s eighteen thousand light-years away from here, in toward the galactic core. When they do so, the Xul ships should follow them. On the other side, the flight of the Euler trigger ship will be carefully timed, so that our fleet can withdraw just before the wave-front from the exploding star reaches them.”
Several people started talking at once. Garroway thought for a second, then thought-clicked a signal, the electronic equivalent of raising his hand. “Lieutenant?”
“What is it, Garroway?”
“I volunteer, sir.”
“I volunteer, sir,” Sergeant Chu said, an instant behind Garroway.
“No, I do,” Shari Colver said. “I volunteer!” And then everyone was clamoring for attention.
“Silence!” Jones rasped. “As you were, all of you! Private Garroway…you know this could be a one-way flight?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Why do you want to do it?”
He was wondering that himself. Part of him was still in shock after Sandre’s abrupt death, and he knew that when the shock wore off the grieving would begin. He wasn’t looking forward to that.
But was grief enough for him to risk suicide?
He didn’t think that was the reason…not all of it, anyway.
But he did know that if nothing was done, every Marine in the MIEF would be killed when the Xul finally overwhelmed the hard-pressed fleet, him included.
And these Marines were his family, his new family. He couldn’t let one of them go instead.
“Sir,” he said carefully. He wasn’t going to mention Sandre; somehow he knew that that would get him turned down for sure. “Marines go back a long way in my family. Ever hear of ‘Sands of Mars’ Garroway?”
“You’re related to him?”
“Yes, sir. And a few others, Marines who fought the Xul later on. It’s only fair that I finish what they started, right?”
“That,” Jones told him, “is a load of crap. But I don’t have time to argue. Report to Master Sergeant Barrett for a download. You’ve got about three minutes to learn how to pilot an alien starship!”
“Aye, aye, sir!”
He was jubilant as he sought out the master sergeant. There were some wild stories about Garroway Marines…like the one about Sands of Mars Garroway capturing a detachment of French soldiers at Cydonia by dropping aluminum cans of contraband beer on them from a small cargo hopper. In the all-but-vacuum thinness of the Martian atmosphere as it was back then, long before the planet’s terraforming had begun, the falling beer cans had exploded like tiny bombs, coating French optics and suit visors with a sticky, boiling, freezing mess that convinced them they were under attack by weaponry far more deadly than beer.
And now he was about to dive a starship into a sun eighteen thousand light-years away…a fitting way, he thought, to continue the family saga.
Besides, then he wouldn’t have to think about Sandre.
25
1012.1102
RFS Alpha
Cygni Space
1244 hrs GMT
The side of the Euler ship cycled open as Garroway and the other Marines approached it, and one of the gray crab-creatures scrambled out, all jointed legs and weaving antennae.
Now that he wasn’t trying to kill one, Garroway was able to get an interested close-up look. The creature—what had they called it? The Manipulator was naked to space except for black strips of some obviously artificial material running around each side of the thing’s flat, round body—devices, he gathered, for circulating water and chemicals through its respiratory system. What he’d at first taken for a swollen part of the creature’s carapace, on closer inspection proved to be a kind of strap-on backpack, presumably its life-support system.
“So why doesn’t that thing fly the ship?” Chu wanted to know. “Why does Garry have to go?”
“The word is that the Manipulators don’t think all that well on their own,” Barrett replied. “By themselves, they’re maybe as smart as, I don’t know, a smart dog? They have to be linked with one of the Eulers to, ah, reach their full potential. And the Eulers say they can’t maintain that link through the Gate.”
“They don’t have QCC?” Colver said. “Hey, maybe their science isn’t as hot as everyone’s been saying.”
“Technology doesn’t necessarily go in a straight line,” Garroway said. As the moment approached, he was trying not to think about it, and he welcomed the chance to talk about something else. “We only figured out FTL communication after studying the hardware left on Mars by the Builders, and even that took us a few centuries before we could pull it off, right?”
The Euler ship was resting on the asteroid’s surface, now, the entrance a wide, very flat strip open in the hull. Garroway leaned over and looked in.
“Shit,” he said. The ship had not been designed with humans in mind.
For a moment, Garroway wasn’t sure he was going to be able to do it. The cockpit, if that’s what you could call it, was less than a meter tall, high enough to accommodate a Manipulator with its life-support backpack, but it was going to be a very tight squeeze for a human in combat armor.
“You sure you want to go through with this, Marine?” Barrett asked.
“Yes, Master Sergeant.” There was no backing out now. “Maybe you guys can pick me up and kind of feed me in there?”
“Okay, Marines. All together….”
Manhandling Garroway into a prone position and sliding him forward into the flat opening required finesse but not a lot of strength, not in RFS Alpha’s weak gravitational field. Garroway weighed only a few hundred grams, here, though he and his 660-armor together still massed almost 200 kilos. He’d already unshipped his weapons, equipment pouches, backpack, and everything else he could unhook and discard.
Once, as a teenager, he’d gone caving with some friends in Arkansas—the real thing, not a remote sim. Sliding forward on his belly through the mud, squeezing absolutely flat between the painfully narrow gap between floor and ceiling, and always the chittering fear in the back of his mind that he was about to find himself stuck, unable to move forward or back—this experience was like that. The inside of the cockpit was not smooth, but folded into wrinkles and swellings and depressions above and below, as though designed to mold to the actual carapace of a Manipulator.
But as the others pushed him forward, he felt the surfaces above and below relax, slightly, almost as though the ship itself were alive, adapting itself to this alien shape.
“Okay, Garroway,” Barrett told him. “You’re all the way in. Check your software.”
Closing his eyes, he thought-clicked on a mental icon, a new icon downloaded into his implant hardware only a few moments ago. He felt a small, inner thrill as current flowed, and a display swam into view against his mental landscape.
He hadn’t had time to practice with it yet, but the advantage, the whole point of downloaded training was that you didn’t need to practice to create and reinforce new synaptic links. The links were there…though you often needed to practice just to get the feel of the new skill.
That sort of thing had been honed by the Marines through almost seven centuries of work with cerebral implant technology. Some of the skills required of Marines—firing a forearm-mounted pulse rifle while moving, for example, or kicking off with your 660’s jump jets and skimming across a hundred meters of open ground in a single bound—those were not natural acts. Without download training, they would require months of intensive training and practice; instead, the skill set was downloaded in a few seconds, and the recruit spent a day or so practicing with it, getting it nailed down solid.
So he knew what mental buttons to push. He just wished he could have
some time with a hammer to be sure the knowledge was in good and tight.
“Okay, Garroway,” Barrett’s voice said in his mind. “How’s it feel?”
“Okay, Master Sergeant. Not much room in here.” He wiggled a bit. “I think the space is closing around my suit.”
“Yeah. The word is the ship is alive.” He chuckled. “Your call sign is Jonah.”
“Does that mean something?”
“Swallowed by a big fish?”
The reference meant nothing. “Sorry….”
“Never mind. Old Judeo-Christian religious reference. The hatch is closing.”
He couldn’t move his helmet to see, but he was aware of a new and deeper darkness. He let his AI connect with the alien vessel’s external sensors, and was enveloped in a sim of surrounding space. He could see stars, and the gray, pocked terrain of the planetoid beneath him.
“You still hear me okay?”
“Yeah, Master Sergeant.”
“Okay, son. I’m passing you over to the lieutenant. She’s in direct link with Hermes Ops.”
“Hello, Garroway,” Jones’ voice said. “How is it in there?”
“Snug, sir.”
“Okay. Just sit tight. We’re waiting for the right tactical moment before you get the go, okay?”
“Aye, aye, sir.”
Sit tight. Well, lie tight. There wasn’t a lot else he could do right now.
Curious, he did pull down an e-pedia entry on “Jonah.” Garroway was, at least nominally, neopagan, and had never read the Old Testament, or the story of the Biblical prophet swallowed by a “great fish.” The story wasn’t exactly comforting, or particularly appropriate. The prophet Jonah, as near as he could tell, had been swallowed by the fish because he’d been disobedient to God.
He wasn’t being disobedient. Quite the contrary. He was allowing the bioengineered fish to swallow him out of what he perceived as his duty to his brother and sister Marines.
The tightly enclosed space grumbled and fluttered around him, settling into an even tighter embrace. He ignored the claustrophobic sensations—he’d not felt those since that one, abortive time in that cave ten years ago—and instead opened a tacsit feed.
