Syndicate Wars: First Strike (Seppukarian Book 1)

by Kyle Noe

  But there was none of that for her and the others.

  For an instant she wondered whether they had all died and gone to hell.

  Quinn had never been a particularly spiritual person, but she did believe in God.

  Was it so inconceivable that the Marines had perished back down on Earth and been sucked up or cast down into some sort of galactic purgatory? Or was that thought the result of whatever drugs had been injected into her by the asshole in the white smock?

  Her mind teemed with other thoughts and possibilities and her nerves suddenly seemed to reawaken. She hadn’t perished, not yet. She might be held captive against her will, that was certainly likely, but she was still very much alive. And if she was alive, there had to be a reason, and a reason meant another day, another day that could be spent watching and waiting and looking for a way out.

  They might have broken her, gotten her to submit, but Quinn knew that she would still never give in to whatever they wanted. No matter how much damage and torture they inflicted.

  The doors to the room slid open, and a phalanx of Syndicate guards appeared.

  Quinn and the other Marines were marched down a long, twisting corridor that seemed to be without end. They strode by open loading bays and other corridors teeming with Syndicate warriors readying weapons and munitions to be ferried to the conflict that apparently was still raging below.

  They trekked across ramps where drones were being prepped and repaired and down landings where the bodies of dead Syndicate soldiers were being stacked like cords of wood. Quinn half expected to smell the odor of death, but the entire space was devoid of any scents.

  The momentary burst of adrenaline that Quinn had experienced only moments before began to ebb, and the pain from the day’s events overtook her. Quinn’s entire body ached, and there was an intense throbbing at her neck and the small of her back. She had the sneaking suspicion that the aliens had implanted something into her when she was given the tattoo.

  The corridor ahead emptied into an expansive room that resembled a captain’s berth on a submarine. Some of the other prisoners were there, including the alien who called himself Larry. Larry noticed the Marines and shuffled over as Renner turned up his nose at the music that was warbling from what looked like a speaker on the wall. The music was a tinny meld of amateurish electronica and the wailing of what might have been an opera singer.

  Larry pointed to the speaker.

  “That music is exceedingly popular in my part of the galaxy.”

  Renner stared at the speaker and then punched it as hard as he could, obliterating the speaker.

  “That ain’t fucking music, pal.”

  Larry stared at the broken speaker.

  “That song was a favorite of the Potentate.”

  “The Potent-what?”

  Larry gestured, and Renner and the others looked to a raised dais in the center of the room. Behind the dais was a wall, upon which was an image of an enormous snake devouring itself. Standing in front of the image was a tall figure in red armor, whose face was hidden behind a polished battle helmet.

  The Marines drew up on the figure, and now Quinn could see that it was a man (or at least, she believed it to be a man) who seemed to grow taller the closer she got. A faint pain flared in her anklet, causing Quinn to come to an unwanted stop.

  The figure’s visor shifted back and forth between a reddish and black color. If the figure had eyes, they were impossible to see.

  The Marines shared looks. Everyone wanted to say something, but they were all too terrified to speak up. Sensing this, Hayden decided to throw caution to the wind. He raised an accusatory finger in the direction of the tall figure.

  “You the man in charge?” he asked.

  “That is likely the first thing you’ve gotten right today, Sergeant,” a female voice said from behind.

  Quinn and the others looked back to see a regal black woman emerge out of a side entrance. She looked to be in her early thirties, and stood well over six feet tall. Sensual in her stride toward them, she was wrapped in a figure-hugging singlet that showed off the muscled contours of her body.

  Her profile came fully into view, and Quinn marveled at the woman’s good looks, a combination of delicate femininity mixed with angular chiseled features.

  “Marines, my name is Marin,” the mysterious woman said.

  “Hi, Marin!” Renner said, loudly, a vulpine grin on his face.

  Quinn elbowed Renner as Marin pointed at the figure on the dais.

  “And that is the illustrious Potentate Benno,” Marin said. “I recommend you bend to one knee.”

  Quinn noticed the way the Syndicate soldiers ringing the room dipped their head in a sign of respect at the mere mention of the Potentate’s name.

  “You’re one of us?” Milo asked.

  “Take a knee please,” Marin repeated.

  The Marines looked to Hayden. He nodded and they kneeled.

  “Very good,” Marin said. “I am originally from Earth, yes.”

  “And how is it, may I ask, that you find yourself here?” Hayden asked.

  “That is of little consequence, Sergeant. All that matters is that I’ve been selected by the Potentate as his primary envoy.”

  “No offense lady,” Hayden said. “But what in the holy hell are you envoying?”

  She smiled at this, her white teeth flashing like tiny tombstones.

  “I’m a liaison between the Syndicate and biddable humans.”

  “She means traitors,” Renner said.

  Some of the other Marines snickered at this.

  “That true?” Quinn asked.

  Marin held Quinn’s gaze.

  “Your name is Quinn isn’t it?”

  “How’d you know?”

  “I know everything there is to know about you.”

  “How about right now? Do you know what I’m thinking? Cause it mostly involves me beating you down like a friggin’ piñata.”

  Quinn tried to chortle at her trash talk, but the dire situation and the overwhelming heaviness of their submission kept any emotion even resembling levity from making its way to the surface.

  “I know, for instance, that you don’t believe in acronyms and florid talk, because words can be manipulated and weaponized by those with honeyed tongues. Those are your words,” Marin continued.

  Quinn’s gut seized. She remembered uttering that once in college, but how the hell did Marin know that?

  “I know you once said language is bullshit, because it can make lies sound truthful and murder respectable and give an appearance of solidity to pure wind,” Marin added. “You probably don’t even know that this very thought and sentiment originated with a Polish philosopher, Alfred Tarski, a stalwart and legend throughout the galaxy for his renowned argument that language fails to communicate accurately, because no word in any language can truly communicate the meaning of a thing, experience, or person. And Stanislaw Lem, a science fiction writer from Earth, who concluded correctly, as you will all see soon enough, that the naturally occurring differences in intelligence between different alien life would result in an impossibility of communication.”

  “You said all that, Quinn?” Renner asked.

  “Not the last part,” Quinn said, and grimaced.

  Marin smiled, her eyes boring right through Quinn.

  “I mention that only because my appellation, the word you might use to describe my position, is again, of no great importance. What matters is that the battle has been lost by your side and now we find ourselves together. Standing in the shadow of the victorious Syndicate.”

  “Then how come there’s still fighting going on?” Hayden asked.

  “How do you know that?” Marin asked.

  “Because I can smell combat, lady,” Hayden replied.

  “He’s right,” a booming, electronically altered voice said.

  Everyone looked up to where the Potentate stood, peering down at them.

  “The violence does continue,” the Pote
ntate said, “because there are pockets of resistance that don’t yet know they’ve been defeated.”

  Marin spun and moved toward the Potentate. To Quinn, Marin looked surprised that Potentate Benno felt the need to bother speaking to them at all. It was almost as if his presence was simply meant to intimidate the Marines. Quinn watched as the two assembled silently on the dais. After several seconds of silence, Marin turned and conjured up a smile. She was about to address the Marines again, but Quinn interrupted.

  “Why have we been kidnapped?”

  Another forced, yet elegant smile from Marin. “Who said you were?”

  “We’re all here against our will,” Quinn replied.

  “Because you took up arms against the Syndicate,” Marin replied.

  “You invaded our world!” Milo shouted.

  “And you resisted,” Marin said. “You are enemy combatants now. Prisoners of war.”

  “I, for one,” Renner said, “would like to see a copy of the Geneva Convention.”

  Marin’s smile wilted.

  “The Potentate, in his benevolence,” Marin said, “has ascertained that men and women like you, warriors, have value. And that the most effective way of ending the final spasms of violence on Earth is to use your skills to bring the conflict to an end. In other words, the Syndicate wishes to harness your special abilities to police the peace.”

  “Told you,” Renner said. “They want ‘em some fucking traitors.”

  Before his last word was out, Renner dropped to the ground, screaming, his leg twitching from the pain being delivered by the anklet. He screamed for three seconds, and then fell silent, moaning.

  “That was unfortunate,” Marin said. “But it doesn’t alter the fact that what we’re doing here is presenting a wonderful opportunity to all of you.”

  “And what do we get in return?” Quinn asked.

  “You get to live,” the Potentate said, his auto-tuned voice booming off the walls and ceiling. He took a step forward and gestured at everyone.

  “While we acted preemptively, we never sought war to meet our ends,” he said, even as the Marines whispered under their breath. “But violence and ignorance on the part of humans is inevitable. You were destroying your own world and destined to unlock the secrets by which you could threaten others. We have acted with measured response and with vision. When confronted, we had no choice but to respond in kind. And now, all that we have won must be preserved by way of men and women like you. You will form a new force that will preserve the peace.”

  “At the end of a gun,” Hayden muttered.

  The Potentate turned to Hayden. The lack of a visible face or eyes made the gesture all the more intimidating.

  “When every heart is filled with peace and every mind is searching for peace, how can there be war?”

  Hayden looked like he desperately wanted to respond, but thought better of it.

  “What happens if we say no?” Quinn asked, after several awkward seconds of silence.

  “That would be most unfortunate,” the Potentate said.

  Quinn and the others traded nervous looks. They were outgunned and outnumbered and out of options. Reluctantly, Quinn nodded, as did the other Marines. There was a buzzing sound, and everyone’s anklets dropped to the metal floor.

  But though they were ostensibly free, they all realized they had no freedom of choice.

  Chapter Thirteen: Giovanni’s Doubt

  Giovanni had been ordered into one of the huts and kept under confinement while Luke and Calee and some of the other elders of the group discussed what to do with him.

  He stared through gaps in the hut’s walls, watching handfuls of men and women outside carrying supplies and gear. This was it, he thought to himself. These people were quite literally leftovers, the only people who might be able to resist the Syndicate, and in his estimation, not more than a handful of them would’ve made it a week in the Corps.

  They had no idea what they were really up against and how ill prepared they’d be. He cursed and cracked his knuckles, suppressing the overwhelming urge to bolt into the jungle.

  “So we voted on it,” a voice said.

  Giovanni peered up to see Luke. “Am I to be executed, or do I get to join the team? Not sure which is worse at this point.”

  Luke shook his head and grinned.

  “Here’s the deal... if you tell anyone about what we’re going to show you, Calee is gonna end you.”

  Giovanni looked around at the jungle.

  “Who the hell would I tell?”

  It took forty minutes of heavy bushwhacking before Calee and Luke showed Giovanni their secret. He wasn’t completely surprised. He’d seen the way the canopy had been ripped apart and the ground furrowed, as if something had dropped from the skies and plowed into the jungle before crashing to a stop.

  Still, his eyes peeled back in amazement as Giovanni ran forward down the jungle footpath, grabbed a rope and pulled. The rope led to an enormous section of camouflaged webbing that had been covered in leaves and jungle debris. The webbing pulled free to reveal a nearly completely intact C-17 military cargo plane.

  “Christ,” Giovanni said, stopping to take it all in.

  Luke shared a smile with Calee.

  “Where the hell did you get it?” Giovanni asked.

  “Calee stole the fucking thing.” Luke replied.

  Calee nodded. “I was in the Air Force.”

  Giovanni nodded, impressed. “Pilot?”

  She grinned slyly. “Let’s just say I knew enough to get it into the air.”

  “Landing it was another story,” Luke said, with a laugh.

  Giovanni could see that the plane had executed a crash landing that ripped off the landing gear and a good portion of the plane’s undercarriage.

  “At least we made it in one piece,” Calee said.

  “Pieces,” Luke said, scanning the ruined sections of the plane’s belly.

  “I meant us ...”

  Luke interjected. “I know what you meant. It’s not funny. We have little, but if our plans pan out, we could use what we have with pinpoint precision and strike back. No more mistakes. We can’t afford even the smallest loss.”

  Calee lowered her head. The trio moved forward and studied the one-hundred-and-seventy-foot plane, the craft’s four gigantic reversible-thrust engines, and the cargo bay door, which was open.

  “This thing is a beast,” Calee said. “Its max takeoff weight is almost six hundred thousand pounds and it’s got a payload capacity of nearly one hundred and seventy-one thousand pounds.”

  “What’s she got inside?”

  “That’s the best part,” Luke replied.

  Luke snapped on a chemlight and motioned for Giovanni to follow him around the aft of the plane. He held up the light so that Giovanni could peer into the open bay door.

  Shapes started to take form as Giovanni crouch-walked over a metal ramp, Luke behind him. Ten more paces and he could see that the plane was indeed full. Full of every conceivable weapon known to man.

  Giovanni’s eyes took in the crates brimming with Hafnium launchers and all manner of rockets and missiles and grenades and small arms. He even thought he saw, in a metal tube emblazoned with radiation stickers, what might be a cluster of tactical nuclear devices.

  “My God,” Giovanni whispered.

  “It’s like Santa’s workshop by way of Delta Force,” Luke said.

  Calee caught up to them from behind and stared with pride at her stolen loot, toned arms folded across her chest. “So now you know our secret.”

  “You sure as shit have a hammer,” Giovanni replied.

  “Now all we need is someone to show us how to use it,” Luke offered.

  Giovanni smiled—it was beginning to look like he had found a purpose here after all.

  ***

  That night, Giovanni hunkered down at the back of one of the wooden shacks, listening to the sounds of creatures that only came out at night. He was utterly exhausted after the day�
��s battles and revelations and fought for sleep, but it wouldn’t come easy. He wondered what had happened to Milo, Quinn, and the others.

  He wondered how long it would be before the whole planet had surrendered, military, government, militia, and civilians alike. He wondered about Luke and Calee and the resistance.

  How silly it was to even contemplate fighting back against an enemy as advanced as the Syndicate, but what else did they have? He remembered something that Quinn once said, that people who’ve got nothing, have nothing left to lose. Despite how simple the sentiment was, at that moment, Giovanni thought that his friend’s words were about the truest thing he’d ever heard in his whole life.

  ***

  Giovanni woke in the hours before dawn and walked outside, into the jungle and the light blue haze of the early morning. A crisp breeze caused him to shiver and wrap his arms around his torso. He was just about to consider turning back, when he noticed something ahead.

  A form stood at the edge of the clearing, staring up into the sky. As he approached, he recognized the large arms and perfect hair of Luke.

  “Trouble sleeping?” Luke asked.

  Giovanni nodded. “Strange bed and all.”

  Luke smirked and looked back to the sky. He pointed, and Giovanni could see, backlit against the sky, little splotches of what appeared to be fire, almost too numerous to count.

  “That’s the vapor contrail from the end of the Syndicate ships. They came, they took, and now they’re doing something that makes altogether no sense.” Luke sighed. “There’s so goddamn many.”

  “Just means there are more targets for us,” Giovanni said.

  “So you’ve bought in, then?”

  “To what? Your little outpost?” Giovanni asked.

  Luke nodded.

  “I guess it depends on who’s in charge,” Giovanni said.

  Luke smirked. “Calee likes to think she is.”

  “And you?” Giovanni asked, looking into Luke's eyes for any sign of what he truly thought of Calee.

  “I know enough to realize we need a leader with… what’s the word?”

  “Operations experience.”

  Luke snapped his fingers. “That’s the one.”

  Giovanni registered this. “I don’t know if I’m much of a leader, but I’ll teach you all that I know.”