Zeus sped up ahead of us. We were adjusting to being back under the pull of the base’s gravity, fine-tuning our suits’ movements.
Armor suddenly slammed into armor when Zeus turned a corner. Zeus staggered back into sight, suddenly lit up by a blast of Conglomerate rifle fire as he battled a raptor. Tentacles writhed and slapped around, and then slowed as they wrapped around the alien.
“I can’t shoot,” Ken said. “I’ll hit them both.”
“Don’t,” Zeus snapped.
Then, slowly and inexorably, Zeus started pulling the raptor apart.
It looked like the armor strained, bending and buckling slightly as he pushed it to the limit of its abilities. And then, with a popping sound, the raptor’s arms came off, the armored surface revealing the flesh inside in an explosion of bodily fluids.
The raptor fell down, writhing.
Zeus kicked it aside with a tentacle, smearing the floor underneath. The useless Conglomerate energy rifle, now bent into a right angle, lay on the floor next to it. Zeus had a long scorch mark running up a tentacle. “That should be it,” Zeus said. “Keep following me.”
As I stepped over the raptor I paused, looking down at it. The reptilian eyes had clouded over, staring up at the ceiling.
I wondered how intelligent it was. Whether the Conglomeration had designed it to never question what it was doing, or if it believed that flying through the dark of space to come to my world had some greater purpose.
What did it think as it lay there dying?
+ + +
In the quiet, empty corridors of one of the unused wings, Zeus led us through reinforced locks and into another weapons locker.
A much wider variety of weapons sat on racks here. Sig Sauer P250 handguns. M20 rifles in various configurations, more MP9s, and sturdy Mossburg shotguns.
Since I’d used the submachine gun already, I went for what I knew. Boris lowered his flashlight, staring like a kid in a candy store. “Look at all the RPGs,” he whispered. “We have some Sierra-272s.”
“GR-50.” Ken moved toward a mean, heavy-looking rifle clearly meant for snipers; it was as long as he was tall. “That’ll put a dent in some raptor armor.”
Zeus clanked to the side where there was a wall of Accordance energy weapons. He picked up a pair of organic matte-black smoothed rifles, similar to the ones we’d trained with, and what looked like battery magazines for them. One of his other tentacles snagged something that looked similar to the Sierra RPG Boris was hugging.
“Okay, Commander,” Ken said. “What about the comms now?”
Zeus jerked forward. “Commander,” the Arvani mused on the common channel. “I hate that human word.”
A tentacle slammed a battery pack into each of the two rifles, while another tentacle slung the longer weapon onto its back.
“I am not a commander, I am not a member of a human fighting force. Your ranks are irrelevant to me. I am Cal Riata, a master of the schooling force. And, you idiot of an ape, there is no self-destruct sequence. You will not be calling anyone for help.”
Zeus raised the pair of rifles at us.
“What?” Ken said, not moving.
“What building has a self-destruct sequence? Has your home ever had one? Have you ever heard of one of your Navy ships having one?”
All of us, lined up in front of him, being yelled at, shifting from foot to foot: I had a strange sense of déjà vu pass through me in a shiver.
Zeus wasn’t done ranting at us. And we all instinctively said nothing. “Or are your military forces genuinely stupid enough to feature an actual sequence that could destroy a fighting asset? That you would believe such a thing existed, that would allow one person to blow up this base, indicates your lesser ability to reason. Now, drop those weapons. Or die standing where you are.”
I hadn’t even gotten a chance to pick one up yet. Everyone else dropped theirs. I stared at Zeus, my stomach feeling like I was falling as my heart raced.
“You’re Conglomerate?” Amira asked. “After all those lectures about how dangerous they are?”
“No. No. I’m Cal Riata,” Zeus said, moving forward to flick the weapons on the ground away from us with a tentacle tip. “Proud Cal Riata. One of the finest of the Arvani, sent all the way to this backward system to do the scutwork that’s beneath my kind. We Cal Riata lead schools of warships. We rain ruin upon our enemies. But I am here, to be overwhelmed fighting the Conglomeration in rear guard action? No. Not me. And not other Cal Riata who have been forced into positions like this. We are not inclined to be on the losing side.”
I had led them into this. I’d decided not to run to the mines. Why had they listened to me? And the others! “Efua,” I said on our arm’s channel quickly. “Efua. Zeus betrayed us. He’s Conglomerate. And he knows about you. Hide, get away. You probably don’t have much time.”
I wanted to throw up in my helmet. This was bad.
“Shit,” Efua said, her voice brittle. “Shit. How long do we have? We’re pretty deep inside here.”
“You’re on the losing side,” Zeus continued. “They didn’t tell you that, but the Accordance has slowly been watching planet after planet fall to the Conglomeration.”
Amira answered Efua. “Not long. There are crickets headed your way. I wish I could tell you more. . . . I’m having trouble sneaking around the network. There’s something actively blocking me. I think the Conglomeration has taken over the local networks and has counterintrusion coming online. And some of it is really good, it’s blocking me out. I’m sorry.”
“So now you kill us?” Ken asked.
“Maybe,” Zeus said. “You survived. That shows some basic innate intelligence and survival instinct. More than I would have suspected from a bunch of air-breathers. So, quit running around underfoot, messing up plans that took many years to carefully craft, and make something of yourselves. Be rulers. The Conglomeration will need humans to help rule. It could be you.”
“And what will you rule?” I asked.
“The Pacific Ocean.” Zeus’s dinner-plate eyes swiveled to lock onto me. “From the turquoise sandy shallows I will frolic in to the true depths that are my right. The depths my ancestors were chased out of by other Arvani a long, long time ago. What do you want? A state? A small country to rule together? This is the moment where you could have it.”
I thought about the acting president, staggering around with his rheumy, alcoholic eyes. “The Conglomeration butchered defenseless recruits,” I said.
“Soldiers die in war. It was going to happen, sooner or later,” Zeus said. “You were never going to all live through this war. Now, I will take you to answer some questions about the rest of your group, and where they are. You will decide what currents to follow from there. Walk forward now. I’ll guide you to where you need to be.”
“He could have killed us by now,” Boris said. “They want something specific out of us.”
“Whatever it is, don’t give it to them,” Ken said. “Maybe they’ll eventually get it out of us, but the longer that takes, the more likely the others get out of the mine.”
“Zeus already knows they’re in the mines around the launcher,” I pointed out. “We told him. There are crickets headed that way. What else could they want? We gave them the information they need.”
We followed our captor in silence for a moment.
“Plans,” Amira said.
“What plans?” Ken asked.
“Zeus said we were upsetting long-laid plans. What plans were there? Plans to take Tranquility and the rest of the moon. They’re not sure if we warned anyone or not.”
I thought about it. “It could be.”
“We might trigger them into attacking earlier,” Amira said. “And we haven’t actually warned anyone yet. And Efua and her . . . team . . . are going to get attacked.”
She’d laid it
all out. We’d really fucked this up.
I’d really fucked it up.
“I’m sorry,” I told the team. If I could have hung my head visibly, I would have.
“Oh, get over yourself,” Amira snapped. “We could have walked away from your plan to come in here and rescue this fucker at any time. It made sense. We rolled with it. You aren’t some tragic leader we followed blindly to our deaths. Our eyes were open. We just got screwed by this asshole.”
Boris clicked over to the common frequency. “So, you think the Conglomeration is better than the Accordance?” He sounded thoughtful.
“By the depths, no,” Zeus said. “The Conglomeration is going to strip your species down to its usable genetic core, and then rebuild you into some tool that serves it best. It’s a horrific thing. I have made the best of it.”
“So the Conglomeration honors agreements?” Boris asked.
“Boris: What are you asking?” Ken snapped.
“What do we know about these invaders?” Boris asked us on the arm’s private channel. “We can be second-class people in the Arvani’s Accordance, or we can be lesser peoples within the Conglomeration. Either way, Earth is ruled by another alien race. Maybe we should hear their offer out. Maybe—”
“We know the Conglomeration kills unarmed recruits,” I said coldly. “The Accordance, for as much as we hate them, at least follows a rule system. They’re conquerors, but they leave us alive and intact once we surrender.”
“We don’t know what the Conglomeration really is, because all we get is what the Accordance told us,” Boris said. “The one thing we do know for sure is that the Accordance is their enemy, and the Accordance rules Earth with a fist.”
“The Accordance lifted billions out of war and poverty,” Ken hissed. “They—”
Boris interrupted, “You say that because your grandfathers and great-grandfathers helped that fist, Ken, and you were handed spoils for helping the victors. They built you entire cities and industries in mere months. You didn’t grow up watching the Thames run red with blood. . . .”
“Yeah, and why did people in my part of the world need those things so desperately that they would work with aliens, Boris?” Ken shouted. “Because your ancestors were not fucking helping us catch up, after they’d gone so far on our very backs, with our resources.”
“Divide and conquer,” I said softly, breaking in with a soft voice. “And maybe the Conglomeration will do it again, and Londoners will get the keys to the new civil administration. The easiest way to keep a population subjugated is to have them angry with each other. Or . . . maybe everything every creature has ever said about the Conglomeration is right. I know the struthiform, Shriek, seemed honest enough. I think, maybe the Conglomeration’s worse.”
A moment’s quiet.
“Maybe,” Boris agreed. “But I think, to be honest, after the Conglomeration gets what it wants, there won’t be a deal. I think we’re dead.”
“I think you’re right,” I said.
We trudged on past the ridges of bulkheads and through corridors.
“We’re going to have to try and run, or fight him,” Ken said. “I refuse to die without fighting.”
I’d been thinking. Trying to imagine how I wanted to die. And I knew I agreed with him. I was terrified. But I wanted to do something. I didn’t want to walk.
But I could see the appeal. Every minute placidly following Zeus meant another minute alive. And the back of my brain wanted life. It saw every minute of continuing life doing this as part of a chain that might mean more life. It was a groove, and I was following it.
How did I want to die? Fighting? Or delaying for every last minute? A placid participant? I wasn’t going to try for glory, because it was likely that no one was ever going to know how I died.
But I didn’t want to die stupidly. If I was going to try one last thing, let it be clever. Let it be . . .
I put out my right hand and let the tips of my armored fingers tap the bulkhead of another door. “Amira?” I tried not to look up. “Amira, we’re passing bulkheads. I know you’re cut out, but can you override them?”
She leaned back slightly, then stopped herself. “Shit,” she said. “This wing wasn’t damaged, so the bulkheads haven’t shut automatically. It’s too dangerous to open myself up while trying to get into the Accordance network to try to trigger them.”
My heart sank. “You can’t even try?”
“There’s something prowling around it, hunting. I don’t know for sure, but I suspect I’ll end up a vegetable if I’m not careful.”
“Fuck.” I clenched a fist. “Is it the ghost? Is that what it is?”
“Maybe. Damn it. There’s something familiar about the presence, like it’s not Accordance, but I’m feeling like if I had time and the situation was different, I could pick apart the code and find something I’ve seen before. I don’t know, maybe the Accordance stole technology from them and I’m seeing resonances there. But, never mind that . . . ,” Amira said thoughtfully. “Maybe I have a way around needing to get into the network.”
“We don’t have many bulkhead doors left before we’re out to the training grounds,” I said.
“Shut up. Just a second. I can’t get in, but maybe I can trick one locally.”
We turned the last bend. The bay doors leading to the training grounds were just a couple hundred feet ahead in the widening corridor.
Amira grunted. “I can shine a laser at the air sensors,” she said. “Convince them that everything went to shit. Drop the door. We have to time it just right. We all have to hang back, just a little, but not so much that Captain Calamari here notices.”
“Any objections?” I asked.
“Do it,” Ken said. We were getting close to another junction where the corridor bisected another. The last bulkhead before the bay doors.
We slowed. Zeus pulled slightly ahead, then stopped and half turned to look back at us. He suddenly threw the bulk of his armored body back across the junction, his tentacles churning against the metal floor.
The five-inch-thick bulkhead pressure door slammed down into the top of his armor, pinning him to the floor. I had expected him to be on the other side and was caught flat-flooted, not sure whether to run or attack.
“Get his guns!” Ken yelled.
We attacked. Four of Zeus’s arms lashed at us, trying to get rifles aimed, while the other four tried to push away from under the door, which had groaned to a halt, lights flashing emergency yellow warning signals. Zeus’s skin reacted inside the tank of water, twitching and changing colors like a strobe light. “You fucking apes!”
Zeus shook us around like limp dolls, smacking us against the lip of the pressure door, then against the floor. I tasted salty blood as my head rattled around inside the helmet, my legs fighting to kick a rifle loose as the world snapped dizzyingly around me, then stopped with bone-jarring crunches. “You will die for this. I will flay your skins and use them as bait.”
When the rifle I’d been kicking at flew across the floor, I continued to hang on, rattling around and trying to hold the tentacle still.
“Got it,” Boris said.
“Me too,” Ken reported with a clatter.
I let go, smacked into the wall, and staggered back. My armor had been scraped and dented, but still worked.
Zeus dug every single tentacle down into the floor, piercing it and sinking in. Then, slowly, started pulling free of the door.
“Shit.”
Amira stepped forward and pointed upward. The pressure door shivered. Smoke drifted from the sides of the walls.
Zeus’s tank cracked. The tentacles froze.
The top of the oval tank splintered, and the door lurched down several more inches, cleaving its way in. Blue water slopped out onto the floor, spilling out of the gashes appearing throughout Zeus’s armor.
“Do it!” Ken shouted.
Zeus’s tentacles started scrabbling again. The back of his armor gurgled, a vomiting sound. Zeus began to frantically pull out of the armor.
The armor gave way in an explosion of fluids, sparks, and screeching. The pressure door slammed into the floor, leaving half a suit and two tentacles in front of us.
We’d been thrown clear of the door by Zeus during the struggle. Boris was the first one to walk forward and lean over the tentacles. “Well, he’s going to be limping; there’s flesh inside that armor.”
“Boris,” Amira said in a strangled voice. “Run!”
“What?” He straightened up. I saw his face through the visor. He looked bemused. We’d just won a victory. We’d come back from the brink. Boris wanted a moment.
A blur struck him, moving with inhuman speed from the corridor on the right. It picked him up with ease, as if it were handling a child.
It was an absence of something. Invisible, bending the light around itself and slipping around.
“Ghost!”
They disappeared down the corridor.
“I knew this would come in handy,” Boris muttered to the rest of us. “Been saving it for a special occasion. Guys, you’d better run.”
“Boris!” I shouted. Amira was picking up one of Zeus’s rifles, seeing if she could get it to work. Ken ran forward.
The corridor exploded, knocking Ken back.
“Boris!” Ken screamed, his voice breaking. I couldn’t understand whatever he said next. It was in a language I didn’t recognize, but a pain in his voice made me shiver. Ken crawled on his hands and knees until I grabbed his ankle.
“We have to run,” I said.
Amira grabbed Ken’s arm and helped me yank him to his feet, even as he strained to pull away from us.
“We need to get weapons we can use, and get the hell out of here,” I said, my voice shaking. “Boris gave us time. Now we need to use it.”
25
We had retrieved weapons. The three of us had loaded up everything we could hang off our armor or carry in silence. I had an MP9 hanging from each shoulder, a handgun, and magazines clipped into pinchers up and down my thighs.
The Darkside War Page 15
