With Our Dying Breath

by Unknown

"Very good. Breen," Oswald zoomed in the flight plan and highlighted to departure points. "I want the nav sat sent here and the sensor drone here."

  "Roger, Colonel."

  Oswald sat back and watched in satisfaction as Roland's children hopped to and the numbers changed to match his instructions. Earth Force planners often debated if crew were even needed; Roland would be long dead if not for hers. Burn the bean counters—they're haggling and wrangling and twisting and book cooking hadn't helped Earth in the end.

  Everyone felt the push as Roland nosed over to point the tail earthward for landing. A final glance at the telemetry for all the deployed hardware—done partly to shed mass to save deltaV for the liftoff—showed that everything was still where it was supposed to be.

  Roland began to shake violently and the tell-tale roar of atmospheric screamed through Oswald's helmet. He watched the temperature displays nervously as sudden flash backs to catastrophic reentry into Sol flooded his mind. Oswald's back injury flared and he let out a strangled cry as they hit the very dense cold air near the surface. All systems still showed nominal, but this was a first for them all. The booster fired at full, adding to the violence and volume of the landing. The minutes passed and pressure on Oswald's back and bladder grew uncomfortable.

  "Colonel," Norris yelled through chattering teeth, "One minute until touchdown!"

  Oswald could hear the roar begin to die down, the shaking begin to gentle.

  "Thirty seconds... touchdown in ten..."

  Oswald gripped the edges of his console; he hoped Roland's frame was up to the deed. A final, thunderous jolt rang through the rocket and all was suddenly calm.

  "Touchdown," Norris squealed. "Landing stabilizers holding."

  "Flight, Aux. That was a wonderful job, Norris."

  "Yes," added Mathesse. "I was sure you'd bury our tail two stories down!"

  "Secure that chatter!" Oswald shouted. "We have company."

  Chapter 28 The landing cameras showed a squad of ten Centauri wearing sealed combat suit milling around two armored vehicles. Two stubby turrets pointed up at Roland but Oswald couldn't tell if they were directed energy or projectile weapons from the angle of the camera.

  "Oh, geez," Breen whined. "They already got us." Oswald set his display to show the cargo bay. "Rocketman, online." The robot unfolded from behind some packing crates gathered from the lunar base. It stepped out into the center of the cargo bay and froze, looking strangely insectile from the viewing angle. It reminded Oswald of a praying mantis and he hoped it would be able bite some heads off for him.

  "Rocketman, lock and load." The robot grabbed two of the remaining laser cannons left behind by the dead Rangers. While standing on one leg, the other leg fitted the lasers to its two arms and then secured the power packs to its thin midsection. "Rocketman, activate video feed."

  A view from the robot's sensor cluster opened in Oswald's screen, showing its view of the cargo area through a wide-angled lens designed to give an operator a good, if distorted, peripheral view. Oswald set the simple control scheme to semi-autonomous engagement mode.

  "Mathesse, Trese, and Stungart, get to the airlock with side arms. Make ready to secure the hatches." Oswald knew that if Roland were boarded, they were all dead. He'd just have to throw McFarran out there to beg for leniency.

  "Arggh!" Mathesse growled. "I've always wanted to repel boarders, Skipper. Even when I was a little boy." Oswald could hear them struggle down the main passage ladder in the heavy vacc-suits.

  "Relor, sweep the laser from one tank to the other. We need to get rid of those things first. Fire as soon as I open the cargo hatch." Oswald didn't have the intel needed to plan such a sortie. They knew there were at least twenty humans, but that was just information, not useable intelligence. So he decided to go old school with a Viking-like smash and grab. They needed to land fast to try to avoid any planetside weaponry; that and the Roland's laser was about the only heavy weapon they had, except for maybe Rocketman. But he wasn't very familiar with the capabilities of the robots or the Ranger's laser cannons and Roland's database didn't have anything useful in them.

  "Roger, Command." Roland's far side, the side with the ruined laser, was still clear. The Centauri troops were not moving aggressively and hadn't even taken any appreciable cover. It was another hint that Oswald was indeed in the far future, a future where the Centauri forefathers had wiped out the only true enemy they'd ever known. He had read papers on how the behavior of animals in the wild changed when their main predators were removed. He was hoping that they were as soft as they looked as he dropped open the cargo hatch. Two of the soldiers pointed up as Roland's turret revealed itself.

  Fire erupted from the top of the first tank and ran in a straight line to the next tank, shooting up clouds of superheated plasma and the remains of the three Centauri that stood between them. The second tank sparked and flared but looked otherwise intact. Oswald felt a spike of panic, expecting any second for it to return fire. But it suddenly collapsed in on itself.

  He tried watching Rocketman's video feed but found it nauseating. The ground cameras provided a calmer view of the action and Oswald decided to only use the robot view if he needed to issue orders to the tinny.

  He sincerely hoped the Centauri didn't have their own tinnies available. Rocketman raced along the barren ground, jumping and rolling while firing the laser cannons at two different targets at once. Three Centauri had been burned open before they even noticed the charging war-bot.

  Two more suits burst open in gouts of flame from behind, caught staring at the burning tanks behind them. The final two Centauri troopers, the two who had actually given a half-hearted attempt at spreading out, fired back and jumped for cover.

  One of Rocketman's lasers flew into pieces and was immediately discarded. The other laser returned fire and another Centauri was down. The final enemy trooper had found a stout rock and was returning fire with an automatic rifle.

  Rocketman changed course and scrambled behind the flaming ruins of a tank, bullets sparking off the wreckage and robot alike. As Rocketman bolted from behind cover to seek the enemy out, the Centauri rode a geyser of plasma into the air. The body landed heavily on the ground, limbs smoking and twisted from Roland's laser blast.

  There were no more Centauri troops in the area, but Oswald could make out several running about inside the clear shell of the alien dome. The tail cameras were not the best, being somewhat grainy with large blind spots from the fins turned landing gear.

  "Rocketman, patrol. Do not engage unless engaged." Oswald unbuckled from his couch and clambered clumsily down the ladder. He took a laser pistol from the small armory. The lasers were difficult to operate accurately with the armored gloves of the vacc-suits. So some forward thinking engineer had rigged it up where the pistol could be attached to the suit's forearm and the reflex sight fed to the helmet's display. The power pack, with retractable cord, latched securely to the upper arm.

  The three other crew stood just outside the cargo bay, watching Oswald secure his laser and stomp over to them. The Earth gravity pulled on them all, their space legs stumbling as they were forced to adapt to the change too quickly.

  "We're not spinning," Oswald grunted. "So we and our suits weigh a bit extra. Hadn't thought about that." Just one more thing he hadn't thought of. "We want some answers, so let's not kill anyone else if we can avoid it.

  "Aux, we’re going out. Keep an eye out for anyone else, open fire on anything with weapons."

  "Sir—"

  Oswald would normally have sent the Aux out first for such an EVA,

  as the flight commander's place was in the cockpit. He hated to admit that he didn't trust Hashi to be willing to kill Centauri if he was looking for a reprieve or mercy from their courts. Oswald felt terrible about those doubts; the man had fought beside him bravely for several missions. There had never been a time in their friendship that Oswald doubted the man's willingness and ability to do whatever needed to be done. But things were dif
ferent. And Oswald knew Hashi was different because he knew that he himself had changed.

  "Go!" Oswald jumped down the cargo hatch followed by the others. They landed hard; Oswald felt bolt of pain run up his legs and into his back. Trese fell and needed help to get back to his feet.

  "Burn me," Mathesse panted.

  "Rocketman, protect us." The robot immediately galloped at incredible speeds from where it had been patrolling and assumed a security position off to the crew's right flank. The cargo hatch sealed behind them.

  They trudged towards the dome, lasers sweeping in all directions. The freezing air began to leave traces of frost along the edges of their visors. The labored breathing fought to fog up the inside, small clouds of condensation on the glass indicating the suits environmental system was struggling to keep up.

  Oswald was panting heavily when he made it to the dome's airlock. Three Centauri glared at him from within. Oswald pointed to the outer door and parted his hands to indicate opening. They gestured and mouthed alien words back at him.

  "Relor, when I point to my left," Oswald twisted to look over his shoulder to make sure the Roland's laser had a line of sight, "I want a nice short blast over there. Something to impress the natives but not melt my face."

  "Definitely don't melt my face," Mathesse wheezed. "I'm too pretty to die in a suit like this."

  Oswald motioned again for them to open the airlock. They answered this time with a finger gesture that needed no translation.

  "I'll be," Mathesse said grinning. "It really is the universal signal for—"

  "Shut up!" Oswald held up a fist and slowly raised his index finger. Then he raised the next and the next. As he raised his pinky finger the man closest to the door grabbed his crotch and pointed at Oswald. Oswald held out his thumb, cocked his head and waited for a second. The man inside crossed his arms defiantly and glared.

  The spout of flame that exploded at Oswald's behest got the desired effect. When Oswald pointed to the door and started counting on his fingers again, the man immediately reached out and hit the door control. The airlock was large enough for all four crew and the Rocketman.

  When the inner door sealed behind them, Oswald had his team spread out. A crowd of nearly twenty Centauri had gathered now, their clothes a mix of loose fitting robes and heavier looking utility jump suits. Fear and anger could be read on the mix of these alien, human faces.

  It struck Oswald suddenly that he'd never seen his hated enemy face-to-face. They were diverse in structure and feature but each person had light olive skin with brown eyes and dark hair. He had fought an entire war looking only at blips on tracking screens and priority markers on tactical maps. Oswald wondered at the senselessness of it all, wondered if any of them liked Delamain. Too late now.

  He was about to order them to all against the wall when he realized he had no external speakers on his vacc-suit to hear or speak. They weren't needed in space, you either used the radio or you touched someone else's suit visor to visor and shouted. Oswald was about to open his visor when two Centauri sprang from a darkened room wielding what looked like large jack-hammers low at their hips. They disgorged a series of thick metal rods, each shot almost knocking the shooters over.

  The spikes flew between and around Rocketman's skinny frame, missing the robot where it would have struck a man. Stungart crashed back against the inner airlock door, two spikes protruding from his chest and back. Rocketman returned fire, killing one of the men. The other dropped the spent tool and dove for cover.

  "Look out!" Mathesse yelled too late, jumping behind some furniture. Oswald tried to do the same but his back screamed and wrenched tight, throwing him to the floor. He didn’t even try to get up, he just started aiming with the laser's video feed at the Centauri running towards him and firing. At first he tried firing at the ones he saw charging at him with what looked like pickaxes but then just started firing at whomever would stay in his sights long enough to hit. Oswald still didn't try to get up, he was too tired and his back was still painfully clenched. The visor displayed a writhing mob as he pulled the trigger over and over.

  Two men fell clutching their wounds. Oswald saw a young woman's face vaporize into a bloody mess. Somewhere in the background Dr. Hines was screaming over the headset about someone's vitals going critical.

  Then the rest were on him. Oswald could feel the crowd pin his weapon arm. He looked up in time to see an older woman fire a small pistol into the side of his helmet. The shot cracked and the bullets zinged harmlessly off the thick plating. She repositioned herself, sneering frantically inches behind the weapon, so that the barrel was up against the visor and pointed right as his nose.

  Oswald struggled and twisted just enough to get his left hand to his helmet. He screamed with the final effort as the woman mouthed something angrily. As he pushed the button the helmet dropped the heavy armored plate designed to protect the astronauts' faces from shrapnel and flash. He could hear the ringing of three more bullets spinning harmlessly away. Then the crowd was off.

  Adrenaline helped Oswald get to his feet and he scanned around with the laser's sight before lifting the armored visor. Scattered around his feet were his attackers, writhing and bleeding from injuries to their skulls, faces, and necks. Rocketman had two final men cornered, its arms spread wide and pistoning as it moved in like a murderous, mechanical boxer.

  "Rocketman, hold!" Oswald stumbled forward, scanning for other threats. A hammer rang feebly against his leg. A man glared up at Oswald from the middle of a spreading pool of blood. He tried to raise the hammer again but Oswald burned a hole in the man's chest.

  "Are you OK, Colonel?" Mathesse stumbled next to Oswald and they grabbed on to each other for support. "Stungart bought it." Oswald followed Mathesse's arm and saw the vacc-suit curled into a fetal position, unmoving. No blood had leaked from the suit, but the man's pain-grimaced face was visible through the visor. Stungart's eyes had rolled up into his head.

  Trese had two women covered in a corner with his laser pistol. Rocketman had the men it had been ready to kill a second earlier in submission head-locks pinned helplessly to the floor. The dome was suddenly quiet, the noise reduced to the groans of the struggling prisoners and dying casualties.

  "Roland, this is Oswald."

  A concerned sounding McFarran answered. "Sir! Doctor Hines has been trying to reach you. Is Stungart hurt?"

  "He's dead, Hashi. Get Hines and two more crew over here. I want him to bring an atmosphere analyzer. We also need rescue collars for everyone," Oswald scanned around the wreckage as he fought to catch his breath. "And we need enough cable ties to make restraints for ten prisoners." He didn't know what other nastiness the dome might hold for them.

  Chapter 29 It was Earth air. Oswald could taste it. Frozen and pushed through unknown filters and under an alien sun, it just seemed so fresh and familiar. He had to admit to the possibility that it was just a placebo effect, the comfort of being out of the rocket and back on a planet with room to move and breathe. Maybe it was that being back on Earth, even if it wasn't the Earth he knew, was affecting his perception. But he didn't think it was just that.

  Real or imagined, Oswald was enjoying walking in his flight suit in close to real gravity. Their vacc-suits were stacked neatly by the airlock. It was hard not stumbling due to his space legs and burning back in front of the prisoners.

  Languages can change quickly in dynamic societies. Cultural references are forgotten and new ones added as new generations live their own lives and elder generations pass on. The meanings of words shift like sand dunes and books once commonly read soon become understandable to those academic experts who spend their lives trying to understand their past.

  Roland's computer was having a hard time translating over those four-hundred and twenty-three years. The two crew that spoke any Centauri were dead. Oswald managed to get several of the names from the less resolute prisoners once they were separated. Others couldn't understand the questions or the computer couldn't under
stand the answers. A few just glared at Oswald and McFarran in defiant silence.

  A few of the more talkative expressed confusion at why the marauders were using translators to speak to them in such a ridiculous and arcane dialect. They wanted to know what they wanted. Were they some sort of terrorists? Robbers? The Centauri concerns were hard to put into context with the poor translations.

  Oswald hadn't tried to explain to them the truth of the situation. He wasn't convinced that they'd believe him. If they did believe the story, he didn't want to risk panicking them into violence. Whoever they thought the crew of Roland were, these time travelers or crazy Centauri criminals had killed over twenty of their friends and co-workers. And Oswald didn't plan on stopping there. He hoped that destroying the orbital station had crippled their communications, but couldn't count on it. They needed to figure out what was going on, what had happened to Earth, and then figure out how to make the Centauri bleed and bleed badly.

  One thing was clear—there was no going home again. Whatever the Centauri had done to Earth prior to moving it, the jump had sterilized it of life and history. The land around the dome was frozen rock and dirt. No remains of vegetation, no fossils, no dead stumps, were visible from the dome. Nor had they seen any such traces from orbit. Earth was forever a frozen wasteland; it could never be more than a domed theme park mockery of what they had once loved.

  The Q-puter was moved inside the dome in hopes that it might help break the language barrier, but it hadn't helped. Breen knew he could use it to solve Centauri equations, codes, and other algorithms given time, since the old and new scripts were essentially the same. But he didn't have the linguistic or philological background to make a translation program.

  “I can translate equations, Colonel. But not works of art,” he had said apologetically.

  Oswald knew their time was limited. Earth no longer had days. Just a night time sky with a dim, distant star that provided even less light than the moon had. It certainly provided no comfort to the terminally homesick survivors of an ancient Earth. By the end of the watch the dome had been searched and cleared and three more Centauri prisoners found by Rocketman cowering in an office had been tied up.