by M. R. Forbes
Did Sheriff Duke understand that? Would he accept Caleb’s warning that Max would betray them as soon as it suited the Axon’s purposes? He was pretty sure he understood why the Intellect was here, and once the briefing was done Sheriff Duke would too.
“Hayden,” Nathan said, getting to his feet. “How—”
“It’s done,” Hayden said, cutting him off. “I don’t want another word about it. We can only look forward now.”
The coldness in the sheriff’s voice made the whole room tense.
“Sheriff,” Lutz said. “I’m—”
“I said it’s done,” Hayden repeated calmly. “We don’t have a lot of time. We need to focus on getting the survivors to safety and catching up to the enemy.”
“Yes, Sheriff,” Lutz said, face flushing.
“Sheriff,” Caleb said. “Hess will be here with Ike shortly.”
Hayden nodded in reply, taking a seat at the end of the table. Rico sat beside him while Max took a standing position in the back of the room.
“In the meantime,” Nathan said. “I’ve discussed the survivor situation with Chief Ranger Hicks. Our plan is to use the Parabellum to shuttle them to the Pilgrim. Four hundred people, we can move them there in three groups. Two hours total per trip. Six hours to get them all to safety with enough supplies for them to hold out for quite a while.”
“No,” Hayden said.
“Sheriff?” Caleb said.
“The Axon already has a head start. Two hours or so? And the xaxkluth can decide to come finish the job any minute.”
“I don’t believe they will,” Caleb replied.
“Why not?”
“I told you before, Vyte got what he wanted.”
“In more ways than one.” Hayden’s eyes lost focus. He licked his lips. Then he glared at Caleb. “I assume you mean the neural interlink?”
Caleb shook his head. “I don’t know what that is.”
“Right. I think we all need to back up a step. We’re talking about plans of action, but honestly, I don’t even know who in this room I can trust.” He was staring at Caleb when he said it, making it clear who he meant.
“Hayden,” Nathan said. “I told you earlier. Colonel Card helped me get thousands out of Edenrise.”
“I remember. And I’m grateful. My problem is that he was unconscious during most of the fighting, and as soon as he conveniently woke up and joined the fight, the enemy pulled back. As if they don’t want to risk hurting you,” he said, turning his head to look directly at Caleb.
“That isn’t why they pulled back,” Caleb said.
“Sheriff,” Bennett said. “Colonel Card killed Sergeant Walt after Sergeant Walt killed Corporal Hotch.”
“After you vouched for her,” Hayden said. “How do we know she wasn’t planning to warn us that you can’t be trusted?”
“Hayden,” Nathan said.
“Hold on, Nate,” Hayden countered. “It wouldn’t be the first time someone helped us out to get closer to us.” He motioned backward with his thumb. “Case in point.”
“I intend to complete my duties to you,” Max said in defense.
“I know,” Hayden replied. “That’s what I’m saying.” He turned his attention back to Caleb. “What are your duties, Card? What are your directives? And who are they coming from? Because I’m not convinced you aren’t taking orders from the same asshole who sent the Axon into my city.” The sheriff stopped short of mentioning his wife again. “You do have one of the enemy’s worms planted under your skin.”
I’m not a worm.
Caleb ground his teeth in anger, doing his best to keep it to himself. Before he could reply, Doctor Hess rolled Isaac into the room. The Marine was in a wheelchair, his leg straight out in front of him with a metal frame around and through it.
“Ike,” Hayden said, forgetting Caleb for a second. “That looks like it hurts.”
“Compound fracture,” Hess said. “I offered him a replacement instead.”
“No offense, Sheriff,” Ike said. “But I prefer to keep my limbs. I’m sorry about Natalia, Hallia and Ginny.”
Hayden didn’t shut him down. Ike hadn’t heard the instructions not to mention them. “I know. Thank you. I’ve made the same promise to mine that you made to yours.”
Caleb didn’t know exactly what that meant, but he saw that Ike did. He nodded in response. “It’s the best we can do, Sheriff.”
Hayden looked back at Caleb. “You were about to say something, Card?”
Caleb took another breath. The short break had given him a few seconds to cool off. “Yes. Look, Sheriff Duke, I understand why you don’t trust me. With the things I have to say, I’m going to put your ability to put your faith in me to an even bigger test. All I’m asking for right now is an open mind, and a chance to explain. It isn’t only Earth that’s at risk here.” Caleb turned his focus to Rico. “Proxima is at risk too. Maybe more so than Earth. Vyte has a use for the people here. As food if not as foot soldiers. I’m not so sure about the people there.”
“And you’re what...the savior of humankind?” Hayden asked.
“No,” Caleb replied. “If we’re going to stop what’s coming, it’s going to take all of us.”
36
Hayden
“And what exactly is coming?” Hayden asked, staring at Caleb.
He wanted so much to trust this man who wore an Axon Intellect Skin and carried a khoron-like creature inside him. He seemed to know more about the enemy than anyone, and while that made him valuable, it also made him extremely dangerous. Nobody could deny that the xaxkluth backing off the moment Caleb entered the fray was a convenient coincidence. Was he trustworthy because he had killed the largest of the creatures? Because they seemed to fear him? Or had they stood down because he was one of them?
Keeping an open mind was harder for Hayden right now than it should be.
“Let me start closer to the beginning,” Caleb said. “I think it’ll help clarify my position.”
“Start wherever you want,” Hayden replied. “Just don’t take forever. Unless you’re sure the xaxkluth will stay away.” He smirked after he said that.
“I’m fairly certain, but not for the reasons you’re insinuating,” Caleb replied, keeping a cool exterior.
Hayden was obnoxious on purpose. As a Sheriff, he had learned one of the best ways to get someone to reveal their truth was to dig so far under their skin they snapped. So far, Caleb was either deflecting the bait, or he really wasn’t concerned Hayden would label him a liar when he wasn’t.
“Go ahead, Colonel,” Rico said, urging Caleb to speak.
Caleb looked at Hayden, waiting for his permission.
“You’ve got the floor,” Hayden said, giving him the go ahead with a wave of his hand.
“Thank you, Sheriff,” Caleb replied. “Just so everyone in the room has the same information—my name is Caleb Card, I was originally in the United States Marine Corps Raiders and then the United States Space Force Marines. I later served as a Guardian on board the generation ship Deliverance, and today I’m a Colonel with General Stacker’s Liberators.”
“You really get around,” Isaac said.
“You have no idea,” Caleb replied. “The Deliverance wasn’t sent to Proxima like the rest of the generation ships. We had a different, clandestine mission, headed by the commander of a Space Force Dark Ops team, Doctor Riley Valentine.”
Hayden’s eyes narrowed at the name.
Isaac went pale. “Did you just say Valentine?” he asked.
“Affirmative,” Caleb replied. “You know the name?”
“I know the woman. She was experimenting with khoron at the facility where I was stationed. She’s indirectly responsible for the murder of my son.”
“Wait a second,” Rico said. “Able said Valentine was part of the Organization.”
“What Organization?” Hayden asked. “You’ve never mentioned it before.”
“I only learned about it on the way here.”
“What are you doing here anyway, Rico? Not that I’m not happy to see you.”
“Like I told Nathan, we were coming to warn you. There’s a Relyeh warship en route to Earth.”
“What?” Hayden said, a chill running down his spine. “The enemy is right outside.”
“That’s how the Hunger conquers worlds,” Caleb said. “They send in what they call uluth, creatures genetically-engineered to decimate the target population. The trife are their standard foot soldier, but from what Ishek tells me, Nyarlath prefers the xaxkluth because they are both fighters and builders.”
“Builders?” Rico asked. “You mean the sticky shit they leave behind?”
Caleb nodded. “Given enough time, the xaxkluth will terraform the world they conquer into an environment suitable for their species. Which coincidentally or not is the same environment the source Relyeh find most comfortable.”
“Source Relyeh?” Nathan said.
“The Ancients,” Caleb replied. “And the original species they created, the Norg.”
“Where did these Ancients come from?” Lutz asked.
“I don’t know,” Caleb replied. “We’re getting a little off-topic here. Getting back to Valentine, she brought the Deliverance to a planet over forty light years away, where the Axon had cultivated humans as a warrior race called the Inahri.”
“What do you mean, cultivated humans?” Isaac asked.
“The Axon have visited this planet for many ens,” Max said. “They took members of your kind to study and use as fighters in the coming war against the Hunger. The Inahri are only one of the races they designed.”
“You’re saying there are more humans out there? Beyond Earth?” Nathan said.
“Affirmation. Hahaha. Haha.”
“How many?”
“Billions. But they’ll die if the Relyeh defeat the Axon.”
“If Vyte defeats the Axon,” Caleb said.
“Elaboration,” Max replied.
“I’m trying to get to that. The Axon and the Relyeh were already locked in a war on the planet. I helped end the war, and then I used an Axon portal to return here.”
“Why?” Hayden asked. “Why come back to Earth?”
“Valentine’s research wasn’t fruitless. She had devised a means to kill all of the trife on the planet. I came back to deliver the data to Proxima Command.”
“Poison?” Nathan asked.
“Sounds familiar,” Hayden replied.
Caleb shook his head. “I have the data in my head, but I don’t know what it contains. I don’t think it involves poison. In any case, before a couple of days ago I had spent the last two months on Earth, trying to make contact with anyone who knew about Proxima and could help me get there. Almost everybody looked at me like I was crazy.”
“Because they don’t know about Proxima,” Hayden said. “No Contact Protocol. They think the savages need to stay ignorant.”
“It isn’t only the...savages,” Rico said, letting everyone know with the distaste reflected in her expression exactly what she thought of that term. “All records of the war against the trife have been deleted from Proxima datastores accessible to the public. They’ve forgotten why their ancestors left Earth.”
“Why sterilize history?” Caleb said, surprised by the fact.
“I don’t know,” Rico replied. “But I don’t think you were supposed to deliver your data to Proxima Command. I think you were supposed to deliver it to the Organization.”
“There’s that word again,” Pyro said. “When is someone going to tell us what the Organization is?”
“From what I’ve been told, and what I’m piecing together now, it’s the Dark Ops team formed to combat the Axon and Relyeh, and it predates the trife invasion by at least half a century.”
“You’re kidding,” Nathan said.
“I wish I was. The United States government knew about the alien presence on Earth years before the meteor shower that brought the trife. Maybe other governments did too. They were trying to stop them and also study them. I don’t know exactly what that entails. But I know it’s true.”
“Valentine confirmed it,” Caleb said in agreement.
Rico turned to Hayden. “Hayden, I hate to say this, but out of all the forces in play, I believe the Organization is the one most aligned with all of our needs and goals.”
“What?” Isaac said. “From my perspective, the Organization are the ones who brought the enemy down on us in the first place.”
“No,” Caleb countered. “The Hunger would have come, one way or another. Maybe not as soon, but they would have come.”
“After I was gone then,” Isaac replied. “I would have had the chance to live out my life with my family.”
“And I would have never met Natalia,” Hayden said. “We can play that game until we all drop from old age, except for Max back there. This is the reality we’re in. We need to focus on what we can control in this reality, not get pissed because it isn’t what we want it to be. Because it damn well isn’t what I want it to be.”
The statement seemed to satisfy Isaac, and he leaned back in the wheelchair.
“Thank you, Sheriff,” Caleb said. “Rico, what else can you tell me about the Organization?”
“I don’t really know that much, other than they helped me spring Isaac from imprisonment and get him back here to warn you. Hayden, General Haeri was hoping you could help us handle this problem.”
Hayden looked at Rico. The last sentence brought so many things into focus for him. Haeri was the head of Proxima Command and a big part of the Trust Crime Syndicate. Now, to learn he’s also the leader of the Organization...
Naturally, the would need someone at the top of the food chain to keep tabs on the enemy, “Did he mention how I might do that?” he asked Rico.
“No, but I didn’t get the feeling he had a lot of options. The Organization has a presence on Proxima and in the surrounding belts. But he understood the Relyeh ship was coming here, and you’re the best positioned to do something to try to stop it.”
Hayden lowered his head into his hands and started to laugh. The statement was so tragic, it was either the most hilarious or most depressing thing he had ever heard. “Best positioned? Look at me. Look at my city. Look at us. We can’t stop the aliens that are already here. How are we supposed to stop a Relyeh warship?”
“Sheriff,” Caleb said, his tone of voice convincing Hayden to look up. “I know it sounds impossible. And crazy. But I have an idea.”
37
Caleb
Your idea isn’t even close to viable.
Caleb almost told Ishek out loud to shut up. He clenched his teeth in a tight smile instead, staring at Sheriff Duke.
“You have an idea?” the sheriff replied. “Did you miss the part where I said I don’t trust you?”
“I’m still hoping I can convince you to think otherwise,” Caleb said. “I wouldn’t call my idea a finished product, but it’s the start of something.”
“Okay. I’ll bite. How does the most motley collection of random individuals in the universe win a fight against a Relyeh warship and a second invasion? Because if you have an answer to that, I’m all in.”
“I think we all are,” Nathan said.
“I have to finish my story first,” Caleb said. “Or it won’t make a lot of sense.”
“We’re listening,” Hayden replied.
“Like I said, I’ve spent the last two months looking for a way to Proxima, and not having much luck. What I have run into are Relyeh. Khoron. Do you know what they told me?”
“We’re all going to die?” Nathan guessed.
“Close. A little persuasion and they told us Nyarlath is coming. I know for a fact she’s had her eye on Earth for a long time. Its place in the universe makes it attractive to the Hunger. First, because humans are easily frightened, and the Relyeh feed on fear to survive. Second, because it’s a great jump point between Relyeh space and Axon space.”
“We already know
a ship is coming,” Rico said. “If Nyarlath is on it…”
“I didn’t know a ship was coming,” Caleb said. “I only knew Nyarlath was on her way. The Axon have portals, and if the Relyeh captures one, it can use it to go anywhere whose coordinates it either knows or guesses. I ran into a khoron who had access to one here. I assumed that meant Nyarlath had access to more. But you’re right. She’s on that ship. Walt was one of hers, not Shurrath’s.”
“That explains why she was still alive,” Hayden said. “Nat wasn’t wrong.”
“Apparently not. But there’s a twist. Nyarlath isn’t acting on her own. She’s a prisoner of the Axon.”
The statement was like dropping a bomb in the room. Silence fell over them. The tension got thick. Caleb stared at Sheriff Duke, making eye contact and holding it.
“Confirmation,” Max said from behind the sheriff. “Vyte is an Axon hybrid. Caleb Card is correct in his assessment.”
Sheriff Duke turned around. “Is that why you’re really here? They sent you back to Earth to deal with Vyte.”
“Imprecise. The organics ordered a data wipe and reset. I didn’t want that. Not after what happened to me here. I took the energy unit and escaped here, through the portal in the place called Dugway. I came to you to warn you about Vyte and to help you. You are my friend.”
“You’re a machine,” Lutz said. “How can you want anything?”
“He’s broken,” Isaac said. “Damaged goods. It’s made him more—for lack of a better word— human.”
“My neural pathways are uncalibrated, which affects my logic-branching algorithms. A side-effect of the damage I sustained. Don’t mistake the outcomes for emotions, and don’t presume to believe I’m completely rogue. I simply am. Hahaha. Haha.”
“You said this Vyte is an Axon hybrid,” Pyro said. “What does that mean?”
