0 comments/ 10280 views/ 2 favorites TerraCom Inception By: martincain UM-3/Avalon Kray cried out involuntarily as Harley dodged an incoming, incandescent energy stream and slipped in the mud, a by-product of the rain from the storm that had come in fast on the wind rolling down from the Northern Sea. Harley dropped him onto his left side, where the exposed meat of an open wound overwhelmed the synthetic endorphins Kray had injected, a reminder of the same bombardment that had pulped Rosie and scrapped her HISS gun, cut Lt. Swift in half, and buried the 1st Sergeant in fallen rubble. All they found of Sigis, the 1st Sergeant’s nodie, was his damaged node-pack. Kray rolled onto his stomach and looked as Harley trained his weapon toward the base of the hill and squeezed off shots that dropped several shadows less than 12 meters away. “There's so feking many of them,” He called and swapped a fresh magazine of 5mm hypersonics into his rifle. As an afterthought he added, “If I ever meet any of those engineers, I’m going to pour C-seventy (: A liquid/gel explosive compound) down his throat and blow his ass into high orbit!” The engineers had crossed the bridge to safety before the demolishing charges they set had taken it down. With some effort Kray raised his helmet mike to his lips and said, “Charlie company... this is two actual… fall back by squad to the hill top. Give them some covering fire. We’ll try to hold them here.” Kinetic artillery, firing guided munitions from far to the north, had gotten some hits, destroying several of the alien grav-vehicles gathering around the base of the hill they seemed unable to climb. In the light of the burning vehicle shells, he watched 40 men moving out towards the rendezvous point he’d designated, muzzles flashed behind the retreat as the wounded, too critically injured to move, engaged the things, buying their friends time to escape. Resistance broke down as the small pockets of maimed and dying men were overrun. Their ground troops worked in close coordination with their anti-grav vehicles, as if on electronic leashes, when the GV’s got knocked out, they fell under command of the next nearest vehicle or scattered. Kray scraped off the mud caked over the face of his Krono-Tek and checked the time that had elapsed since the mission began. “Five hours, my ass! We’ve been here for almost twelve. Where the hell is that support?” “Hey, Alvin, check it out,” Harley said and used his compact rifle as a pointer. The sky on the western horizon was glowing mother-of-pearl pink behind clouds that still lingered from the evening storm. A spark of fire appeared as the sun touched the dark horizon. Dawn had come and the long night was over. “We made it.” “I guess I owe you fifty. You can collect when we both get to Hell.” Harley snorted and said, “I think we’re already there.” He pulled a red-striped Vortex grenade off his belt and set the timer, then shouted, “Fire in the hole!” Five seconds after he tossed it away, the earth beneath them shook as the powerful charge exploded, a reminder of how close the alien assaulters were to their tenuous position. Kray could hear several nearly-ultrasonic screams from close by. At least the things could die. 40 rounds left. He thought and jammed the carbon-fiber magazine back into his M-32. I’ll have to wait till they get close so I don’t miss. He’d decided that he would save the last round for himself when there was another blast and a GV broke open, spewing an orange fireball into the sky. There was a momentary lapse in the firing as the things stopped and turned to watch the armored hulk burn. The ones standing upright were immediately cut down by high energy HISS bursts that easily burned through the resin armor that the more numerous of the two species mounted as a natural defense. The smaller ones were man-sized but less evolved looking, each with a loping gait “Got about a half dozen of ‘em looking when that GV blew,” Harley shouted over his shoulder. “They’re pulling back to the bottom of the hill. It looks like they’re waiting for orders or something.” He snapped his rifle to his shoulder and squeezed off several shots. “What the hell? We don’t have any missiles left,” Kray thought out loud. The directed energy weapons the alien vehicles mounted had destroyed the few that had been fired at them while in flight. “Our HISS guns aren’t enough to knock one of those vehicles down.” Just as welcome but more perplexing was a second explosion. Another GV crashed to earth as the anti-gravity field it generated flickered out. Kray dropped his data visor and engaged the Starlight setting, then he swept the battlefield from horizon to horizon, he found what he was looking for on the third pass. “Harley, have a look to the southwest and tell me what you see,” Kray said and pointed at what he’d found. The corporal lowered his own visor and looked off in that direction. "Sweet Mary," Harley said. A thin platter rested on top of a narrow pole, thee type of telescoping scanner array mounted on the backs of AS-3 Arapaho attack skimmers, raised to give the pilot and weapons control computer an electronic look at the battlefield while still keeping the ship itself concealed. It had had taken the technicians 12 hours to get them unpacked and in the air. “It’s about goddamn time they got here.” The rise of the hill the gunship hovered behind was backlit by the signature of a rocket motor firing. After launch it initiated a steep climb and disappeared. Seconds later another GV exploded, the flash momentarily overloaded his helmet sensors, causing his display to flare, when it returned there were still dozens of GV’s left untouched. “There’s got to be more of them around,” Kray said as from behind them came a high-pitched, mechanical whine, the sound of a large turbine engine gathering rpm’s. “If there is, it’s the first piece of good news I’ve heard since this whole disaster started. Is there anything coming in through the node?” Harley shook his head and said, “Negative, it’s all quiet, but I think our visitors are regrouping. I think they’re gonna make a rush. I only got eighty rounds left.” Kray pulled the magazine from his own weapon and tossed it toward Harley. “Make them count.” They had no way to communicate with the gunships… the tactical nodepack that Harley had dragged along was damaged, hit in the attack that killed nodie Sigis. It could receive traffic but not send it. Each NorCom soldier was tagged with an IFF transponder that the gunship pilot could use to sort friend from foe. Something crested the hill behind them, bathing them in the intense beam of a powerful searchlight, like the glory of salvation. “Yeah, bay-bee!” Harley screamed at it and thrust out a clenched fist. Kray clenched his teeth and turned over, the effort causing the pain in his side to flare, but he did not care. Instead, he laughed with relief at the sight of an Arapaho gunship adorned with the livery of the 2nd Aviation Battalion, one of the three units that made up 4th Brigade of the NorCom 10 Division. The cavalry had arrived to collect its own. The weapons pylons on the ship were loaded down with anti-personnel weapons: twin 20mm auto-cannons on each inboard store and pods carrying eighteen 5-inch self-guided rockets on each outboard. The pilot gave him a thumbs-up as the pilot increased power and set the skimmer to its grisly work. The four auto-cannons poured a combined 2400 rounds per minute into the things clustered around the hill. The ones hit directly by 20-mm shells exploded into wet chunks. “Pinkish green mist! Awoo!” Harley shouted and ducked as a stream of plasma from a GV scorched the rocks beside his head. The skimmer made four passes over the hillside, cannon-shells and rockets sending up fountains of mud and rock, leaving reams of ruptured and still forms. “Charlie two actual, this is Pegasus lead, come in.” The sound from the node-pack startled Harley as he was taking aim. He hefted it close to where Kray laid prone. “Charlie two actual, please respond.” Kray nearly screamed at the thing in frustration that he could not. “Charlie two actual, if you cannot respond then be advised we are inbound with twelve birds. ETA, seven minutes. Pull back and find a suitable LZ, pop smoke on terminal approach, out.” “Charlie company. This is two actual,” Kray said as he pulled his boom mike closer. The pain in his side was momentarily forgotten. “Fall back to the top of the hill in stages for ex-fill.” There was a small clearing among the rocks that, at first glance, could accommodate something the size of a troop skimmer, maybe even two, it would suffice for their purposes. Leaning heavily on Harley as they moved toward it, Kray counted few more than twenty in the group that had once been two hundred. “Charlie two actual, this is Pegasus lead, on terminal approach.” Rucksacks were dumped on end. All eyes were on the last man as he shook out his load; there was a small clank as a smoke grenade fell out onto the rocks, and after a brief scramble to retrieve it, the grenade was released into the middle of the clearing. Dampened by the wet haze from a night of rain, the thick red smoke it produced hung lazily at waist level. Harley put on the Mk. 5 visor and scanned the area, pointing off down the length of the mist-shrouded canyon, when the node alerted him to contacts. The sound of approaching engines was obscured by the resonance of battle and by the wind pushing along the thunderheads. "ADF fighters inbound!" He shouted as new information came in through the node-pack. Kray's eyes, drawn to movement, found aircraft coming at them framed by the smoking remnants of the demolished bridge, a brace of F/A-300's plowing through haze, weapons-pylons heavy with clusters of ordinance. "Eat CBU, bastards!" Elroy yelled as the F/A-300's screeched overhead. The ADF had finally gotten into the act and produced some air support. The engine noise changed as the fighters dropped their payloads. They were clear and gone before the bombs start exploding. Another two F/A-300's rocketed in to replace them. The noise that suddenly overwhelmed all others was that of strings of firecrackers exploding, thousands upon thousands of them, like those that should have been popping off to celebrate Founder's Day. "Here they come!" Doc shouted and pointed out something beneath the ruined span. "They're bringing a super-gaggle in!" There was a group of UC-11 Fury's flying in stacked formation towards them. The tactic was usually for inserting troops; skimmers darting in under the cover of artillery, air strikes, and naval gunnery if it could be laid on, would have an assault force on the ground before the last round of supporting fire had landed. The node-pack went active again. “Charlie two actual, Pegasus lead has eyes on red smoke, coming in now, make sure your men are clear.” The line of skimmers came in low and fast, hugging the curves in the chasm wall, banking around islands of rock sprouting up from the ravine floor. The fuselages of the VTOL craft were drab gray and slick. The aluminum skin covering each was installed in sheets riveted to oblong Duralite frames. A ten-panel plexiglass canopy sloped down into their bulging noses. The pilot in the left seat of the lead ship wore a white flight helmet and watched them out of panel #3, then his lips moved. "Pegasus lead calling Charlie two actual. We have you in sight." Mud spattered out and the scattered patches of tube-grass flattened down as UC-11 alight. Doors behind the nose-mounted FLIR pod opened and the front landing strut dropped out. The tail ramp was down before the engine pods at the ends of the stubby wings stopped generating lift. "Hurry up, dammit!" Someone, the crew chief, was off the loading ramp and running towards them before the UC-11 settled into the mud. Another UC-11 settled behind it in the impossibly small patch that was left. "How many do you have?" The crew chief said as he threw an arm around Kray and helped drag him towards the open cargo bay. "We can only take eight per ship." "Tw-twenty-six," Kray muttered. "What took you guys so long?" "Count 'em off, corporal." The crew chief said as he pulled Kray into the skimmer and laid him down. The LZ erupted with noise and light as the UC-11's making slow circles overhead added suppressing fire from their waist guns to the melee. A plasma stream shot up from behind the rise and narrowly missed a Fury banking around for an attack run. Kray could hear Harley counting men as he accepted an auto-injector filled with synthetic endorphins and jabbed it into his thigh muscle. Exhausted, he leaned back against the wall of the cargo compartment and closed his eyes, in too much pain to sleep. He was roused by a firm shake. Harley looked down on him with angry tears in his eyes. “They made two more landings, Sergeant. I heard it come in over the node," He said and dropped his head into his hands. "We couldn't contain them. They’re pounding the hell out of us from orbit.” Kray closed his eyes again and absorbed the heat blasting out of the floor ducts into his face. He desperately wanted the blissful unconscious of slumber, but visions of the dead bodies they have left behind kept it from him, and the drying mud on his face was making his skin itch. His stomach dropped out as the skimmer lifted into the air. “Excuse me, sir, but where are we going?” Harley shouted to be heard over the engines and the wind whistling through the open cargo bay. “To Freeport,” The crew-chief said. “Our primary was the medical center at Little Springs but they’re taking fire from orbit. Freeport’s already been hit but they got a mobile hospital set up in a secure location.” Why did it have to be war? Kray thought and tried to succumb to sleep. *** SOL-3/Earth Kinkaid’s flagship was the USS Challenger, a Fast-class heavy cruiser like the Saratoga was an icon of a bygone age but upgraded with the latest weapons and technology: ROC hepacs, new engines, blocks of bolt-on RAM armor, Starhorse transit drives, Barracuda A.I.’s. Kinkaid smiled when he saw it through the window of their transfer shuttle and, to the delight of the Challenger captain, proclaimed the ship to be “one tough hombre.” Once aboard and strapped into acceleration couches, they had rocketed away from Mars at maximum power, four G’s of thrust for six straight hours. All Kinkaid would tell her when she asked was that his presence was requested for “consultations.” The trip from had taken half the usual time, thanks to three separate refuelings by waiting SOLCorp shuttles, Challenger had nearly emptied her tanks again before the blue Earth glowed outside the viewport of Jena’s stateroom. “They don’t need to tell me what they want to consult me about,” Kinkaid said as their shuttle broke away from the cruiser and dropped earthward, angling for the NorCom military spaceport outside London. He lifted a hand and turned the palm upward, imitating the sorts of diplomats he’d been forced to deal with for five, non-consecutive decades. “Thank you so much for coming, Admiral. We’re sure that you can see the benefits of a one world government and we feel con-fi-dent that you’ll see the wisdom in supporting our plan.” He let the hand drop with a disgusted sigh. “And on and on.” “What makes you think that they’re planning another shot at the one world?” Jena said as Kinkaid tightened his harness straps down. “It’s been tried before, twice so far, and it’s failed each time. It doesn’t make sense to try it again.” “It’s the Atlas twelve incident,” Kinkaid said and closed his eyes, folding his hands in his lap. “And the EuroCon collapse, and Transterran, and the whole, wretched EuroCon system. The game is up for them. All they’ve been doing for the last twenty years is negotiating for the best terms of surrender. It gives everyone involved what they want: the NorCom gets to design a world government according to it’s own rules, the EuroCon gets help with the Atlas twelve cleanup and a stable political system. The trade cartels and the Pan Pacific Alliance get the elimination of trade barriers. It seems everyone’s a winner.” “Seems?” “The same differences and petty rivalries that brought the last two world governments remain with this attempt. Much better conditions existed in the past, even with that, the one world has always failed.” EuroCon airspace was closed to NorCom traffic so they were forced to take transport from London to Geneva, boarding a grav-lev as the late afternoon continued its decent toward its rendezvous with the western horizon. The high-speed train, carrying NorCom delegates to the potential world government, would deliver them before the next dawn. “The EuroCon economic structure had been in place for 200 years, their markets intermingled since the emergence of the single European currency, and after that, the unified network of banks and corporations that had turned the blend of 1st world and 3rd world nations into a worldwide powerhouse. The military arm of that same economy was a product of much older agreements, specifically NATO, and as that mutual defense agreement grew to encompass the continent, the roles of traditional allies were diminished to irrelevance.” “America was pressured out of NATO,” Jena said. “After that it became the EuroCon.” Kinkaid agreed. “Although the new organization was more than happy to retain the command-and-control infrastructure that had largely been financed by American taxpayers.” Jena closed the text file her datapad had been reading through when the grey, rain-soaked Kent countryside flashing past her peripheral vision began to slow. The mag-lev train that carried Kinkaid, who sat beside her in the aisle-seat, and his entourage away from the Wellington Spaceport was approaching the demilitarized zone separating NorCom territory from EuroCon… British side of the Channel Tunnel at Dover. Heavy, crew-served, anti-vehicle weapons and HISS guns were emplaced behind electrified razor wire barricades set up around the entrance, which itself was capped by a massive Fibrocrete plug weighing several hundred tons. She could see somber-looking British soldiers patrolling in groups, checking the outside of the train for hidden riders and explosives. The current, decrepit state of the EuroCon could not erase decades of paranoia about a foreign army invading by way of the tunnel… thus an entire NorCom army was dedicated to defending the entrance. Noone could imagine the thought of just destroying the tunnel and being done with it. “Learning anything important, Commander?” Kinkaid as he leaned over her to watch the activity going on outside her window. “This is where everyone predicted that the Neo-Colonial War would start… not out in space, but right here on the ground with airstrikes to suppress the defenses while EuroCon armored assault trains came through the tunnel… but it never happened.” “The trip would’ve been quicker if we could’ve just dropped straight into Geneva,” Jena said as the muted blare of an alert horn came through the streamlined chassis around them. The plug was being slowly rolled aside to let the train through. “I don’t understand why EuroCon airspace is still closed.” “It’s a position of strength,” Kinkaid said as the train began creeping forward. “And probably for our own safety. I’m sure more than a few commanders in the EuroCon military would react badly to one of our dropships coming down toward one of their command centers… even supposedly neutral ground like the world capital. Some government sources within the EuroCon zone are accusing us of deliberately dropping Atlas twelve on them. Just sit back and enjoy the scenery, Commander.” When the search teams had finished their sweep of the train, it began moving forward, Jena donned her headset again as they entered the tunnel and darkness swallowed their passenger car. She pushed the button on her armrest to tilt to seat back and closed her eyes as audio feed began coming through again. TerraCom Inception “The European economy had been determined by corporate influences since the colonial period of the early seventeen-hundreds. This is a trend that continues to this day, where one of the prime justifications for the expense and difficulty of maintaining extra-solar colonies is in the opening of new markets, but for the EuroCon it was a metaphorical deal with the devil. Public taxes, in response to public pressure, were kept at minimal levels. Proprietary fees levied on the companies doing business within the European Community were used to make up the difference… any commercial entity engaging in transactions was subject. Starting from approximately the year twenty-eighty, all aspects of European society reflected the growing influence of corporate culture; advertisements took the place of popular art, all the best schools were company schools, loyalty to company began to supercede loyalty to country… all in all, the situation was not new, but rather resembled the corporate structure of Japan from an earlier time, but to a hyper degree the zaibatsus of nineteen-eighties could only wonder at. The large corporations that managed to plant themselves firmly into the economy, despite the costs, evolved into the first sovereign states of their kind. At one point in the early twenty-second century, the Dornier-Dassault dialect of the Common Commercial Language was the third most widely used language on the continent. When the Neo-Colonial War erupted, the European Confederation came to lean even more heavily on their corporate allies, for when they ran short of funds for munitions, loans were provided. The day those loans were called in was the day the devil came to collect what was due. All that remained of the European Confederation was the name of the continent it once controlled.” Jena slept until the grav-lev abruptly slowed. Her eyes snapped open as she lurched forward against her lap belt. She turned as Kinkaid tapped her on the arm. “You dropped these,” He said and offered her the earpiece and datapad that had dropped to the floor. “I suggest you pay greater attention to your things, Commander, but your timing is very good… we’re about to arrive in France.” She looked out the window and could see faint glow on the tunnel walls from someplace ahead. The light began filling the tunnel as the train started moving again. After a few minutes of creeping, the train emerged into the city of Calais. The first thing she saw outside the window was a ghostly armored assault train rusting on a siding. Once capable of transporting a battalion of shock troops to England along with a dozen fighting vehicles, now patches of armor had been stripped away, leaving holes Jena could see through. There were people living inside, figures huddling around glowing thermo-casters or sparking burn-barrels who watched the diplomatic train pass. “Calais is a city under siege,” Kinkaid said and peered over her shoulder at the EuroCon security troops that fought to hold back a mob pushing toward the open tunnel entrance. The troops carried modern rifles but were dressed in old uniforms covered with patches: company logos. “It’s always been a collection point for refugees trying for NorCom territory. Until the tunnel was closed, stowing away aboard a train was the best way to get across the Channel. The refugees kept coming even after the trains stopped running. There are places in this city that are savage and degenerate, even the police won’t go there. The authority that remains here is very well armed. It’s the only thing keeping order. Police do not fire warning shots here. “If things are so bad, how come we didn’t invade a long time ago?” Jena said as a hulking Messerschmitt armored vehicle (AFV) rolled along the side of the guideway on its wide treads, illuminating the crowd surging toward the tunnel with the searchlight mounted next to its main weapon- a powerful coil-gun (Similar to a rail gun). Security troops armed with shock-batons waded into the mass of people, breaking up the group in smaller sections that could be more easily managed, scattering others, and crumpling those who felt their electric touch. Kinkaid sat back in his chair and said, “Would you want to deal with this mess, Commander? Would any sane political entity? Of course not. The only reason why a one-world government could possibly work here is because the problem is so great. Now the NorCom must act. Before we were content to let the EuroCon sleep in the bed they made, but the consequences of allowing European civilization to collapse are too dire to ignore any longer.” Jena watched the lights of the super-towers flashing in the far off Calais city core, where the elite insulated themselves from the masses. To the south, the glow of the Paris megapolis tinged the horizon, identifying the greatest jewel in the European Confederation, home to 33 million people. The train began picking up speed as they passed the Chunnel terminal facilities and started through the abandoned industrial parks ringing the city. Idle factories towered over the grav-lev guideway like the rust-streaked walls of a crumbling metal canyon. Geneva was six hours away. *** UM-4/Avalon Kray was jolted to waking by the thump of the UC-11 setting down. The pain suppressors he had taken during the flight muted the engine noise, like the rest of reality, making everything seem hazy, almost thick, and soft around the edges. Blurry faces that he should’ve recognized peered down at him like fiends. "Let's go! Everybody out!" The crew-chief bellowed out. Two pairs of hands reached into the passenger bay and grabbed Kray by his combat harness, dragging him out of the cargo bay onto a litter that was too short to accommodate his lanky frame. His boots flopped off to each side of one end while his head lolled over the other. The skimmer he could barely make out lifted off as soon as everyone was clear. The sky above him was grim, filled with foreboding gray clouds that promised more rain, the air was filled with particulates that had to be more than stim effect. The world he saw was upside-down, though he could identify buildings as his head bounced, back and forth, with each step in the litter-bearers uneven gaits. Flames licked at broken out window-frames as high-rise hab-complexes burned, sending pillars of smoke billowing hundreds of feet up to merge with the low clouds. Two men carried him towards a large bunker. As they got closer, he could see it was the entrance to an underground gravlev station, gaping like the mouth of a huge beast about to swallow him whole. There was a billboard broken over it that provided jagged carbon-fiber teeth. He recognized the silhouette splayed across the crumbled surface as the new Avianca Banshee. He’d wanted a Banshee. The LZ had been set up in a parking lot. He felt his stomach churn as the porters came to the maw. Kray looked down and reality dropped away into blackness, but there is light further below, and an echoing keening. The porters, each wearing civilian clothes, lifted the litter to the "traverse-slope" position and started down the stairway. A burning surge came up his throat as the world spun. He got his head turned to the side before it reached his teeth. "Another shower today! Hell’s pit!" One porter growled as he felt a warm fluid splashing down on him. He stopped and rested his end of the stretcher against his hip. "Not the last one by any effect,” The other one said and halted their descent. “Skim off and get back to the handles.” "Fek it anyway." The first said, wiped the vomit off his face, and they continued on down the steps. The front of the litter slipped out of the porter’s hands and smacked down on the cement as they posted to change position at the bottom of the steps. The second porter swore and wiped his hands on trouser-legs already stiff with blood, succeeding only in further smearing what had already leaked in copious volumes from prior wounded. “Not bad, chumpka, if that’s the worst that happens, you should be so lucky.” The porter said and wiped at the slick handles. Red, red, everywhere was red. It was on the uniforms of the doctors and nurses who worked frantically on patients that were punctured, lazed, or blown apart. Some were missing arms or parts of arms; ragged flesh hung from shoulder sockets charred black. Where legs should’ve been were shrapnel-torn stumps wrapped in tourniquets or seeping dressings. Kray had never seen what artillery could do up so close; all around him was macabre, abstract art. Octavia… Avalon… now he’d bled on two worlds. “Don’t drop him here! Get him to the triage point!” A bag-eyed nurse waved the porters onward. Red stains blotted out the camouflage patterns on the uniforms of medics and orderlies who struggled with casualties, physical and mental. The pain for a few had become too great and they thrashed on their litters, being held down as robo-docs did their work. Others sat away from the bedlam staring blankly at the walls. Medics could only guess at what they were seeing. Kray knew they were watching friends exploding. The route to the triage was demarcated by a red trickle that over time had become a stream. Life-saving operations were going on all around him; shrapnel-perforated sections of intestine were being cut away. Gaping holes blasted into living flesh were being closed and sealed with surgical foam. Limbs that could be saved were being rejoined, but the efforts were not enough for some. Those beyond help were wrapped in shipping plastic and stacked like cordwood on the maglev guideway. Medbots, docs and medics struggled to treat wounds caused by weapons in which they had no experience treating. Most there were too young to have served during Octavia. The orderlies lowered him with as much tenderness as they had left after hours of unloading the maimed, mangled, and butchered. The synthetic endorphins were wearing off. Kray struggled with the pain as a medic stopped and slotted one of his dog tags into a boxy, hand-held scanner. His tags were chipped with his medical history and blood type. The medic downloaded the information on the tag, then put the scanner aside and leaned in closer. "What's your name sergeant?" The medic asked. Kray concentrated on the face in front of him and tried to endure the agony. "Kr…Kray." He whispered and the medic smiled. "Do you know where you are, Sergeant Kray?" "Avalon." Kray said but instantly doubted that. Avalon was supposed to be a paradise. The medic nodded. "Can you tell me what happened, Sergeant?" "We couldn't hold them," Kray said and let out a long groan. “Nope.” "How did you get wounded, Sergeant?" The medic said and scanned Kray’s vital signs with a hand unit. Kray tried to recall everything prior to the flash of the orbital bombardment landing and the feeling of himself thrown into the air but could not. He shook his head and laid it back in silence. The medic nodded in understanding and patted his leg. “That’s okay, it’s gonna be all good.” The medic said. "What have you got, Miller?" An older voice demanded. Kray looked up at the speaker. It was an older man with thinning salt-and-pepper hair wearing Captain's bars, looking down on him with hard, practiced eyes. "He just came in, sir,” Miller said and waved his hand-scanner at Kray. “Severe lacerations to the left lateral torso, left iliac, and leg." "They warned us about these bombardment cases," The Captain said. "Vitals?" "He’s hypotensive but stable," Miller said and offered the scanner for the Captain to examine. “His heart rate’s up, but I figure that’s cause of the stim. His last dose of synthetics was thirty minutes ago.” “What about his level of consciousness?” "He's alert and oriented to person and place,” Miller said. “They patched up pretty good on the way in, I was gonna give him priority-surgical." "Fine," The doc said. "Table number four is clear. Get him on it. Hook up the next auto-doc that’s available…and get him two more units of endorphins, now." "Right, sir." The medic said and waved for assistance. Two orderlies in civilian clothes ran up to carry the litter. Beside him, a chaplain was holding the hand of a trooper, a man so critically injured that he was being passed up to save those with more prospects for survival… a lieutenant from the 10th Infantry with a large, bloody bandage covering half of his face that was scorched black and raw. The man threw off his blanket and abruptly sat upright. Kray was brought to face level with the young officer as the orderlies lifted his stretcher. "We gotta bug out!" He yells as two, burly, orderlies sprang on him and force him back down, tying his hands to the stretcher with strips of blood-sodden cloth. "Don't you worry about it, Sergeant." The medic said soothingly and applied a new endorphin patch to his exposed arm. Kray took a deep breath and felt the pain slowly begin to disappear. "Save, serve, support, that’s our motto. You’re twelve hundred miles behind the lines. You’re gonna be all good." Kray watched groggily as he was lowered onto the surgical table and a Carnegie/Mellon med-bot was wheeled into place above him. The machine looked frightful. It was five feet tall but squat with three skeletal arms. At the end of each arm was a multi-purpose surgical attachment that held multiple instruments; laser scalpels and cutting devices of a more mundane nature, snips, hemostats, a cauterizing iron, and probes of various sizes and functions. The instruments looked clean but the Med-bot was not. Like everything else it seemed, the Med-bot was sprayed with gory paint, which had dried in places and chipped off. When the tech got it plugged into the surgical table, the robot went to work. A door in the body of the Carnegie/Mellon opened and a bio-scanner unfolded, swept him from head to foot, and retracted again, the whole assessment taking less than a minute. In eight motions, it cut the clothes away from his body with a laser-scalpel and located the wounds in his side, which were sprayed with a menthol/antiseptic wash that stung then cooled his blast-burnt flesh. Once the area was clean, the machine sprayed on an analgesic. When a metal arm holding a scalpel moved forward, Kray closed his eyes, the thought of it cutting in was making him sick and watching it happen would’ve been too much. The fragments in his skin had been located on X-ray and were being removed with forceps once they had been exposed. A few of them were in deep and Kray could feel a dull sting coming through the endorphin fog. When the machine could detect no more fragments, his wounds were cleaned and caulked with Med-Foam, then covered with a dermal patch. The heavy foam protected the wound and would promote healing. Soon there would be only scars where lacerated meat had been. The wounds to his psyche would take much longer to heal. *** SOL-3/Earth New York Cutter sat alone in his office on the 71th floor of the TIL arcology, at his desk, face glowing with light reflected from his paper-thin computer display, paging through the terabytes of data he’d classified at level “Onyx”… top secret. He looked up as a signal tone came through the speakers hidden throughout the room and saw a female form through the smoked-glass panels built into the door. He lifted his Krono and checked the time. It was set to company standard and read, “23:30.” “Come in,” He called and the doors automatically parted, each half sliding quietly into the wall, Leda Montgomery came through with her arms folded and a dismayed look on her face. She moved to his desk as the doors closed behind her. Cutter returned to tapping through data and said, “Your contract stipulates that you don’t have to be in the office later than sixteen-hundred in the evening. Maybe I should call an arbiter to have it renegotiated.” “I’m in trouble, Arty,” She said as she collapsed into the chair. “I think I screwed up big-time… you gotta help me,” She crossed her arms on his desk and laid her head on them. “Please.” “First tell me what happened.” Cutter said. His display screen went dark as he set the computer to hibernate and looked up at her. “Did you kill anyone? Were they with this company or some other?” “No…” Leda said and as she picked her head up, he saw the smeared, dark streaks of mascara that indicated she’d been crying. “Although, in hindsight, I wish I had. It’d be easier then. You know Hailie Celeste, don’t you?” Cutter nodded, placing the name with the face of a company liason, a willowy, attractive woman he’d seen at several company events, rated at a higher level than Leda was. From their brief interactions, he knew her to be a woman of welcoming disposition with a musical laugh. “Cairn Wallace told me to come see him, he said it was going to be a sensing session… just to get a feel for what kind of work environment we’ve got on this side of the Atlantic. I’d heard things… and even if I hadn’t, it was obvious that he had a different kind of session in mind,” Leda said, then paused as she dug a pack of tissues from one of the small pockets on her outfit, pulling several and applying them to her nose. “I’m loyal to the company. You know that.” “You’ve proved that enough times.” “I found Celeste in the woman’s lounge on the fortieth floor… the one next to the computer lab… she was crying,” Leda said and dabbed at her nose again, then she balled the tissues into a wad and looked around for a receptacle. Cutter held up a small bin that she pitched the ball into. “Wallace told her to go and see him, too. She told me what to expect. He likes to hurt women… he likes to make them bleed. I didn’t really believe it until I arrived at his suite. He was waiting for me in this… this… leather outfit. He had a mask on and immediately started ordering me around. He picked up this… thing… and started telling me how he was going to use it on me. He came at me and I just… reacted… there was a vase on the table next to the door. I grabbed it and smashed him in the face with it.” Cutter felt his face go slack with amazement and said, “Was he… injured?” “I don’t know,” Leda said and burst into sobs as she buried her face in her hands. She shook for several moments then lifted her head and found him again, tears still streaming down her cheeks. “I started running… the only place I could think of to go was here. I’ve worked to hard to lose everything now. I’ve done too many things that I’d… I’d hate myself for. It can’t be all for nothing. Please, Arty… you have to help me.” Cutter began to reply but was cut off by the buzz of his desktop comm-unit. He slowly broke the lock he had on her eyes and addressed the call. He touched an icon on the computer screen and a small window opened. The face of Cairn Wallace appeared. He wore a white bandage on the left side of his head above the ear but, despite his obvious injury, managed a grin. “It’s nice to know that at least some of the company’s money is being well spent,” Wallace said and chuckled, though the effort made him wince, a pained look that passed as quickly as it had appeared. “There’s no greater satisfaction than a man who’s truly passionate about his work. It’s rare to see someone of you status still in the office so late.” “The couch in the corner here is very comfortable,” Cutter replied, eyes fixed on the screen, nothing betraying that he was not alone in his office. “Are you all right, sir? When I saw you four hours ago, you were in excellent repair, now I see that has changed.” Wallace gave a helpless shrug and said, “I’ve been so preoccupied with getting ready for Geneva that I’ve begun losing my attention to detail. I slipped getting out of the mist shower and banged my head against the sink. Talk about bringing things sharply into focus… nothing does that quite like sudden pain,” The CEO laughed again. “Your advisor, the one you’ve been saying such wonderful things about… Leda... I think her name is. You haven’t seen her have you?” TerraCom Inception “Not since close of business, sir,” Cutter lied. “I’m sure she’s gone home. Is there something I can do for you instead?” Wallace sighed and said, “No, I just wanted her advice on the best way to deliver our findings concerning Amber-Rivet to our corporate allies and other concerned parties at Geneva. I thought maybe she’d heard something. Most of them are undoubtedly conducting their own studies of the phenomenon. Luckily none have the data that we do.” “What about SolCorp, sir?” Cutter said and rubbed his eyes. The glare from the screen often hurt his eyes. “Surely the largest interstellar corporation has made some inroads we may not be aware of.” “Representatives from every major corporate power sit on the SolCorp member council,” Wallace replied. “Ourselves included. All they care about is the regulated flow of Hydrogen fuel to all points of known space regardless of boundaries and, as far as I’m concerned, is the only thing keeping the peace. Their arbiters are useful for negotiating agreements and the occasional dispute, but something that appears this small, for the time at least, I doubt they’ve even noticed.” “If she mentions anything to me, I’ll let you know, sir,” Cutter said and reached over his desk for the stack of hardcopy he’d printed. “However… I may not see her before we leave. Shall I have one of my assistants prepare some possibility scenarios for you to review? I assure you that all of Leda’s perceptions are included.” “Quite unnecessary,” Wallace said and touched the bandage. “Thank you, Artemis… try and get some sleep, we have a big day ahead of us tomorrow.” “Good night, sir.” Cutter said and the conference window in his computer display closed. He slowly traversed his chair until he faced Leda. “Are you sure there’s an alien intelligence out there?” “Without a doubt,” Leda said and nodded vigorously for emphasis. “I feel it… everyone feels it. They just don’t know what to do about it.” “You’re going to find out what we should do about it,” Cutter said. “I want you on the next shuttle out of here. Get as close to these things as possible and try and ascertain what it is that they’re here for. If you can communicate with them then do so. You are to report only to me. If you need anything, call this office… not the supply department… nobody. This way it’ll give Cairn Wallace time to forget about you.” “He won’t forget about me,” Leda said solemnly. “Not after what I did.” “Then it’ll give me time to think up something else,” Cutter said and held up a finger as Leda was about to speak. “Don’t ask me what,” He dropped his eyes to the stack he fingered through. “Who knows? CEO’s come and go. Maybe by the time you come back he’ll be gone.” “Small hope.” Leda called over her shoulder as the art-deco doors quietly parted and she exited. Cutter steepled his fingers as he swiveled in his chair to look out the window, his eyes focused between skyscrapers on the distant lights of Jamaica Bay Spaceport, lost in troubled thoughts long after she’d gone. *** Geneva, unlike much of the rest of Europe, glowed with light. Two separate facilities built by the Bern Fusion Authority were placed inside the city walls, dedicated to providing power for eight million residents in an urban core that had grown to encompass 200 square kilometers. Business towers filled the canton around the southwestern end of Lake Geneva while apartment buildings covered the surrounding hills. It was cleaner than any NorCom city and lacked the obvious chaos infecting the EuroCon sprawls. As the train passed slowly through the security gate into Geneva proper, a crowd of typical Genevese in cold weather clothes appeared on the platform outside Jena’s window. Some carried sporting gear… air-boards and snow gliders for the private resorts nestled deep in the Alps. The city, she noticed, had lost none of its centuries old charm. Despite the trappings of modernity, Tudor houses and cobblestone streets dating from the 1600’s had been meticulously preserved… surrounded at the same time by elevated, automated people movers, neon-lit holo parlors, and robots that would have made the watchmakers of old gape in wonder. “This is why I don’t care for travel by rail or by air,” Kinkaid said as he donned his cap lined with synthetic fur and grasped the travel bag he’d pulled from overhead storage. “I hated it when they rerouted us around Paris. EuroRail’s been having a great deal of trouble keeping the lines through the city open. North African bandits have taken to putting barricades up over the guideways and sacking the trains that stop. I hear it’s gotten so bad that the EuroCons had to transport all the artworks in the Louvre to more secure locations.” “Where’s that?” Jena said and stepped up behind him as the loading door of the passenger car opened and the waiting queue started moving. “Off world?” Kinkaid laughed and said, “Into the private homes of many prominent EuroCon ministers… that’s where… especially since all of them live in communities guarded better than the Louvre ever was.” “And all of this because of Transterran?” Jena said as Kinkaid shouldered his way through the multi-national crowd toward the nearest platform exit. “No… not directly,” Kinkaid said as they came into the terminal proper, a stone edifice with high arches and marble floors that echoed with the click of boot-heels, arrivals announced by public address, and the muted conversations of tourists. “The EuroCon owed money to more companies than Transterran. Collecting debts from civil authorities has traditionally been very difficult. Transterran merely purchased these outstanding debts from the others at substantially less than they were worth and brought them before the World Court in a single, massive class-action suit.” “You’re very well informed for a man who’s been out of cold sleep for less than six months," Jena said as they moved toward the line of robo-taxis visible through the archways on the other side of the terminal. “You surprise me.” “I learn less from our own intelligence sources than I do from the various news sources that transmit to Mars,” Kinkaid said and checked his Krono-Tek. On impulse, Jena followed suit, she fallen into the habit of trying to read Kinkaid’s mind in anticipation of his needs. The United Nations of Earth reception was still half a day away. The unintended detour around Paris had taken five hours. “There are no secrets, no matter how deep, when there’s a watching eye on every corner… government or otherwise.” “Do you mean that?” Jena said as Kinkaid opened the door of a robo-taxi and tossed his bag inside. He took Jena’s bag and dropped it beside his own. “Of course not.” Hours later, Jena rubbed that back of her neck where a stand of whispy-fine hairs had once been growing in violation of the regulation that stated that, regardless of the style it was worn in, no hairs were to touch her collar. The robotic-stylist, a new Sanyo, had unfolded three spider-like arms after being wheeled into place behind her, and at the end of each was a multi-tool holding a clipper, a spritzer, hot-air dryer, and several different sorts of combs. Important news from the day, rather than gossip, came out of the speakers built into the robot as the arms whirled about her head… the pretty attendant had warned her to keep very still. “You do have your moments.” She later said to her reflection and turned back and forth to catch her figure from the best angles. The bathroom of her Bristol Hotel suite was small but efficient. For the reception, Kinkaid had requested that she forego her uniform in favor of something less conspicuous, the shimmering purple cocktail dress purchased for her on Mars was the most expensive item in her wardrobe. For lack of need in Fleet service, she’d almost forgotten what makeup did for her, but when she capped her eyeliner and checked the mirror again. What she’d applied gave her a glamour she’d missed. Her suite was next to Kinkaid’s, and through the front window she could see across Lake Geneva to the U.N.E. headquarters building. She was gazing out at it when the door chime sounded. The old admiral was standing in the hallway when the door opened, in his white formal uniform, a placard full of service ribbons and awards covering each breast of his brass-buttoned jacket. He smiled when he saw Jena and said, “Heaven help me, commander, if you weren’t the child of my dearest friend and if I weren’t pentuple your age…” Jena smiled as she found her small clutch-bag and stepped past him into the hallway. She unsnapped the clutch and dropped her key-card in, and said, “Why, admiral… are you asking me out on a date?” The old man guffawed and said, “I doubt I would survive that, commander, not when you go out looking so deadly. That task I leave up to the young fools who think they can subdue a tempest and other forces of nature.” A taxi stand was set up in front of the hotel lined with robotic, GPS-guided cabs. Jena and Kinkaid climbed into the back of one, which pulled out into the traffic flowing over Rue de Mont-Blanc bridge. Jena pushed her face against the window to watch the stream of VTOL’s, anti-collision lights on full, passing overhead, making for the U.N.E. building. Higher-ranking VIP’s were being flown in. *** “They can’t ignore us now, they wouldn’t dare,” Lillith said as she watched the lights of Geneva at night passing beneath them as her skimmer banked over the lake, assigned to a holding pattern around the UNE HQ. They’d been making slow circles over the city for 10 minutes, making their way around toward ground level with each pass. She adjusted the bustline of her black, company issued evening dress, then settled back into the seat. “We’re bigger than SolCorp now and still we have to wait for landing clearance. I’ll bet the SolCorp board of regents didn’t have to wait.” “Shall I call the UN director of flight operations and tell him to get us clearance?” Stephan said and lifted his datapad to emphasize his intent to do so. He wore a black suit and a wireless earpiece/boom mike that he’d seen others of similar station wearing. Lillith shook her head. “I doubt that would help,” She said and sat back with an impatient sigh. “It would only give them more reason to delay us. You don’t understand how these people work. They’re so tiny in regards to the rest of us that we don’t even see them. The only way they can ever feel noticed is by taking over responsibilities for things we need but don’t want to do for ourselves… then they do everything they can to piss us off because we have to rely on them and there’s nothing we can do about it. I can’t wait to see the ban on us lifted. There’s nothing sweeter than seeing a pariah overcome all obstacles and emerging triumphant.” “I love the way you’re always so confident.” Stephan said and lowered his datapad. He fixed her with his eyes and allowed himself a restrained smile. “I had my doubts that the World Court verdict would be in our favor… you didn’t. Honestly, I had doubts about us coming here, I thought it was a fool’s errand intended to get you away from our headquarters for some nefarious purpose… backroom dealings and the like… that you’ve always seemed to stay above.” Lillith laughed and said, “My position is more secure now than it ever was. I get the credit for the World Court victory, and after tonight I get the credit for opening up Earth and Sol system to Transterran products again. It’s like Nixon going to China.” Stephan looked confused and said, “Who?” The skimmer lurched as it dropped another 20 meters in altitude. Lillith reached across the passenger cabin to pat Stephan on the cheek. “Don’t worry your sweet head about it, my pretty imbecile… just remember that someday you’ll be telling a management training group about how you were with me the night the company fortunes truly changed.” “So how are you going to do it?” Stephan said as Lillith withdrew her hand. “Plans have been underway for a long time to bring it about,” She said and turned to gaze out at the UN building. “Pretty soon Earth and Sol system are going to need us more than they ever needed SolCorp. Our chairman briefed me on the plan himself. It’s… beautifully crafted… and infallible as near as I can tell. That’s all you need to know.” “What about the Cruxis Liberte?” “They’re not the first terrorist group pretending to be revolutionaries that have threatened us before,” Lillith said and shrugged dismissively. “They’ll be dealt with. We’ve had a plan for that ever since we started dealing with the EuroCon. I wouldn’t worry about them either, they’re a fringe group… too far away from Procyon or any other Transterran nexus to do any real damage. They got lucky once… besides, a World Court judge can easily be replaced.” “I can’t believe you aren’t worried for yourself,” Stephan said and replaced his datapad in the Nylon holster her carried it in. “I’d be afraid for my life.” Lillith nodded toward the UN building and said, “A Cruxis Liberte agent would be insane to try and get to me down there. There’s a small army of security forces locking down every square inch of the United Nations tonight. Noone will be there that isn’t supposed to be there.” “What about an inside job?” Stephan said. “It’s possible that the EuroCon would sneak someone in just to take me out, for spite if nothing else,” Lillith said as the skimmer dropped again. “I’m not an easy target but they’ve had chances before this. If the Cruxis Liberte wanted my head they would’ve had it by now.” “You must be right.” Stephan said. “Of course I’m right,” Lillith replied with a sneer. “The company doesn’t pay me to be wrong. That’s why I’m alive right now and about to make company history. Just be thankful that you were transferred to me in time to see it happen.” “I’m just happy to have a part to play,” Stephan said as the VTOL pilot radioed back an instruction to prepare for landing. “I’m especially grateful for the chance to see Earth. Noone in my family ever has… we used to just look out at the stars and find the one that Sol system was hiding behind. Everything I ever knew about it I learned from news couriers. Now that I’m here I admit that it’s not what I expected.” Lillith snorted and rolled her eyes. “Concern yourself with what I expect.” “Of course I do,” Stephan said as the engine noise increased and the VTOL flared, jarring the passenger cabin as landing skids touched down. “My family lived in a garbage dump on New Saxony until the company found me. I’d do anything for it… anything I was told. I was trained ever since I was hired to take care of you.” “You do it well,” Lillith said as the sliding passenger door was opened by a uniformed attendant. She set her face with a smile and accepted the hand the male attendant offered and slid over the jump-seat to the door. She extended one leg and felt it touch ground, then brought the other leg down in a fluid motion that drew her out of the VTOL into the open. She looked back into the passenger cabin as Stephan was sliding out behind her. “Keep it up or you’ll be back, knee-deep in that shit looking for scraps.” Stephan stopped, as if stunned, before recovering with a forced chuckle. “I won’t… no matter what I have to do, I’m never going back. Now that the company is taking care of my family, they’ve got too much to live for.” “Then we understand each other,” Lillith said and turned for the UNE entrance a hundred meters away with Stephan in tow. She waved at the spectators lined up nearby and was greeted by the flashes of a hundred poised digi-cams. She felt like neo-royalty… first administrator of the new Transterran empire. “Come along, Stephan… the world is ours.” *** “Die madchen ist mit mir, danke,” Adm. Kinkaid said and took Jena by the elbow, surprising her as she dug through her small handbag for her guest pass, leading her past the two morbidly serious-looking Genevese police captains who manned the main security checkpoint at the entrance to the U.N.E. “Learn how to speak the language of your enemies, commander,” He whispered to her once they were away. “That way you know what the bastards are saying about you.” Just inside the large, open doors was a reception area that went a dozen feet back into the building, a glittering chandelier hung from the ceiling at the far end, adding just enough light to turn the maroon carpeting under her feet the color of dried blood. People dressed in formal wear clustered together in groups of two’s and three’s at sporadic intervals… assistants and junior executives forbidden from the larger assembly. Jena felt eyes following her as Kinkaid led off toward the twin staircases she could see ahead. Like a wishbone, stairs followed the wall on each side down to the main hall on the floor below. “Be careful what you say and do here,” Kinkaid said as he stopped at the polished brass railing overlooking the main hall and did a slow pan from right to left. “What you see here are not people… they are not human and will offended if you think so. Politics is the name the give to polite war. People you think are friends are not… support you’re sure you have you do not.” Jena stepped up beside Kinkaid and looked down at the crowd below them. Although the formal wear looked mostly similar, subtle differences in cut and style were evident, but she was not familiar enough with them to make distinctions. Everyone wore a flag or logo pin to make identification easy. A string quartet tucked back into an alcove filled the air with lilting sonatas. “They’re watching us right now,” Kinkaid said and worked his face into a smile. “They know who I am and are already planning on what they’ll say to me, but they don’t know who you are… so they have to try and figure out how they can fit you into their schemes,” He turned to Jena and gestured toward the stairs they were nearest to. Jena fell into step with him as he descended. “Did you say you wanted to make admiral someday?” Jena nodded as Kinkaid paused as a uniformed waiter passed carrying a trayful of champagne flutes. He took two and gave Jena one before continuing down the stairs. After a deep draw from the glass he said, “This is where most of our battles are fought, right here with people like these… these politicos. They control the money that we need to supply our fleets, pay our crews, and develop new weapons. They control the hearts and minds of the people we protect, and before we go to war, it is these people we must convince that war is necessary. God, I hate them sometimes.” He drained his glass in a single draught and wiped his lips by rubbing them between his thumb and index finger. The glass was deposited on the empty tray of a different waiter moving past in the opposite direction. “Come along, commander,” Kinkaid said and worked his mouth into a smile again as they reached to bottom. “Let’s get on with it,” He scanned the room and nodded toward a trio of men dressed in the ceremonial robes of the NorCom congress. “Oh look, there’s two of the most insidious vipers in the nest. I should’ve known they’d be here.” The three lit up with smiles and waved as Kinkaid caught their eye, then broke off their huddled conversation and began moving toward him. The admiral leaned over to rasp in Jena’s ear, “The younger one is new… be polite but he’s small potatoes. The tall one and the fat one… Reynold and Harpsprung… they chair the Regulatory Oversight Board. They watch the watchers looking for government impropriety… God help us.” “Admiral… so good to see you!” The man identified as Reynold called out as soon as they were within hearing range. He was lanky, and had an angular face framed by brown hair, any semblance of youth betrayed by the white flashes above his ears. “It’s been a very long time, but I suppose if anyone deserves to be here, it’s you. Your military policies helped make this happen.”