Rubicon, page 28
She sat on a stool by the workbench and tore open the packet. “Just came from our final brief. This is quite the operation.”
“Yes, it is.”
“We’re on point with the Stormwalkers. Guessing that was you?”
West sighed and stopped his work. He looked up at her, lips pressing into a firm line. “A compromise was in order. The commodore agreed that a prominent role for Forward Recon was justified based on your impeccable performance record—”
“You’re welcome, by the way,” she mumbled over a mouthful of food, but West ignored her.
“—however, proper execution requires two primary teams. Major Blackwell insisted on the Stormwalkers’ participation. I know your teams have somewhat of a tumultuous history. Please do your best to facilitate a professional and productive … environment…”
He trailed off as he stared at her with a flat look, her chomping suddenly loud in the resounding silence.
She slowed her obnoxious chewing and swallowed as quietly as possible. “No worries. I’ll make sure everyone stays focused.”
He turned back to the console.
She peeled open the wrapper further. “What about on the unsanctioned side of things?”
“Nothing.”
She paused mid-bite. “Uh, sir? Nothing?”
“There is nothing I need you to do, other than your job.”
Her hand dropped, hunger forgotten, and some of the tension slackened from her shoulders.
That surprised her, sure, but primarily, she felt relieved. It was a big enough operation that Blackwell himself would be taking the mantel of commanding officer. She wasn’t disappointed she wouldn’t have to do anything unauthorized in front of him.
“Don’t get too comfortable, Sergeant,” West said, and the thread of caution in his tone returned some of the tightness to her muscles. She looked up to find him facing her squarely. “The intelligence at this black site is potentially the highest-priority asset we have ever sought. Certainly for Flintlock, possibly the 505th, conceivably the entire fleet.”
He crossed his arms and took a few slow steps toward her, his mechanical limbs buzzing lightly.
“As you know, there will be no hard drives,” he continued, “no data transfer, no encryption. The mission is to collect and return the physical hardware in one, functional piece. So though I ask for no fraudulent conduct, I need you to ensure those parameters are met. No tampering, no damage, no shortcuts. One, functional piece. At all costs.”
A chill pricked her skin, and she folded her arms tightly over her chest. “That important, huh?”
“Yes.”
Adriene chewed, brow furrowing as West retreated to the counter, then brought back a stool. He sat facing her, interlocking his fingers in his lap. She swallowed.
“To convey just how important,” West continued, “I would like to have a frank conversation with you, Sergeant.”
She shifted back on the stool. “By all means.”
“Have you ever speculated on the motivations of the Mechan?”
She lifted a shoulder. “Only two to three times a day.”
He gave a humoring half grin.
She propped an elbow on the top of the workbench. “You have a hypothesis?”
“More than a hypothesis.”
“A theory, then?”
His ashy eyebrows lifted.
She scoffed. “Don’t look too surprised that I know the difference.”
Another humoring grin. “You never cease to surprise, Sergeant.”
“I choose to take that as a compliment.” She tore off another chunk of MRE. “So,” she prompted, swallowing the bite. “Let’s hear it.”
He inclined his head. “The Mechan confine the majority of our population to our home system, while dedicating entire armada clusters to ensuring we cannot establish a foothold anywhere else in the galaxy. Why?”
Adriene finished chewing, unaware it was going to be a Q&A. She gulped, then answered, “Because they don’t want us growing powerful enough to fight back.”
“Reasonable assumption,” he agreed. “However, they not only allow the Extrasolar Fleet to continue operations, but they possess easily three to four times the firepower and bandwidth needed to eliminate the entire solar system in one fell swoop. But they do not. Why?”
“Procrastination?”
He gave her a flat look.
She set down the half-eaten MRE, considering a less sarcastic answer. “Convenience?”
“Possibly.” By his blasé tone, Adriene felt like she’d missed the mark.
She leaned onto the hand of her propped elbow, kneading the back of her neck. “They don’t kill us because … they don’t want us dead?”
A corner of his lip lifted, and he dipped his chin. “And why would they not want us dead?”
She sat up a little straighter. “Programming?” she guessed, thoughts returning to the flashes of Architect history she’d gleaned during her brief time as a human hard drive. “If the Architects created the scrappers to house their minds, maybe they included some kind of directive to not harm biological beings? Unless forced?”
“An interesting guess,” he acquiesced. “What about hybridization?”
Adriene tensed. It’d been weeks if not months since she’d last heard that word. She steadied herself, exhaling to a slow count of three like her Rubicon taught her.
West clarified, “What motive do they have to hybridize us?”
“Direct access to rezone hubs,” she replied. “It’d be an easy back door to infiltrate the military.”
“But if they do not want us dead, why go to the trouble of infiltrating the military? What purpose would that serve?”
Adriene chewed the inside of her cheek, considering. “I don’t know,” she said finally.
“You see where the logical fallacies begin to show?”
She nodded. “Yeah, fair.”
“I have only come up with one theory that I believe accommodates each of those points. Thus far, it has been substantiated by the data we’ve collected over the last few months.”
Her stool groaned as she scooted back and crossed her arms. “Okay. Let’s hear it.”
“I believe they want us alive because they want our bodies.”
Adriene’s lips parted, the warmth draining from her face. “What?”
“For themselves.”
She blinked, unable to say anything other than another “What?”
“I believe their attempts at hybridization are related to rezoning, as you suggested.” He averted his gaze briefly, scratching at the ungrafted side of his cheek. “However…” He drew his chin back up, meeting her gaze again. “I think they are attempting to secure an avenue, so that someday, they can harvest the planet of biological shells they’ve diligently guarded the last twenty years.”
Adriene’s shoulders dropped, the freshly ingested MRE souring in her stomach.
That would mean the Firewall that humanity had regarded as a military blockade was actually … a fence. An enclosure for their incubator.
She scrubbed both hands down her face, pushing out a hard breath through them. “But why?” she exhaled, dropping her hands and locking eyes with him. “Why would they want to be biological?”
“In order to be mortal.”
She picked at her cuticles. Unnervingly, she could relate to that desire.
She may be able to support or refute his hypothesis based on what she’d heard while part of the hive mind, but she refused to willingly dredge up memories she’d spent so much time and effort burying.
West’s steady look remained unchanged as he watched her quietly processing.
Finally, she cleared her throat. “Why would they want to be mortal?” she pressed.
Evenly, he said, “Who can say.”
She studied his expectant look. “You have a theory on that too?” she asked.
“A hypothesis,” he corrected, a hint of a wry smile playing at the corners of his lips.
She exhaled a dry laugh, stuck somewhere between bewilderment and dread.
“I believe they may see it as an ascension,” West answered.
Adriene’s eyebrows climbed.
“Godhood, of a sort,” he went on. “Their long-extinct creators were biological. Perhaps they believe that if they return to that state, they will have ascended.”
She rubbed a hand over her short hair. “Why would the Mechan even want to ascend?”
He gave a firm shake of his head. “I don’t think the Mechan want anything,” he clarified, tone dire while taking on a fervent edge. “Possibly, it’s tied into a completion path. They were designed and built as machines. Without a directive over the last few hundred years, their programming may have attempted to create an objective for them. A purpose. As machines, the only reference point they have for ‘purpose’ would be their own origin.”
“The Architects…” she mumbled. “Who were biological and had intended on using hosts to survive.”
West gave a grim nod. “Currently, the only way the Mechan can exist is as a hive mind. But they may be able to break free of that architecture by transferring to individual human bodies. They could become individuals. Like their creators.”
When she found her voice again, it came out dry and crackling. “You have proof of this?”
He shook his head. “Not definitive. But…” He glanced back at his monitors before returning his look to her, a hard glint in his real eye. “Let’s just say, there is compelling evidence. But it has not yet collated into a complete picture. The final pieces of that puzzle … Well, hopefully many of them can be found at this next black site.”
Adriene’s mind reeled as she considered the possibilities of both his theory and subsequent hypothesis … absolutely hating how much sense it made.
“Which,” West went on, tone weighted, “is why I must stress again how important it is that we retrieve the hardware intact. To have the best chance at getting those final pieces.”
She bit the inside of her cheek as she assessed his serious expression, the planes of the right side of his face as rigid and unyielding as the augmented side.
She’d spent enough time with West over the last two months to learn how to read the nuance of his reserved expressions. She’d never once seen him like this. Not this serious, this earnest.
She firmed her jaw. “No tampering, no damage, no shortcuts, at all costs,” she recited. “Understood, sir. I’ll ensure it comes back intact.”
“Thank you.” He glanced down with a fleeting wince. The fingers of his mechanical hand tremored as he faced the console again. “You’re dismissed.”
Adriene exhaled a heavy sigh, then inclined her head. “Sir.” She took a final bite of the MRE, then tossed the wrapper in the incinerator chute and headed for the exit.
“Adriene?”
She glanced back.
The lines creasing West’s forehead softened. “Good hunting. Stay safe.”
One corner of her mouth tugged up into a small smile. “Thanks, sir.”
CHAPTER
TWENTY
Augur Team’s ship waited in bay three with its dual hatches opened. Larger than their standard dropships, the armored transport was built to ferry a team of twelve, with two sets of troop seats lining either wall of the crew compartment.
Adriene ascended the ramp into the hold, where the others stood at the troop lockers suiting up. Kato waved her over, and she joined him, yanking open her assigned locker and pulling her suit chassis out. Kato helped her, snapping the last of her shell into place as Blackwell boarded. The major looked even stockier under the bulk of his light gray hardsuit.
Rhett, the Stormwalkers’ lieutenant, disappeared into the enclosed helm and Gallagher followed to serve as copilot. Adriene sat between Brigham and Kato on the troop bench opposite Ivon, Coleson, and Wyatt.
At 1300 on the dot, Blackwell sealed the hatches and called for a ready check. Everyone sounded off as he settled in beside Ivon. “Augur Team is primed,” he announced over suit comms. “Activating Rubicons.”
Adriene’s vision flared white. Her chest swelled as a comforting weight descended over the cold vacancy in her skull.
// Welcome to Rubicon. Good morning. //
It’s one in the afternoon.
// Well, I just woke up, so it’s morning to me. //
And as we all know, the universe revolves around you.
// Glad to see you’ve come to terms with that. //
Adriene rolled her eyes. Her AI had really started to own the whole unique personality thing.
New reference pips and hardsuit stripes tracked in her HUD—the addition of five more squad members causing an increased flurry of activity. Along one side, a squad roster expanded—Brigham’s red, Gallagher’s green, and Kato’s blue all familiar sights after weeks of ops together. Blackwell’s name shone a stark, bright white, whereas Rhett was magenta, Ivon bright orange, Coleson violet, and Wyatt teal.
The deck chief’s voice rang over the ship intercom, “Augur One cleared for takeoff. Good hunting, fivers.”
The ship rumbled as the engines ignited. Rhett steered them out of the hangar, and they entered a brief, in-system jaunt through subspace.
When they exited a few minutes later, two convoy ships waited in orbit to escort them to the surface. The groundside support squads called in their all clear, then Augur One slid through the atmosphere and under the cloud cover.
CNGC-8402b-III was a type-4 planet: a former Goldilocks whose turbulent geological history had covered it in a crust of black volcanic rock veined with streams of hot lava and punctuated by brilliant, golden-orange eruptions from fissures and vents. A haze of ash lingered in the sulfur-heavy atmosphere.
They set down in the designated landing zone, and Augur Team disembarked two abreast onto the craggy surface. A gust of wind swept in an ash cloud, the clumps of black dust whirling around them like an ethereal swarm of locusts.
Adriene’s pathfinder module scanned the terrain as she guided them toward the foot of a massive dormant volcano, one of a dozen in their visual range. Branching fractures scarred the black rock of the mountain face like forked lightning, the barren channels cut long ago by flows of lava.
After fifteen minutes of keeping a steady pace, Augur Team approached the target location—an otherwise nondescript expanse of fractured rock. The subterranean black site had been tunneled into the hard rock centuries ago, and any proper entry points had become casualties of the planet’s tumultuous geology, buried under massive erosion deposits of rock and sediment courtesy of the nearby mountain.
Adriene scanned the surface for the most structurally sound breach point, then Brigham set the charges. The plumes of black dust settled to reveal a roughly two-meter circular rift in the flinty surface.
After Gallagher and Ivon called the all clear on overwatch, Adriene offered to take point, knowing her Rubicon would be able to sense any approaching danger before the others’. Blackwell agreed, and Wyatt helped set her anchor, then she rappelled down into the jet-black pit.
After a twelve-meter descent, her feet hit ground. She released the winch, and her boots crunched against metal decking dusted with shards of rocky debris from the detonation. A soft beam of surface light shone from the breach, hazed by the atmospheric ash lingering like dust motes.
Adriene scanned the darkness. Her HUD’s enhanced light filter activated, but there was too little illumination to start with, and she could see nothing but grated metal flooring in either direction.
She double-checked the overwatch map in her HUD. “All clear,” she called over comms.
One by one, the others joined her. When they’d settled, Blackwell opened comms and primed the support squad assigned to start the off-site power generator. Augur Team formed up, ready to return fire against any automated defense systems that might trigger.
Blackwell gave the signal, and the power surged on. Banks of lights flicked on one by one. Only a fifth of the fixtures worked—some convulsing for a few seconds before giving in, while others threw out single, brilliant bursts like final, desperate death throes before shorting out completely.
Though mottled, the new illumination sufficiently revealed the interior of the small hangar—just large enough to house three standard dropships abreast. Patches of rust stained the paneled metal walls where the coating had worn away.
Pneumatic pumps lined a trussed ceiling, indicating a retractable roof, which would have once opened to allow arrivals and departures before being buried by avalanches. Sets of metal stanchions outlined three separate docking pads, only one of which was occupied by an odd, scalene-shaped craft. The marred hull featured a series of unreadable markings, and a long, jagged crack across a section of the back aft.
// I can’t match it with anything on your pathfinder module. But I’d say it’s two to three hundred years old. //
Must’ve been abandoned when the black site was decommissioned.
Brigham’s red pip glowed within Adriene’s comms module. “Sir,” he said to Blackwell. “Entry at ten o’clock.”
Brigham pinged the opposite wall. Blackwell gave the signal, and the squad fell into a wedge formation as they moved toward it. The quiet, empty hangar gave off an eerie yet oddly comfortable ambience, like the refreshing quiet of a typically busy spaceport after hours.
Kato and Wyatt broke off and approached the access panel beside the double-wide, reinforced door. They conversed between themselves as they tapped into their hyphens, then Wyatt said, “It’ll be just a minute, sir.”
The rest of Augur Team shifted into a loose, outward-facing arc, fencing the engineers in while keeping an eye on the open hangar behind them.
// Now that power’s on, you ready to connect to the rest of the site? //
Ready when you are.
Adriene’s chest swelled with invigoration as her Rubicon’s range expanded. Within the site, dozens of terminals had spooled up, dysfunctional life systems struggled to reboot, and ancient, arid water recyclers whirred to life.
She filtered out the typical idle tech, focusing on a stronger source. It pulsed in her mind’s eye—a resonant tremor like the rumble of earth before an avalanche.
