Damnation, page 16
part #3 of Forgotten Vengeance Series
“I know. I’m sorry, General. It was a mistake. I’ll understand if you can’t allow me to be part of this.”
“She did save my life,” Hayden said. “For whatever it’s worth.”
“It’s worth a lot,” Haeri replied. “By being here, you’re already part of this. But if you want to make things official.”
“I do.”
Haeri motioned for her to stand. She came to attention in front of him, and he repeated the short swear-in. Then he put out his hand. “Welcome to the Organization, Sergeant Gray.”
Hayden watched Gray closely to see how she reacted to the demotion. She didn’t flinch at all, taking his hand. “Thank you, General.”
“Both of you, relax,” Haeri said, taking Gray and Caleb out of attention.
“Well, General,” Hayden said. “You’ve got some new recruits. Now, how about you fill us in on what your plans were before we hooked up and what our plans are now.”
“Yes,” Haeri agreed. “I think that’s the proper next step. Do you want to sit, Sheriff?”
“Neg. I’m fine here by the window.”
“Suit yourself. Colonel Card, you should sit. Allow yourself to recover.”
“I’m fully recovered, General,” Caleb said. “And ready to go.”
Haeri smiled. “Glad to hear it. Sheriff, how much do you know about Edenrise and Tinker? Considering how Nathan Stacker took over for James after Tinker’s death, I imagine quite a lot?”
“I know Tinker had an illegal deal with the Trust to turn raw materials from asteroid mines into usable assets,” Hayden replied. “Guns, mostly. But other tech too.” Hayden paused. “How long have you known about Nathan?”
“Nearly the entire time since the switch,” Haeri replied. “Nathan tried to pull off James’ demeanor, but his clone twin was much more short-tempered. He had a constant anger simmering below his surface that made him intense. Not completely different from the way you are right now. But it wasn’t important. I didn’t send Bennett to hunt Nathan because of Tinker and James. I was trying to protect our secrets. One of the hardest jobs of the Organization is to fight aliens while keeping the existence of aliens hidden from the population.”
“Why bother keeping it a secret?” Hayden asked. “Seems more trouble than it’s worth.”
“You know why, Sheriff. The people of Proxima don’t know we left Earth because it was overrun by trife. If they did, they would live in constant fear of invasion.”
“But they’re being invaded right now.”
“And they don’t know it.”
“Wouldn’t it help if they did?”
“I don’t see how. If the people rose up against the enemy, the enemy would have no choice but to turn to a more lethal approach to control them. Millions would die, the domes would be destroyed and Proxima would be no more. Even Vyte doesn’t want that to happen. He wants our output, not our obliteration.”
“Pozz. I understand. Ignorance is bliss.”
“In a sense, yes. But not everyone on Proxima is ignorant. Yes, Tinker was making weapons and tech for the Trust. But the amount of resources going out to Edenrise and coming back to the Trust was always cooked by as much as ninety percent.”
“Ninety?” Hayden said, surprised.
“That’s right. The Trust only got a small portion of what was made. I redirected the rest.”
“To where?”
“There are twenty-four mining rigs scattered across the Proxima system, two of them as far as two light-years away. All of those rigs are owned by members of the Trust. But half of them are loyal to the Organization.”
“And they aren’t just mining rigs, are they?” Caleb asked.
“No. The Centurions who wind up incarcerated on those twelve never committed a crime. They were brought up on false charges to get them to the outposts. Some of them do become miners. We need the minerals from those rocks. But some of them are reassigned to other positions. A close examination of the rosters of the rigs cross-referenced with the training of the Centurions on them would offer a solid clue, but nobody in the CSF or the Proxima Council has ever looked that close, and I would shut them down if they tried.”
“Warships,” Caleb said. “You have warships.”
Haeri nodded. “A dozen rigs, a dozen warships. We didn’t know for sure what we were building them to fight, so we made them as strong as our technology allows, and we’ve upgraded them as the tech improved. They’re hiding in plain sight, waiting for orders.”
“So the plan was to attack the enemy warship?” Hayden asked.
“I would have preferred to stop them from gaining a foothold among the Council and the Judicus Department, but it’s too late for that. So yes, the next step was to attack the incoming enemy ship. I have to admit, I don’t know that it’s a fight we can win. The Relyeh ship is nearly twenty times larger than our flagship, the Invincible.”
“You can’t fight it with ships,” Caleb said. “It’s defenses are too powerful.”
“How do you know?”
“I know because Ishek knows. The Hunger has never lost a damnation in a battle.”
“A damnation?” Hayden asked.
“It’s the closest translation for the word.”
“Maybe we can change that,” Haeri said.
“Believe us, General. Races more advanced than humankind have tried and failed.”
“Then it’s even better that you’re here. That plan is on the back burner until we’ve unpacked the data Valentine put in your head. But we can’t do it here. Proxima isn’t safe for us. We need to get you to the spaceport, onto a ship and up to the Invincible. We’ll work out the details once we get there.”
“Yes, sir,” Caleb replied.
General Haeri looked at Hayden. “What do you say, Sheriff?”
“It’s a start.”
35
Nathan
“We’re approaching the target, General,” Isaac said, glancing back from the pilot’s seat.
Nathan had been watching the display the entire time, his eyes shifting across the camera views as he searched for signs of the enemy. Isaac had guided the Parabellum into a high arc that brought them across most of the United States well out of range of potential ground defenses, but as they made their descent the evidence of the invasion had become more visible. Ancient cities reduced to rubble centuries ago had become renewed hubs of activity as multiple alien ships landed nearby, dispatching thousands of soldiers who rendezvoused with hundreds of xaxkluth, the combined forces spreading out toward visible human encampments. He could see the small dots of people on horseback or in cars doing their best to get away and in many cases succeeding. But what they didn’t know was that another force was often in the same direction they were heading, waiting in the distance to collect the fleeing survivors.
In fact, it became clear to Nathan that the plan wasn’t really to chase humans down and capture them, but rather to herd them toward specific locations across the continent, saving themselves a lot of effort in grabbing individuals here and there. Everywhere Nathan found the Hunger, he found groups of people ahead of them, running toward the hub of the invasion while the outer spokes pivoted inward and drove them on. If it wasn’t humankind that was being managed like cattle, he might have been more impressed.
“Roger,” Nathan said, getting to his feet. “You have the coordinates and the bridge. Lutz, are you ready?”
The engineer looked over from the navigator’s station. His face was red, his forehead sweaty. Everything about this was making the man nervous. “Ready, General,” he said, following it up with an anxious exhale.
“Relax, Lutz,” Nathan said. “It’s going to be fun.” He smiled, trying to sound reassuring.
“Yes, sir,” Lutz replied, not quite buying it.
Nathan headed off the bridge, along the passage to the front of the deck. All of the deputies were already in the hold, strapped into the bulkheads. All of the seats had been removed from the deck, every piece of non-vital equipment cast aside. They could carry a lot of weapons in the ship given enough time to load them. Nathan could only hope they could beg, borrow or steal enough time to make a difference.
He dropped to the hold. Hicks was at the front of the line of deputies, closest to the back ramp. All of the men and women were wearing combat armor, though some of it was older and more worn than anything the Liberators had ever put on. The difference was especially stark compared to Jesse and Spot in their modern Centurion combat armor, intermixed with the deputies along the bulkhead.
“AH-TEHN-SHUN!” Jesse barked as he reached the bottom of the steps.
The deputies didn’t respond as crisply as a trained military force, but they did snap to, straightening up and turning to face Nathan.
“Deputies are ready, General,” Hicks said, speaking for them.
“Roger,” Nathan said. Maybe they were, but he wasn’t. He felt naked without the powered armor he had become so accustomed to, and when he grabbed his helmet and slid it over his head he felt downright claustrophobic. How did the others manage?
“Comms check,” he said. “Sound off.”
The deputies were split into four squads of five, and they followed their squad leaders in calling out their designations. Nathan was Alpha One, while Hicks was Bravo One. Jesse and Spot were Charlie and Foxtrot One respectively.
“Thirty seconds, General,” Isaac said.
“Roger that. Any sign of Intellects?”
“Negative, General. But the jammer is set and ready on your command.”
“Don’t wait for my command, Ike. I might not be able to give it. Deploy the jammer at your discretion.”
“Roger, sir.”
Nathan moved to the front of the line, putting his hand near the ramp control. He ticked away the seconds until he reached fifteen and then hit the control. The ramp started to open, nearly completing its descent by the time the dropship bounced lightly on its skids.
“Let’s move, Earthers!” he shouted, charging down the ramp with the rest of the deputies right behind him. They had landed a hundred meters from the cavern entrance, which as far as he could tell from the distance was still sealed tight. He ran half the distance before the Parabellum lifted off again, taking to the skies to watch for the enemy. “Ike, how do we look?”
“Clear so far, General,” Isaac said.
“Roger.” Nathan scanned the hill ahead of them. The answer should have pleased him, but he didn’t trust it. What if the enemy had already gotten inside and was waiting to ambush them? The Parabellum’s jamming tech couldn’t reach through the meters of dense rock.
They didn’t have a choice. They needed those guns, and if they couldn’t get them, they were as good as dead anyway. He kept running, making it to the blast doors and the control pad he had abandoned a couple of days earlier.
“General,” Isaac said. “I’ve got movement two klicks west. Looks like xaxkluth.”
“No Intellects?”
“Not that I can see, sir.”
Nathan was tempted to order Lutz to swap the jamming board with the weapons control board. Isaac could slow the xaxkluth by harassing them with plasma while Nathan and the deputies entered the cache. The weapons inside were exponentially better than what they were currently carrying. They didn’t even have any grenades.
He resisted the idea. There was something about this that wasn’t sitting well. An Intellect had been watching the cache before. Why would it have left? It didn’t need to eat, and he doubted the enemy would expect them not to try again. He was sure the Intellect was still here.
But where?
He started tapping the entry code into the panel, one eye on the situation map overlayed on the visor of his helmet, waiting for it to start displaying targets. He put in all but the last three characters of the code, stopping to scan the area again. The deputies were spread out behind him, kneeling near the edges of the door with their rifles up and ready.
“Three xaxkluth are closing on your position, General,” Isaac said. “ETA to contact, forty-seven seconds.”
“Roger,” Nathan said. “All units. As soon as the door opens we get our asses inside. I’m going to seal her up again while we start collecting munitions and piling them behind the door.” He spun back to the control pad, entering the rest of the code.
The pad beeped, a green LED lighting up on top of it. The blast door itself began to slide to the left, the twenty-centimeter thick alloy grinding along the floor to clear the path.
A half-dozen tentacles snapped out from the shadows, reaching for Nathan as something monstrous howled inside the cavern.
36
Max
“Confusion,” Max said, staring at the lines of code flowing across the terminal.
“You don’t understand the code?” Pyro asked.
“Negation. I understand the code. I don’t understand the algorithm. Why is this repeated four times in four different places?” He pointed at the terminal. “The construction of this software is highly inefficient.”
“I know, and you can’t sort it out because you’re too smart. That’s why we’re here together, right?”
“Affirmation. Hahaha. Haha. Frustration.”
“Relax, Max. Do you see here? It’s looking for a package that includes the genome sequence, which is…” Pyro paused while they searched for the file. “Here.”
Max stared at the file and its location. He was trying to make new cortical pathways to compensate for his confusion, but it was harder than he expected. Human software was so primitive and nonsensical. He could only imagine how many defects were hiding within.
It was a wonder the interlink functioned at all.
“Can you read this?” Pyro asked, opening the file. The algorithm within was much more complex, the richness of the work surprising him. How could one species be capable of being so disorganized and simultaneously so informed? The genetic touchpoints were the work of higher intelligence, an intellect he didn’t think the humans possessed.
“It’s the interface to the Relyeh organ Natalia Duke called the ick.” He scanned it for a minute. “Affirmation. I believe we can use this.”
“Use it how?”
“The frequencies are hard-coded. If we adjust them dynamically based on secondary factors, we can exert greater control over the output.”
“Make it more efficient?”
“Affirmation. And increase the effectiveness. Hahaha. Haha.”
“What do we need to do?”
“Requirement. A simulation system to test the effects of the changes.”
“There’s already one on the terminal,” Pyro said. “Let me open it for you.” She tapped on the control pad, and a new service opened on the screen.
“Excitement. This may require modification to enable isolation of the variables.”
“We’ve got time until Nathan gets back,” Pyro said. “Let’s do it.”
“Pozz.” Max put his hand on the terminal, extending his material through the skin and into the machine, using it to interface directly with the electronics inside. He didn’t see the code, but he understood it as if he could, and he began reading through it and making changes.
“That’s incredible,” Pyro said, watching the terminal flash as Max worked with it.
“It is basic,” Max replied. “Curiosity.”
“Yes?”
“Do you love Nathan Stacker?”
“What?” Pyro’s face reddened, and she flinched at the question. Then she started laughing. “Why would you even ask me that?”
“Observation. Nathan Stacker’s heart rate increases at your presence. And I also registered increased blood flow during your interaction with Engineer Lutz. I believe General Stacker was jealous. Hahaha. Haha.”
Pyro looked away, still red. “I don’t know. We’re good friends. But romantically? Is that something you’re curious about? Intimacy, I mean?”
“Negation. I am intrigued by human interaction and the displeasure you intentionally create for yourselves.”
“Displeasure?”
“Nathan Stacker cares for you but doesn’t say so. He sacrifices potential happiness to save himself rejection. He lives less pleasurably than he might. Even if you did reject him, he would ultimately be more satisfied having exhibited honesty.”
Pyro laughed again. “That may be true, but that’s not how we work.”
“Curiosity.”
“I don’t know. It just isn’t. What about you, Max? Are you capable of love?”
“Negation. I’m a machine. Incapable of feelings. If you believe I'm emotional, you’re projecting your humanity onto me. Hahaha. Haha.”
“Okay, Freud.”
“Sarcasm. General Stacker ordered me not to utilize this form of humor.”
“He didn’t give me that order,” Pyro countered. “I can be as sarcastic as I want.”
“Pozz,” Max replied. “I’m making efforts to reconstruct my cortical pathways to better integrate with human society. I don’t intend to ever return to the Forge.”
“You’re welcome to stay with us, Max.”
“Appreciation.”
“Are you almost done?”
“Affirmation. It is...” Max stopped speaking when the comm box in the room crackled.
“Pyro, this is Cameron on the bridge. We’re picking up activity above ground. I...I think something’s coming.”
Pyro glanced at Max. “Is it the Hunger?”
“Affirmation. They’re right on time. Hahaha. Haha.”
“Cameron, I’m on my way up.”
“I will go,” Max said. “You continue working on the interlink. You can make sense of the base code.”
“And you can make sense of the genetic-based algorithms. Max, I need you here. Nathan wanted us to work together.”
“Compliance. Then we should remain together. Cameron, what is the composition of the disturbance?”
“I’m not sure,” Cameron replied. “Sensors are tracking movement, but we don’t have eyes on the target yet.”
