Brink of Destruction, page 20
CHAPTER 25
“Drivers and gunners stay aboard, everyone else out!” Draven felt a bit of the same eerie awe that had descended on the team inside the crawler as the membrane had shut out the yellow glare off the sand and dust outside. There was a weirdness, an alienness to the lock where they now sat, a ragged wedge of scarred Zolarian vacuum crawlers surrounded by more of the beetle-like crawlers and other vehicles even stranger. It bore down on the human imagination, the way the angles and curves were just slightly wrong.
But, just like outside on the plain, to stay in place was to die.
He hit the ramp release himself, forgoing the usual hydraulics and making it slam straight down to the floor beneath the wheels. The boom was audible, telling him that the lock was already cycling. Even if the enemy didn’t have pressurized armor, they were going to have company soon.
He pushed the first two privates down the ramp, forcing both of them to get their weapons up and ready faster than they’d been prepared for. Maybe they’d thought it would be wiser to stay buttoned up until the leadership could think of a new plan, and maybe they’d have been right in other circumstances, but Draven had been in too many fights across too many worlds. Staying immobile, armor or not, was the first step toward dying. They had to push out, had to secure this lock at least, before they dared take a pause.
He hit the ground running. The ramp was facing back toward the membranous door, and he quickly rounded the back of the vehicle, his own rifle up at high ready, looking for Captain Breck. His every instinct was pushing him to sweep ahead, but his place was beside the captain. It was a little strange, after so many hundreds of thousands of hours, so many officers who had to be carefully shepherded along, to have a real, genuine leader that he was willing to follow.
Spotting the command crawler, he dashed forward, the sounds in the now-pressurized lock strangely loud after the eerie silence of the vacuum outside. That none of those sounds included gunfire made it even stranger.
The aliens weren’t trying to drive the Zolarians out of the lock. Even the crawlers that had barely beaten Captain Breck inside sat quiescent on either side, almost as if formed up and parked, though they were just askew enough that their haste was evident. Draven dropped to a knee behind the command crawler, just beside Captain Breck, the officer identifiable only by the bars on his pauldrons as he peered around the vehicle, his rifle braced against the armor plating.
“What are they waiting for?” Draven had his own weapon up, the aiming pip moving slightly in his visor as he panned it across the service catwalks—at least, he assumed that was what the spidery balconies were for—above.
“Maybe they’re regrouping.” Breck stood. “Which is why we should push.” He turned. “Heavy weapons up!”
It took Draven a moment to find what the captain’s target was. The enemy vehicles were even stranger up close, and he could see that none were exactly the same size or shape. They were all similar, and he could pick out certain types, but each was strangely unique.
None of them currently presented a threat, and the wall beyond seemed blank and featureless.
Finally, as several of the heavy weapons teams with combat lasers and rocket launchers lugged their firepower forward, he realized what Captain Breck had figured out before him. That blank wall was different from the others, with their weird, twisting textures that looked somehow organic, when they didn’t look like the entire structure had been woven of black metal snakes. It was smooth.
As the teams set up and prepared to open fire on that blank wall, he glanced behind him and saw that the membrane door they’d come through looked identical to that blank, featureless wall, just much larger.
The heavy weapons teams didn’t need to open fire, however. The inner door of the vehicle lock irised open, and black figures scuttled through, staying low as they engaged with bell-mouthed weapons that spat fire nearly as bright as the bolts that had seared their way through the clouds of dust and detritus from the artillery barrage outside—though these spent their fury on the first thing they touched, rather than penetrating.
The humanoid figures were sealed in shiny black carapace armor that seemed almost to mirror the black, oily-looking hulls of the vaguely insectoid vehicles to the Zolarians’ right and left. That armor could stop at least some bullets, as Draven proved when he put his aiming pip on one of the first ones through the opening and fired at the same moment that Captain Breck did. The alien soldier staggered, his responding blast exploding against the command crawler’s hull, scorching off some of the remaining paint and searing its way partially into the armor. Draven kept shooting, and though he was off-balance and several of his shots went wild, one finally found a weak spot and punched through a joint in the armor.
In the dim light and against the black of walls, armor, and vehicles, it was almost impossible to tell the color of the blood that spurted from the figure’s armpit, but that it was blood was unmistakable as the figure staggered, throwing a gauntleted hand to the wound. Something vital must have been hit, because dark fluid quickly spurted across armor and floor, and the figure buckled just before Draven and one of the privates to his right both shot him again, two rounds going through the helmet seal and sending the figure flat on the floor.
Two of the combat lasers were up, and the gunners, just barely exposed around the sides of the command crawler, were now raking the oncoming armored troops with crackling beams of destruction. The enemy armor might be proof against a few four-millimeter bullets, but against the concentrated bombardment of thousands of joules of coherent light, it broke down quickly. Carapace glowed and shattered, and the next pulses tore one of the soldiers in half with a spray of steaming gore just as Draven shifted to a new target.
There was something about that carnage… something less than alien.
Faced with the barrage of fire coming from the Zolarian line, the armored figures intensified their own fire as they began to fall back through the inner door. Blast after blast slammed into the crawlers’ front glacis plates, doing little damage to the vehicles’ armor but forcing the Zolarian soldiers back behind the crawlers to cover.
The door didn’t iris closed so much as it snapped back into place, cutting off the fire in both directions and leaving sprawled, broken bodies in black carapace armor on the floor outside.
In the deafening quiet that followed, a voice boomed from some hidden loudspeaker. It was loud enough and clear enough that for a moment Draven wondered if the enemy hadn’t hacked into their comms and was speaking directly into their helmet earphones.
“Soldiers of Zolah, hold your fire.” The voice was sonorous and slightly nasal. It was also speaking flawless Franai, though with an accent that Draven couldn’t quite place. It wasn’t Zolarian—though even the “Zolarian” accent spanned a world’s worth of regional dialects—and it wasn’t Aubean. It was vaguely familiar, though.
Had the aliens been studying the Grand Democracy long enough to become fluent in its languages? Or was this a computer program that had cobbled together a vocabulary and accent from Zolarian comms?
Or was something else going on?
“You have decimated our security forces, and we recognize that we cannot hold this installation against you. I will surrender to you, provided you hold your fire and do not attempt to advance past the vehicle lock.”
Captain Breck did not rise from his position crouched behind the command crawler’s ramp, but he lifted his head, and his external speakers magnified his voice. “If you are surrendering, you are hardly in a position to dictate terms.”
“Further fighting does not grant anyone an advantage but will result only in unnecessary destruction and death.” The voice sounded reasonable, but there was a note of… something unpleasant there. Something vaguely oily. Draven didn’t think this was a computer program. “Not only for us. More of you will die if you continue this, and those deaths may be prevented by accepting our surrender.” There was a pause. “Yet the offer of surrender will not last forever. End this now, or far fewer of you will ever leave this installation than came in.”
Draven looked at Captain Breck. Technically, he didn’t think the captain had the authority to accept an enemy’s surrender like this, and yet he was the only one in a position to do so. Most of the rest of the regiment was still outside, and a brief check of the tactical display inside his visor—somewhat surprisingly still clear even inside the alien structure—showed that a standoff seemed to have developed out there as well, the weapon armatures having withdrawn into the structure, leaving the tanks and armored crawlers outside with little to shoot at, especially with Able Company inside.
With a chill, Draven realized that this offer might not be quite what it seemed. His company was well placed to act as human shields for their enemies.
Captain Breck seemed to realize it as well. He glanced at Draven, but he wasn’t looking for reassurance or advice. He was Captain Breck. He might want to look for such things, but he would bear the responsibility himself.
Even if it ruined him and got him sent to the asteroid mines, disgraced in front of the Assembly and all the people of Zolah. If the captain had any political aspirations or connections, Draven was sure that a man like him had more than his share of enemies who would gladly find some reason to attack him for a call like this.
“We will accept your surrender. Come to the vehicle lock, lay down your arms, and provide us with all security keys to this installation.”
“I will come to the vehicle lock.” Draven couldn’t help but notice that the voice hadn’t said anything about the rest of Captain Breck’s instructions, and he knew the captain did as well.
They waited, weapons trained on the membranous door. Draven kept the window with the overall tac display up in his visor, showing him not only the bulk of the regiment outside, currently unmolested by any more of the beetle-like crawlers or any sort of flyers, the installation now as quiescent as the vehicles nearby in the vehicle lock, but also the starships and their deployed starfighters in the dark sky above. The starships had mostly entered geosynchronous orbit, so they seemed almost motionless in the sky, halfway to the southern horizon.
The door opened, and a figure stepped out. Draven’s eyes narrowed and he centered his aiming pip on the center of the figure’s chest.
The alien interlocutor was human.
In fact, he was familiar. Draven wasn’t sure from where, but he knew the man’s face.
Captain Breck stood, his weapon still held ready, though not aimed at the man in the plain gray suit. He recognized him, too. “You are Tennyson Drass.”
That was how Draven recognized him. The governor of a small satellite colony in orbit over New Kapar had become infamous even on Zolah, nearly a thousand light years distant. His grab for power against the corrupt technocracy on New Kapar would even have been applauded if not for just how badly it had gone. Somehow, despite all the blood and death, Drass had still managed to come out of it looking like a principled man who had gotten in over his head, even as he fled the system and disappeared.
So what was he doing wielding ghost ship tech in this strange, distant system orbiting a brown dwarf?
Drass spread his hands. “I am here. I am unarmed.”
Breck stepped forward, but he didn’t lower his rifle all the way. “Have your bodyguard come out, their hands on their helmets.”
The tall, austere-looking man complied. His hair was slicked back and immaculate, and not a strand of it stirred as he turned, keeping his hands in view, to order the remaining carapace-armored soldiers to comply. They laid their bell-mouthed weapons on the dark floor and stepped in front of them, their hands dutifully clasped atop their helmets.
Drass looked at Breck. “Are you satisfied?”
The captain didn’t speak. He simply stood there, rifle in hand, backed up by the soldiers and heavy weapons of Able Company, watching Drass from behind the blank impassivity of his helmet visor.
The strangely out-of-place man tilted his head to peer at the captain. “Do you truly believe that any computer system you possess could interface with those in this place? My codes would be useless to you.”
“You know how to use them.” It was an accusation.
“Yes. I have been trained. These people have been trained. That is different from having foreign soldiers with primitive tech attempt to use them.” A ghost of a smile crossed the erstwhile rebel’s face, one that never reached his eyes. “Accept the surrender, Captain. We will cooperate, to save our lives, and to preserve what we have built here.”
Something about that struck Draven. He’s buying time.
Able Company was hardly in a good position, though. Draven didn’t know why Drass was trying to surrender to them now, but he didn’t doubt that the man could make good on his threat. Something didn’t make sense here, but as he looked around the vehicle lock, he saw that if those alien crawlers could be automated—and he didn’t think Able Company could take the risk that they couldn’t—then the company was heavily outgunned and surrounded.
Captain Breck must have seen it as well. “Very well, Drass.” The lack of an honorific was both very Zolarian as well as a deliberate slight. “I accept your surrender.”
***
The following two hours were hectic, and not only because of the daunting task of securing a base the size of the one embedded in the deep crater. The staff of that base—entirely human, from the looks of things—were cooperative, but there were only so many Zolarian soldiers and a great deal of territory to cover.
The greater issue was politics.
Captain Breck was ignoring the barrage of comm calls from just about every staff officer in the regiment, citing the necessity to secure the central control room and as much of the base as possible. He was keeping Drass close, and Draven was shadowing both of them, along with an entire squad from First Platoon.
One of the squads that had survived the charge to the base.
Drass was as unruffled as he’d been when he’d stepped through the inner door of the vehicle lock. Draven watched him closely, a frown furrowing his brow. There was something off here, but he didn’t know exactly what it was.
Granted, humans in a base that was clearly of alien design and manufacture was odd enough. It was possible that Drass and his people had found the base and repurposed it for their uses, but that didn’t seem to be the case.
That became even more evident when they came to the control room.
Set in a tower that rose above the crater rim, the tower nevertheless had no actual windows, though screens that seemed embedded in the strange, ropy-textured walls showed the full arc of the crater, studded with black structures of the same appearance. Everything was brightened from the dimness that was the landscape under the dull, almost imperceptible glow of the brown dwarf and the stars beyond it.
That view was immediately forced out by the holo in the center of the room.
Draven didn’t immediately recognize it as a holo. It seemed solid, like a sculpture, but even once he realized it was a projection, moving in real time, he still couldn’t figure out how it was projected. There was no holo tank.
Even the wonder of the tech paled when he realized what he was looking at.
Every ship, every vehicle, every starfighter in the task group was rendered in excruciating detail. Furthermore, so were their vectors.
So were the targeting solutions on all of them.
The language wasn’t familiar, almost a sort of cuneiform, but Draven recognized targeting icons when he saw them.
Drass was watching their reactions, but the hardsuits were featureless and impassive. He still said nothing as Captain Breck moved to the consoles surrounding the holo. “What are the command codes?”
“Oh, those won’t be necessary.” Eyes and muzzles turned toward Drass, though he stood still, his hands clasped behind his back. “You see, the surrender was necessary to make sure that no further damage was done to this facility.”
Sergeant First Class Yusuf gasped. Draven turned toward the strange holo in the center of the room.
The task group’s starships hovered in geosync, barely glittering in the pale starlight, surrounded by still-deployed starfighters. They were not alone.
Nearly twice their number of black, ovoid ships, the twisting, knobby texture plainly visible in the projection, even at that scale, had appeared seemingly out of nowhere, barely a handful of kilometers from the Zolarian starships.
Titanic energies crossed empty space in a heartbeat. The Nebulon was the first to explode, her drive section splitting open before the actinic flash of a ruptured reactor core tore the ship to pieces.
With a ripple of sparks, each one representing a thermonuclear explosion, the entire task group was reduced to glowing scrap and radioactive dust in a matter of moments.
Draven could only watch, stunned like he’d never thought he would be after all he’d seen and been through. This was one of the most decorated combat fleets in the service of the Grand Democracy, many of those ships having made it out of the deathtrap of Epsilon Sarrazin III… and they had just been utterly destroyed in less time than it took to comprehend what was going on.
And now the regiment was stranded, right in the heart of the enemy’s lair, far from anyplace they knew, even if they could get off the planet and through a wormhole.
Slowly, his weapon in his hands, Captain Breck turned to face Drass. The erstwhile politician and rebel wasn’t gloating, as Draven would have expected him to. None of the other enemy personnel were close by, and all of them who were in the room were staying perfectly still.
“I am sorry that it had to happen this way, but as you see, it was necessary to preserve as much of this installation intact as possible.” The man seemed genuinely sorry. Not that it would keep Draven from killing him, though right at the moment, it was unclear what that might achieve. “Now that further destruction would be pointless, I am willing to spare your soldiers’ lives. I would suggest that you surrender quickly. My associates will not be so merciful when they arrive.”
