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AIDAN RUSSELL
Moldva looked to the stars. The twinkling specks of light offered no warmth against the chill breeze rolling inland, but they comforted her nonetheless. They comforted her against the hopelessness she and the others felt, having spent their entire lives in chains.
Old Maeve claimed she remembered what the world was like before the Vuurah came—before they were slaves. No one knew if the crone was lying or had simply drunk too many of her own potions. Whenever someone asked for a story, she would stutter a few words, pause, then say, “Oh, I just forgot. How did it happen again?” The only reason they didn’t dismiss her as mad was because of her eyes. Whenever she had a moment to herself, with nothing to do but watch the Vuurah whip and humiliate their human thralls, her eyes would darken like an angry sky ready to cast down thunder.
Moldva dipped her stale heel of bread into the noxious paste the Vuurah served them. The meal was the same she had eaten every day since she could remember, but she could not refuse a single bite. They were given only enough food to survive, and they were only allowed to survive so they could work.
She didn’t know what the twisted creatures were planning, but for two months, the forty or so humans in her clan had been digging a hole into the landscape, then hauling the dry dirt to the swamps. They pushed back the fetid water day after day, and she knew that if she lost her strength, the Vuurah wouldn’t bother taking her to the Star Torch. They would just leave her weak body to die in the swamp from starvation, exhaustion, or being eaten.
She gnawed at the hard bread and choked down the mouthfuls. Nearby, a man moaned, having come down with chills when the seasons changed. The chains between his wrists and ankles were a constant reminder of their grim lives. Every night for ten nights, as the man shivered in his sleep, the chains rattled against the stone floor on which the two dozen slaves slept.
Moldva turned her eyes back to the clear sky beyond their barred windows, blinking away the tears that blurred her vision. Old Maeve said there were other humans out among the stars, humans who ate whatever they pleased, who worked whenever they pleased, and who only had themselves as masters. Moldva and the others didn’t understand what she meant. Whenever they asked how it was that people could live in the sky, she would lose her wits and go about some other task.
One time, Moldva had asked what the stars were. Maeve hadn’t answered her. She stared up at the pinprick lights speckled across the night sky, her eyes ablaze, like the sun, with hatred.
***
“ALL CREW MEMBERS BE advised, we have now entered the Solar System.” A blare from the ship’s klaxon cut off the stale, digitized voice ringing in Eri’s ear. The captain tried to move his arm, but after the months spent in Void Sleep, his limbs rebelled against any activity. Even his eyelids refused to budge.
“All crew members be advised, we have now entered the Solar System.” Eri’s groan mixed harmoniously with the klaxon’s alarm.
“OK, OK, I’m up.” The annoyance of the noise overcame his body’s desire to remain sedentary. His arms crept stiffly up and slid back the lid covering the sarcophagus-bed. Sterile, white light assaulted his eyes, his pupils having to adjust for the first time since they had set sail from Beta Lacertae.
“Are we here? Are we really here?” Corporal Cir Ara’s jubilant voice grated against Eri’s ears more than the klaxon. Though morning and evening didn’t exist—given they hadn’t yet passed Pluto’s orbit—it was still too early for so much excitement.
“Of course we’re here. Out of the way. Let me see!” The two other corporals, Hya Columba and Kaus Alnyat, pushed Cir aside and pressed their faces against the ship’s porthole. The light was only a fraction of the brightness they had enjoyed growing up on Earth, but what light their home star lacked, their smiles more than made up for.
“I don’t think I was ever as excited to be back Solar-side as those three are right now.” Gunner Ursa Pherkad, Eri’s second-in-command, held two steaming cups of caffeine-boil and offered him one.
“How’d you make that so fast?” The captain eyed the cup with a squint of suspicion, but he knew better than to turn down caffeine, especially after coming out of a months-long snooze.
“I woke up two days ago. Good thing it wasn’t any earlier, otherwise I’d be in for a long ride with not much to do but stargaze,” Ursa said.
Eri and the gunner sipped their caffeine-boils while their noncommissioned officers tried to pick out the closest planet. When the green Exploration Corpsmen left Earth under Eri and Ursa’s command, they had been privates fresh to the fleet. Five years of hopping from settlement to settlement, fighting to keep all of the Commonwealth’s colonies under Solveron rule, and they were now seasoned, battle-tested veterans. Eri only had the authority to pin corporal chevrons to their uniform collars. In addition to experiencing their first homecoming, which would be more emotional for their families than for the weary Corpsmen, Exploration Command would have promotion warrants ready. Eri didn’t want to lose any of the three men, but as experienced sergeants, their talents would be needed in another Exploration Corps. Eri only hoped there would not be a promotion awaiting him. He still had one more trip into the stars left in his tired bones before he was ready for some staff billet as a major.
“If you learn one thing from me, Lieutenant Seginus, whenever you get command of your own Exploration Corps, you hang onto that as long as you can. Best years of my career, I tell you.” That’s what Eri’s first commander had told him after a few tequilas on his first Officer’s Mess Night.
“Really?” Eri said to Ursa.
“What?”
“You weren’t as giddy as they are on your first return home?”
Ursa barked with laughter. “You forget, sir, I was married when I left and had a bratty five-year-old son to welcome me home. Cassie made me do all the housework for months after I came back. She said combat was nothing compared to dealing with a newborn.”
“Was she right?”
“Newborns aren't so bad. Toddlers, on the other hand...”
“Even worse than all those sniveling villagers in Lacertae?”
Eri and Ursa both shook their heads as they thought of all the politicking and bickering they had had to endure. Even after putting down the insurrection by force, the Lacertaens still expected them to buy back their loyalty to the Solveron on Earth.
“No. I lied.” Ursa took a sip from his cup. “Raising a toddler isn’t the worst. Coming back and having your son not know who you are, that’s the worst.” He took another sip and watched Cir make the sign of the cross and thank the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit for whatever beautiful sight the NCOs beheld out the porthole. The three still bore broad smiles and slapped each other on the backs. They were glad to be going home.
Eri stood up and stretched his arms overhead. “Ohh,” he groaned. “The Void Sleep just doesn’t do the job like it used to.” The captain rubbed his lower back and shifted his weight around, a few joints popping and cracking as they awoke.
“No, sir. No it doesn’t.” Due to their genetic and hormonal reconditioning, the beds they used during Void Sleep pumped the Corpsmen full of a rejuvenating cocktail of chemicals that gave them strength and endurance well beyond that of any natural human. The enhancements also extended their natural lives. The Exploration Corps’ oldest generals and sergeants major had long since outlived their spouses and children. As soon as the fatigue of old age started to show signs, Corpsmen would be sent back into the stars, whatever would take their minds off their loneliness. Whatever would keep them from eating their pistols.
Captain Seginus downed the last of his caffeine-boil, stretched once more, and began his procession to the ship’s helm. “Gunner Pherkad, prepare the crew for engine ignition.”
Ursa switched his cup to his offhand and rendered a salute. “Aye, sir.”
Eri returned the salute and took his seat behind the ship’s controls.
“Corporal Ara, man the comms,” Ursa ordered.
“Aye, sir.” Cir saluted the gunner then strapped himself into the seat before the communications array.
“Corporal Columba and Corporal Alnyat, prepare battle-stations.”
The two NCOs rendered their salutes. “Aye, aye, sir.” Then they hurried off to the ship’s armory.
Ursa downed the last of his caffeine-boil, remarking to himself that it wouldn’t be long until he could finally have a real, fresh cup of Colombian coffee. Then he climbed the aft ladder and plopped into the seat behind the ship’s main dorsal cannon. He checked the monitors to ensure the plasmic-cannons were still charged from their long journey through the Void. Most ships would power-down their weaponry for Void travel. An Exploration Corps vessel was not most ships.
A minute passed and the stomp of Hya's and Kaus’ armored boots came ringing up from belowdecks. Ursa heard a knock on the turret’s ladder and he peered down to inspect the two Corpsmen.
They wore thick, powered suits of adamite. As if a Corpsman’s strength were not impressive enough, their exoskeleton armor enhanced their physicality and their senses as well. The fact that it could withstand the devastating effects of Martian-made photon weaponry was an added bonus.
“Turn around,” Gunner Pherkad ordered. Hya and Kaus each conducted an abrupt about-face so Ursa could inspect the rear of their armor and ensure no damage from their fighting on Beta Lacertae had gone unfixed. “Take your posts.”
“Aye, sir,” Corporal Columba and Corporal Alnyat echoed. When Gunner Pherkad returned their salutes, they marched off to man the ship’s flank cannons. Having two fully armed and armored Corpsmen manning a ship's weaponry for in-system flight would look foolish on most ships, but many strange and terrible tragedies were known to happen in the deep, darkness of Space, and the soldiers of the Exploration Corps would not let themselves be caught off guard.
“Port side is set.”
“Starboard side is set.”
“Comms is set.”
With the Corporal in position, Ursa reported in to his commanding officer. “Captain Seginus, this is Gunner Pherkad, the crew is set. We are prepared for ignition.”
“Copy that, Gunner. Standby.” Eri gave a few, quick blasts to the ship’s starboard boosters. He watched the display on his screen for the ship’s bow to align with the trajectory they needed to make it home. The line indicating their trajectory wobbled as the ship’s computer calculated gravitational forces, planetary orbits, and most importantly, where the Earth would be when they intersected its orbit. The bow approached that line and Eri gave a quick burst to the ship’s port booster to halt its drift. He played with the boosters for another minute, giving each just enough thrust to counteract the other. Once the ship’s trajectory held firm on the path calculated by the navigation system, Eri eased off the controls and opened the comm channel.
“Crew, standby for ignition in 5, 4, 3...”
“2, 1...” the NCOs finished for him.
Captain Seginus pushed the thruster lever forward and the ship’s propulsion engine erupted to life. Whatever technology had been discovered to push ships to near-lightspeed while still remaining in realspace, there had been nothing the scientists could do to dampen to roar of the titanic engines spewing a trail of hot gases, the result of tiny nuclear explosions, behind the ship.
A klaxon chimed once more. “Course is set. Arrival at Earth will occur in thirty days,” the computerized voice said. Cir, Hya, and Kaus cheered. Ursa entered a command into the control panel to brew another cup of caffeine-boil. Eri slipped a photograph from his flight-suit’s shoulder pocket. The dark-haired woman hugged an annoyed looking teenage girl close to her chest. When he had left, Lyn had barely reached his wife’s chest. Now his daughter was a good four inches the taller of the two. He had a lot of catching up to do, and he couldn’t wait for the month to be over.
In the meantime, he slipped a corner of the photo into one of the viewpane’s supports, had the computer start brewing another caffeine-boil, leaned back in his chair, and took in the breathtaking field of stars and planets before him.
***
“ANY LUNAR STATION, any Lunar station, this is Exploration Corps Seven-Three, can you copy?” Cir looked up from his station, lips tight and teeth clenched. Despite running all the diagnostics and changing out a few parts just to be sure, he couldn’t tell what was wrong with their communication equipment. They hadn’t been able to raise any station, outpost, or colony during their entire month-long trip
Eri rubbed his eyes with frustration. “Keep trying, Corporal Ara. Give it another five minutes, then just switch to Earth channels. We’re closer to home now anyway.”
“Aye, sir,” Cir acknowledged.
Ursa leaned against Eri’s seat in the cockpit and handed him a cup of caffeine-boil. The big, blue, beautiful planet they called home filled enough of the ship’s viewpane they each hoped it would be the last cup of tart, synthetic coffee they would have this trip. “Still no activity on the sensors?”
The captain nodded. “There’s some activity, but it’s very minor. A few ships far off, especially when we passed the belt, but I can’t recognize any of their transponders.”
“Well, with our comms all glitched up, our sensors are probably a little out of whack as well.”
“Let’s hope not too out of whack. Landing this thing without them will be a bumpy ride, for sure.”
Cir’s voice morphed into a frustrated snarl. “Exploration Command, Exploration Command, this is Exploration Corps Seven-Three. We have returned from deployment-rotation. We are currently on course for landing at Exploration Base Canaveral aboard the SS Peleliu. ETA is one-five mikes, I say again, fifteen minutes until landing. Please acknowledge.”
“Keep at it, Cir,” the gunner called over his shoulder. “Exploration Command has procedures for this type of thing. Maybe they developed a new type of comm-gear while we were out and forgot to keep an old set around just in case.”
“Or maybe we got all jumbled up in time and it’s been a lot longer than five, or even fifty, years, for that matter,” Kaus’ called from his turret.
“Wouldn’t matter, Corporal.” Eri punched a few buttons, steadying the ship’s atmospheric approach. “The Exploration Corps are the Solveron’s greatest soldiers. We are what has held the Commonwealth together for the past five hundred years. They’ll be ready to welcome us home. And it’s impossible for a rotation to take longer than fifty years. It’s science. You just hold on back there and be ready for—”
The blinding flash of light streaked by the ship like a shooting star, only instead of falling toward the Earth, it had shot up from the surface. Klaxons roared to life and warning lights flashed on every screen.
“What in Christ’s name are you doing?” Cir shouted into the microphone of their communications array.
“Suit up!” Ursa grabbed him by his flight suit’s collar and shoved him toward the armory.
Eri engaged his comms headset. “All Solveron stations, this is Exploration Corps Seven-Three, be advised that we...” His voice trailed off. Static crackled in his ear, then a deep, mumbling voice came through. Despite the incoherence of the words, Eri knew the signal was coming through strong and clear. It was as if a drunk was shouting inhuman slurs at a trash bin that had gotten in his way. He was about to depress the button on his headset again, when a second beam of light rose up and punched through the starboard wing.
The ship’s nose dipped and the great oceans and continents of Earth filled the viewpane. The controls rattled in Eri’s grip, quickly numbing his fingers. He jerked the wheel back, hoping to level off their trajectory. The craft pitched and yawed. Gravity overwhelmed the ship’s thrust and drew the Peleliu faster toward the surface, like a spoonful of would-be knights into a giant’s maw.
The veins bulged from his neck as he pulled harder and harder. He flicked a switch on his control-wheel and the starboard-side thrusters hissed and sputtered, trying to bring the craft level.
A gauntleted hand clasped his shoulder. "Suit up," Ursa said. Eri unharnessed from his seat and relinquished the ship’s controls to his executive officer.
With Earth’s gravity taking hold of the ship and the variety of forces buffeting the ship about, the captain had to pull his way across the deck to the ladderwell that led to the armory. He didn’t bother to use the ladder’s rungs. He jumped down through the hole in the deck and landed on the armory level, the jarring of his ailing knees loosening a pained grunt from between his teeth.
A few crates of ammunition had come loose from their bindings and cartridges rolled across the ground. Despite the chaotic situation, Eri tiptoed around a few explosive shells for Ursa’s Designation 7 Conquest Rifle that had spilled onto the deck. He reached his armoring station, pulled aside the glass lid, and fell into the upright, tubular alcove.
The station’s sensors detected the minuscule magnets embedded in his flight suit and robotic arms went to work collecting the neatly stored adamite plates, power units, and combat equipment. Like a squire dressing his master for a joust, the robotic units fastened the shell of armor to Eri, his entire body covered with a carapace meant to deliver Earth’s most elite soldiers from harm. Once the arms finished affixing the armor and its solar-fed power supply, they strapped on a sturdy belt with his ammunition magazines, two grenades, a map-tablet, and his ground radio. A foot-long knife was added to his loadout, as well as the standard issue Exploration Corps sidearm: a Designation 22 .45 ACP pistol. The pistol’s design had not changed much over the course of centuries. It was a rugged, reliable weapon, and most Solveron soldiers groaned with disgust at any mention of change or modification—although modified ammunition was always welcomed.
Finally, came his trusty rifle. Five years of operations had worn away some of the bluing, and there were several nicks and scratches in the polymer buttstock, but through three insurrections, countless boardings of pirate vessels, and one hostage-rescue—the result of some well-armed citizens getting too drunk one night—the rifle had never failed. Eri inserted a fresh magazine into his Designation 14 6.8mm Standard Battle Rifle, then stepped from the armoring station. He pulled his rucksack from his cubbyhole in the bulkhead, threw an extra few magazines into it—just in case—and made his way back to the cockpit.
By the time he relieved Ursa at the ship’s controls, Eri knew he wouldn’t be able to guide the Peleliu all the way to their designated landing zone at Exploration Base Canaveral. The Caribbean Sea came at them much too fast. He pulled on the controls as hard as he could and pointed the ship’s bow toward the long peninsula thrust into the sea. Eri eyed the altimeter.
“Two minutes to impact,” he called over the intra-unit radio.
“Two minutes,” his men echoed. They all cinched down on their safety restraints, then added another harness specifically meant for crash landings.
The Peleliu shot through a cloud layer so quickly that Eri hadn’t even noticed. A deep, clear, blue sea, dotted with tropical islands was all he could see. The peninsula was still a few miles off, more than he could hope to cover. He had only trained once for a water landing, and all the peculiarities of it were lost to him at the moment. The altimeter let out a ding when they hit one thousand feet and Eri slammed down on the button that activated the retro-thrusters.
A wave of force jarred each of the men to their bones, and a curse from Cir filled the comm-net. The thrusters roared like a furnace, fighting to defy gravity, but the thrusters were only tiny inventions of mankind, fighting against the vast, raw force of Earth. The ship’s bow broke the water’s surface, and everything went silent
***
HYA THREW A DUFFEL bag full of rations and a water purification system into the inflatable raft bobbing in the current. His four teammates, still armored, treaded water beside the raft to keep it close enough to the Peleliu for Hya to disembark what supplies the flimsy craft could hold.
Captain Seginus had deployed the ship’s flotation buoys when it had pierced the sea’s surface. Once they were afloat, and with their engines quite useless, Cir fired the communications array back up and reached out to Exploration Command. When the only response was the same inhuman slurs the captain had received, their commanding officer gave them five minutes to curse and yell about the unexpected change in how their homecoming had occurred. Cir took an extra minute for himself to pray into his rosary whatever prayers his church required of him when being delivered from fratricide. Once everyone was satisfied they could swear no more without making up new curse words, they prepared for the five-mile swim to shore.
“Is that the last of it?” Kaus asked as he swayed in the rolling current next to the raft.
“There are a few more ammo crates in the armory and the AAS launcher with about twenty missiles,” Hya answered.
“I don’t think we’ll be fighting any tanks when we get ashore,” gunner Pherkad said. “Let’s get moving. These waves are starting to make me sick.”
Eri rolled his eyes at Ursa. “You wait until after we make a crash landing to get motion sickness. How does that work?”
Ursa stopped treading water just long enough to shrug.
Hya stepped into the warm, crystalline water, grabbed on to one of the raft’s mooring ropes, and the five Corpsmen started their swim toward the far-off, tree-lined shore. The going was rough at first, a strong tide pulling them every way except the direction they intended. The tide wasn’t strong enough, however. Fully armored and towing a heavy raft, it would have still taken a hurricane to overpower the five Corpsmen. Halfway to land, the tide withered and they didn’t have to fight so hard to move forward. Then Kaus let out a startled yell.
Kaus’ head disappeared beneath the surface for a moment. “What was that?” he cried when he came up.
“What was what?” Eri’s voice had a throaty edge to it. His NCOs were good soldiers, but with no sergeant on the team to keep them in line, they had all become jokesters whenever boredom took them. With at least two more miles to cover, Eri had no patience for jokes at the moment. Then Kaus yelped and plunged beneath the waves again.
“Somebody slap him!” Eri ordered.
Hya and Cir each raised a hand, waiting for Kaus to receive a double-tap of gauntleted palms to the back of his head when he came up for a breath. However, a massive tiger shark came to the surface instead.
Luckily, the raft stayed upright in the monster’s wake. The four Corpsmen, however, were thrown back by the rollicking waves. When they regained their composure, they saw Kaus had the situation well under control.
“You little, fucking piece of fucking shit!” Kaus had never been the most eloquent of speakers, and one could hardly expect an invigorating battle cry from him with one hand on the shark’s snout, pulling it back to expose the beast’s underbelly, while the other plunged his knife in and out of its throat. While there was no airway to sever, being his enemy was a fish, the gushes of bright red blood indicated the area was still an ideal spot for sticking a knife.
The shark swayed violently, trying to shake Kaus’ grip on its snout. The Corpsman held fast, and realizing it was on the wrong end of the food chain from its would-be prey, the shark dove into the water with Kaus still hanging on.
Cir and Hya unsheathed their own knives and dove to their comrade’s aid. The water around the raft churned and the captain and gunner did their best to follow the fight from the blood floating to the surface. Their eyes met for a moment, Eri shaking his head while Ursa rolled his eyes. Those three just couldn’t seem to stay out of trouble.
In less than a minute, three corporals returned to the surface, gulping down air to relieve the burning in their lungs. Next to the raft, an unrecognizable corpse floated to the surface, uncountable bloody ribbons cut into the predator to expose the cartilage skeleton and organs beneath its flayed skin.
Eri cleared his throat. “Now that you’ve all had your fun, can we get a move on?”
A half hour later, they pulled their raft onto the beach. Cir knelt in the sand and removed a gauntlet. He reached down and ran his fingers through the wet, grainy earth, savoring the sensation. After five years adrift among the stars, going from one colony of the Commonwealth to another, he felt his homeworld on his skin.
“What do you think happened, sir?” Hya said. “Do you think our transponder was broken, and they thought we were trying to attack or something?”
Ursa shook his head. “More than likely they thought we were a piece of space junk. The Solveron must have installed some type of defense battery to blast anything entering the atmosphere that could be a threat.”
“They wouldn’t want all of mankind to go the way of the brontosaurus now, would they?” Kaus said. They left the issue at that. None of them wanted to talk of other possibilities that would lead to a Solveron Ship being shot down from orbit around mankind’s home planet.
The whir of a gravitational engine approaching interrupted their thoughts. Eri pulled his map-tablet from the pouch woven overtop of the knife on his hip. He hoped to pick up nearby transponder signals and discover who was advancing on their position. If it were the local authorities, their situation would shortly be over and they could requisition transport to Exploration Command. The signal icon blinked with a red X over it.
Ursa lowered his binoculars. “It’s the police. I have no idea what the hell little dingy thing they’re driving is or what uniform they’re wearing.”
The small, hovering vehicle, with its red and blue flashing lights zipped up the beach toward them. The open-topped vehicle was a peculiar sight. It was no bigger than a bathtub and the tall, gangly officers hung out the sides, no room in the vehicle for their torsos, with their long legs taking up the majority of the cabin. Ursa thought of a pair of bungling constables from the ancient cartoons on their way to stop a “rascal of a rabbit” in their black-and-white clown car. The vehicle came to a stop a dozen yards from the team, and the Corpsmen saw that it wasn’t the uniforms that made the police officers look so peculiar.
“Well,” Kaus said, while the others gasped. “That would explain quite a lot, actually.”
Clad in white, tabard-like uniforms, the vehicle’s passengers jumped from the vehicle, their clawed, three-toed feet digging into the loose sand. Their flesh a pale, sallow color, the duo, with their gangly arms and legs, they stood a head taller than any of the men. From their backs, wriggling tentacles sprouted from either side. Thin, elephantine ears sandwiched their bulbous heads. Despite the alien nature of their bodies, the otherworldly features of their faces truly revealed the creatures’ origins to be far and away from Earth. A pair of black eyes sat where any human would expect them to, but three more pairs ran up their foreheads, and where lips and a set of teeth should have been, these beings had several layers of what appeared to be gills.
Eri stepped forward and raised a hand in greeting. “Hello.”
Ursa and he had attended training on reading body language for use while negotiating and dealing with locals of the Commonwealth colonies. He didn’t know if human body language applied to extraterrestrials, but one of the creatures gave an expression similar to confusion and flinched away from him.
“We,” Eri swept a hand over his men, “are with Exploration Corps.” The language of Beta Lacertae barely passed for the official language of the Solveron, so he had become quite adept at playing charades. He had no idea what gesture would indicate Exploration Corps that full suits of adamite wouldn’t be able to do.
The gill-mouth of an alien fluttered, and the same inhuman slurring they had heard on the radio transmissions frothed out. It spoke for a few seconds and the team all looked to each other, hoping one of them spoke gill-speak. Cir shook his head and Hya shrugged. Kaus narrowed his eyes, still on edge after having been chosen for lunch by the tiger shark.
The other alien narrowed its eyes as well, clearly irritated. Then it lifted up what appeared to be a carbine, blue energy swirling at its muzzle, and aimed down its sights at the humans while shouting its gurgling slurs.
“Whoa, hey, no need for that.” Eri put his hands up in submission. His men, however, gripped their weapons and brought the muzzles to point at the creatures’ feet. “We don’t mean any harm, and we don’t want any trouble. We’re just trying to get home.”
The lead alien, the one who spoke first and appeared to have been operating the hover-car, stepped forward and grabbed the captain’s combat rifle. It pulled on the weapon, trying to maneuver the sling around Eri's bulky armor in order to disarm him. The other alien, its weapon still raised, had its attention momentarily shattered by the sudden impact to the breastplate beneath its flowing uniform. A shower of sparks erupted from its chest, then an explosion turned the majority of its torso into chunks of meat, like a raw stew being spilled.
Smoke drifted from the barrel of Ursa’s carbine. Only warrant officers chosen to be gunners carried the Designation 7 Conquest Rifle. The weapon had been designed for one reason: a constant reminder to the Commonwealth that its loyalties would forever be to Earth. Ursa added one more reason to why the rifle existed: to remind the universe that mankind, and mankind alone, ruled the Earth.
The creature tugging on Eri’s rifle didn’t last long enough to react to its companion’s death. Eri’s sidearm was in his hand and each time its muzzle rose from recoil, he would pull the trigger again, stitching a line of bullets from his assailant’s groin to its head. Blood soaked into the dry sand, and pieces of bone, cruor, and meat splattered the beach. The waves rolled onto the shore and gulls squawked overhead.
Kaus broke their trance. “Huh, I never thought that with all the traveling we’ve done in space, with all the star systems we’ve been to, we’d discover extraterrestrial life here on Earth.”
“Can we even be sure that we’re actually on Earth?” Hya said. The corporal rubbed at his eyes, sure he was hallucinating.
“Of course we’re on Earth.” Ursa removed his rifle’s magazine and added a round, topping off his ammunition. “We all saw Saturn, Jupiter, and Mars on our approach. The asteroids were exactly where they were supposed to be. Unless you know of another big, blue planet with the same continents as Earth in the solar system, we’re standing on Earth right now.”
“What year is it?” Cir’s question brought a moment of silence. They each looked to Eri, who was back to fiddling with his map-tablet.
“I have no idea,” he admitted. “I can’t get a signal on this thing. The Peleliu’s systems showed us on schedule at five years.”
“But if there’s no network for the systems to sync with, then they won’t be able to update anyway.” Ursa sighed. “Even our fucking computers don’t know where or when we are.”
Eri slid a fresh magazine into his pistol. “Whatever year it is, a lot has happened in the last five or even fifty years. And there is going to be someone around here who can tell us what these creatures are and what they’re doing here.” He pointed to Kaus. “Get the Buzzard up. Send it north along the coast.”
“Aye, sir!” Corporal Alnyat snapped a salute and darted to the raft. He gave Cir a slap on the shoulder and a nod as he passed by, and Cir fell into trot beside him to aid in getting their reconnaissance drone airborne.
Within a minute, the drone was airborne and lost over the treetops. Ursa rummaged through what remained of the alien corpses. He knew he wouldn’t find anything of use, but he checked nonetheless. Something that looked like a data-stick, what was probably a writing device with a flashlight, and a ring were all he found in the pockets of the alien Eri had shot. There wasn’t enough left of the one he had killed to bother searching its remnants for intelligence.
“Sir.” Urgency filled Kaus’ voice. He and Cir waved for them all to come over, but neither looked up from the Buzzard’s control module. “You need to see this.”
Eri, Ursa, and Hya ran to their sides and gazed at the screen being fed by the Buzzard’s camera. Men and women dug away at the ground, filling buckets. They wore rags, and even from the drone’s vantage point several hundred feet in the air, the team could see the filth covering them. Standing over them, watching the humans toil, stood the same species the Corpsmen had just slaughtered. One of the humans carrying a bucket stumbled. The tentacles sprouting from an alien’s back lashed out and snapped against the man’s skull, sending him spilling down a sandy bank. While those working were free to move about, manacles and chains bound the humans standing on the earthen pit’s side.
No one on the team spoke. They watched the scene with horror and hatred. Whatever shock remained within them from their first encounter with extraterrestrials was gone. Only rage remained. The sight of their fellow humans toiling away on mankind’s birthplace as slaves twisted at their guts and enflamed their sense of duty. Each Corpsman felt his trigger finger flex, felt a longing within him to do the duty they had been trained for since adolescence: to defend the Solveron’s reign. To defend Earth.
***
“POSSIBLY ARMED ENEMY on northwest corner. Marking.” Cir pressed a switch above his long-rifle’s trigger group and an infrared laser struck the alien standing a kilometer from where he lay among the tall grass and palm trees.
A red icon appeared on the screen of Eri’s map-tablet. While there was no signal to the satellite networks, the team could still relay their positions and any positions they marked with their weapon-sights to the captain’s command module.
“Possibly armed?” Eri said over his intra-unit radio. “Is the fucker armed or not?”
Cir’s voice crackled in his ear. “He’s holding a big stick. It looks like it’d hurt if you got hit with it. It might shoot fucking lasers. I don’t fucking know, aliens and their weaponry is Kaus’ expertise.”
Kaus activated his comms. “Just because I watch a lot of Star Trek doesn’t mean I know what these assholes are.”
“Minimize comms,” Ursa ordered. The radio channel went silent.
The team had divided into three elements for the assault. Cir maintained overwatch. He would mark targets until the captain gave the command. Then he would put a round into the tall alien standing at what appeared to be a command center. The rest of the team would then begin their assault. Ursa and Kaus would burst from the eastern tree line and assault to the west. Eri and Hya would come from the south and move north. When they came within fifty meters of each other, the entire element would get on line and continue to sweep north. It was one of the most basic and effective plans in the history of military offensives—which meant less could go wrong.
“Remember,” Eri said into his radio, “there is to be no collateral damage. If you have to take extra rounds to save civilian lives, so be it. Your armor will hold. You all saw how easily these things went kablooey on the beach. They may be tough when it comes to starved, chained humans, but they don’t know what they’re about to get themselves into when the Exploration Corps comes a-knocking.”
“Damn straight,” Kaus said over the radio.
“What about Arecibos, sir?” Cir asked.
Eri didn’t hesitate in his answer. Whatever was going on here, the Solveron’s rule had been usurped. He was now the law and he had the authority of the entire Solveron during this operation. “All Arecibos are declared hostile unless they appear to be seeking quarter. Even then, approach with caution.”
Arecibo was the Exploration Command codeword for alien lifeforms. Protocol was simple: if alien life was encountered, the first order was to transmit “Arecibo” to Earth. Exploration Corps 73 was the first unit to use the term outside of training.
Eri checked his tablet one more time. Then he checked his chronograph. Cir had been in place, watching the objective for six hours. The human laborers went on break every two hours while another group took their place. There were a few seconds when the pit was clear of humans, all of them gathered on the east side. If they timed it right, Cir would take the shot and Ursa and Kaus would be through the mob of slaves and firing before any alien was able to react.
The sun hovered over the treetops, ready to welcome night’s embrace. Night had always been the preferred time to conduct a raid, but Eri didn’t trust they would have the advantage over the enemy at night. Their weapons and technology were still unknown. For what they knew, the creatures could see clear as day in the darkness without needing infrared enhancements.
Eri activated his radio. “Five minutes to Zero Hour. Corporal Ara will initiate assault with one shot on target. Initiation is on Ara to observe labor changeover, or if changeover does not occur prior to beginning of twilight, my order. All confirm via net.”
“Roger,” Hya said into his radio, despite being crouched in the tall grass watching Eri’s rear.
“Roger,” Cir acknowledged, followed by Ursa and Kaus.
The longest five minutes any of them had ever experienced crept slowly by. In Targeting and Sniper School, Cir had been taught the value of patience, lying in wait for a target to show itself for so long he had soiled himself several times without ever daring to move. Those long, tormenting hours were overshadowed by the anxiety he felt over the next five minutes of his life. Then he saw an alien approach the men and women sitting on the pit’s eastern ledge. The creature unlocked the first man’s chains and moved to a second. The humans who had been toiling in the pit shambled toward the ledge and the rest it would bring.
“Zero hour. Corporal Ara has control,” Eri’s voice spoke into his ear.
Cir breathed in for a four count, held, and exhaled. His heart hammered in his chest. He had taken many important shots, ended dozens of lives, but none so important as this. With his right index finger, he would apply a few pounds of pressure to his rifle’s trigger and deliver these men and women from enslavement. He took another slow breath to counteract the chemicals flooding his bloodstream, chemicals more suited for the day’s earlier knife-fight than a single, well-placed shot. Then the alien in the control tower turned toward him and its chest fell neatly within the crosshairs of his weapon-sight. Cir pulled the trigger.
His rifle was equipped with a built-in suppressor to help conceal his position. The suppressor could not conceal the shot itself, however. The 10.8 mm round broke the sound barrier many times over, and a deafening snap flooded out all other noise for a fraction of a second.
The slaves cried out in fear, the sound too similar to the tentacles lashing their backs. The aliens looked around in shock, unsure where the sound came from. None of them saw their commander slumped on the ground, blood pooling beneath him, until well after the Corpsmen began their assault.
Eri’s, Kaus,’ and Hya’s battle rifles were almost imperceptible over the roar of Ursa’s Conquest Rifle. The first three aliens he shot wore no armor, so the 20 mm rounds punched straight through their targets, liquefying organs before sending clouds of dust into the air when they exploded. The fourth target exploded in a bright red cloud, its legs falling limp into the loose sand.
Every alien turned to the east, opening the way for Eri and Hya to cut down those closest to them. The red, holographic dot of Eri’s weapon-sight fell on an alien’s chest and he pulled the trigger until the creature started to fall. Then he swept the weapon to his left, knowing Hya had his right flank covered, and fired on another target. His feet never stopped moving, taking one step after another, constantly taking ground from their enemy.
Something hit his armor. The impact was enough to jar his conscious thoughts, which led him to empty his magazine into one alien’s torso. The clicking of his weapon’s bolt locking to the rear roused him from his brief trance.
“Cold!” Eri shouted and Hya doubled his rate of fire while the captain knelt and reloaded. Eri jammed a fresh magazine into his weapon, released his bolt, and stood, looking for new targets. He saw the alien Cir had marked, the one holding the large staff. A crackling blue energy orbited the weapon’s tip, giving Eri a clue as to what had nearly knocked him on his ass. He lined his sights up, but before he could squeeze his trigger, the familiar sound of a 10.8 mm round snapped overhead and the alien’s throat unleashed a spray of bright red, arterial blood mixed with an arc of purple, venous fluid.
Eri and Hya pushed on. Once they reached a slope in the pit, Hya slid down the loose sand while Eri swept his rifle from one target to the next, his trigger never halting. Once he heard Hya cry out, “Set,” Eri dove down the sandy incline, seating a fresh magazine into his weapon.
He took a prone position beside Hya, leaning against a two-foot-high mound of sand for cover. Despite the rain of bullets they unleashed on the aliens, the enemy were all focused on the unwavering, bursting barrage Ursa unleashed on them from the east.
Hya could find no targets and turned to the captain. Eri scanned the battlefield and saw only a few hastily constructed, sand-brick buildings before them.
“Movement to contact,” Eri said, thrusting his arm toward the buildings before them. Hya and he stood up, their weapons shouldered and scanning left to right, and they advanced on the buildings.
“Cover me.” Eri checked his map-tablet, while Hya scanned both their sectors of fire. Two blue dots blinked on the device’s screen, identifying the location of Ursa and Kaus. Several red dots, previously marked by Cir, stood as a wall against the two Corpsmen. There was no way to tell if any of those dots still represented a threat. Their bodies were still warm, that’s all the tablet could tell him.
As if on cue, Cir’s voice broke the radio channel. “No targets available. I’m inbound.” That meant their sniper had lost visual of all enemy targets and was on his way to join the face-to-face fighting.
“Phase Line Orange,” Ursa reported. They had reached the pit’s center.
“We’re set. Shift fires to the north,” Eri responded coldly.
“Roger.”
Eri and Hya pushed forward. They came into the pit’s center. A cluster of humans, left behind during the shift change, huddled together in the loose sand. They were men, women, and at least two children, all holding each other tightly. Tears ran down their faces. They had no idea their liberation was at hand. All they knew was death surrounded them and they were covered in the blood of their overseers. Clad in adamite armor, the Corpsmen barely resembled anything the slaves would consider human. They were a miserable lot. The warriors of the Exploration Corps, however, were tall, proud, and unyielding.
Ursa and Kaus fell in on their right flank and the team continued north. Cir fell in on the team’s left and they approached the pit’s northern slope, the piled, loose sand barely slowing their advance. Then a half dozen alien heads looked down at them.
They had expected reinforcements to show up. The initial enemies had been too lightly armed, too easily overwhelmed. They knew more substantial resistance had to be ready for them.
“Kaus!” Ursa cried.
“Yes, sir!”
“Cover the civilians! No collateral deaths, you understand?”
“Aye, aye, sir!”
Kaus stopped his advance and knelt beside the huddled, weeping group of slaves.
The team pushed on, their weapons spewing forth an unquenchable gout of death. They reached the steep slope of soft sand and the aliens sent bolts of spiraling, blue energy at them. Whenever a bolt collided with one of them, they would slide back a bit before the energy crackled and dissipated around the adamite.
“Top right, top right!” Kaus cried. An alien clambered forward in a robotic suit, a massive cannon where his right arm should have been.
Kaus raised his combat rifle, but he knew he was too late. His teammates couldn’t hear him and the alien’s shot was already inbound before his sights were on target. He turned toward the cowering slaves and screamed, “Run!”
He activated his magnetic shield. It was all he could do to protect the huddled mass behind him from the constant torrent of blazing, white energy spewing from the alien’s weapon.
Slivers of energy erupted from Kaus’ wrists to act as their own miniature, but super-charged, planetary poles, sending the energy of the creature’s weapon billowing over him. The energy didn’t stop, however. It wasn’t like a single shot from their own weapons. The energy kept coming, pouring over him like a waterfall.
“Run!” he growled at the people sheltered behind his shield. The word resonated within one of them and she lifted her face upward. Kaus had never seen such blue eyes. The woman gripped one of the children’s hands and ran. The others were smart enough to follow.
The waves of white flowed around Kaus. A magnetic shield could hold off the most potent attacks, but only briefly. The alien’s robotic suit continued to pour forth the blazing light and Kaus continued his stand. An alarm chime sounded in his ear, indicating his power unit was about to expire.
Kaus turned his eyes toward the sky. It was a pale blue. The sunset added shades of orange, and the moon was visible over the southern horizon. He had heard Cir’s prayers before. They talked of grace and forgiveness, of a place where a soldier could perform his duty without politicians or pundits weaseling their way into the mix. It sounded too good to be true. The magnetic shield shimmered and failed. Where once stood Corporal Kaus Alnyat of the Seventy-Third Exploration Corps, now was only ash.
Ursa looked at the crying, shivering mass of humans who had fled from the alien’s attack. He didn’t think of the blood and gurgling as he ran his knife across the robotic alien’s throat. The creature’s death meant nothing to him. All the deaths in all the long years of service he had given to the Exploration Corps meant nothing compared to what he had witnessed.
A half-dozen alien corpses lay about him, their bodies bullet-ridden and lifeless. He stretched his arm across the alien’s body and slid the blade of his combat knife across the creature’s throat once more. The head came loose and Ursa smiled. Kaus may have died, but so had all their enemy; Kaus may have been reduced to ashes, but the huddled group of humans he had saved ensured mankind would continue a little while longer.
“Left flank secured!” Hya shouted, choking back the emotions he had been trained not to feel.
Cir took a long breath in, held it, and let a long breath out. He gripped his eyes shut for a moment, still confused at Kaus’ death. As he exhaled, he knew he had to continue with his duty: he had to give his commanding officer a report. “Right flank secured!” he shouted.
“Sir,” Ursa reported, “enemy is neutralized and consolidation is set. Awaiting orders.”
The battle, despite its brevity, had harshened Eri’s voice. He didn’t feel much like yelling his orders. He wasn’t even sure what to order of his men. They had taken the sandy pit from the aliens’ control. Beyond that, he didn’t know what he should do.
“You are the ones who fell from the sky, yes?” A frail woman stepped cautiously toward them across the pit’s uneven ground. She clutched at her ragged, stained clothes and her entire body trembled. Her eyes were wide with awe. She didn’t look at the team as fellow humans, she admired them as gods, come at last to avenge their people.
From the shadows, men, women, and children crept forward. The same awestruck look covered their faces as the face of the woman who had approached them, but they also had fear in their eyes. One man, gnarled and wisp-thin, stood as straight as his back would allow, and approached Eri and Ursa. As he came closer, they saw the old man clench his jaw, and the fear in his eyes had been replaced with determination. There was something else in his eyes, as well: hope.
The man stopped next to the trembling woman and held out his wrists, still manacled. Eri eyed the simple device and the scars around the man’s wrists. The man shook his hands, demanding the captain do something. Eri gripped the chain in his gauntleted fists, tugged, and snapped the bonds. The newly freed man’s face softened and he collapsed to his knees. For the first time in his life of slavery, tears wrought of joy cascaded down his cheeks. The others, who were still chained, gave a cry and rushed the Corpsmen. Those who hadn’t been chained when the assault initiated joined their companions, wanting nothing more than to lay their hands on the Corpsmen’s armor, to feel the adamite plates against their own flesh and know they weren’t dreaming.
“Corporal Columba, Corporal Ara, come down and give us a hand,” Ursa ordered.
“Aye, sir!” Hya called.
“...pray for us, now and at the hour of our death. Amen.” Cir kissed his rosary, placed it into a pouch on his belt, and scrambled down the embankment to join the others in smashing the bonds from the freed humans. Once freed from their chains, many wept and embraced their loved ones, but some sought vengeance. Despite each alien being stitched with fatal wounds, people kicked and punched the corpses. One girl, not older than twelve, picked up a large stone and slammed it down onto an alien overseer’s skull. Not satisfied, she lifted the rock again and continued to pound it into the creature’s head until there was little more than a bloody paste staining the sand.
Eri turned back to the trembling woman who had approached them and to the man who had been the first to have his chains broken. They stood together and still watched the Corpsmen with awe and a bit of suspicion. As the throng thinned, they stepped forward.
“I am Moldva,” the woman said. “This is Moricz.”
“I am Captain Eri Seginus of Exploration Corps Seventy-Three.”
“Gunner Ursa Pherkad.” Ursa stretched his hand out in greeting. Moldva and Moricz looked at it for a moment. Moricz mimicked the motion, stiffly stretching his arm out while his face took on a confused expression. Ursa clasped the man’s hand and shook it before doing likewise with Moldva. Then it dawned on him that neither of them had ever shaken a person’s hand in their lives. The Earth had changed more than just the addition of alien invaders since they left.
“Tell me,” Eri said, “what year is it?”
More confusion twisted the features of Moldva's and Moricz’s faces. “What do you mean?” the woman asked.
“What year are we in right now? Does the Solveron still rule?”
Moricz turned to Moldva. “What is he talking about?”
She shrugged and shook her head.
Eri’s stomach quivered. If what they said was true, not only did the Solveron no longer rule on Earth, but it had been forgotten. He couldn’t believe it. Someone, somewhere on the planet had to remember. He needed to be patient. He still had to find out how far in the future they were and what had befallen their planet before he could worry about the status of government.
“What happened? What are these things?” he said, pointing to the closest alien corpse.
“The Vuurah.” Moricz spat the name.
“When did they come to Earth?” Ursa said.
“No one remembers,” Moricz said. “We were all born as slaves. The Vuurah work us until we die, or if we live long enough to become too old to be useful, they send us across the sea and to the North. There they give us to the Star Torch and we are freed at last.”
The gnarled, bent man gave them no true answers, only more questions that needed to be answered.
“Old Maeve remembers what it was like before the Vuurah,” Moldva said. Eri and Ursa’s eyes opened wide. “But she’s crazy.” The flit of hope in the Corpsmen’s eyes lessened, but a fragment remained.
“Take us to her,” Eri said. Moldva nodded and beckoned them to follow her out of the pit.
“Cir! Hya! Let’s move,” Ursa ordered.
The two NCOs knelt over the scattered, ashen remnants of Kaus. Cir muttered one of his prayers and Hya scooped up as much of their friend as he could. Then he tossed the ashes into the air, letting the twilight breeze carry Earth’s most recently fallen soldier away. As Kaus drifted away, they fell in behind their officers.
Moldva led them into the trees, the freed men and women a procession behind them. Meanwhile, the children ran between their legs, their laughter lightening an otherwise oppressively heavy day. Only a few steps into the woods, they came on the slave encampment. Ramshackle lean-tos and shelters stood haphazardly between the trees. She led them to the sturdiest looking structure in the camp, a hut made of bent boughs overlaid with mud.
“Old Maeve would have been sent to the Star Torch years ago,” Moldva said. “But the Vuurah know nothing of human medicine, so they kept her so she could keep us strong enough to work.” Then she led them into the hut. The Corpsmen had to twist around to fit through the doorway in their armor, and Cir let out a “fuck” or “shit” every time he hit his long-rifle on the doorway, walls, ceiling, and floor.
Old Maeve lived up to their expectations. She was old, lines cracking her face like a rock against a window, and if her cobweb-white hair, clumped and shooting in every direction, was any indication, she was at least a bit crazy. She sat beside a smoldering fire in the center of the hut. Eri knelt across from her, looking into her eyes, one steady while the other twitched about. The rest of the team sat behind their captain, glad for a moment’s rest.
“These are the ones who fell from the sky,” Moldva told Maeve. “They have questions for you.”
“I am Captain Eri Seginus of the Seventy-Third Exploration Corps. I am told you remember the time before these... Vuurah came to Earth.”
“I was told you had questions, but here you are telling me things I already know.” The old woman’s voice came as a croak, but there was a lucid edge to it that demonstrated wisdom.
“How old are you?”
“I’m old enough.” She turned to Moldva. “Did they really fall from the sky to ask that?”
“Do you remember the Solveron?” Eri asked, growing a bit frustrated with the old woman.
Maeve turned back to him, something that could have been a smile on her lips, if one could see their smile in a broken mirror. “I remember lots of things.” She waved to a boy who had been standing in the doorway, gone unnoticed since they arrived. The boy blew on the fire. Smoke swirled about the hut and Eri choked down a cough. In the logs, tiny embers grew to flames.
The boy went to a row of clay pots and began gathering items. “But before I can answer your questions, I have to remember you.”
Maeve turned to Moldva and took a bowl offered to her. She put the bowl to her lips and tilted it up. She drank down large gulps, a milky-blue liquid running down her chin. With the bowl empty, she started an incomprehensible chant and waved her hands through the smoke, periodically cupping some in her hands and inhaling it.
Eri rolled his eyes and turned to Ursa. “We don’t have time for this nonsense.”
Ursa chuckled. “Of course we do. It’s not like we have to check in at Exploration Command in the morning.”
The boy offered Maeve a wriggling lizard. She took the animal, plunged a knife into its torso, and licked the trickle of blood flowing out. Then she took a fat, cactus-like leaf from Moldva and sucked on the juices.
Eri suppressed a frustrated growl. “She’s going to answer our questions with witchcraft and voodoo. She’s almost as bad as Cir, still clinging to that old Christian God of his.”
Cir raised a hand, about to protest, but then let the insult slide by. It had been a long, hard day for all of them.
“Let’s just send up the Buzzard again,” Eri continued. “There are likely to be more settlements and we can start making our way to—Sweet mother of Christ!”
An outline of flame curved around the smoke: purple, green, and orange. Maeve’s eyes burned as well, bright blue flames coruscating off the orbs, the flesh never singeing. Eri pushed himself back from the fire, and Cir couldn’t contain his laughter.
The smoke ceased to billow and instead started to contort and shape itself. The flames within the smoke made the outline of a man, and the smoke contained within filled in the details of a bearded face and a body clad in long robes. When the shaping came to an end, they beheld what looked to be a statue carved from smoke and bound in a nimbus of flame.
“Warriors of the Old Order? It has been far too long since I’ve seen your lot walking the Earth.” Maeve’s lips moved, but the voice belonged to a sage old man.
Eri leapt to his feet and couldn’t contain his thoughts. “What has happened to the Earth? What of the Solveron? Who are the Vuurah and why did they come to Earth? To make slaves of mankind?”
“You have been gone for quite a long time, it seems, Warrior,” the wavering statue’s voice said through Maeve. “They aren’t even sure why they truly came. They don’t understand it. Really, it’s the only thing they want from us, but they figured why not make slaves of us until they could have it. They industrialized it, weaponized it. They use it to build, to make their machines, power their cities, and arm their legions, but they’ll never understand it.”
Eri shook his head, trying to clear his thoughts. All anyone seemed to want to do was confuse them even more. “I don’t understand. What are you talking about? What is ‘it’? What do they want from us?”
The statue’s eyes moved, falling on the Corpsmen. “Our souls.”
***
ERI AND URSA SAT ON the beach and gazed at the stars. Beta Lacertae glimmered over the northeast horizon. Despite its uncouth culture and the ardor of their mission there, that speck of light so far away seemed more home to them than what they had returned to. At least there something made sense, even if it wasn’t the tribesmen they fought and negotiated with.
The Corpsmen had led the group back to the beach. They didn’t want to risk a counterattack at the pit. Moldva had told them the Vuurah hated the swamps. It was why they were digging out the pit, to cover them up. That information solidified Eri’s decision, and they marched east through the swamps until they reached the shore.
“So much for a grand homecoming,” Ursa said.
Eri shook his head in silence.
“You never know,” Ursa continued. “Our children could still be alive. They may be as old as Maeve, but hopefully they’re not as crazy.”
Eri sighed. “No, I don’t think I want to believe that. I’d rather they lived long lives and passed long before the Vuurah came. Long before any of this madness took place.”
Ursa nodded. “Yeah. I suppose that makes for a better story than thinking they had to go through all this.” He threw a pebble into a wave crashing onto the beach. “How did this happen? Did we get lost while in Void Sleep? Did the ship fall off course, get sucked into a black hole, then pop us out right where we wanted to be but nowhere near when we wanted to be there?”
“I have no idea and I can’t even begin to guess. We’re here and we have to deal with the mission at hand.” Eri threw his own pebble into the water. “Some form of resistance must have formed when the Vuurah came. If we can find them, if they still fight, we can begin to organize.”
They hadn’t heard Moldva approaching through the soft sand. In the distance, they heard Hya and Cir’s deep laughter drowning out the giggling of the children they wrestled with.
“What is it you plan to do?” she asked.
“The only thing we’ve ever been good at is fighting for the Solveron, and it appears there is no more Solveron,” Eri said.
Her face tightened. “There may not be a... whatever that is, but there are still plenty of people to fight for.”
The two Corpsmen shared a smile. Despite a lifetime of slavery, the woman maintained her youthful vigor. Not even freed of her bonds for a whole day, she already wanted to resume the fight against the alien oppressors.
“You know more about what is going on than we do,” Ursa said. “What would you have us do?”
“The Vuurah are doing something important up the shore from here.” Moldva pointed north along the beach.
“Oh?” Eri raised an eyebrow. “And what is it they are doing that is so important?”
Moldva’s posture deflated slightly. “I don’t know, but we should attack them there. Stop whatever it is.”
“If you don’t know what they are doing, then how do you know there is something important for us to stop there?” Ursa said, his voice more fatherly than Eri’s skeptical tone.
“Because, many days back, they came and took others from our camp and moved them there. They only take us from one site to the other if the other site is more important. Some of us went with the others to help carry supplies back with us. While there, we saw great masses of metal being built. The Vuurah are doing something there, and we have to stop them.” Moldva took a deep sigh and calmed her nerves.
“We appreciate your enthusiasm, young lady, but I don’t think there will be a ‘we’ is this operation,” Ursa said. “In the future, we will train you all and prepare you to defend yourselves and help us in the long fight we have ahead of us, but for now the best thing you all can do is stay alive.”
Moldva’s eye narrowed to slits and her jaw clenched. “They took my brother. I’m coming with you.”
Behind her, several miles to the south, bright streaks of light hung in the sky for but a moment before driving hard into the ocean’s surface. A few seconds after the lights and flashes died, the echoey crunch of rocket explosions drifted up the beach. The Vuurah had found the Peleliu’s wreckage and weren’t taking any chances.
While Moldva had ducked into the tree line, Eri and Ursa stood to pay their respects.
“It was a fine ship, that’s for sure,” Eri said.
Ursa grunted. “I knew we should’ve grabbed the fucking anti-tank system.”
***
CIR TOOK IN A LONG, deep breath, held it, then slowly released it. He rested his cheek back on his long-rifle’s buttstock and sighted in through his scope. “Home sweet home.”
However long they had been gone, it had been long enough for the trees and swamp-brush to invade the abandoned remnants of Exploration Command Base Canaveral. The place where Solveron historians said mankind’s journey into the stars had begun was now a derelict clutter of buildings, to include the towers that had once been used to hurl the old Exploration Corps out into space. Around the ancient launch-preparation building, the tallest structure of the compound, the foliage had been pushed back and the Vuurah had begun raising the skeletal supports for several buildings—or rather, their human slaves had.
“North tower, two of the robot-guys with the big cannon-things,” he said into the radio.
“Cannon-things? Robot-guys? Let me guess, there’s some guys with big sticks with balls of blue light as well?” Ursa’s voice rang in his ear. It always hurt the most when the gunner scolded them. “When this is over, we need to develop some radio procedures for enemy designation.”
Hya’s voice came next. “Aliens. Big scary. Many guns.”
“Knock it off,” the captain ordered.
Cir took in another relaxing breath. As he exhaled, his lips moved in silence, beseeching one of the archangels for protection in battle.
“Gunner Pherkad, is our backup in place?” the captain asked.
“Yes, sir.”
If you can call them backup, Cir thought. He wanted to be positive, but a few ragtag men and women armed with sticks, shovels, and pipes were going to be of little use in a gun battle against alien invaders. Ursa had picked the strongest of the former slaves, but they were still weak and suffering from a life of malnutrition. At least they won’t be in the way... much. Their orders were simple. Hold the ground the Corpsmen took and get the slaves at this site away as soon as possible to give them open fields of fire to strike down the Vuurah.
“Corporal Ara, you have control,” the captain said.
Cir rested the crosshairs of his weapon-sight on the chest of the closest Vuurah operating one of the robotic exoskeletons. It bore the same model cannon that had obliterated Kaus. He slipped his finger into the trigger-guard, applied light pressure, and activated his radio.
“Three, two, one.” He finished squeezing the trigger. Each of the eyes in the Vuurah’s head went wide and the robotic legs of the creature’s suit stumbled back. A spurt of blood fell from the chink the armor-piercing round had put in its breastplate. Then a flash of white flame erupted from the gory hole as the white phosphorus inside the bullet ignited. Cir was over a half mile away and could hear the Vuurah’s high-pitched scream. He smiled and shifted his body to find a new target.
***
ERI THREW DOWN THE empty, smoking, single-use rocket-tube, lifted another, sighted in, and depressed the firing stud. A wave of heat splashed against his face as the rocket left the tube. A split second into flight, the rocket impacted the side of a cargo hauler of alien construction. Three unarmed Vuurah, who appeared to have been supervising the construction, had ducked behind the vehicle after Ursa’s first rocket initiated the Corpsmen’s volley. The hauler burst in two, jagged shrapnel piercing the air. When its wheels came to rest, no sign of the three Vuurah was to be seen.
“Moving,” he said into his radio.
“Covering,” Hya replied.
The plan had been much the same as their previous attack: Eri and Hya moved from south to north, their objective the makeshift corral where the slaves were put. Ursa was to clear from east to west. His objective was to lay waste to their enemies with his Conquest Rifle.
Eri slid into a shallow drainage ditch, shouldered his rifle, and let out a trio of shots at a Vuurah armed with one of the staffs tipped with crackling blue energy. He saw the thin membrane of the thing’s ear rip from a shot, but he couldn’t tell if the other two shots hit true.
He paused to activate his radio. “Set.”
“Moving,” Hya replied.
“Covering.” He sighted in once more and saw his previous target had been joined in its advance by two companions. In a tower-structure behind the advancing Vuurahs, another of the gangly aliens mounted a white cannon crackling with blue energy.
Sand and rocks peppered the side of Eri’s helmet. A streak of blue light struck his shoulder and sent him landing hard in the mud and muck of the drainage ditch. The adamite armor absorbed the blast from the Vuurah’s weapon, but sent him spinning rump first into muck.
Eri pushed himself up and wiped mud off his weapon and the sight. Rounds cracked rapidly overhead as Cir increased his rate of fire to cover the captain. Hya slid into the ditch beside Eri, depressed the trigger of his combat rifle, and unleashed the magazine in a single burst.
Hya ducked back from an energy blast splashing the dirt in front of him. Eri popped his head up from the ditch, and one of the Vuurahs lay face down in a bright red puddle. Its flappy ears spread out to the side of the bloody remains of its head, while the tentacles flicked mindlessly in the air. The other two crouched behind the wreckage of a small cargo hauler.
“Frag out!” Eri cried. Hya dropped into the ditch and the captain flung a grenade toward their enemy. A crunch pushed through the ground and the incoming shots of blue energy ceased... for a moment.
A heavy stream of blue bolts from the cannon in the tower peppered the ground. They zipped overhead, forcing Hya to seek cover inside the ditch.
Eri activated his radio so he wouldn’t have to yell over the wail of incoming fire. “Moving!” Confusion was the first emotion to show itself on Hya’s face, followed by astonishment, and finally understanding. Hya then popped his head out of the ditch, sighted in on the turret, and let off a flurry of shots. The energy-cannon’s output faltered, and Eri dashed out of the ditch on a headlong charge toward the tower.
Eri passed the scarred cargo hauler wreckage. He gave a single glance over, his legs still moving, and saw the rent corpses of the Vuurah, pieces of meat sprayed across the ground and up the cargo hauler’s door. Then he pushed on.
He ran in the shadow of the concrete tower toward a steel door. He thrust his shoulder into the steel directly above the door jam. Eri didn’t slow. The adamite plate over his shoulder struck the steel sheet and the door slammed inward, two of its hinges ripping from the frame.
A stairwell rose to his left. A warping sound resonated through the air with each discharge of energy from the cannon above. He heard the rounds from Hya’s combat rifle impact with the concrete structure or snap overhead. Eri pointed his rifle up the stairs and activated his radio.
“Foothold established. Move up.”
The energy-cannon let out a burst. Hya responded. Eri waited.
“Move up.”
Hya’s only response was unleashing another burst of fire.
“Fucker.” Eri pushed up the stairs, rifle always up and ready. Eri moved up the first two stories of the tower. He could hear the humidity in the air turn to steam with each hiss from the energy bolts leaving the cannon.
He reached the last flight of steps, crouched down, and inched his way up the steps. He listened for the alien’s feet scraping against the floor, its breathing, anything to indicate its position and movements. The alien stepped from side-to-side, swinging the energy-cannon on its turret.
The top of his helmet came level with the rooftop. Eri stood straight up and saw the grotesque, sallow flesh of the alien standing before him. He only had a moment to scrunch his face with disgust. Then his rifle was in his shoulder and the only thing left to do was his duty. He pulled the trigger again and again, until the alien dropped dead to the floor.
Eri rushed onto the roof and kicked the bleeding corpse aside. He didn’t look for Hya or bother issuing another order. Either his comms were down, he was tied up with something else, or he was dead.
To the west, a crowd of human flesh huddled together in their makeshift corral. Some Vuurah stood guard, looking for enemies, while others whipped the slaves with their long tentacles. The men and women wept and wailed. A few older children were among them. The adults gripped them close and shielded them from the lashings with their own bodies.
Eri lifted his rifle into his shoulder and sighted in. The scope automatically zoomed to the appropriate strength. He placed the red sight-reticle over a Vuurah’s chest and squeezed the trigger. By the time he eased off the trigger, the alien hadn’t reacted, so he let off another round. Then another. The creature fell to its knees, gripping the wounds in its torso while rivulets of blood streamed down the massive exit wounds in its back.
From the east, a great roar, as if the very air were afire, grew in immensity. Eri chanced a look over his shoulder, a hot breeze blowing in his face. A massive shuttle, its thrusters spewing torrid air, descended on the open field. A flurry of rockets erupted from the shuttle. Then it hovered above the ground while a contingent of Vuurah soldiers disembarked. They wasted no time trying to dominate the battle with a barrage of firepower. Blue energy bolts crisscrossed the field. With every impact, the air filled with more and more smoke and dust. He would have blasted them all with the alien cannon beside him if he could figure out how the thing worked.
Eri looked at the slaves, desperate for freedom. He ejected his half-filled magazine and slid a fresh one into his weapon. He descended the tower steps to deliver the justice they deserved.
***
HYA WATCHED HIS COMMANDER charge forward and did his best to draw the alien energy-cannon’s fire. The Vuurah firing the weapon from atop the tower had some form of defense that sent Hya’s shots askew. The alien perhaps had a magnetic field of its own or some other technology to defeat his attacks. The thought only caused Hya to rise further out of the ditch and fire faster. His only purpose at the moment was to ensure Captain Seginus reached the tower. Nothing else mattered.
The captain shouldered his way through the tower door and Hya unleashed a burst to suppress the alien’s fire. Then one of the blue energy-bolts sliced through his left arm, severing the limb above the elbow.
It took a moment for him to process that he had been wounded. In his mind, one moment he had been firing on the enemy position, and the next he was face down in the muddy ditch. It wasn’t until he tried to push himself to his feet that he saw he was missing the majority of his arm.
Energy-based weapons commonly left clean, cauterized wounds, so Hya was confused why the stump was ragged, with torn flesh and the blood vessels still spilling his blood into the mud.
Then the pain hit.
The wound burned. He tried to cover the stump with his hand, but the moment his gauntlet touched the exposed bone, a sharp, breathtaking pain shot through his body, twisting his face and forcing a hoarse scream from his throat. With his heart rate elevated, endorphins flooding his system, and his blood pressure dropping, the cybernetic medical systems in his armor activated. The mesh holding the adamite plates together constricted over the remnants of his arm. Despite the trauma, he felt a tiny prick at the base of his neck. Then the combat-anesthetic flooded his body. His vision became unfocused and he felt his body become heavy and numb. It had been years since he’d experienced this sensation. Just before deployment, the team had been attending marksmanship training. Unbeknownst to Cir, Kaus, and him, one of the courses of fire involved getting shot up on the anesthetic then moving from one building to the next while engaging targets. The lesson was a valuable one: even when doped out of your brain, you were still expected to fight.
Hya dropped the magazine from his rifle, unsure if it was even empty. He tried to grab a fresh source of ammunition with his non-dominant hand before remembering he didn’t have a non-dominant hand anymore. He let his rifle hang on its sling and used his good hand to retrieve a magazine. With his depth perception fogged, it took several attempts to seat the magazine in his weapon. This caused him to chuckle. Had he performed such a terrible reload under normal circumstances, Captain Seginus would have had him demoted.
He sent the bolt of his rifle forward to chamber a round. He lifted the weapon to his shoulder and scanned for enemies. The weapon-sight brought focus to his vision. He laid the rifle across the stump of his arm—still leaking blood—to steady his weapon.
Three Vuurah attacked to the west. Hya couldn’t remember which of his teammates was to the west. Had the captain switched to the west? No, maybe it was Gunner Pherkad. Was it Kaus?
Hya disengaged the weapon’s safety, settled the red sight-reticle in the center of an alien’s back, and applied steady pressure to the weapon until it jerked. Judging by the alien’s lack of a reaction, he assumed he’d missed. He sighted in, and fired again. When his rifle came to a rest, the sight-reticle rested on another alien. He fired again. His eyes grew heavy and the trigger resisted his finger more and more after each shot. Then his body lost the strength to stand.
The sandy wall of the ditch felt soft and Hya allowed himself to relax against it. He tried to lift his rifle to a ready position, but he didn’t have the strength even to lift his finger from the trigger-guard. Time passed; he wasn’t sure how much or how little. Then, a Vuurah looked down at him. Its thin, kite-like ears flapped with a breeze Hya couldn’t feel. It pointed the crackling blue tip of its staff at him. The gills of its mouth moved and it was likely shouting at him.
Hya couldn’t hear what the creature was trying to say, not that he would have been able to understand its slurred, guttural speech. He didn’t even feel his finger tightening on the trigger or the rifle jump from recoil. The only thing he felt before he lost the strength even to sit up straight was a corner of his mouth turning up to form a grin when he saw a shower of bright red mist erupt from the exit wound in the alien’s back.
The world became a blur, and he hadn’t the vigor to force his eyes open or push them shut. A shape stood over him. It shoved aside the white blob that had moments before been the Vuurah enemy. Over the soundless ringing in his ears, he heard a familiar voice.
“I got shot.” Hya held his arm out, still not sure if anyone was there to see him.
“No shit, you got shot!” Cir roared into his face. “Now hold fucking still so we can patch you up and get you back in the fight.” Cir turned back to a pair of advancing Vuurah and let loose with a stream of shots from his long-rifle. Slow, aimed fire was the preferred method of engagement with the weapon and its scope, but he didn’t have a luxurious amount of time available, especially with an alien transport ship careening through the air toward them.
“Moldva! Get to it,” Cir called while changing magazines.
Moldva poked her head from behind a low wall she had taken cover behind and jumped headfirst into the ditch. Hya’s med-kit was exactly where Cir had told her it would be. She ripped the pouch off the Corpsman’s belt and dumped the contents into the mud. She found the long, black band Cir told her to find, and wrapped it around what remained of Hya’s arm. She put her head down, hiding her face in the Corpsman’s armored chest, and fought back frightened tears. The noise was like nothing she had ever heard. She had no idea anything could be so loud as the constant gunfire. But she didn’t have time to be frightened. She needed to keep Hya alive. She needed him to live so he could kill.
She tightened the tourniquet’s windlass until the flow of blood from the stump ceased. Then she pulled the long, glass vial from the mud and pressed the button on it as Cir had instructed. A long, thin needle shot from the vial.
“Where do I put it again?” She felt as if her throat would tear open from trying to raise her voice over the gunfire.
The slide of Cir’s rifle locked back, the weapon having run dry. With a brief pause in the fight, he scurried to Hya’s side and took the vial from Moldva. “Hold down his arm.”
She didn’t know what good her frail body would do against the strength of the wounded titan. She clasped both hands about Hya’s remaining wrist and leaned all her weight down.
Cir felt his fingers along the crook of his comrade’s elbow. He found the lifeline installed into the armor for just such an occasion and inserted the needle into the seal. “Now hold this,” he shouted. Moldva took hold of the vial and Cir reloaded, returning to the fight.
Hya groaned, weakly at first, but then the sound grew to mimic a drunk being roused from a deep sleep. Then it became a scream. The vial emptied its contents into Hya’s bloodstream, replenishing the life-giving fluid in his veins, but doing so diminished the concentration of anesthetics as well.
“Damnit! Holy smokes! What the hell?”
“Cir!” Gunner Pherkad’s voice called over the radio. “Get your ass over here.”
Cir squeezed the trigger and watched an alien’s head crumple like a smashed melon. “I’m a little busy, sir.”
“Fucker! Get your fucking ass over here right now. We got something big!”
Cir ducked into the ditched, plucked up Hya’s combat rifle, and reloaded the weapon. “Can you take care of this?”
Hya grabbed the rifle from his teammate. “Of course I fucking have this. I only need one trigger finger.” He stood up and let loose with a burst from the weapon.
Moldva pulled two magazines from Hya’s belt to assist him in reloading. Cir was out of the ditch and running.
***
THE VUURAH POKED OUT from behind a small, single-story concrete structure, fired a fork of blue electricity from its staff toward Ursa, and ducked back behind the solid wall. The adamite armor absorbed and grounded the crackling energy. Smoke drifted from the carapace plates and a smile crept up Ursa’s lips. The poor alien really thinks he can hide...
He didn’t make much effort to aim; the building was a mere hundred meters away. Ursa shouldered his Conquest Rifle. He placed the building the Vuurah had hidden within and behind in his sights, and pulled the trigger until the weapon ran dry. The wall facing Ursa did nothing to slow the 20 mm shells. The rounds punched into the building like a wooden stake through the heart of a bedtime story’s monster. Once inside the building, the shells kept moving until they struck another target, be it armor, flesh, or another wall, and detonated.
Ursa slid a fresh magazine into his rifle and watched the building collapse to bury the living and the dead. He advanced from his cover behind a fallen log to seek out more targets, weapon always in his shoulder and his finger a hairbreadth from the trigger. As he reached the crumbled remains of the building—concrete blocks, slick with bright blood, mixed with mangled, useless limbs, and a single Vuurah pawing the gash in its throat—his weapon came to rest on an alien pointing out his position to its comrades.
Ursa cursed when his shot went wide and splintered a wooden beam beside the alien. The incoming fire intensified and he dove behind a stack of steel beams. Blue energy-bolts crashed against the heavy girders to send tremors through the pile. He thought the beams, each several tons of steel, would easily protect him from the assault, but each strike against them jarred them more and more, pushing Ursa off them until, finally, the top beam toppled over.
“Shit!” He rolled aside, escaping the crushing weight of the beam, but also making himself a clear target for the Vuurah. The magnetic shield sprouted from the emitter on his wrist. The energy-bolts felt like blows from a battering ram, shaking Ursa’s skeleton as they skipped off the prismatic shield’s surface. He put his head down and ran forward to force the aliens to readjust their aim for a moving target. A trench sliced through the earth another fifty yards to his front. Its cover would give him the chance he needed to reestablish fire superiority over the enslaver-alien scum.
The roar of jet engines broke through the air, like the tide against a rocky beach, drowning the cacophony of gun and energy fire. Beyond the trench, several Vuurah leapt from some form of transport ship. Each carried a weapon larger and more menacing than the staffs the other Vuurah had been using against them. As he took stock of his half-depleted ammunition, the transport ship noticed his flight. A multi-barreled turret pointed at Ursa, and before he could ponder what machinations it would soon unleash upon him, four rockets trailing white fire leapt into the air and blazed a path toward him.
His adamite armor could withstand a great deal of punishment, but Ursa didn’t like his chances against the rockets. He had time for one last step, then dove headfirst toward the trench. The first rocket impacted the sand behind him, and as he was in midair, for a moment, he thought Cir’s God might be real. He was just outside the range of its shrapnel, but the explosive force pushed him the last distance he needed to reach the trench. When his head struck the concrete wall of the trench, he once more doubted in the existence of any deities, as he was certain he had survived the rocket blast only to have snapped his neck. The three remaining rockets made impact and Ursa’s world became smoke and dust.
Once the ringing in his ears died away, he tried wiggling his toes and fingers. All twenty digits responded and his Conquest Rifle was still slung to his body.
“Oooh,” he groaned. He sat up and dirt spilled from his helmet and every joint of his armor. Despite the ringing having subsided, his left ear registered no sound but a slight whooshing. “That can’t be good,” he said to himself. He wiped the grime from his face and picked a fleck of sand from his eye. With the obstruction to his vision gone, he saw the trench led to a sturdy bunker that had effectively resisted one of the rockets. On the olive bunker door, in faded white paint, he read the words Communication Station.
He activated his radio. “Cir! Get your ass over here.” The corporal responded with some form of excuse, probably complaining of overwhelming enemy fire, but Ursa dismissed it.
“Fucker! Get your fucking ass over here right now. We got something big.” Ursa lifted his head over the edge of the trench, his eyes on his rifle’s sights, and unleashed a flurry of shots. None of the rounds landed true, but they did send the alien reinforcements diving for cover. While their enemies were scattered, Cir ran, more scared of another berating from the gunner than any injury the Vuurah could cause to him.
Ursa flicked his eyes away from his weapon-sight for a moment to check on the rest of the team. Hya dropped a magazine from his combat rifle and Moldva inserted a fresh one into the weapon. Of Eri, and Hya’s left arm, there was no sign.
When he looked back through his weapon-sight, he saw one of the Vuurah wearing the robotic exoskeleton leveling one of the cannons that had disintegrated Kaus at Hya. The corporal saw it as well and intensified his fire for the moment. The alien let loose with the flaring beam of energy. Hya put up his magnetic shield just in time, but Ursa knew the weapon would outlast the Corpsman’s protection.
A blast of energy crashed into the armor over Ursa’s shoulder. He couldn’t tell where the shot had come from, and he didn’t have an opportunity to find out. His own well-being was secondary to saving Hya. He kept his weapon steady, the reticle of his sight centered on the Vuurah’s chest. The breath eased from his lungs and, once deflated, he pressed his finger against the trigger. Another blast struck Ursa’s shoulder, briefly numbing his arm and leg. He paused his trigger squeeze, reset his aim, and fired. The energy-beam fizzled away and the robotic exoskeleton dropped to the dirt, juicy chunks strewn across the sand trailed by bright crimson streaks.
The staccato beat of gunfire brought Ursa’s attention back to the trench. Cir stood over a Vuurah that had almost reached Ursa’s position while his attention had been on Hya. The tip of Cir’s combat-knife protruded from the alien’s neck, a thin stream of blood dripping down its back. Then Cir pried the blade outward and a shower of bright, arterial blood sprayed the Corpsman, the gagging and dying alien, and the ground. A blue energy-bolt flew by Cir’s head and the corporal dove into the trench.
Ursa put two shots into the Vuurah that had nearly taken off Cir’s head. The sight of their companion exploding sent two other aliens scurrying away. He pointed to the olive door. “Get to work.”
It took a moment for Cir to realize where he was and with what he was being tasked. The communications system bunker of Exploration Command Canaveral could reach the furthest expanses of the Commonwealth. There was no way to tell how long it would take for a hyper-light transmission to reach another system. Solar flares, the position of real-space objects and their gravitational fields, and a hundred other factors could affect the transmission. That would, of course, depend on whether the communications array still worked.
Ursa’s trigger finger halted its repeated movement only when the bolt to the Conquest Rifle locked back, the magazine having run empty. He slammed another ten-round magazine home and Cir kicked open the communications bunker door.
The energy-beam from one of the robot-suit-wearing Vuurah struck the ground just before Ursa’s position. The sand sizzled and melted. Ursa ignored the intense heat, turned toward the assailant, and sent a 20 mm shell exploding into the creature’s exoskeleton. The suit’s mechanisms spasmed and sent the energy-beam arcing through the air as the alien lost control of its weaponry. Only when a burst from Hya’s rifle tore open the Vuurah’s chest, did the weapon cease.
“All Solveron stations, this is Exploration Corps Seven-Three. Earth has fallen.” Ursa listened to Cir’s transmission, the severity of his words giving righteous purpose to each squeeze of the trigger. “We are engaged in combat with Arecibo forces. I say again, Earth has fallen to Arecibo forces, but we fight on,” the corporal said into the communications array. “All Solveron stations...” He continued to repeat his message, broadcasting it among the stars, and Ursa continued to hold the line.
The Vuurah who had fled from the sight of their companion being butchered by two 20 mm Conquest Shells had regrouped and gathered another alien to renew their assault on the trench line. Ursa fired, and the new Vuurah held its staff out. The Conquest Shell skipped off the surface of a multi-colored dome of light. Ursa fired again and again, but the aliens charged onward. Finally, after a fifth shell erupted against the force field, the staff sputtered a shower of sparks and smoke. Ursa squeezed the trigger once more. The bolt locked back, his magazine once again empty, and a Vuurah’s leg exploded.
Ursa didn’t have the time to reload with his last magazine. He let the Conquest Rifle hang on its sling and he transitioned to the Designation 22 pistol holstered on his hip. A noise brought his attention to the top of the communications bunker. He turned, and he was on his back with no breath in his lungs.
He didn’t hesitate. He thrust the pistol forward and pulled the trigger. The rounds skipped off the armor of the creature standing over him. The pistol’s slide locked back and Ursa tried to make sense of the alien-being as he reloaded.
The thing was clearly not one of the Vuurah, and if it weren’t for the thing’s height and ghostlike flesh, he might have thought it was human. Bone-white hair hung over its shoulders to frame a smooth, angular face. While the thing looked more human than Vuurah, its two eyes were still the same obsidian black.
It pulled a foot-long rod from its belt and a blazing white-and-blue beam burst from one end like a fiery blade. The alien swung the weapon down on Ursa. He raised an arm overhead. The magnetic shield stopped the blade and Ursa fired his pistol into his opponent’s chest. Each round ricocheted off the alien’s iridescent, amethyst armor. Tiny slivers of metal, fragments from the ineffective bullets, sliced into Ursa’s cheeks. The alien spun like a trained duelist and slashed horizontally at him. Ursa spun in response, placing the magnetic shield between the fiery blade and his flesh.
“All Solveron stations, this is Exploration Corps Seven-Three...” Cir continued his transmission, trusting Ursa to protect him.
The blanched alien overheard Cir as well and turned to rush the communications bunker. Ursa holstered his pistol and brought his fist up, his combat-knife clenched in his grasp. He lunged at the creature’s back, wrapping one arm around its throat while the other fell, knifepoint aimed for the alien’s throat.
The creature caught Ursa’s hand by the wrist. Despite the lithe build it shared with the Vuurah, the creature was able to snap Ursa’s wrist with a single twist of its hand.
Ursa heard the ligaments and bones going awry before he felt it, but before he could react, the alien flipped him over its shoulder, while still holding onto his wrist, and let the weight of his body falling through the air overextend the joint in the other direction.
He lost track of his knife and pushed the pain in his wrist from his mind. Ursa clambered to his feet, and the alien tried to push him back down by bending the wrist even more. Ursa’s fist smashed into its thin, colorless lips. It released its grip on his hand and snarled, blood painting a crimson sunset across the alien’s teeth.
The alien raised its burning sword overhead and brought the blade down. Ursa reached out for the blade and unleashed a wordless growl into the alien’s face.
The armor of his gauntlets held, the blade caught in his grasp. The alien pushed down on the blade and Ursa pushed back, his heels tearing furrows into the sand. The adamite protecting his hands grew hot and he felt a searing line across his palms where the energy-blade fought to slice through the armor. Ursa took a deep breath, filling his lungs and renewing his strength. He pressed his legs into the ground and his arms against the blade. But his armor finally gave out.
It was only a scratch at first, barely a paper cut. Then he felt the flesh of his palm sever and watched blood drip from the chink. Ursa thought he should have felt pain, but instead, he felt something awaken within him.
When the blade pierced his skin, all of Ursa’s senses came alive, including one he had never known before. Despite his back being turned to him, Ursa could feel Cir behind him. He could feel the desperation rising within the corporal, pleading for a response to his transmission. He could feel the corporal’s anticipation, waiting for Ursa to move so he could have a clear shot at the alien swordsman’s skull. Cir didn’t vocalize his prayer, but Ursa could hear the words in his mind, in his soul.
“They industrialized it, weaponized it,” the smoking statue had told them in the old witch’s hut.
“What is it? What do they want from us?” Eri had asked the apparition.
“Our souls.”
The alien screamed with rage, a vibrato squawk erupting from its throat. It pushed harder into its conflagrant blade, and Ursa pushed back, not with his tiring limbs, but with his newly found sense.
The blade bit deeper into Ursa’s hands, and the flames of its energy suddenly stood still. Instead of burning, the blade froze over, like a waterfall atop a winter-locked mountain. Then the blade shattered.
Ursa took only a sliver of a second to savor the shock on the alien’s face. He dropped his face into the sand. Behind him, Cir took the shot he had been waiting for. The creature’s head snapped back and a cloud of red mist sprayed from the exit wound in its skull. An added burst of rounds pulverized the creature’s skull to mush.
Eri stood over them, atop the trench line, his sights on the alien and his finger holding down the trigger. His combat rifle ran empty and the alien corpse fell to the ground in a bloody heap of twisted limbs.
Ursa met the captain’s gaze. Both breathed heavily, feeling the wear of their many years of soldiering. As much as they both wanted to sit down and rest, the mission wasn’t yet over.
Eri wiped away the blood dripping down his face, a minor wound from some alien-grenade, and activated his radio. “Hya, give me a sit-rep.”
“All targets I see are down. Moldva and Moricz are moving in with the others. They’re gathering up the slaves and moving them to the rally point.”
Eri smiled and Ursa clumsily reloaded his weapon, wincing with each movement of his broken wrist and lacerated hands. He almost wished he would have been wounded a bit more severely so his armor would dump some of its anesthetics into his blood.
“Come on,” Eri said. “Let’s go cover the withdrawal, in case anymore Arecibos show up.”
“Sir! Quick!” Cir waved to them, his eyes locked on one of the communication arrays.
Eri dropped into the trench and rushed into the bunker, Ursa on his heels.
They followed Cir’s finger to the blinking letters on the display. The screen was filled with various readings, frequency identifiers, power levels, and technical data that made sense only to a communications specialist. But in the top left corner of the screen was a notification that any Corpsman could decipher: “Message Received.”