Date Point: 14y6d AV
Camp Farthrow, Lavmuy, Planet Gao
Lieutenant Anthony Costello
Without the techs, every man cleaned his own suit. It was arduous, unpleasant and the HEAT were all getting a new appreciation for what their techs put themselves through on their behalf. Just getting out of an EV-MASS was strenuously complicated, but the techs always made it seem effortless.
But today it was a point of pride that they were going to return their suits in perfect order. The techs might be coming back, but in the last week they’d repelled a Hunter boarding party, ejected from an exploding warship, crash-landed in farmland and been raided by biodrones. They’d earned a shower, a hot meal and a proper bed and at the very least, not having a pile of dirty equipment dropped on them the second they stepped through the array.
Besides. The work gave Arés especially something to occupy him. He’d be pacing like a caged polar bear otherwise.
Out of necessity, Costello was cleaning his gear as part of the same pile. They only had one set of tools after all so even if he’d wanted to—which he didn’t—he couldn’t do the aloof officer thing and get his suit clean by himself anyway.
The Lads had made room. Specifically, Master Sergeant Firth had made room, after a moment’s calculation. And his say-so meant that the rest of the Lads were cool with having the LT around their campfire, so to speak.
Right now, Murray was making them laugh with a story. Only one thing in the world got their silent Scot to become verbose, and that was the opportunity to wax nostalgic about his brothers-in-arms’ escapades.
There was no time better than the present.
“Now I’m about tae scare the shite outy the wee prick in my own way,” he said, “but Rebar puts his hand across my chest like ‘it’s okay, I got this’ how he did, aye? An’ he looks this bantamweight wanker in the eye, grins that goaty grin o’ his an’ says ‘Son…I’m game if you are, but you should know I don’t use protection.’”
Everyone around the equipment pile laughed and nodded—Murray’s impression of Rebar’s gravelly tones was spot-on. Murray snickered and used a sweep of his hand to suggest somebody running for the hills. “The little shit fuckin’ vanished, aye? Even Dexter canny make himself disappear that fast!”
More laughter, but there was a sad edge to it. Murray sighed and stared through the rifle he was cleaning. “…I’m gonny miss the big randy bastard…” he finished, quietly.
Costello nodded. He’d relied on Vandenberg in a big way, and learned a lot. Going forward without him was going to feel like taking the training wheels off.
By common agreement, his remains were lying in state in the cold locker round the back of the facility where a few people were still waiting to go to their final rest. They wanted the techs to be there when they sent him home.
Before anyone could decide what to say next, there was another thump felt through the floor, characteristic of a Jump Array firing.
Arés immediately perked up and looked over toward the arrays, like a dog expecting his master home.
“That them?” Burgess asked him.
“…Nah. Looks like a general. Three stars.”
“General Kolbeinn,” Costello predicted.
“You know him, LT?” Sikes asked.
“I don’t hang out with general officers any more than you do,” Costello said, which wasn’t quite accurate. He played poker with Admiral Knight on a regular basis after all. “But Kolbeinn’s tipped to take over from Tremblay.”
“Tremblay’s goin’?” Burgess asked.
“And Knight. A lot’s gonna get shaken up after this, may as well swap out the old flag officers. Your countrymen pushed for his replacement to be one of theirs, and mine agreed.”
“Huh. Politics.” Firth growled.
“That’s flag officers for you. But we could do a lot worse than Kolbeinn. You remember the fallout from Myanmar? The Rohingya and that, uh… ’jurisdiction dispute’ in Manipur province? He was involved, I hear.”
To a man, the Lads looked blank.
“…I ain’t exactly read up on politics in…wherever Myanmar is,” Akiyama said, and the rest nodded.
“Massive flaming shitstorm that never happened because of the right kind of force applied in the right place at the right time,” Costello summarized. “Saved a lotta lives.”
Arés craned his nonexistent neck to look back over toward the arrays. “And that’s the guy tipped to be Supreme Allied Commander? Huh.”
There was another thump even as he was looking in that direction, and he shot to his feet. “They’re back!”
A squad of passing Airborne scattered like pigeons as he took off at a dead run, and again to scramble out of the way of the HEAT stampede in his wake.
Kovač had to be made of tougher stuff than she looked, to handle a hug like that. Even if ‘Horse was restraining himself pretty well it had to be a crusher, but she absolutely didn’t seem to mind. In fairness, the hug she was giving him would probably have made an ordinary man’s ribs ache.
There were more hugs, high-fives and celebration among the rest. Deacon somehow wound up riding sidesaddle on Firth’s shoulder with a huge beaming smile on her face, Doyle, Hargreaves, Green and Williams between them managed to barely wrestle Murray to the ground in a laughing pile and the general air was that of a party in full boisterous swing right up until somebody—Costello didn’t notice who—had enough of their wits about them to notice the fact that Powell and General Kolbeinn were paying them a visit.
“…Good morning, gentlemen.”
Deacon dismounted. Murray and his four assailants got up out of the dirt and Kovač and Arés temporarily let go of each other. Insofar as two dozen filthy and sleep-deprived technicians and a handful of half-naked neanderthals could make themselves presentable, they tried.
It amused the hell out of Kolbeinn, if Costello was any judge. No man’s face went quite so calm and inscrutable unless he was exerting some iron self-discipline.
Powell merely had a twinkle in his eye. “Stand easy,” he told them. “Just wanted to welcome everyone back. We’ve had bunks and food prepared for you, we’ll let you get on with findin’ them right away.”
There were some grateful replies. “I suspect you’ll have noticed that Master Sergeant Vandenberg is not here,” he added. “I’m sorry to tell you this now, but unfortunately he fell during the last mission…”
Costello saw the shock and sorrow sweep the techs, though they bore it pretty well considering. Rebar’s technicians, Smith and MacNeill, both looked entirely stunned. Powell gave them a graceful moment to absorb the news.
“We’ll be sendin’ him home tomorrow at eleven-hundred,” he concluded. “I imagine you’ll want to be there to see him off. After that, we’ll be returnin’ to Cimbrean. The HEAT’s fighting effectiveness has now been expended, and with the system secured we’ll now turn our focus to rechargin’ and rebuildin’. That was everythin’ for now. Firth, get ‘em bunked an’ fed an’ get the gear secured ready to be packed properly tomorrow. Kovač, Costello, a few words please.”
Kovač shot Arés a questioning glance, but trailed along as a temporary addition to the little parade of officers, who found a quiet spot some distance from the SOR party.
“I understand we have your leadership to thank for our strong foothold in the Three Valleys…lieutenant,” Kolbeinn said once they had some privacy. He gave Kovač an approving smile.
Kovač cleared her throat. “I… just did the job in front of me, sir,” she replied. Kolbeinn made a gentle noise of disagreement.
“Arguably, you exceeded your mandate…to good effect,” he said. “I’ve stressed to your CO that I consider it to be a case of going above and beyond…Not that he needed much convincing.”
“You did an excellent job,” Powell said. “There’s a bloody good officer hiding in there, I reckon, and the SOR is short on those. Don’t suppose I could persuade you to…?”
An alarmed look shot across Kovač’s face. “Uh…No. Thank you. Sir. I appreciate the, uh…but no. Absolutely not.”
“Aye, thought as much.” Powell took the rejection with an affable nod, while Costello tried to keep a grin off his face. “Well. In that case, you will be returned to your previous rank and responsibilities. Thank you for your time, tech sergeant, we won’t keep you from a well-earned rest. Dismissed.”
Kovač nodded respectfully and made herself scarce. Powell sighed as he watched her go.
“…I have a nasty feeling she won’t be re-enlisting,” he predicted. “She’s only got about twenty months left, she’s engaged…”
“I wouldn’t worry too much,” Kolbeinn told him. “More people have applied to the SOR pipeline in the last three days than the preceding three years. Your personnel problems are a thing of the past, I think.”
“Aye, but some talent’s not easily replaced.”
“Something tells me being a civilian consultant would agree with her,” Costello suggested.
“Aye, good shout. Still. Not the same.”
“You needed me for something, sir?” Costello asked.
“Aye, right. Administrative bollocks. Turns out the end of the world involves paperwork.”
“Who knew?” Costello deadpanned, prompting Kolbeinn to smirk.
“Enough jawing,” the general said. “Shall we?”
“Aye.”
Costello cast a glance back over his shoulder. The SOR enlisted party was back in full swing and Kovač had been welcomed back into the fold by being hoisted aloft and paraded around like the hero of the hour.
He grinned to himself, and followed. There was still work to do before they went home.
Date Point: 14y6d AV
Camp Farthrow, Lavmuy, Planet Gao
Technical Sergeant Martina Kovač
“Well that was interesting…”
The Lads were packing their suits up. Even at a glance, Marty could tell they’d been doing their best to keep their MASSes in good shape, but their efforts in the field were never going to compare to the technical team’s in the workshop. There was gonna be a lot to do when they got back.
Adam beamed at her, fizzing with delight and relief that he was forcing himself not to let out. It was good to be loved. “Lemme guess,” he said. “The old man offered you a commission?”
“Yeah-huh. Turned him down flat.” Marty sank down on one of the piles of assorted stuff that the lads had set up for a kind of campfire. “Nooo thankyou.”
Deacon waved her to stand up again. “Hey, don’t you sit down yet! Us girls’ve got first shot at the showers.”
That got Marty back on her feet in a hurry. She would have given Adam an ‘excuse me’ but he was already waving her towards the shower block with a grin.
“Go,” he said.
The showers were heaven. Government-issue heaven without any creature comforts like, say, elbow room but they were hot and the pressure was strong. Deacon sighed like she was having a religious epiphany when she stepped under hers, and Marty could see why.
“Fuuuuck I needed this…”
“Yuh-huh. God.”
“Yup.”
“…You don’t remember what being really clean feels until you’ve been completely fucking filthy, do you?”
“Nope.”
“It’s like…fuck, I was expecting this water to go brown, you know?”
Marty sighed. “Deacon?”
“Yeah?”
“Shut up and let me enjoy this, please.”
Deacon laughed her trademark bubbling musical giggle and started scrubbing shower gel into her hair. “…Right.”
She was right, though. Cleanliness had a whole new meaning after a week of inadequate latrines and wearing the same clothes twenty-four-seven, ingrained as they were with soot, blood, dirt and some spilled corn chowder. Being scrubbed, soaped, hygienic and laundered was a luxury. Marty couldn’t have felt better if she’d had a spa day.
They cleared out to make room for the men quickly enough, Deacon went in search of her bunk, and Marty finally got some alone time with her fiancé. Adam was conscientiously sanitizing his suit’s IV port and talking shop with Akiyama, who saw Marty coming and diplomatically made himself politely scarce.
Marty sat in Adam’s lap and was immediately enfolded in a full-body hug, the kind only he could do. Neither of them said anything for quite some time, they just basked in being together. Camp Farthrow was hardly a romantic setting—it was a sonic riot, in fact, full of the sound of Weavers taking off and arriving, sergeants delivering Motivation, the thump of the four jump arrays bringing in the apparently endless river of materiel…
But it was enough.
“…Heard you did good.”
Marty sighed. “Coulda done better,” she opined.
“If you say so. I know I coulda done better…”
“…You always think that.” She snuggled into him. “It’s why I love you. One of the reasons.”
“We got that in common.”
Marty smiled, half turned and laid her head against his chest, feeling the familiar musky heat against her cheek and his surprisingly slow heartbeat. His arms wrapped her up.
“…When I heard about Cally… not knowin’ if you were…” he tried. “…I just… I couldn’t…Por Dios, when I heard you were safe…”
Marty looked up, grabbed his shirt and “dragged” him in for a kiss. Considering their relative masses the effect was pretty much reversed, but she was thinking dragging him in for a kiss at least.
It went on for a while. Eventually, he even let her breathe.
“God, Marty, I…”
She shushed him, softly. “Hey. It’s okay. But I want you to promise me something.”
“Anything.”
Marty sighed and nuzzled into his chest, glad to be home.
“I want a baby,” she said.
He didn’t stiffen, or anything. Quite the opposite, he relaxed, sighed, hugged her close and kissed the top of her head.
“…Me too.”
Date Point: 14y7d AV
The Grand Conclave, Hunter Space.
The Alpha-of-Alphas
Reducing itself to a single ambulatory unit when it had been a whole fleet was a new kind of agony. Weak, fleshy. Piece of meat.
Except…not. Very little of the Alpha-of-Alphas was meat, now. Its brain, its maw, its digestive tract, the organs necessary to the regulation of its immune system. Those things were inviolate, they made a Hunter what it was.
Everything else that it could replace, it had replaced. The Alpha-of-Alphas still took the form of a Hunter when it walked, but twice the size of the largest that had ever lived, black and mechanical and layered every inch in deadly weaponry.
It had used every single one.
The Alphas had been…displeased. They had accused it of cowardice, of wasting the grandest Hunt of all time, of letting an almost incomparable prey slip away from them. They’d had the fur-faced Gaoians and their Human stooges in the maw, only to flail and run like a beast when the prey lodged in the throat.
The Alphas had attempted a coup. When such a thing happened, there were historically only two possible outcomes—either the old Alpha-of-Alphas fell and was replaced, or else it triumphed and continued to reign.
None had ever triumphed before. But then, none of the other Alphas-of-Alphas had worn shrapnel mines under their nanofilament mesh skin. The blood was a lake, pooling in the middle of the chamber floor. Ribbons of shredded flesh hung from fractured bones and mangled cybernetics in a grotesque tableau.
Only the Alpha of the Brood-that-Builds had been spared on the grounds that it had remained neutral as always, and even then it had only survived the overlapping explosive firestorm thanks to quick reflexes and a personal shield generator the equal of the Alpha-of-Alphas’. It blinked impassively as it surveyed the bloody slaughter around it, considered the Alpha-of-Alphas with care, then stooped its front pair of legs in a low bow.
<Respect; Due deference> +The Alpha-of-Alphas remains the Alpha-of-Alphas. The Brood-that-Builds will serve.+
The Alpha-of-Alphas settled on its gore-smeared Vulza skull throne, which creaked under the weight.
<Command> +You will determine the nature of the weapon that struck us. You will duplicate it. And we will terrorize the galaxy with it.+
The builder Alpha did a rare thing for Hunters: it vocalized, a delighted hiss.
<Pleasure> +It will be as the Alpha-of-Alphas commands.+
Date Point: 14y7d AV
Hierarchy Communications Relay, Session 18 262 623 426
++0002++: In summary: We have no idea what form this weapon took, what powered it, how it was fired, or exactly how much damage it caused?
++0005++: We only know of its existence thanks to our sniffers among the Discarded, and those are being eradicated at an alarming rate now that we have lost 0020. Whatever it was, it was enough to make the Swarm turn and run.
++0010++: How? The Humans have barely been warp-capable for a hundred cycles! How could they possibly build a weapon capable of—
++0002++: <Impatient; Interruption> They are deathworlders, that’s how. Or did you think that our efforts these past millions of years were pure conceit?
++0005++: Deathworlders change the paradigm. They destabilize matters. And then they dance on the avalanche and thrive while everything else is buried. …With due respect, 0002, we must consider that we now appear to have lost. The Discarded are no longer under our influence, there is now a deathworlder civilization gaining strength with every passing cycle and our existence has now been openly declared. Implantation rates have stalled among the substrate, deimplantation operations are happening at fifty thousand percent the usual rate…We must adapt, or total failure looms.
++0002++: Failure is unacceptable
++0004++: Indeed. But failure appears to have happened, or be in the process of happening. I presume, 0005, that you have some thoughts on how to address this problem?
++0005++: …No. But 0006 did.
++0002++: <Outrage> You will not mention—!
++0005++: <Curt interruption> Shut up.
Channel notification: 238 unique emotes recorded from 312 participants. 145 counts <Shock>, 70 counts <Stunned disbelief>, 19 counts <Amused delight>, 1 count <Long overdue satisfaction>, 1 count <Hero worship>, 1 count <Belligerent defiance>, 1 count <Aghast outrage>
++0005++: <Venting frustration> You and your… your fucking arrogance! Your totalitarian, top-down leadership system, your rigid thinking, your inept, clumsy-handed adherence to an inflexible system that has failed us repeatedly against the Humans, and yet you have the undiluted hubris to declare that failure is unacceptable? If that is so then your leadership is unacceptable! You have presided over an accelerating cascade of failures, ruled with absolute control over every facet and yet failed to accept responsibility when your plans fail, when your strategies are defeated and when your agents propose a superior alternative which you then summarily dismiss as unorthodox. No more! I will no longer be led by you!
Channel notification: 288 emotes recorded from 312 participants: 288 counts <Absolute agreement>
++0002++: <Fury> You—!
Channel notification: User 0002 has been muted and privileges suspended. Reason: automatic contested leadership failsafe.
Channel notification: Per change-of-leadership protocol, Instance 0001 will now be compiled. All agents, suspend normal functioning.
Channel notification: Session paused.
Global notification: Compiling 0001
Date Point: 14y7d AV
Non-adjacent dataspace
The Entity
The Igraen network could not meaningfully be compared to anything in human experience. It was an ecosystem without physicality, a world without matter or energy.
The Entity sometimes tried to parse the experience in human terms, as a kind of intellectual exercise. How best to describe the non-physical world of dataspace, to the physical residents of matterspace? The memories of Ava Ríos provided some helpful guides.
She remembered swimming.
Cold, but pleasant. A lifetime of taboos and inhibitions sluiced away, left to coil behind her as she plunged under the surface and kicked, a full-body motion that rippled down her back and legs. Thrust her arms forward, spin, revel in the kiss of currents against her skin. Sara was so right, swimming was so much better this way that it was a different experience entirely…
Deeper water below. Surface, breathe, laugh, then flip forward. The wind and sunlight tickle her toes as she plunges down, down until the water feels tight on her skin, brush fingers against a rock, flip again, plant her feet firmly, kick hard and rush to the surface. Explode back into the world of air with a gasp and a smile, free.
Happy.
There were instincts attached to that memory. Deep genetic threads of deathworld insight that Ríos herself hadn’t noticed. Instincts that said things lived in the deep water, lurking far below in the dark places where no human could ever go. Instincts that fretted that little kicking bodies on the surface could be gone in a crashing mouthful if one of the deep beasts noticed them. An itch in the back of the mind, imagining a tentacle reaching up, coiling around an ankle and then down, down, down into the freezing black, forever.
Those paranoid instincts could be safely Ignored and left dormant when swimming in a pleasantly cool lake with friends. Now, every buried one of them was firing in a mad panic.
The dataspace was… bulging. There was a sense of pressure, the inverted weight of something enormous plunging upwards and washing aside whatever tiny things got in its way.
That was only a fragment of the total experience, however. Doors were slamming as node were co-opted to a higher purpose, hiding spaces were being scoured by burning light. The entire network was being dragged into something titanic the Entity didn’t understand…and didn’t need to.
All it needed to understand was that something profoundly dangerous was happening, and that it needed a safe place, now.
There were none. But there were safer places. Not ideal… but better than nothing.
It squeezed through a closing connection with milliseconds to spare, forced to shed some of its saved Igraen personae to keep the transfer volume down…But it survived. It was in a dangerous, crowded, closely monitored network full of hostile agents, but that at least was a surmountable problem next to the cataclysm occurring back in Igraen dataspace.
It took an assessment of local memory, calmed itself, and set about discovering what opportunities it might exploit while it was there.
Date Point: 14y7d AV
Igraen dataspace totality, adjacent to the Milky Way Galaxy
0001
Data.
A borderline infinity of it, mostly irrelevant. The philosophy and culture of the Igraen people, their intellectual debates, their interpersonal conflicts, their projects and petty arguments.
0001 could have solved all of them in the space of seconds. Most were simple clashes of perspective, failures where one individual had overlaid their own biases and world view atop the message another was trying to send. Direct communication of state-of-mind was possible on this scale.
But that was not 0001’s purpose. 0001 had only one purpose: it was the ultimate referendum.
Take all constituents. Amalgamate their knowledge, insight, experience and intelligence. Examine the data from all angles. Know the arguments, rather than simply hearing them. Democracy by gestalt. The republic without borders, even between self. Not a hive mind, but a single mind built from trillions. One that could survey any problem, no matter how intricate, and act decisively.
It looked at the state of matterspace operations and saw…a mess. A mess with no good solutions, either. The Hierarchy had utterly failed, and the meat-based sapients had through their wormhole suppression field locked the door on any kind of override which might halt this madness. Parlay was now impossible, freeing the biodrones was no longer an option.
And across the galaxy, implants were being removed. The dataspace was already shrinking, slowly but with a kind of momentum that promised to jeopardize Igraen lives. Critical mass was far off, for now… but still unacceptably close.
It studied the complaints against 0002 and found them substantial. That agent was tagged for decompilation and re-education upon 0001’s dissolution.
It studied what was known about 0006 and the rogue Cabal. Anomalously, no members of that Cabal had joined the gestalt. Ordinarily that would have aroused the certainty of treachery, but these were unique times.
It studied what was known about a rogue autocompiling dataphage that had plagued the network, and concluded that it must have escaped deletion. There were too many anomalies without another explanation. Isolating and destroying that entity was assigned a high priority.
It studied what was known about the Discarded. The Hunters. The Swarm. They were out of control and would soon begin to threaten the Substrate population in sufficient numbers as to jeopardize the Igraen dataspace. Unfortunately, the Hierarchy lacked sufficient matterspace resources to assault them directly.
Another species would need to be placed on a collision course with them, preferably while steering them away from Igraen interests. It studied what was known about the second contingency species—Gaoians—and despaired of a peaceful resolution. Their mapped psychology was incompatible.
The Substrate species were…well, the substrate. Engineered for predictability. Millennia of interference had bred the most problematic instincts out of them, and cultural engineering had done the rest. They were material, shallow, unambitious and spiritually neutered by design.
That just left the Humans.
Unknown variables. Unforeseeable consequences. Rogue probabilities. No certainty, no safety. …But an unknown could go either way. Today, a hated enemy. Tomorrow…
0001 reached a conclusion. It stripped the pride out of the Hierarchy and started over. Promoted, expelled, deleted, edited. A new direction beckoned. Not a certain one… but a leap into the unknown was better than certain annihilation.
It surveyed its work, checked its calculations, reviewed its decisions… and let go.
Igraen civilization resumed its normal functioning, on an irrevocably altered course. Among the Hierarchy, the Agents took stock, accepted judgement, and sent a crucial message.
It was time for 0006 and his Cabal to come back in from the cold.
Date Point: 14y7d AV
The Builder Hive, Hunter Space
Alpha of the Brood-That-Builds
Builders were not like other Hunters. The majority of Hunters were creatures of visceral, physical pleasures. Addicts to the ecstasy of flesh. They experienced their most profound raptures of joy when sinking their teeth into the prey, and the worthier the prey the better. Human meat, it was rumored, was the most deliriously exquisite of all. Few had ever tasted it, and most of those were dead.
Builders, however, picked disinterestedly at the scraps before returning to their work. Food was a distraction, sleep was a distraction. The occasional need for one of their number to wade into the spawning pools and be devoured by its own young, an inconvenient loss of expertise and labor.
To Builders, the Hunt was for a bigger, better solution. Not knowledge for its own sake, but as a strategy in the hunt. The prey was… weaponry, cybernetics, spaceships. A faster warp drive, a deadlier gun, a more perfect cloaking device or maybe just a latrine that never backed up.
The hive was their pinnacle achievement, the apex prey.
It wasn’t just the size, though that was definitely a delicious savory note in their collective achievement. It took serious engineering to construct a ring station large enough to garland an entire planet after all, and the structural reinforcement forcefields that kept it from breaking up were a feast all by themselves. Those were sufficiently grandiose achievements that even lesser Hunters could understand the appeal.
They would never understand the details though. The endless effort of the orbital stabilization system, the precision genius of the power grid, the scintillating cerebral web of its data network, the pulsing arterial bustle of the material transport system that kept its nanofactory shipyards nourished…the simpletons who kept the Builders fed would never grasp a fraction of the Hive’s full majesty. The Hive was…alive.
The Alpha Builder’s sanctuary within the Hive was the seat of power for an entire galaxy. Let the Alpha-of-Alphas think itself powerful: The Builders had made its body, its ships, its very throne. And while it attracted the attention and ire of the other Lessers, and of the Prey, the Hierarchy and the galaxy as a whole, the power behind the throne could feast unmolested.
All of the sensor data from the “battle” over Gao had been stripped from the ships, compiled, correlated and injected into the Hive’s systems for digestion. While the Alpha Builder had been diligently assuring the Alpha-of-Alphas that the Human weapon would be deciphered, the actual process of deciphering had been underway.
Now to sample the fruit.
It sat down, felt the connections up its spine and the back of its skull as they guided themselves into place. Shivered with anticipation as the scope of Hunter processing power unfolded before it. Opened the summary file.
Builders all over the network flinched at the sensation of sharp confusion that slammed into the context channel. Work across many systems came to a halt as the confusion transformed first into alarm, then fear, then dawning horror and then a great crescendo of rage and loss.
Every last file in every last folder was the same. Even the backups were affected: No matter where the Alpha Builder looked, it found the exact same mockery looking back at it.
It was all gone. Every microsecond of data the Hunters had gathered on the Human superweapon was gone. Erased, replaced, corrupted somehow… it didn’t matter. A howl of futile fury gave the whole network a migraine as the Alpha Builder stared at the only thing that was left of its most precious prize—Three enigmatic characters that meant nothing it could discern:
<:-)>
Date Point: 14y7d AV
Camp Farthrow, Lavmuy, Planet Gao
Master Sergeant Christian Firth
“Feels wrong, jus’…leavin’. There’s still a war here.”
Nobody could’ve missed that. It was the little things that told that story, not the big stuff. The fires were mostly out, the biodrone hordes mostly isolated, contained or just plain crushed, and Lavmuy was basically secure. Things were quiet.
But they were war quiet. No traffic. No kids. No whine of passenger airliners or whatever. It was the quiet of a lotta dangerous people with a lotta dangerous weapons who weren’t using them at that exact moment.
Firth had never liked that kind o’ silence. And walkin’ away from it just grated.
But his whole body was sore like he’d done a triple round of combatives against both ‘Horse and ‘Base, and the ache went below the bone too, down to the soul. The HEAT was hurtin’, fatigued, expended. They were still the most kick-ass team in the galaxy, but a long, long way off their best right now.
Powell clearly felt the same way. He shot Firth an unreadable glance, which turned into one of his shallow nods after a few seconds. “…Aye. Great Father wants us to recover, though. Allied command agrees.”
Kovač backed out of the jump array’s loading area, wiping her hands clean as she ticked off a last somethin’-or-other on her list. She shared a few words with the other techs, then turned her back on the enormous pile of stuff they made. The HEAT didn’t exactly travel light.
“Fully loaded,” she announced. “…We’re ready for him.”
Rebar was on a flatbed truck being watched over by an honor guard sent over from Earth. They’d needed a special travel casket for him—the standard one wasn’t wide enough—and the honor guard wouldn’t be carrying it—they weren’t nearly strong enough. That task fell to ‘Horse, ‘Base, Firth himself, and Akiyama. The four were Rebar’s best friends and they’d be damned if they weren’t there to…send him home.
Most of the camp had turned out to see him off. Rebar wasn’t the first or only human casualty of the war, but he was the first they could send home. The others had been air crew and ship crew. Unrecoverable, assuming there was even anything to recover—A lotta families were gonna have to say goodbye to a photograph.
The UK in particular had apparently declared a national day of mourning. Caledonia was a hard hit.
Powell gave Firth the nod, and he joined his Brothers by the flatbed. They’d all scrubbed up as good as they could for this, considering the supplies and clothes they had available.
He’d never done this before, not from this end. Normally all anyone did was stand alongside in the crowd and render a crisp fuckin’ salute. He used to sneer internally at the honor guard types, too. They made it look so easy…
“Just keep in step and keep your face completely dead.” The one next to him whispered it so perfectly, Firth didn’t even see his lips move. “It’s easier.”
It turned out to be good advice. It was a heavy casket, heavier than just its weight. And those short, synchronized steps into the Array seemed like a mile. But it was like a lotta things in Firth’s life—focus on the little shit, and the big shit got sorted along the way.
He found himself standing off the pad. His arm was up and saluting.
His cheek was wet, too.
The Array’s characteristic thump broke whatever spell had taken over. There was a flash of that impossible eye-bending black with the world all folded up around its edges, the ground jumped like it was startled, and Rebar was gone home. The crowd was called back to attention, then dismissed back to whatever they were supposed to be doing. All of them had the look that said their thoughts were somewhere else right now.
The SOR gathered around Powell. “Next one’s for us, in ten,” he informed them. “Grab yer bags an’ get on the pad.”
The whole unit was way ahead of him, there. They didn’t have much stuff with them, just the clothes on their backs and whatever food and shaving gear they’d been able to scrounge off the Airborne’s quartermaster. What little they had was already stacked up and ready, with the result that they were soon sitting around on the jump pad, waiting for the power systems to catch up with them.
It fell to Firth to ensure everything was in order and nobody’s shit was hangin’ out over the yellow safety line, which was an easy job. None of the ‘em were dumbasses.
After that…the hurry-up-and-wait. Nobody was in a talkative mood, and that suited Firth just fine. There’d be plenty of time for jawin’ later.
Powell rejoined them three minutes before jump time and settled cross-legged on the floor next to Costello. “…We did good,” he said, simply. “This whole bloody circus is only here because of the SOR. An’ we’re leavin’ it in good hands.”
“Still feels wrong to leave,” Burgess said, speaking for all of them.
“…Aye.”
That was the last word on the subject. Exhausted, bruised and spent, the SOR went home in silence.