Wolf emperor, p.26
Wolf Emperor, page 26
part #1 of The Last Marines 08 Series
He went to the first one. They did not have any marking on their armor, so McCarthy didn’t know their rank or unit. They would have their identifiers, but McCarthy didn’t have access to their electronics, which were powerless and dead anyway.
Walsh squatted and fiddled with his personal data assistant, then the click-clack and grunts of Torag speech came from Walsh’s helmet speakers.
The effect was instant. The Torag jumped, and the bigger one looked at the little one. Was the little one senior?
“Captain Shikata,” the little one answered. Walsh provided a link to the translation. “Commander of the Bronfa. Victor of Shattata and—”
“Ask him why he was running and what those squid-arms were doing,” McCarthy said. Walsh complied.
“The demons of hell are crossing the ghost walls,” Shikata said. “They are enslaving and devouring the souls of the pure.”
“They aren’t Torag?” McCarthy asked.
“The slaves pursuing us were some of the devoured. They were once Torag. They have come to kill us all. All of us, especially the pure. They will come for you and your people next.”
“Where did they come from?”
“From hell. The ghost walls are failing, and they are coming through into our world. The end times are upon us. Those were some of the devoured from my command. They once served me.”
“I didn’t know the Torag were so superstitious,” Quinn said.
“He’s lying,” McCarthy said. It felt like someone was watching them. His eyes swept the sky. Nothing. “The Torag are full of shit.”
“Why do you say that?”
“Those things chasing him weren’t Torag. They might have been wearing some Torag armor, but our little prisoners here don’t have tentacle arms and have all their armor. Walsh, tell him he’s a liar and that we know they were genetic constructs. Ask him how many they have and what they’re doing.”
Shikata bobbed his head, and McCarthy wished he could see its face, but he would not expose Torag to the atmosphere. He obviously had filters that worked without power, or he would have died long ago. But taking off his helmet wouldn’t accomplish much except exposing him to SOG biowarfare agents that would probably kill him slowly and painfully, and it wasn’t like McCarthy understood Torag facial expressions, anyway.
“All of them,” Shikata said. The translator must have missed something. “All Torag will be devoured and serve their new demon god. Those who do not will be killed. These are end times, the time when civilizations will die. We are all doomed.”
“So why were you running?” McCarthy asked. “Why not stay and face your fate? Why run toward human lines?”
“My lineage is great. To have stayed would guarantee the end. To continue living is to have options. Proximity to the devoured endangers one and drains our power.”
“Some biological warfare agent that got loose?” Quinn asked. “Maybe something the Governance planted?”
“That’s a pretty impressive agent if it turns Torag into monsters and drains power,” McCarthy said.
“A multi-prong attack,” Quinn said. “Maybe something went wrong, and our mine field caught the edge of it?”
“That Guard officer demanding we come help him wasn’t playacting,” McCarthy said. “SOG lines have been hit by something and our lines have collapsed, I’m sure.”
Looking at the Torag, McCarthy tried to figure out if they would have information he could use to keep his people alive. He was sure they did, but what questions could he ask?
“Do you know about the drop ships?” McCarthy asked. Could they have been SOG?
“Demon hosts,” Shikata said. “Coming to kill us all.”
“I would think a captain would be smarter and less superstitious,” Quinn said. “Does he really think we’ll believe shit like that?”
“Maybe,” McCarthy said. He didn’t recall in any briefings that the Torag were religious, but they were habitual liars that sometimes ate their own children.
“Did these demons come from Torag space?” McCarthy asked.
“They came from the ghost worlds,” Shikata said. “They come for the souls of the pure and impure. They will come for you, too. We are doomed.”
McCarthy stared at the Torag captain and wondered how accurate the translation software was. Walsh wouldn’t know. He liked to collect things, and McCarthy had seen his storage buffers. Walsh collected software and data like a senior party member’s daughter collected dolls and clothes for her dolls.
“Aliens?” McCarthy asked.
“Us,” the Torag said. “The devourers are our creators. Our primordial essences given form. We cannot escape them.”
“Torgie is cuckoo,” Quinn said. “Not playing with a full deck. Best to let the intelligence comrades figure it out.”
“It might be a while before we can turn them over to anyone,” McCarthy said. “There is no guarantee they or we will survive that long.”
McCarthy looked at the other prisoner. “Who are you?”
“Senior Sergeant Kakatet,” it said. “The captain speaks for me.”
“I want to know what’s going on back there,” McCarthy said to the senior sergeant.
“A flux caused a temporary rupture in the fabric of our reality,” Kakatet said. “A powerful devourer appears to have slipped through and is infesting our reality. It established itself in the city of Kakak and has spread throughout the lines of the pure. The bastions of the pure on this planet are falling. We cannot halt this infestation and the rupture continues to grow.”
“The orbital drop pods?” McCarthy asked as a chill ran down his spine. Kakatet sounded more sane but didn’t contradict the captain.
“What drop pods?”
“The ones that dropped on Torag and human lines,” McCarthy said, and regretted his words. A good interrogator didn’t provide a prisoner with any information.
“I do not know. If they are attacking both the pure and unpure, then they are likely the spawn of another devourer that has ruptured our reality from elsewhere. Sometimes the devourers fight each other; rarely do they willingly align. If they are aligned, we will be eliminated soon, otherwise we may have a temporary reprieve until one of them gains dominance over this world.”
“That is some freaky shit,” Quinn said.
“Are they the reason the Torag have not fought hard for this world? You were fighting a different war?” McCarthy asked.
“No,” Kakatet said. “The ghost worlds are coming closer, and realities are beginning their clash again. The devourers are returning. The collapse of civilization and true sentience is imminent.”
“Where would your kind establish a line to hold back these devourers?” McCarthy asked.
“There will be no line,” Kakatet said. “The devourer cannot be stopped. These devourers do not offer real enslavement, only oblivion. Perhaps the new one from orbit offers enslavement? If it does not, they doom us to oblivion.”
“Creepy,” Quinn said. “It’s no wonder they don’t want us talking with these freaks. Maybe we should just kill them and move on. If shit is half as bad as they say, they’ll just be a liability.”
“Don’t tempt me,” McCarthy said.
Were there really two different factions fighting? None of this made the least bit of sense. It would be easier to move without prisoners, though. McCarthy wasn’t sure if he should save his buffers or if they would be used later at his trial. But so far, his patrol had only seen the squid-arms so he couldn’t confirm that the drop pods belonged to anyone other than the Torag or the SOG.
McCarthy’s finger slipped to the safety of his rifle. The prisoners were more a liability than an asset, and he wanted his people to survive.
If the SOG lines had collapsed, then it could be weeks, months, or even years before the Governance responded with sufficient force to rescue them, if the Governance decided to come back.
There was a genuine possibility that the Governance wouldn’t return. If they had lost their foothold then McCarthy knew they would nuke it back into the ice age. The largest base was on another continent, almost half a world away. If they held at Morozov, then maybe…
No. If a lot of ground had been lost to the Torag, then the Governance would make a statement. Maybe with nukes, maybe with an asteroid. At the very least, a Governance fleet would come in and lay waste to thousands of square kilometers.
The two Torag seemed convinced that they were doomed, that the reinforcements weren’t here to help them.
McCarthy didn’t know what to do. What was his duty? Would there be any way to survive this shit storm?
* * * * *
OceanofPDF.com
Chapter Forty-Five: Fighting
Navinad – The Wanderer
The stealth drones had difficulty keeping tabs on the SOG troops and, despite the video, Navinad couldn’t identify the troops. According to what he had discovered, all the troops fighting the Torag wore powered armor, even the Guard troops, and a large number carried blazers. With their adaptive camouflage active, there were no indications if they were regular Guard or Guard recon. The stealth drones had done their best to keep their distance because recon units would have some of the best sensors, and Navinad wasn’t sure the NMDF would have drones as good as the Aesir’s.
From the looks of it, the SOG troopers were taking their prisoners away from the battle lines. The Romach had a good idea of where the Torag and SOG lines were, but the troopers were moving toward what was considered by both to be wilderness. Which was good. Then the drones picked up movement from the SOG lines.
“What are they?” Gabbi asked.
“Vanhat,” Lillith reported as Navinad magnified the view.
They certainly weren’t human anymore. They had cracked armor and shreds of battledress still clinging to their bodies, but their arms were too long, and they moved more like gorillas with enormous heads and no necks. The armor had once been human, though, and while they weren’t carrying rifles or obvious weapons, Navinad was confident they were dangerous in many ways.
“There are about fifty of them,” Gabbi said. “They seem to be heading toward the SOG soldiers.”
“Will we reach them in time?” Navinad asked.
“Maybe,” Gabbi said.
“Spread out the drone screen more. Make sure that is the only group.”
“Copy that,” Gabbi said. “We have activity from the cruisers.”
“What activity?”
“Looks like one of them is going to do a bombing run on the Torag lines. I’m guessing there is a Torag hold-out or the vanhat are having a disagreement.”
“Will we be in danger?”
“No. They are targeting a different continent. Nowhere near you or your targets.”
The rest of the vanhat fleet could return, and that could trap him on the surface. He got the feeling that time might run out. The SOG troopers would be unaware of the vanhat coming for them.
Now that they were closer perhaps the shuttle could raise them without alerting the vanhat, but Navinad didn’t like their chances.
“That is a lot of vanhat,” said Katz, the commando platoon sergeant. He was leading the two squads with Navinad while Yosef remained aboard the Romach.
“If they don’t have projectile weapons, then blazers should make quick work of them,” Navinad said.
If they had longer range weapons, things could get really nasty. Either way, a serious fight with them could draw attention from the two orbiting ships and Navinad suspected they wouldn’t be averse to dropping an orbital round on them. The vanhat thought nothing of killing their own, and he knew the second they engaged the vanhat, the Jotun that owned them would be alerted and might respond with extreme force. To defy the Jotun was a direct challenge, and they would not tolerate that.
“We will have to hit first, fast, and hard and make sure we are the last to hit,” Navinad said. It is something the gunny would say. It was also Marine Corps doctrine. “The second we land, I want the bots to spend half their mortar rounds on the vanhat.” It wasn’t much, but it might buy them some time. Maybe. “We have to move fast. The prisoners are the priority. If the SOG troopers don’t cooperate, we kill them fast. We won’t have time for negotiations.”
“Copy,” Katz said. “Why should we bother with SOG prisoners anyway?”
“Because they are human,” Navinad said. “I’m not in the habit of killing prisoners or humans if I can help it.”
“The SOG thinks nothing of murdering helpless prisoners,” Katz said.
“We aren’t the SOG,” Navinad said. Why was he having this conversation? Was Katz really that blood thirsty?
“Do unto others—” Katz began.
“No,” Navinad said. “If they cooperate, we don’t kill them. Period. We are better than that.”
“Copy,” Katz said, but Navinad sensed the platoon sergeant was not convinced and could be a danger to the prisoners. Had he lost someone to the SOG in the past? Why the hostility?
The shuttle maneuvered to a clearing and the ramp opened. Like a well-drilled team, the robots shot out of the back, followed by the commandos. Navinad could almost believe they were veterans, but their heads moved around too much as they tried to take in everything. They didn’t completely trust their fellow commandos. Their attention had too much overlap, and Navinad knew the first firefight would draw their attention. He had to make sure they maintained security and eyes all the way around. He wasn’t sure Katz was any better. Technically, Navinad was not in command, but everyone knew that if he gave a command, they should obey it.
Taking over from Katz was not the way to train the platoon sergeant, though.
Navinad ducked when the robots fired their mortars.
“Game on,” Katz said. The vanhat were about to suffer their first casualties.
“We see another vanhat formation,” Gabbi reported. “They are coming from the Torag lines. Nearly a hundred. They look different. They look to be, uh, armed.”
Pausing, Navinad checked his display to see what these new vanhat were like.
They had weapons but not arms and a few wore shreds of Torag armor. The weapons also looked to be Torag in nature. They were different types of vanhat. Would they fight or cooperate?
Katz pointed toward the SOG troopers. They should be less than a kilometer away. Unfortunately, the exploding mortar rounds would warn them that someone was near.
“Leprechaun, Leprechaun, this is David,” Navinad said, broadcasting on the frequency they had been transmitting on before.
“This is Leprechaun,” a voice said. “Who are you?”
“We are your ride off this planet,” Navinad said.
“I say again, who are you?” the voice asked. Harsh and unforgiving. Navinad should have remembered how the SOG worked.
“We are with the 95th Peacekeeper Battalion,” Navinad lied.
“Why don’t you broadcast your ID?” Leprechaun said. “Authenticate Lima-Kilo-Six.”
“No,” Navinad said, trying to think fast. “I don’t have your authentication or encryption sets. We are from off planet.”
“If you can’t authenticate, then you aren’t SOG,” Leprechaun said.
The robots were led the way as they fired mortar rounds into the sky.
“You have two enemy forces coming at you,” Navinad said. Stupid, stuck-up SOG jackboots. They should be able to hear the mortar rounds. “We are dropping mortar rounds on the closest group. We don’t have much time. If you want off this shithole of a planet, then you need to get your asses in gear and get moving.”
“Explain what is going on,” Leprechaun said. “Are you from the drop pods?”
“No,” Navinad said, following the commandos. “We are from a ship hiding in high orbit. Those things from the drop ship are not human, not Torag either. I realize it is going to be hard to believe, but both human and Torag space are being invaded by aliens that are attacking us both. These aliens can infect and change people.”
“Do you know how crazy that sounds?” Leprechaun asked.
“Isn’t that why you’re heading away from Governance lines?”
Leprechaun was silent.
“Peacekeepers would have proper identification,” Leprechaun said, and a chill ran down Navinad’s spine. Who was he dealing with? Guard troops, even recon, should be a little more subservient to Peacekeepers. “You obviously aren’t Peacekeepers. Are you even SOG?”
The drone high above the SOG troops showed they were getting online. They had either heard the mortars being fired or the shuttle come in. These were pros. Most troopers were getting online. The squad leader had one person guarding the prisoners, but the rest were spreading out with flank security. He saw one trooper pop a drone into the air.
“Incoming drone,” Navinad warned Katz. SOG drones could be multi-purpose. They were mostly used for recon but could be used for suicide attacks or even carry a payload of a grenade or two. Navinad couldn’t tell. At least they weren’t releasing a swarm.
“Take it down?” Katz asked. It would be in view any minute.
“If it’s armed and looks like it might drop something,” Navinad said, but then saw the drone speed off toward where the mortar rounds were exploding.
“If you aren’t Peacekeepers, who are you?” Leprechaun asked.
Navinad debated lying. What could he tell them? The Peacekeeper lie would only last until they made contact, then the shooting would start, and Navinad doubted the prisoners would survive.
“We are here for the Torag prisoners,” Navinad said. “If you give them to us, we will help you escape.”
“What guarantee do we have that anything you say is true?” Leprechaun asked.
“I will approach unarmed,” Navinad said, “under a flag of truce to talk. We have little time.”
Worst case scenario, he was sure he could handle a few Guardsmen. He could delay them long enough for Katz to move in and take the prisoners out. Up close, he might better sense their emotions and state of mind. Lilith could also coordinate with Katz.
“Fine,” Leprechaun said. “But who are you?”
