Brink of destruction, p.22
Brink of Destruction, page 22
“Come.” Ransjunan got up. “We do not have unlimited time.”
Bannon didn’t like to abandon caution going into a place where the ghost ships had set up automated defenses, but if Ransjunan was right, they might have a narrow window where those defenses were down.
Provided this wasn’t a trap that Ransjunan was leading them into.
He glanced over his shoulder at the Columbians. They were moving down to join the Corvanites, and if they suspected that Ransjunan was anything other than sincere, it didn’t show.
Bannon watched the Shihyanese chyotsu as the big alien, weapon in hand, began to lead the way, despite what Bannon had told him about being an asset. He gritted his teeth. This was what he’d been afraid of when he’d gone back to ask the Shihyanese operative for advice. The operation was slipping out of his control.
Too much experience told him that an op was never entirely within the commander’s control, but this was different from the usual friction offered by terrain, enemy activity, and the general fog of war.
He scrambled down the hillside to catch up with Ransjunan, and caught the big alien by one of the lower arms. He had no idea whether that was some violation of chyotsu etiquette, and he didn’t care.
“Hold up. You’re with us. Remember?”
The blocky helmet swiveled toward him, the chyotsu otherwise going still once again. Bannon, despite himself, felt his hand tighten on his CR-196’s grip. He didn’t know what that motionlessness portended, and Ransjunan, as reasonable as he’d seemed in the briefings, was far larger and heavier than a human, and well armored.
But Ransjunan simply put those two lower hands together again. “Forgive me, Lieutenant. But we do need to move quickly. The diversionary drone will draw them off for a time, but it cannot eliminate them all.”
“That is fair,” Bannon allowed. “But we will lead the way.” He motioned toward the Columbians behind him. “As I said, you are an asset, and if we lose you, we lose that asset.”
It was more diplomatic than he liked, but it was necessary.
Once more, the Shihyanese operative clasped his lower hands together, and he stepped back behind a rock to take cover while the Corvanites moved forward.
With Baddlet on point, Third Squad moved deeper into the valley, still clambering down the strange shelves of rock into the darkness below.
About halfway down the terraced slope, they plunged into utter blackness.
The image enhancers immediately went into overdrive, and every Corvanite halted where he was, trying to get some idea of the landscape ahead. For a brief few seconds, Bannon wondered if whatever active masking was being used wasn’t actually impenetrable. But then the image started to clear.
It was still dim, monochrome, and grainy, signifying just how hard the helmet optics were struggling to build a picture, but he could see. And what the masking was hiding began to take shape.
The installation didn’t look like much at first. In the dimness, it took some time to realize that much of that was because most of it was in ruins. It had originally been four or maybe five spires on an asymmetric base. The spires leaned in toward the center, those that were still intact. Two were damaged, one of them crushed and half buried by the landslide off the hillside behind, the other apparently blasted in half by what must have been a considerably powerful weapon.
That base wasn’t small, either. The valley was larger than it had appeared, and the installation filled almost all of it.
Baddlet, Alexius, and Hern were still in place, each man on a knee behind a rock, covering the base as their helmet optics compensated for the darkness. Bannon moved up next to Hern, peripherally aware that Ransjunan had joined him. The big Shihyanese was now staying close to him, and after a reflexive burst of anger at the alien’s presumption, Bannon stifled the reaction and accepted that it was a good idea. Yes, Ransjunan was there as an asset as far as the Corvanites were concerned, regardless that he was on his own mission, and he couldn’t be expected to abandon it just because he was attached to Bannon’s phalanx, but because he was an asset, keeping him next to the phalanx commander was wise.
Especially if he knew what that installation was.
“That doesn’t look like a ghost ship installation.” He kept his voice low, and his helmet’s external speakers adjusted accordingly. The hardsuits were designed for combat, and the designers had taken noise discipline into consideration.
“It is not.” Apparently the Shihyanese hardsuits had similar tech. Only the helmet’s hearing enhancements picked up the deep, subsonic rumble. “That is a Garkhut base.”
With all the other concerns he had, it took Bannon a little time to recall who the Garkhut were. “Is that the play here?” He frowned. This was a chyotsu world. If the ghost ships were trying to manipulate the Eredinese chyotsu, using a base belonging to that race’s hereditary enemy, one that had eviscerated the greatest interstellar empire in their history, seemed like a strange choice. “They’re going to use the Garkhut to somehow manipulate the Eredinese?”
“In a way.” Ransjunan was utterly motionless, the low growl from his helmet’s speakers the only indicator that he was a living being in armor, not a statue. “The Garkhut were nearly as fanatical as the ghost ships’ crews themselves. We have long suspected that there was some technological, possibly cybernetic, influence that the ghost ships had over them. If there is something like that in there, it could be the key to what the ghost ships are trying to accomplish on Eredin IV.”
While he still couldn’t read the alien, Bannon imagined that he could detect some deep, cold anger in Ransjunan’s voice. He could understand. He didn’t imagine that a Shihyanese had the same sort of cultural rapport with the Eredinese that he might have with one of his own nation, but seeing people who were close enough to his own possibly getting turned to the service of the same creatures that had broken what sounded like a considerable civilization had to be infuriating.
At least, it would be to him. But he was human.
“There may be more to it,” Ransjunan continued. “We know too little. Too much of what the Gircarsai knew about the Garkhut was lost in the collapse. And the Eredinese chyotsu have been separated for a very long time. Mine was the first outside mission to reach this system in many cycles, possibly since the collapse itself.”
“You think they could be forming a cult around the Garkhut?” Hern had turned halfway around, and while his visor was blank and impassive, Bannon could easily see his senior squad sergeant’s frown in his mind’s eye.
“Stranger things have happened.” The Shihyanese operative was still as motionless as the stones they crouched upon. “The operation to take Tanafas, only fifty cycles ago. There was a fanatical sect of former slaves who had served the Garkhut for generations on that world, and they fought more fiercely than even the Garkhut had—all of the Garkhut themselves were long dead. We nearly had to wipe out the entire population of the planet.” Finally, that blank visage turned to face Bannon and Hern. “As much as an elder might wish to believe otherwise, the chyotsu are not insensible to manipulation, and the longer they have been separated from our culture, the more likely they are to be… deviant.”
It didn’t sound like Ransjunan had come to Eredin IV actually expecting good results from any contact with the local chyotsu. Of course, Bannon had no baseline of what the Shihyan might consider “deviant,” but if they were entering cults centered on their people’s hereditary enemies, cults open to manipulation from the same ghost ships that Bannon had seen annihilate entire megacities for a strategic pawn, then he would have to agree with Ransjunan on principle that they were “deviant.”
“What kind of defenses might there be, if those drones weren’t it?” Bannon suspected that they might have just found their objective—what the ghost ships were doing on Eredin IV, and what Ransjunan and the Columbians were there for.
“I do not know. The Garkhut split into many sects as they spread out on their waves of massacre. As they moved out from their homeworld—we still do not know exactly where that was, though it is believed that the Gircarsai Dominion destroyed it before the collapse—they diverged from each other, going in differing technological directions. What we find in there will depend on which sect built this base.”
“And you probably don’t even know all the sects or all their tricks.” Bannon turned back toward the dim outline of the strange spires.
“No.” There was no detectable anger or offense in the Shihyanese voice, though Bannon suspected he wouldn’t have been able to tell anyway. Ransjunan also did not comment further.
Bannon triggered his burst transmitter. “One, bring your squad down into the valley.” He tapped on his gauntlet’s controls, bringing up a locator pin and adding it to the transmission. Inside the masking field—or whatever it was—it was difficult to direct the other squad, since there was no common reference that Summ and his boys could see.
He was already rewriting the plan in his head as he looked at the installation that loomed in the murk below. It was a good-sized base, and if there was resistance in there, the phalanx—as much faith as he had in their training and experience—was going to be too small to truly clear it. But they needed to get inside before the rest of the regiment arrived. The reconnaissance was vital, especially with Ransjunan with them. Plus the enemy currently didn’t seem to know they were here, and once the other Corvanite warriors started to drop out of the sky, things were going to change, and they might not get any intelligence out of that place at all.
And that was the whole reason they’d returned to Eredin IV in the first place.
By the time Summ reported by burst transmission that First Squad was in position—Bannon couldn’t quite see them in the gloom, but that was a good thing, as it meant his men were paying attention to their cover and concealment—he had a rough plan mapped out. He began to sketch it out for another burst transmission to Summ, Abbott, Hern, and Flint.
CHAPTER 27
Summ and his squad were still on overwatch, spread out along the top of the valley, covering more of the approaches to the base. The drone swarm hadn’t returned yet, and Ransjunan had launched two more of his little spherical distraction drones, so hopefully they would keep the phantom drones busy for a while.
The other two squads, with the Columbians in tow, had converged on the base of the valley and what appeared to be the entrance. Even if it hadn’t been meant as such, one of the weapon strikes that had annihilated a nearby spire had punched a massive hole in the structure, and that was going to be their way in.
Bannon had pushed up next to Hern, with only Baddlet between them and the entryway. Bannon could almost feel Ransjunan’s and Flint’s eyes on his back, but if they thought he was showing off for the foreigners and aliens, he couldn’t be bothered by it. This was the Corvanite way. Death comes, and those who would lead should lead the way to meet it.
The wall loomed above them as they closed in on the ragged opening, weapons leveled into the darkness, the image enhancers in their helmets struggling to penetrate the gloom. They split to cover the ragged hole, neither element silhouetting themselves in the opening.
Bannon waited a moment as the rest of the element stacked up, then he reached forward and gave Baddlet’s pauldron a tap.
The younger warrior did not immediately charge in, but stepped out from his covered position, inching in an arc around the outside, joined a second later by Frye on the other side. They carefully eased their way across the opening, looking for movement or enemy emplacements inside.
It was always better to clear from outside rather than rush in to meet your death. Corvanites might go to meet death, but never wastefully.
At least, that was what Bannon had always believed. Being alone and unafraid in this situation raised some questions, questions he quickly pushed out of his mind.
The two warriors met in the middle and pushed inside, Hern, Bannon, and Abbott joining them on the way. There was a school of tactical thought that said putting all the leadership in front was a bad idea, but those who believed such things did not cultivate their subordinates to be able to take on the mission—by themselves, if necessary—should their leadership fall.
He half expected a look or a comment from the Columbians behind them when he stepped into the tangled wreckage at the opening and into the deeper dark of the base, but when he checked his tactical display, he saw that Flint was right at the front of his own team.
Maybe Corvanites and Columbians had more in common than they thought.
The opening definitely hadn’t been intended as a door, because this was not what Bannon would expect of an entryway. Time and erosion had furthered the damage done by the impact that had torn open the wall, but there was enough wreckage to suggest that this had been either a storeroom or mechanical room at one time. The Corvanites had to pick their way through the unidentified lumps and piles of detritus, rifle muzzles pivoting to cover each bit of dead space as they came to it.
It slowed their advance inside, but there was nothing to be done about it. Step by step, they pushed inside, their helmets’ active scanning needing to take over in the blackness. Outlines lit up in Bannon’s visor, and he almost flinched when it happened, knowing that some of that low-level radiation was detectable with the right equipment.
He didn’t doubt that the ghost ship aliens had that very equipment.
Only about half of each squad was inside by the time they reached the strange, asymmetrical doorway leading into a hallway outside. The door was partway open, and appeared to rotate into the wall. Baddlet and Frye once again split the opening, each man covering down the opposite direction.
Aside from the crunch of hardsuit boots in the debris on the floor, there had been no sound. The base seemed to be still and dead.
Bannon knew that was an illusion, and a dangerous one. Those drones and the masking field made that obvious. The ghost ship aliens, at the very least, were here. Or if they weren’t, some of their devices were.
The two warriors dipped their rifle muzzles, and then they went, each one hooking around the doorjambs and into the hallway beyond. Bannon, Hern, Abbott, and Alexius followed. Bannon glanced behind just before he entered the opening, seeing that the autogunners for each squad were now set up on the gash in the exterior wall, holding security on their exit.
The hallway was wide but low-ceilinged. There were gaps in the overhead, they might have been lights once upon a time, but the place was dark and apparently without power.
“Baddlet lead, Frye hold.” As they moved deeper into the structure, squads were going to become intermingled, so individuals became the basic moving parts. It was the nature of this sort of maneuvering, and the Corvanites were used to it.
Baddlet started moving immediately, while the other warriors behind him spread out, moving to either side of the hall, none staying in the center. Weapon muzzles swiveled toward every gap or opening while they looked for the next room to clear. Hallways were deathtraps, and while the Corvanites had been well schooled in this sort of close-quarters fighting, and they were not supposed to truly fear death, no sane man feels comfortable in a hallway with hostile forces somewhere in the structure.
The darkness grew thicker still, the deeper they moved in, until it was nearly complete. There were apparently no external windows in this structure, and of course no lights. The Corvanites wouldn’t show lights either—the radiation of a helmet’s active scanning would show up to many sensors, but it wasn’t as visible as a white light—so they groped their way along, taking the first intersection that moved toward the center, after Ransjunan affirmed that that was probably the way they needed to go, all while watching the ghostly outlines of their surroundings and their comrades in pale shades in their helmet visors.
Ransjunan had moved up to flank Bannon, his weapon in his upper pair of hands, the lower pair moving but not seemingly with much direct purpose. He was perhaps feeling his way along the wall, and Bannon wondered if the Shihyanese didn’t have active sensors—or if he was reluctant to use them, given what they were up against.
It was also possible that he was simply using his lower pair of hands to give them something to do. Bannon didn’t know if chyotsu got nervous the same way humans did, or if those nerves manifested in a similar way, but it was possible.
While it was somewhat difficult to perceive in the darkness, Bannon was starting to realize that none of the hallways were straight. They curved or bent in seemingly random directions. After a while, he put together that the interior of the base was laid out in something of a honeycomb pattern, and the hallways followed that geometry.
Was that a glow up ahead? So far, the entire base had been dead, dark, and empty, with only ruined, unfathomable heaps of wreckage or what might have been furniture in the few open compartments. Those that were closed would have needed special breaching tools to get into; the base’s doors must have been powered, once.
But if there was a powered center to the base, that glow might be it. It was impossible to tell for sure while on the move and with the active scanners running.
“Hold up.”
The rest of the formation stopped almost immediately, though Ransjunan kept going for a couple of steps before realizing that the Corvanites had halted.
Powering down his helmet’s active scanners, Bannon let himself be plunged into darkness, squeezing his eyes shut for a few seconds to try to accelerate their adjustment to the gloom.
When he opened them, at first he saw only blackness. There was too little light even to make out Hern and Baddlet ahead of him. Then, slowly, as the rods in his eyes began to take over, he could make out a faint glow ahead, around one of the next bends in the hall. It was too dim to make out color, but it was definitely there. He could even now see the faint silhouette of Baddlet against the wall nearby, his CR-196 up and held ready, the muzzle just beneath his line of sight.
That was enough. Bannon switched his active scanning and image enhancers back on, bringing the hallway and the men in it back into ghostly definition in his visor. “Move up. Stay alert. There’s light ahead, but I don’t know if it’s powered, or from another hole in the structure.” The masking field, coupled with the dimness of the Eredin star, made the latter unlikely, but after all the darkness, even the murk outside might seem bright.
