Atlas (39 page)

"They've made no aggressive maneuvers?" Lieutenant Commander Braggs said.

"That's the thing." From the sound of it Captain Drake was nervously thrumming the handrest of his chair. "All this time, the ship has just been sitting there, driving its keel into the planet's crust like we don't even exist. Hasn't paid us the slightest bit of attention."

"They were damn well paying attention to us down there I can tell you that," Lieutenant Commander Braggs said. "Any answer to comm attempts?"

"No." Captain Drake sounded weary. "Either they can't acknowledge our communications or they won't."

The planet and the ship were gone from the forward viewscreen now, leaving only stars.

Shaw spoke.
"Speed one-third and rising, Captain. G Dampeners are still at 100%."

"Good," the Captain said.

"The enemy ship is making no attempt to pursue," someone behind Shaw said. "And I'm still not reading any weapons signatures."

"That doesn't mean a thing," Captain Drake said. "Who's to say their weapons aren't equipped with the same stealth tech as their ship? We could have ten enemy torpedoes on our six at this moment and we wouldn't even know it. No, ladies and gentlemen, I won't believe we're out of the woods, not yet. Not until we've passed through the Gate and blown it to hell behind us. So get yourselves buckled in, because when we cut to standard speed in a few hours, we still have forty days to the Gate, with that Skull ship watching us the entire way. Anything can happen in those forty days. And I mean
anything
."

I spent a day in the Convalescence Ward, recovering from shrapnel wounds and radiation exposure alongside my platoon mates. Doctor Banye installed subdermal implants in all of us, which would drip-feed the necessary
substances to treat the radiation poisoning in our bodies over the next few weeks—a treatment commonly known as "the juice."

While we were in the ward, Navy techs took a look at
our Implants. Nothing seemed to be wrong with the devices, and since the survivors of Bravo Platoon had experienced the same issues on their drop, the techs were at a loss to explain the malfunction. Snakeoil suspected the Slipstream communication device we found in the tunnel had something to do with it. Personally, I thought the Phants were to blame. After all, the Implants had backdoors that allowed the military to send audio and video directly into our brains during briefings and other important events, so it seemed plausible, to me anyway, that the Phants had found a way to exploit that.

Whatever the cause, the
techs explained that the garbage effect was amplified because of the wireless adhoc network shared between Implants. Each device sent out garbage updates representing the location of enemy targets, and accepted these updates from other Implants. This garbage data propagated in a sort of feedback loop, causing upwards of one billion updates per second, inflicting massive bandwidth bottlenecks platoon-wide. The garbage updates were also sent to the secondary Heads-Up-Display systems in the helmets, which tried to interpret that data to display the outlines and dots of a billion enemies that didn't exist. The HUD processors couldn't handle such a massive influx of data, resulting in the overheating of a key component and the termination of our secondary HUDs. As usual, this was a problem slated to be fixed in a future generation of helmet.

As for our Implants, nothing had overheated there (if it had, we would be dead), and all it took was a simple reboot and our brain devices were good as new.

I mentioned the survivors of Bravo Platoon. Yes, there were two of them. They had returned while we were planet-side, and recovered in the ward with us. Their callsigns were Kasper and Pyro.

Those two had quite the story to tell. Wasn't a good one.

Bravo Platoon had gone down the shaft, and taken the far right passageway at the five-way fork. They ended up in a cavern filled with hundreds of blue Phants that were just floating there, apparently hibernating. Their Chief sent the Centurions through first, and when the robots made it across without issue, he ordered the rest of the platoon forward in traveling overwatch formation. Squad one reached the far side of the room and then squad two began to cross.

At that point, the roomful of Phants woke up.

It was a massacre.

Most of Bravo platoon died in the first ten seconds.

Kasper and Pyro, part of squad two, survived only because they were closest to the exit.

They'd retreated back to the surface, leaped into their ATLAS mechs, and raced off, ordering the AIs of the remaining two ATLAS mechs to follow. The alien hordes swarmed out of the shaft after them, forcing them away from the MDV and the booster rockets that would get them home. They were harried and pursued for several hours, and lost contact with the two AI-driven mechs. When the alien creatures finally gave up the chase, Kasper and Pyro made their way back to the booster payloads, and launched the ATLAS 5s.

Without a communications man to boost their InterPlaNet node signals, they hadn't been able to get in touch with the
Royal Fortune
until they were in orbit—at which point the limited range of the wireless adhoc network built into the ATLAS 5s took over. They arrived at the
Royal Fortune
just before the Skull ship appeared, while we were in that same mineshaft they had vacated.

It was a strange, because our follow-up robots landed about two hours after Bravo Platoon had stirred the pot, so to speak, and everything seemed calm to us. Tahoe theorized that the behavior was similar to the defense reaction of a disturbed anthill or beehive. The ants would switch en masse to defense mode via chemical markers and stridulation, and when the perceived threat was neutralized, the ants would
clean up their dead and then the bulk of them would immediately return to zombie or hibernation mode. To me, comparing an alien species to a colony of ants or bees was a bit short-sighted, but I guess Tahoe raised some valid points. 

Not that I cared all that much... my grief wouldn't let me.

The day after I was released from the Convalescence Ward, there was a funeral service on board for our fallen brothers, comprised of the remaining members of Alfa and Bravo platoon. There would be another burial when we arrived on Earth of course, for the families. But this burial was for us.

We gathered around an empty coffin, which would serve to honor Big Dog, Alejandro and the rest of Bravo Platoon. Lieutenant Commander Braggs gave a speech, but I didn't really hear it, lost as I was in my own memories of the man I had loved as a brother. Everyone here was a brother by now, of course, but Alejandro
had been closer to me than anybody else.

Lieutenant Commander Braggs wrapped up. "This is the part of my job I hate the most. Saying goodbye to my teammates, my fellow brothers. And I do so with a heavy, heavy heart. Farewell, brave members of Team Seven. You will not be forgotten." He observed a moment of silence. "Please, each of you step forward and tell us a little something about the men we all loved."

And so we all took a turn, saying a few words or relating a short vignette, thanking the fallen for making a difference in our lives. Facehopper's eulogy for Big Dog was particularly moving. And TJ had some surprisingly heartfelt words for Alejandro. After each man finished, he tossed his golden MOTH badge into the coffin. That was one of the biggest honors we could bestow, offering up those badges that meant so much to us, those badges we'd earned through sweat and blood. Still, to be honest, it felt somehow like we didn't deserve those badges anymore. That we'd let our teammates down.

At least, that's how I felt.

Tahoe came forward. "I remember when me, Alejandro and Rade first joined Team Seven. We were so wide-eyed back then. We got hazed almost every day. And we got it good. One time, a couple of the senior members woke me up in the middle of the night, brought me out to the pool, and started 'drown-proofing' me. Alejandro had heard the commotion, and when he saw what was going on, he came right down to the pool and dove in with me to take the hazing. Can you believe that? He could've stayed warm in bed. Could've slept through it. Instead he got up and dove into the freezing cold and drowned right along with me." Tahoe gingerly lowered his badge inside. "I wish I could have been there for you when you needed me the most, my spirit brother. I wish I hadn't let you down."

Chief Bourbonjack laid a hand on Tahoe's shoulder. "It's not your fault, son."

It's not your fault...

I stepped forward and approached the coffin. Fifteen golden MOTH badges caught the light inside.

"Tahoe's words pretty much sum up everything you need to know about Alejandro: he would have drowned for any of us." I swallowed, fighting back the emotion. "And Big Dog, well, Facehopper's speech, can't top that." I kept my eyes on those badges. I didn't think I could look at anyone, not without choking up, surrounded as I was by the teary-eyed faces of men who never cried for anything. "I thought I was the one who'd have to shoulder the blame for both their deaths. I thought I was the one who'd have to suffer in my head for what happened. But I realize now that I'm not alone. We all feel it's our fault. We're all suffering in our heads."

I slammed my MOTH badge into the top of the coffin, and let the pin embed. "Big Dog and Alejandro were the best of us."

Shaw was waiting for me in the corridor outside, by a hull window. We'd patched things up since I got back, and she did her best to comfort me now. Not with words, but with her presence.

She smiled at me, holding back the tears, and gave me a hug.

"I don't know what I'm going to do without him," I told her.

I gazed out the window over her shoulder, at the myriad stars, and I knew Alejandro had attained a star of his own.

* * *

Time heals all wounds, they say.

It's true.

Painfully, and slowly, but true.

It took a whole seven days for me to make love to Shaw again, a whole seven days of regret and self-pity and guilt before I started to see a glimmer of light, of hope, and begin the long trek back to the world.

I was in a deep, dark place, but I made it because of her. I talked to her about what happened almost every day. And she listened.

That's all that really needs to be said on the subject. We've all known grief, some of us quite intensely. We cope. We have to. It's part of the human condition.

Twenty days into the return flight, TJ and Bender (plus a couple of
AIs and Fleet cryptologists) finally cracked the decryption codes on the SK Implants, and pieced together what happened eight months before we arrived.

One week after the SKs had begun excavating the Geronium-275 from the site, the first attacks came. A sinkhole would appear, and
alien crabs and slugs would start coming out. The SKs would beat them off, toss some plastic explosives into the sinkhole, and seal it up.

The attacks proved little more than a nuisance at first, easily handled by rockets and gatling guns and the ample supply of SK bioweapons (which included, among other things, the hyena-bear creature we had encountered). There weren't any Phants in those early attacks.

Eventually, as the raids picked up, the SKs decided to go after the source of the lifeforms. They drilled a shaft into one of the plugged sinkholes, with a plan to send a team down to place a low-yield nuke. No one wanted to go. So they sent robots down with the nuke instead.

The robots didn't return.

Neither did the nuke.

The order came for another nuke to be placed, this time via human hands. The SK troops still refused to go down. Eventually, the officer-in-charge ordered the administration of scopolamine to an entire company, leaving the troops entirely helpless to his will.

About two hundred of the company were sent down with the nuke.

Not a single man came out.

The nuke did explode, though.

In addition to sending the radiation levels on the site through the roof, there was one unintended side effect.

They'd awakened something.

From the ashes emerged strange blue mists
: the Phants (my name stuck, and seemed to be the official designation for these incorporeal aliens now). The alien beings assaulted the SK positions relentlessly. The mechs and other robotic defense units proved useless, and soon turned on their operators when the Phants possessed them.

The Implant logs end there.

We're not sure if the SKs encountered the Skull ship or not, but it's not hard to guess what happened next.

The SKs fled the system, leaving behind half a company in their haste. They destroyed the Gates behind them, both the one in this system, and in Tau Ceti. They mined the natural Slipstream exit point and prayed that nothing ever came through.

Let's just say, I wouldn't want to be living in Tau Ceti right about now.

* * *

The weeks passed, and on the fortieth day the
Royal Fortune
slowed in preparation for Gate traversal. The Skull ship had remained behind at the planet, Geronium, the entire time.

That final day on this side of the galaxy found me sitting in the mess hall during some off-time. ETA to the Gate was approximately forty-five minutes. I was reflecting on everything that had happened. The discoveries made. The battles fought. The friends lost.

I was about to return to the berthing area, not wanting to be trapped in the mess hall during the passage through the Gate, when Shaw pinged me.

"Hey babe," she sent, audio-only. She was on the bridge, where she was needed.

"Wassup."

"Not much, just working." She sighed.

"Why sound so sad?"
I sent. "I'm the one who's supposed to be depressed, remember?"

I treated the subject lightly, but I knew all too well how easy it was to plummet into the depths of despair. She wouldn't let me, of course. While Shaw was here, I'd never retreat to that deep, dark place I'd gone to after Alejandro died, that place of regret and guilt that not even meds could rouse me from.

At least, I hoped I wouldn't.

"Do I really sound sad?"
she sent.

"Yeah."

"Oh. Well, there's something I have to tell you, actually."

I laughed. "What? You're pregnant?"

"No, silly. Can't you be serious for once?"

I tapped out a staccato rhythm on the tabletop with my hands. She hated it when I did that. Probably a good thing she couldn't hear it. "Well, tell me what's on your mind. With your mind."

"Okay. Do you remember when—"
She paused. She did that now and again when we communicated like this, because while she was on the bridge astrogating, if the Captain or another member of the crew said something to her, she'd have to give them her full attention.