The Heart of Matter: Odyssey One (66 page)

Which meant that there were now three species—three civilizations was more accurate, he supposed—in the same sphere of space, and all three had comparable technical development, even if it weren’t entirely parallel. Statistically, this wasn’t merely unlikely. It was like being struck by a
three-mile-wide meteor the day you hit the Powerball jackpot and walking away from the impact.

Patently impossible was the point he was trying to make.

And yet, somehow, in the universe, they’d managed to beat the odds. In fact, if Captain Weston’s supposition was correct, the odds were even worse. Four civilizations, not three. Terrans, Priminae, Drasin…and who or whatever was holding their leash.

The math says that it’s so unlikely as to be impossible; the reality says that it has happened and the math can take a flying leap.
Either way, Reed knew that something was wrong with the picture he was seeing. Pure chance couldn’t explain the situation, but that didn’t discount chance entirely.

Reed’s specialty was training soldiers, and he was good at his job, so this was a little beyond his ken, but he was far from a stupid man. One of the reasons he’d been picked for the assignment he was currently on was because he had a PhD in emergent cultures and degrees in a whole slew of related fields. He was also a modestly successful science fiction author who had written several well-received, if only marginally well-read, novels on first contact and cultural contamination.

These were all situations he’d actually thought about in the past, in detail. For three to four civilizations to be at the same point in development, at the same time, in a sector of space this small, relatively speaking, Reed was certain that an outside force, or forces, were being exerted.

That, of course, brought up the question by whom and for what reason?

Of course, the philosophy and scientific inquiry would simply have to wait. He had a war running.

The screen shifted, showing cleaner telemetry from Chief Wilson’s suit.

“Major Brinks, I want your men ready to lift off in ten minutes. The master chief just turned up something interesting,” he said.

RANQUIL, FIRST IMPACT SITE

▸THE ROAR OF sonic booms shook the walls of the crater shaft around them as Wilson and the Priminae militia opened fire.

“Where the hell did they all come from?” he snarled, his gravity impeller roaring as it spat diamond slugs downrange as he and the others backed slowly up the near-vertical shaft.

The walls below them
crawled
.

Not the large abominations encountered before, but smaller, faster, insectoid versions that had come charging up out of the heat and damned near overwhelmed them before they knew what was going on.

The sheer concussion of the reflexive barrage of rounds unleashed by the team had beaten them back, but only temporarily. Chief Wilson had been glad that Seran, the woman in charge of the squad, had been smart enough to call a retreat before he had to suggest it himself.

Bravery was one thing, but being swarmed by a thousand creepy crawlies in a hot, dark cave was another entirely. They fell back, however, a little messier than he would have preferred, and kept firing as they did.

The sonic shock waves rattled his teeth, even through the armor, which was scary enough to Wilson since he knew that the armor was rated to insulate against overpressure waves that could send his brains drooling out his ears. The diamond slugs were turning the crater below them into fine dust and pulverized shards of rock.

He was just about thinking that he’d be getting out of it all in one piece when an urgent comm from the colonel broke into his concentration.

“Chief, I’m going to need to ask you to get me one of those things alive and intact.”

“You want me to
what
?” Wilson spat out, half in shock and the other half pure incredulous disbelief.

“You heard me, Chief.”

“Yes, I heard you, and now I’m wondering if you got any of
my
messages over the past couple minutes!” Wilson snarled back. “How the hell am I supposed to get a piece of these things through all of this?”

“Not a piece, Chief. I want the whole thing,” Colonel Reed replied evenly, “intact.”

Wilson cursed, though not until he toggled the acknowledgment icon on his HUD and killed the direct comm.

“Intact, he says,” the Navy SEAL growled. “I ought to show him
intact
.”

Nevertheless, he had his orders, and he checked his fire as he took in the situation. “Ithan.”

“Yes, Wilson?” she asked, still firing as they retreated.

“I need you to hold your fire.”

“Pardon me?” She stopped shooting so she could stare at him, clearly shocked.

“The colonel wants one of those things
intact
,” Wilson said, twisting the word.

“He is insane, yes?”

“He’s an officer, so, yes.” Wilson shrugged in the exaggerated way someone in powered armor did. “But orders are orders.”

She looked at him for a moment and then said quite possibly the sanest thing she could have, in his opinion. “He is your officer, you get one.”

Wilson grunted, not trusting himself to say anything remotely polite in response. He just nodded once and slung his weapon, letting the impeller hang off the back of his armor as he tried to judge his next action.

It wasn’t as simple as it might be, given that he was currently standing on a ninety-degree incline, feet planted into the side of the shaft by some magical gravity device issued by the Prims. He’d paid attention when it was issued, but that was a long way from being comfortable using it in a combat environment.

Finally, however, he nodded. “All right, give me an opening.”

“It is your death day.” She shrugged, signaling to get the attention of the rest. “Draw back, but cease firing. Our friend here has a request from his superior.”

“What request?”

“The colonel wants one of the Drasin, intact.”

“Does his superior not like him, for some reason?”

Seran just shrugged. “I would guess not, but that is not for us to say.”

Wilson rolled his eyes under his helm, though he knew they couldn’t see it. “Har har, can we can the comedy until after I’ve grabbed one of those suckers for the boss?”

“Please”—Seran motioned with one arm—“as you will.”

As soon as he’d started down the impact crater/shaft, Wilson had mentally reoriented the world so that he didn’t feel at all like he was walking down the side of a wall. Instead, he felt like he was currently standing in a narrow tapering tunnel with the exit to his back. Mentally, he was upright, standing on the floor, with a partially fused wall and ceiling of rock around him. Physically, he knew that he was only being held from falling by the gravity manipulation of the harness he was wearing. His problem at that moment was that he really needed to get his mental and physical selves into the same place, otherwise there was just no way he was going to be able to do what had to be done without getting himself killed.

What the hell
, he thought fatalistically as he steeled himself.
You only live once.

Wilson sprinted forward, jumping clear of an outcropping and flipping in midair to plant his feet on the other side. The gravity manipulation in his belt had been set to orient his personal gravity toward whichever direction his feet were pointed, so he stuck the landing and pushed forward.

This is no way to familiarize myself with new gear
, he mentally growled at himself, fighting off a wave of disorientation as his eyes told him that he was now standing on the ceiling, his inner ear told him he was on the floor, and his head told him he was walking down a wall.

With a mission to accomplish, he ignored all three and just told himself that he was standing where he damned well should be standing and anything else could wait until there were no longer any things trying to kill him. The swarm had been thinned by the concussion and fragmentation unleashed by the gravity impellers, but there were still more than enough to give him chills as they regrouped and charged back up the
shaft in his face. Gravity was working for him at the moment, however, and any that got too
playful
were kicked loose and set to fall back to the bottom of the crater while he lunged to try to catch one of them without getting his armored limbs chewed on too badly.

Little bastards are fast
, Wilson griped to himself, latching onto the carapace of one finally while kicking another half dozen off his lower limbs. The one in his hand was snapping and clicking at the air, helpless in his grip.

Helpless until a flash of light exploded in his face and blew him back off his feet.

He was falling, he could feel that in the pit of his stomach, blind, and still holding onto the little bastard that had shot him in the face with a death grip in his left hand. He flailed about, swinging his feet around, and caught the edge again with a jarring hit that threw him forward into a roll that shook him loose from the side yet again.

He knew where the sides were now, however, and tucked into the roll to bring his feet back into contact with the side another time. This time he kept his balance and managed to come to a running stop, knowing that he was facing down despite the fact that he couldn’t see a damned thing through his helm.

“Little bastard fried my visor!” he called. “I can’t even get it to go transparent. Huh, didn’t even know that was possible.”

“Chief!” he heard Seran scream from above him. “They are coming for you!”

“I can’t see! Where?”

A roar of noise and a shock wave rattled his teeth inside his armor, leading Wilson to start sweating.

“Are you
shooting
at me?”

“Turn, Chief. Turn now and run this way!”

He shuffled around, until he thought he was pointing the opposite direction. “This way?”

“Almost, turn more!”

Another shuffle, then he heard her yell for him to stop so he did. Another roar and more rattling of his teeth was all it took to convince him to start running. When amateurs were shooting what he would normally consider field artillery in his general direction, Wilson wanted to be nowhere near where he was standing.

“Good!” she called in his direction. “Keep running! Run!”

“I’m running, lady! I just can’t
see
a damned thing!” he snapped, his legs pumping while his imagination filled in the sounds of the swarm chasing on his heels.

He could hear and feel the shock waves of the others firing around him, but tried very hard to ignore the fact that there were people he didn’t entirely trust unloading weapons powerful enough to crack his armor like an egg in his immediate vicinity. Tactile feedback through his armor told him that the little bastard he’d grabbed was still wriggling, so he tightened his grip and just kept running blind.

“No! Wilson! Stop!”

He heard the scream, but couldn’t react in time, as his legs kept on pumping even though they suddenly had nothing left to pump against. Instinctively, he tucked the little monster in his hand into his chest like a football as he started to pray. Master Chief Wilson burst out of the crater, catapulting forty feet into the air as his legs kept running against nothing but air, flipped over twice, and then slammed into the ground on his back.

“Chief! Chief! Are you all right?” Colonel Reed’s voice came over his radio. “Every vital you have just spiked!”

“I’m alive,” he croaked, rolling over painfully. “Blind, winded, and barely mobile, but I’m alive.”

“Your telemetry reads like something is chewing on your armor, Chief.”

“What? Shit!” Wilson rolled over, slamming his hand into the ground until the little beast in his mitts stopped wriggling. “Little bastard shot me in the face, overloaded the helm. I can’t see shit, Boss.”

“That’s not possible, Chief. When your cams are blown, it defaults to backups; if those go down, then the whole helm loses power and turns transparent.”

“I read the manual, Boss,” Wilson growled. “All I know is that I’m blind as hell and this little bastard is trying to eat my suit! Get me some backup out here.”

“Brinks is en route with Savoy’s tech team. They’ll be there in a couple minutes.”