The Landfall Campaign (The Nameless War) (6 page)

She’d also seen the camps, the ones in which the Centaurs had been systematically wiped out.

No one knew exactly who destroyed the Centaurs, or why they had deemed it necessary to commit genocide on such a grand scale, but there had been a hint. A single picture, one that Alice herself had found. Had shown a starship of the same type that had clashed with the
Mississippi
.

That was of course no proof that the Nameless had anything to do with Centaurs
’
destruction. Back on Earth there was no end of analysts, pundits, diplomats and various other
‘
experts’ who were quick to point that out. But a person didn’t have to be any kind of conspiracy theorist to see a link.

They’d found a library and virtually cleaned it out. As
Harbinger’s
linguist, Alice had attempted to translate some of the Centaurs
’
books but without much success. Breaking into an alien language and breaking into a dead alien language, were two entirely different problems. Most of those books had been shipped back to Earth as soon as they had returned to Baden for resupply and maintenance. She and the rest of the civilians were punted down to Landfall to get some R and R but she’d managed to hang onto a few books, to continue her own work.

Whoever destroyed the Centaurs had been very determined about it. Those books were probably the very last remnants of an entire race, a world of corpses with only a few hundred unreadable books to tell anyone who they were. Deciphering their language could take a lifetime. She had another two months on her contract with the fleet. Then she’d look for a job in a university and hopefully spend the rest of her career unlocking their secrets.

The slope up to the plateau was just steep enough to be good exercise but not so much as to leave her out of breath. Her route was very nearly the road to nowhere so there was no traffic to interrupt her thoughts. If she closed her eyes, Alice could almost believe she was back on Earth. Almost. While Earth’s fauna was mostly shades of green, the plant life of Landfall had chosen yellow instead. With their six-limbed body patterns, the bird creatures were similarly a mixture of the familiar and strange.

In the distance the west gate of Battle Fleet Ground Base Douglas, complete with bored looking marine guard, came into view. Disappearing out of sight to both left and right was a single strand wire fence, serving not so much as a meaningful barrier than as a demarcation line between the colony of Spain and Battle Fleet installation. As she approached, the duty marine ambled out of his little guardhouse.

“
Yo Doc,
”
he greeted her offering the sign-in pad,
“
You
’
re back then?
”
 

“
Keeping tabs on me?
”
she replied lightly as she signed in.

“
Last person I saw today,
”
he replied taking back the pad and looking at it,
“
was at nine hundred hours, that was
…
oh yeah, you.
”

“
Not exactly killed in the rush then?
”

“
Yep, that about covers it.
”

“
Well I have to pack, make sure I definitely have everything. I’m lifting off again tomorrow, back to
Harbinger
.
”

“
Sweet. I’m on this rock for another four months, two weeks and six days. But don’t let me give you any idea that I don’t like it here,
”
he replied with a grimace.

“
The thought didn’t cross my mind.
”

“
Some of my company are the marines on
Harbinger
. Lucky bastards.
”

“
I’ll give them your regards when I get back,
”
she glanced at his nametag,
“
Robert Jowlett,
”
before starting to walk on.

The marine put his hand lightly on her arm,
“
better hold on a sec, Doc. A couple of bulk lifters are taking off in a few minutes from the number two maglev runway. The road gets a bit close to the end of the track.
”
There was a rumble in the distance, then a blocky aircraft abruptly flashed over the road before curving up and into the clouds.

“
There goes the first one. We had a guy pitched twenty metres a while back when he got too close to the launcher,
”
the marine continued conversationally.

“
That’s going to be me tomorrow,
”
she replied

“
Well I hope not those particular ones. I heard there was a stowaway on one of them a couple of years back. I think he was six months in traction. Well hope you enjoy your flight more than he did.
”

___________________________

Rear Admiral Alfred Eulenburg checked his diary before closing down the terminal for the day. On the other side of his desk, Brigadier Sebastian Chevalier, the commander of the base’s marine contingent, was also closing down his computer pad. The sheer amount of paperwork the base generated on a day-to-day basis still amazed him, even after two years in the posting. Supplies in and out, promotions, disciplinary proceedings, training courses
…
it never stopped.

“
Oh thank you God,
”
Eulenburg muttered to himself as he stood and stretched. A native of Nuremburg and now nearly sixty years old, the comparative comfort of a ground command over one in space had seen him develop a bit of padding around his middle. In spite of this the Admiral was, at least in his own opinion, in reasonably good shape for his age. His hair was completely white, but there was still a good covering, which in Eulenburg’s opinion, was what really counted.

“
Any plans for the evening, sir?
”
Chevalier asked.

“
Yes, our new xenobiologist arrived on the
San Francisco Star
this afternoon, a Doctor Rose Delcasse. Hopefully this one will be more useful than the last.
”
Eulenburg
’
s comment was a reference to Doctor Delcasse
’
s predecessor, who had turned out to be severely allergic to something in Landfall’s atmosphere, necessitating his evacuation to one of the orbital habitations to await a ship to take him back to Earth.
“
Anyway, I have to meet and greet. What about you?
”

“
I need to do some video message recordings if the
Star
is to take them. I meant to do it last week but didn’t get to it.
”

“
Any news from home?
”

“
I’ve only had a chance to glance across it so far. Margaret hasn’t defended her thesis yet, or at least hadn
’
t when Monica recorded her letter. Some sort of delay, those people never seem to be able to do anything on time. She should be doing it any day now.
”

Eulenburg had known Chevalier for over twenty years. The two men had served together several times. With little family of his own, the Admiral was a frequent visitor Chevalier’s home when he was back on Earth and he knew the Brigadier’s wife and daughter well.

“
I’m sure she’ll get it. She’s put in a lot of effort,
”
Eulenburg replied encouragingly.

“
Oh, I am confident she will. It’s what she’ll do after that I am less certain about,
”
Chevalier said.
“
It’s a very obscure topic. I’d feel better if she’d ever been able to explain to me how she’ll earn a living. But
…”
he shrugged.

“
You never know where these things will take someone. I’m sure she’ll land on her feet. She always has.
”

“
That’s true,
”
he replied as he stood up.
“
With your permission, sir.
”

“
Granted. I’ll see you in the morning, Sebastian.
”

Eulenburg left a few minutes after the Brigadier. His secretary and his chief of staff, Captain Gillum, were also closing down their terminals for the night. Both looked up expectantly as he came into the outer office, likely hoping he didn’t have some kind of late request. Wishing them a good night he stepped out of the outer office, through the waiting room, past the saluting marine guard and into the tunnels of Douglas.

The tunnel was illuminated by variable light bulbs, which were currently shifting from the white light of daytime to the blue of evening. With some personnel not going topside for weeks at a time, the changing lights helped to keep body clocks in step with Landfall
’
s twenty-eight and a half hour day. The base had been constructed to take advantage of a quirk of Landfall
’
s geology. Mount Hurtado had once been a volcano. It had gone extinct tens of thousands of years ago, leaving the former magma chambers as a series of interlocking voids that could be inhabited by humans, all surrounded by hard volcanic rock. The likes of it had never been seen on Earth, but on Landfall nearly a dozen mountains like Hurtado had been identified.

With kilometres of caverns ranging from three hundred to fourteen hundred metres below the plateau, Douglas could house nearly one and a half million people and protect them against anything up to a major orbital strike. Administration along with almost everything of importance was housed well below ground. The only exceptions to this were the fighter bases and missile silos.

As no single lift went all the way from the command levels to the surface, it took about half an hour for Eulenburg to reach the plateau. It was a fresh crisp night on the surface and the still unnamed constellations of Landfall were very clear. There wasn’t much activity visible. There were a few lights from the bars, pubs and other facilities of the complex, known locally as Fun Town. A kilometre further down the same road was a cluster of buildings that housed the base
’
s assorted civilian experts and contractors. Off to his left there was a roar as a pair of Pegasus drop fighters accelerated for take-off, only their afterburners really visible in the dark. As they cleared the runway, the next pair started their run. A kilometre south of where Eulenburg stood was the main entrance into the caverns, while almost in the dead centre of the base was one of the silos that housed the planetary defence missiles, which was one of the primary reasons for the existence of Douglas Base. It was all pretty impressive considering that only fifteen years previously there had been nothing, while less than five years before that no human had even laid eyes on this entire world.

Landfall was first discovered in 2048 by the Japanese exploration ship, the
Ise
. Its value was immediately apparent to its captain, since unlike the barely habitable planet Dryad Two, Landfall was a veritable new Eden, capable of supporting unprotected human life from the very outset. For this reason the Japanese government attempted to keep this information to itself, until Japan was ready to settle the planet. Somehow though, the information got out and the result was a land rush to rival those of the nineteenth century. Although the Japanese complained bitterly, within a year a dozen plus nations, including some that couldn’t really afford space programmes, had landed settlers. But even on an Eden some parts were more desirable than others, resulting in several new colonies ending up uncomfortably close together. Countries that on Earth were separated from each other by oceans and seas suddenly found themselves with land borders, and poorly defined ones at that. There were a number of incidents and while the first wave of settlers had been civilians, the second brought soldiers. For a few tense months it looked like humanity might bring war to its new Eden but instead, there was an outbreak of sanity.

In a series of UN sponsored talks a compromise was hammered out, taking the form of the Landfall Partitionment Treaty. At its heart was a complicated equation for working out the land area of each colony. Effectively each colony claimed a circle of land around itself. Each year that circle would expand a little for each new colonist. Once this expanding border hit that of another nation it would stop. The detail was far more complicated but at its core, the treaty rewarded those nations that could bring and sustain a civilian population. It was projected that in sixty to seventy years the partition of Landfall would be complete.

With that question answered the next was to look to the protection of the human population from non-humans. When the hollow mountains like Mount Hurtado were discovered, it was realised that these vast natural dugouts could be used to house the population in safety. But merely sending people underground wouldn
’
t work. The shelters had to be converted into a home for hundreds of thousands, which would also protect them from whatever a hostile species might threaten. The Americans and the Chinese could afford to ship in and station battalions of troops on Landfall, and to build defensive missile batteries on top of their shelters, capable of firing on orbiting starships. Other nations couldn’t justify that kind of expenditure but most of the industrial nations had troops. But without missile defence, none of these forces would be capable of protecting their citizens from orbital assault.