Transformation Space (39 page)

You cannot take this child.

The reason came to Jo-Jo with startlingly simplistic clarity.
Nova has been altered by the Post-Species. They oppose your existence. Their changes to her will damage you. It was always
their intent to use her against you. And her mother.

The Entity withdrew a little while it considered his declaration. Perhaps it was running its own type of bifurcation analysis
– performing a prognosis of its own future.

Jo-Jo’s dislocation from time and place was so
complete he wasn’t sure how long he waited, nor did he care. What mattered was that Sole knew the veracity of his statement
and left Nova and Mira alone.

Probable
, he countered.

I am the one you should take.

My life is yours anyway. You resurrected me. And you’ve altered my mind for your expediency. Perhaps I was the always the
one you would take. Perhaps you knew that at the beginning.

Amusement and mimicry.

Jo-Jo kept the ball of his emotions fiercely contracted not letting anything escape that might shake his resolve.

Agreed then?

‘Crux!’ exclaimed Tekton from Autonomy, where Lasper Farr’s device rested on his legs like an innocent seemingly benign object.
‘There are ’casts coming in from Scolar. Oh … my …’

‘
Insignia
,’ said Mira. ‘Show us.’

A projection appeared above Primo filled with a vision of the Scolar shift sphere, where a Geni-carrier hung at the centre.

‘They’ve tried to close the sphere but it hasn’t completed its shutdown sequence. The Geni-carrier will destroy the whole
system,’ said Tekton.

‘Thales!’ cried Mira.

But as they watched the rings of the sphere brightened and began to shrink. The closing sequence appeared to accelerate and
the Geni-carrier was caught in the vibration well. In the space of several heartbeats, it disintegrated under the pressure.

Tekton quivered in his seat as the image faded out, his hands fluttering. ‘The Scolar ’cast is gone but other feeds are coming
in. Reports of Geni-carriers imploding across Orion.’

‘Imploding?’

‘Self-destructing. The Saqr craft has been engulfed by Leah. It must have affected the commands sent to all the Geni-carriers.
They’re self-immolating. The
DSD was correct, Baronessa. There was a way.’ The Lostolian waved his fist in victory.

Nova stared up at her with solemn eyes.
Josef has saved us, Mama.

‘Si, Nova,’ she said, bending down to kiss Jo-Jo’s lifeless lips gently. ‘Si.’

Luscious, luscious

Together

Marianne de Pierres is the author of the multi award-nominated Parrish Plessis and Sentients of Orion science fiction series.
The Parrish Plessis series has been translated into eight languages and adapted into a D20 Role Playing Game. 2011 will see
the release of her new young adult dark fantasy duology. She is also the author of a humorous crime series, written under
the pseudonym Marianne Delacourt. Marianne is an active supporter of genre fiction and has mentored many writers. She lives
in Brisbane, Australia, with her husband, three sons and three galahs. Visit her websites at
www.tarasharp.com
and
www.mariannedepierres.com

Find out more about Marianne de Pierres and other Orbit authors by registering for the free monthly newsletter at
www.orbitbooks.net

if you enjoyed
TRANSFORMATION SPACE

look out for

SEEDS OF EARTH

book one of Humanity’s Fire

by

Michael Cobley

DARIEN INSTITUTE: HYPERION DATA RECOVERY PROJECT

Cluster Location – Subsidiary Hardmem Substrate (Deck 9 quarters)

Tranche – 298

Decryption Status – 9th pass, 26 video files recovered

File 15 – The Battle of Mars (Swarm War)

Veracity – Virtual Re-enactment

Original Time Log – 16:09:24, 23 November 2126

FADE IN:

CAPTION:

MARS
THE CRATER PLAIN: OLYMPUS MONS
19 MARCH 2126

The Sergeant was on the carrier’s command deck, checking and rechecking the engineering console’s modifications, when voices
began clamouring over his helmet comm.

‘Marine force stragglers incoming with enemy units in pursuit …’

‘… eight, nine Swarmers, maybe ten …’

The Sergeant cursed, grabbed his heavy carbine and left the command deck as quickly as his combat armour would allow. The
clatter of his boots echoed down the vessel’s spinal corridor while he issued a string of terse orders. By the time he reached
the wrecked and gaping doors of the rear deployment hold, the stragglers had arrived. Five wounded and unconscious, all from
the Indonesia regiment, going by their helmet flashes. As the last was being carried up the ramp, the leading Swarmers came
into view over the brow of a rocky ridge about 80 metres away.

A first glimpse revealed a nightmare jumble of claws, spikes and gleaming black eye-clusters. Swarm biology had many reptilian
similarities yet their appearance was unavoidably insectoid. With six, eight, ten or more limbs, they could be as small as
a pony or as big as a whale, depending on their specialisation. These were bull-sized skirmishers, eleven black-and-green
monsters that were unlimbering tine-snouted weapons as they rushed down towards the crippled carrier.

‘Hold your fire,’ the Sergeant said, glancing at the six marines crouched behind the improvised barricade of ammo cases and
deck plating. These were all that were left to him after the Colonel and the rest had left in the hovermags a few hours ago,
heading for the caldera and the Swarm’s main hive. One of them hunched his shoulders a little, head tilting to aim down his
carbine’s sights …

‘I said wait,’ said the Sergeant, gauging the diminishing distance. ‘Ready aft turrets … acquire targets … fire!’

Streams of heavy-calibre shells converged on the leading Swarmers, knocking them off their spidery legs. Then the Sergeant
cursed when he saw them right themselves, protected by the bio-armour which had confounded Earth’s military ever since the
beginning of the invasion two years ago.

‘Pulse rounds,’ the Sergeant shouted. ‘Now!’

Bright bolts began to pound the Swarmers, dense knots of energised matter designed to simultaneously heat and corrode their
armour. The enemy returned fire, their weapons delivering repeating arcs of long, thin black rounds, but as the turret jockeys
focused their targeting the Swarmers broke off and scattered. The Sergeant then ordered his men to open up, joining in with
his own carbine, and the withering crossfire tore into the weakened, confused enemies. In less than a minute, nothing was
left alive or in one piece out on the rocky slope.

The defending marines exchanged laughs and grins, and knocked gauntleted knuckles together. The Sergeant barely had time to
draw breath and reload his carbine when the consoleman’s urgent voice came over the comm:

‘Sergeant! – airborne contact, three klicks and closing!’

Immediately, he swung round and made for the starboard companionway, shouldering his carbine as he climbed. ‘What’s their
profile, soldier?’

‘Hard to tell – half the sensor suite is junk …’

‘Get me something and quick!’ He then ordered all four turrets to target the approaching craft and was clambering out of the
carrier’s topside hatch when the consoleman came back to him.

‘IFF confirms it’s a friendly, Sergeant – it’s a vorti-wing, and the pilot is asking for you.’

‘Patch him through.’

One of his helmet’s miniscreens blinked suddenly and showed the vortiwing pilot. He was possibly German, going by the instructions
on the bulkhead behind him.

‘Sergeant, I’ve not much time,’ the pilot said in accented English. ‘I’m to evacuate you and your men up to orbit …’

‘Sorry, Lieutenant, but … my commanding officer is down in that caldera, engaging in combat! Look, the brink of the caldera
is less than half a klick away – you could airlift me and my men over there before returning to—’

‘Request denied. My orders are specific. Besides, every unit that made it down there has been overwhelmed and destroyed, whole
regiments and brigades, Sergeant. I’m sorry …’ The pilot reached up to adjust controls. ‘ETD in less than five minutes, Sergeant.
Please have your men ready.’

The miniscreen went dead. The Sergeant leaned on the topside rail and stared bitterly at the kilometre-long furrow which the
carrier had gouged in the sloping flank of Olympus Mons. Then he gave the order to abandon ship.

In the shroud-like Martian sky overhead, the vorti-wing transport grew from a speck to a broad-built craft descending on four
gimbal-mounted spinjets. Landing struts found purchase on the carrier’s upper hull, and amid the howling blast of the engines
the walking wounded and the stretcher cases were lifted into the transport’s belly hold. The turret jockeys, the consoleman
and his half-dozen marines were following suit when the German pilot’s voice spoke suddenly.

‘Large number of flying Swarmers heading our way, Sergeant. Suggest you get aboard fast.’

As the last of his men climbed up into the vortiwing, the Sergeant turned to face the caldera of Olympus Mons. Through a haze
of windblown dust and the thin black fumes of battle, he saw a dense cloud of dark motes rising just a few klicks away. It
took only a moment to realise how quickly they would be here, and for him to decide what to do.

‘Best you button up and get going, Lieutenant,’ he said as he leaped back into the carrier and sealed the hatch behind him.
‘I can keep them busy with our turrets, give you time to make orbit.’

‘
Nein
! Sergeant, I order you—’

‘Apologies, sir, but you’d never get away otherwise, so my task is clear.’

He cut the link as he rushed back along to the command deck, closing hatches as he went. True, the Colonel’s science officer
had slaved all four of the turrets to the engineering console, but that wasn’t the only modification he had carried out …

The roar of the vortiwing’s spinjets grew to a shriek, landing struts loosened their grip and the transport lurched free.
Moments later, the fourfold angled thrust was driving it upwards on a steep trajectory. Some of the Swarm outriders were already
leading the flying host on an intercept course, until the carrier’s turrets opened fire upon them. Yet they would still have
kept on after the ascending prey, had not the carrier itself now shifted like a great wounded beast and risen slowly from
the long
gouge it had made in the ground. Curtains of dust and grit fell from its underside, along with shattered fragments of hull
plating and exterior sensors, and when the carrier turned its battered prow towards the centre of the caldera the Swarm host
altered its course.

On the command deck, the Sergeant sweated and swore as he struggled to coax every last erg from protesting engines. Damage
sustained during the atmospheric descent had left the carrier unable to make a safe landing on the caldera floor, hence the
Colonel’s decision to continue in the hovermags. However, a safe landing was not what the Sergeant had in mind.

As the ship headed into the caldera, steadily gaining height, the groan of overloaded substructures came up through the deck.
Even as he glanced at the glowing panels, red telltales started to flicker, warnings that some of the port suspensors were
close to operational tolerance. But most of his attention was focused on the host of Swarmers now converging on the Earth
vessel.

Suddenly the carrier was enfolded in a swirling cloud of the creatures, some of which landed on the hull, scrabbling for hold
points, seeking entrance. Almost at the same time, two suspensors failed and the ship listed to port. The Sergeant boosted
power to the port burners, ignoring the beeping alarms and the crashing, hammering sounds coming from somewhere amidships.
The carrier straightened up as it reached the zenith of its trajectory, a huge missile that the Sergeant was aiming directly
at the Swarm Hive.

Ten seconds into the dive the clangorous hammering came nearer, perhaps a hatch or two away from the command deck.

Twenty seconds into the dive, with the pitted, grey-brown spires of the Hive looming in the louvred viewport, the starboard
aft burner blew. The Sergeant cut power to the port aft engine and boosted the starboard for’ard into the red.

Thirty seconds into the dive, amid the deafening cacophony of metallic hammering and the roar of the engines, the hatch to
the command deck finally burst open. A grotesque creature that was half-wasp, half-alligator, struggled to squeeze through
the gap. It froze for a second when it saw the structures of the Hive rushing up to meet the carrier head-on, then frantically
reversed direction and was gone. The Sergeant tossed a thermite grenade after it and turned to face the view-port, arms spread
wide, laughing …

CUT TO
:

VIEW OF OLYMPUS MONS FROM ORBIT

Visible within its attendant cloud of Swarmers, the brigade carrier leaves a trail of leaking gases and fluids in its wake
as it plummets towards the Hive complex. The perspective suddenly zooms out, showing much of the wreckage-strewn, battle-scarred
caldera as the carrier impacts. For a moment there is only an outburst of debris from the collision, then three bright explosions
in quick succession obscure the outlines of the hive …

VOICE OVER
:

In the first phase of the Battle of Mars, a number of purpose-built heavy boosters were used to send a flotilla of
asteroids against the Swarm Armada, thus drawing key vessels away from Mars orbit. The main battle, and ground offensive,
cost Earth over 400,000 dead and the loss of seventy-nine major warships as well as scores of support craft. This act of sacrifice
did not destroy all the Overminds of the Swarm or deter them from their purpose. Yet vast stores of bioweapons, like the missiles
that devastated cities in China, Europe and America, were destroyed along with several hatching chambers, thus halting the
production of fresh Swarm warriors and delaying the expected assault on Earth.