War in the Galaxy
A Science Fiction Novel
Read Chapters 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, and 6.
7
With air superiority reestablished, the Merian forces had little trouble making their way across the rest of the desert. Night fell while they were on the move, but night wasn't very dark on this world with six moons in the sky at any time and three of them full. The Merian air forces pummeled the rocks above the Xing trenches until the land melted into a sheet of glass. Merian spaceplanes buzzed throughout the night sky like sleek insects, crossing over the moons and keeping watch on the desert. They were expecting some kind of counterattack to come from over the horizon, but nothing came. Perhaps the earlier attack had been the counterattack and the Xing forces were spent. Or perhaps they were waiting until the Merian marines descended down into the tunnels to fight hand to hand. Then they would sally forth from the desert to drop down into the tunnels behind the Merians.
After many months on a planet like this, the Xing Coalition should have been able to dig hundreds of kilometers of tunnel, so it was only natural to expect that flushing the trenches might take weeks or more. If the Xing forces had any sense, they would have exits far away in the desert, where they could pop out unexpectedly or beat a retreat if the time came for it.
But no resistance came, not even when Gurney and Heni dropped down into the trench with their breath held and their teeth set against any explosions which might come. They landed on solid ground, which did not explode. It was dark in the tunnel. Their night-vision kicked in immediately. Both knew that in centuries past, primitive night vision technology couldn't handle sudden transitions. Soldiers used to routinely go blind when exposed to an unexpected light source while wearing night-vision goggles. But modern Merian helmets could switch seamlessly to adjust to any type of lighting condition, so they had no fear of going blind.
At least from bright lights. The visors would protect them against primitive lasers, but a direct shot to the face from a laser weapon could still destroy their vision even if their helmets kept it from penetrating through to their brains. They held their weapons ready and scanned the tunnel walls. Automated mine-detecting sensors swept in every direction and reported nothing, although these were less than perfectly accurate. They started moving down the tunnel as more marines dropped in behind them.
The men moved down the tunnel in six waves, hugging the walls and covering the tunnel ahead with their laser rifles while the line of men in the back passed to the head and took up position along the wall to cover the next wave. They proceeded in this manner until someone's sensors detected a mine. The men found cover and fired a percussion grenade to detonate the mine backwards into the wall. This done, they sent out a few drones to sweep the tunnel ahead. The man who sent them monitored his feeds and reported that the four drones reached a crossroads of some sort with four new tunnels branching off of this one. Each went a different direction.
They waited. Only one drone came back. The first stopped reporting when it encountered what presumably was a mine. The other two stopped reporting somewhere deep in the bowels of the tunnel network, and the operator called the last one back, not wanting to lose it.
The men set out again, moving faster this time. When they reached the crossroads, they split into groups of five and each group headed up one of the tunnels, with the last hunkering down at the crossroads itself. Another ten marines had been left at the entrance. Other groups of marines were busy flushing other tunnels, but communications didn't seem to be going through to them. Hopefully, this didn't mean anything.
Gurney and Heni were glad to be in the vanguard. Each man knew the statistics. In any tunnel flushing, fifty percent of the advance party were likely to die. Wounds which might not be fatal in other circumstances became so, because it took so long for medics to reach them. But both had accepted their fate long ago. The war had now been raging for two years with no sign of letting up. Any career man, or anyone who signed up in the first year of the war, had little chance of making it to the end if the war continued for another two years. Neither man saw any sense in trying to escape his fate.
The five of them continued the leapfrog maneuver down the tunnel, with three of them hugging the wall at any given time and the other two passing to reach the front. Each of their helmets scanned the walls for mines and other threats, but there were ways of evading this kind of detection. After a few minutes, they began to lose contact with the other parties of marines one by one. This might not mean anything. The tunnels dove deep underground, deeper even then the Merian trenches. Already they were a hundred meters below the surface and dropping fast as the tunnel sloped downward at a steeper and steeper grade.
It was a strange facet of Merian life that multiple systems of measurement had survived more than a thousand years from Old Earth, and despite efforts by various partisans to kill one or the other, both were considered standard in different parts of the Meri Federation. The Federation itself was agnostic on the subject, allowing the different worlds within its borders to choose their own policies. Some opted for what was still called the Imperial System, and others opted for metric, and still others used both. Within a single city, bars would sell beer in pints and liters - sometimes the same bar.
At different periods in galactic history, new systems of measurement had been implemented in different kingdoms and empires, with varying degrees of success. In every case, the stated reason was that the Old Earth systems were anachronistic and backwards, pegged to unreliable and nonsensical parameters and therefore made no sense in a modern spacefaring age. And in every case, the new system didn't catch on in the Meri Federation. Which meant that most Merian citizens needed to know both pounds and kilograms. Gurney's suit measured the descent in meters and Heni's measured it in yards or feet. But both of their suits read their weight in pounds and the temperature in Fahrenheit.
The shot came out of nowhere and took the head clean off the man in the lead - Yeny. All four opened fire, even though they couldn't see anything. Gurney deployed an automated missile, firing vaguely down the tunnel and letting the targeting system take over and guide it into the darkness. They took cover, crouching against the walls and the ground. Heni jumped up to the ceiling of the trench and clamped on with his claws. He scanned the hallway looking for the shooter.
It turned out to have been an automated projectile set into the wall in a pinhole. Gurney tossed a rock in front of the pinhole once Heni's suit identified it as a potential source of the shot. A second shot vaporized the rock and the pebbles splashed all over their suits. They ducked under the pinhole and kept moving. There was a detonation somewhere down the tunnel, presumably the automated missile.
They continued unmolested for some time. The further they went, the more Heni wondered whether this was a trap. They were so deep now in the bowels of the planet as to be in all essentials cut off entirely from the other men who had entered the tunnel with them. They knew that columns of marines had already entered the tunnels and were making their way down to reinforce them, but the vanguard was now so deep in the ground that any counterattack would overwhelm the four of them.
"Do you think we hunker down here?" asked Jak, the youngest of the four.
"No," said Gurney. "Keep going. The order was to forge on ahead."
"But we've lose comms. The order could have changed. For all we know..."
"No," Gurney cut him off. "The order was to clear the tunnels and to keep moving even if we lost contact. It was expected that we would lose contact and the order was to continue on in that event."
They kept moving. Eventually, they found debris and burn marks where the missile had detonated. They proceeded cautiously. Heni saw several more pinholes. They ducked under or jumped over these and soon found themselves at a corner. Although the tunnel had meandered in curves, this was the first sharp corner. They paused. Heni had a miniature drone, little better than a child's toy, and he deployed this around the corner. Before it exploded, it sent back footage of a vault door and four men aiming laser rifles. Jak tossed two automated grenades around the corner and Heni deployed a magnetic shield which would prevent the grenades from being tossed back and would deflect any debris. There was a loud explosion.
The explosion killed all four men, but the vault door still stood. It sagged a little. They planted a couple charges and went back around the corner. This time, the explosion took the door off. They entered the cavern beyond.
8
Lilia commanded the door to open. It slid back into the wall to reveal a tall, well-dressed man with dark hair. He stuck out his hand anachronistically, and she walked over and shook it, not wanting to be impolite.
“Dr. Sackleton,” he said. “I apologize if I interrupted you. You never returned my call, but I happened to be in the area and I thought I would drop by and save you the trouble.”
“No apology necessary,” she said. “I’ve been immersed in my work. I received your ring but wanted to finish reviewing a journal article I’ve been asked to review for an upcoming conference in Wengia. I’m actually headed there now.”
“As am I,” said the stranger. “My name is Quentio Sideney. I teach at Wentherst. I saw your name in the guest log and wanted to make my introduction before the conference.”
Noticing how awkwardly he was standing in the hall, Lilia asked Sideney if he’d like to come in. He didn’t look dangerous, although that didn’t mean anything. She carried a small pistol in a pocket in her skirt just in case. Still, she was relieved when he said, “Thank you, but I must decline. I don’t much like these cramped rooms. I was hoping you would be willing to take a walk with me.”
It was possible he really was an academic curious about meeting other potential conference guests. But more likely, Lilia’s cover was already up and he knew who she really was. Perhaps he wanted to lure her away from her room so that it could be burgled, but in any case she would need to find out whether he really was who he said he was sooner or later. She stepped out into the hallway to indicate she accepted his offer of a walk.
Lilia had already set up a series of biometric locks on her door which would be impossible for anyone to detect unless they knew in advance, but which would create what appeared to be a jam if anyone tried to open the door without her. Lilia still locked it using the ship’s ancient keycard and she fell in beside Sideney. He offered her his arm as they proceeded down the hallway, and she noticed that he was missing his ring finger on his right hand.
“You really are old-fashioned,” she said.
“You’ll have to forgive me,” he said, lowering his arm. “Creature of habit.”
“You’ll have to forgive me,” she said. “I was raised on Zothrien. Cold planets produce cold people.”
He laughed. “Is it true that mothers on Zothrien don’t kiss their babies?” he asked.
“No,” she said. “But we don’t shake hands, and you’ll definitely never see two people walk down the street arm-in-arm.”
They walked slightly apart now, as Lilia preferred it. She wasn’t, of course, from Zothrien, but she could pass for a Zothrieni and it was true that she generally avoided touching people. She noticed her pale skin looked paler in the purple light of the ship and also in contrast with Sideney’s tanned complexion.
“Do you prefer Dr. Sackleton, or can I call you Huria?” asked Sideney.
“You are awfully familiar, Mr. Sideney.”
“Dr. Sideney, if you please,” he said. “I do insist on that one point of pride. I know you must find it a tad unnecessary, being a doctor yourself, but I do see patients now and again even if my main research is removed from the day-to-day surgeries and procedures, and you will understand if am too proud about that one detail.”
“Fine,” replied Lilia. They stepped out of the hallway into what was sometimes called the grand gallery. After the narrow hallway, it was a shock to see the ship open into a yawning cavern stretching above for hundreds of feet and below for even more. A good speedball player could throw a stone and hit the other side of the gallery at its widest point, but lengthwise it stretched nearly a mile from ovular end to ovular end. For a moment, they stood with their hands on the railing, staring across the bright chasm at the dozens of floors across from them, each with dozens of hallways. Little drones and floating platforms flitted up and down in the open space in the middle of the chasm and they could watch small figures on the opposite side walking along or leaning against the railing. Lilia thought about waving, but she decided it would be out of keeping for her character.
As they watched, a small figure opposite them high above climbed out on top of one of the railings. Lilia shook her head. He jumped. He didn’t make it very far. His short fall was arrested by some sort of invisible force, which held him in place until a drone flew by and snatched him up and placed him back on his feet on the other side of the railing from whence he’d come.
“Teenage boys,” said Sideney. “Did you ever try jumping at that age?”
“No,” said Lilia. “Did you?”
“Of course,” he replied. “It’s quite a thrill. And as you know well there’s never any danger. These interspatial journeys get lonely. The liner companies wouldn’t want any bad publicity.”
“Some say that in the old days people did jump. And there wasn’t anything to stop them, I mean.”
“In the old days,” said Sideney, “Nobody cared.”
They began walking again. “To answer your earlier question,” Lilia said. “I would prefer that you call me Dr. Sackleton. I must admit it seems awfully presumptuous of you to suggest…”
Sideney cut her off, “I understand it entirely, Dr. Sackleton. You must forgive me. When you said that you came from Zothrien I should have known not to ask. I try not to impose. I come from Goz. As you may know, we like to get to know each other.”
“Is it true,” asked Lilia, “that children will hold their parents’ hands into their teenage years on Goz?”
“No,” said Sideney with a laugh. “At least not most of them.”
They stared out at the floors dropped away from them beyond the railing. Small families walked their pets two levels down and three levels below that a couple who could have been in their eighties was kissing while leaning against the railing.
“Do you travel on liners much?” asked Sideney.
“Sometimes,” said Lilia. “My work takes me all over.”
“Researching ancient viruses and pre-space plagues?”
“Yes,” said Lilia, wishing she had said that she didn’t travel much. “You would be surprised at what information is buried in tiny libraries on backwater planets. It’s hard to access much of it on the intergalactic web, which is still quite primitive, I find, if one is researching anything arcane.”
“Have you ever tried to sneak onto Old Earth? I should think there would be much to discover there.”
“The parts of Earth which haven’t been irradiated won’t have any traces of old viruses,” she said. “Any virus which can be found on Earth will be a trillion generations removed from anything I need. And you may know that there aren’t any libraries on Earth to speak of anymore.”
She sped up a little, for Sideney had been walking very slowly. He matched her pace.
“Tell me,” she said, “what happened to your hand.”
Sideney acted as though she had asked him a question, when she hadn’t. “It’s funny that you should ask,” he said. “I’m older than I look. It was many decades ago in my youth – my more adventurous days, as I’m sure you can understand – when I was skating on the rings of Regulus. I had an accident.”
“Most people wouldn’t survive a crash with the rings there. The rings will dissolve even a maxim ship,” she interrupted. “How did you manage to lose a finger and come away alive?”
Sideney smiled. “Well,” he said. “I suppose you have your secrets and I have mine.”
“What do you mean by that?” she asked.
“I didn’t lose my finger in the accident on Regulus, and I don’t think you travel because you need to study old viruses.”
Lilia stopped and turned to face him. She placed her back against the railing and leaned so that she could feel a little of the wind from passing drones rustling her hair. She forced a smile. He stopped and turned to face her, too. He placed his hands on his hips, but looked beyond her, over her right shoulder, watching the drones and the floating platforms.
“Perhaps if you’re honest with me about your finger,” she said. “I will tell you why I travel as much as I do.”
He blushed a little and she wondered whether this was part of the act or if he really had grown up on Goz. She’d met a woman from Goz who would blush or burst into tears at the slightest provocation.
“I lost it in a duel,” he said. “I really was sailing the rings of Regulus and my ship lost its wing. I nearly died, but managed to limp away into a higher orbit, where I tumbled for ten days without any food. A trawler picked me up and brought me back to the hospital on Remorse. There was a nurse there who brought me back to health, and I think I was a little too friendly with her. Her boyfriend tried to kill me as soon as I left the hospital. He shot me with one of those super-targeted micro-lasers and the STM took my finger off and destroyed one of my kidneys. I survived, and I think he decided I’d learned my lesson.”
Lilia wasn’t sure whether or not he was telling the truth, but this sounded plausible. She started walking again and Sideney fell back in beside her.
“In a previous life,” she said. “I used to be a freight handler. I sailed on one of the cargo carriers and stopped off at different worlds to operate the cranes. It’s a lonely job, as robots do most of the work, but I like traveling and I like being alone. When I went back to study medicine, I never lost my taste for travel. Visiting old libraries on forgotten planets is my excuse to leave my cramped office and see new worlds.”
Sideney nodded slowly, as if he was satisfied with this explanation but didn’t entirely believe it. They walked in silence for another few minutes, until Sideney asked, “Is Sackleton your real name?”
Chapters 7 and 8 will be available in December.