Titan's Fall Read online

  “Fucking Arvani.” I looked around. “Okay, I guess we’re leaving the munitions doors unguarded, then.” The several feet of thick metal would have to hold shut without us.

  15

  The Arvani officer waited for us impatiently back at the entrance to our quarters. It wore standard encounter gear for outside the water: sculpted, form-fitting exoskeleton filled with water to keep it alive. Each of its eight arms was surrounded by jointed, powered segments.

  But not armor. The exoskeleton was painted gaudy purple, red, and black, with red officer’s marks near the Arvani’s neck. These were the equivalent of fancy dress uniform for the Arvani when they were out of their pools of water and wandering about.

  “You are delaying us!” it snapped. “Shape up, apes, we are required now!”

  We all glanced at each other, and then the platoon looked at me and waited for orders.

  The Arvani noticed this. His pupils narrowed and a single tentacle pointed at me. “You.”

  “What authority do you have to order this?” I asked. “The Colonial Protection Force is an independent volunteer organization. You have no command here. Who are you?”

  It blew surprised bubbles in its helmet, where the vast bulk of its body resided. A few strange hues flashed across its skin. “I am Commander Sthenos,” it bellowed via translation. Another motorized tentacle pulled out a pistol. “Articles of emergency have been declared throughout the interior of this habitat. You will arm up, and you will follow me.”

  Sthenos stalked across the rock toward the tunnel ways.

  “Amira? Riot?” I asked.

  “Three habitat levels of chaos,” she said, eyes crinkling as she dove into the data. I waved a hand after the alien and nodded at the rest of the platoon. Follow the alien.

  “We’re not peacekeepers,” I said, starting to walk after the Arvani commander. “We’re soldiers.”

  “You are here. You are what we have in this location.”

  “Where are the carapoids? Struthiforms? Other Arvani?” I fell into pace beside Sthenos.

  “They are elsewhere,” Sthenos said irritably.

  “Where?” I asked. “What’s going on?”

  “You are not cleared yet,” Sthenos said. And I suspected that Sthenos, in his fancy Arvani gear and lack of armor, was probably not in the loop. This was a jumped-up supply clerk with a pistol, or some Arvani given a big title and shoved somewhere they thought wouldn’t cause much trouble.

  Sthenos didn’t know what was going on any more than we did.

  None of us had helmeted up yet. “I don’t know much about riot control,” Amira muttered. “But having been on the other side, I’m going to say that if we jump in with full armor and weapons hot, it’s not going to cool things down any.”

  Shriek moved up to join us. The struthiform was in full armor, something he almost never did when inside an Accordance structure. “I can hear it,” he said. “It does not sound joyous.”

  “That it does not,” I agreed. “Don’t shoot; keep close to me. Amira, Ken, keep it low, but pass that around.”

  Sthenos forged on ahead, his metal-clad legs tapping on the rock as he scuttled along.

  “Here we go,” Amira warned. “Stay calm.”

  We burst out into a common cavern, mess halls on either side and the upper floors filled with dormitories accessed by metal walkways. Three thousand filled the common area. The small temporary gardens in the middle were already mud, trampled by angry feet in a packed scrum fighting against a handful of carapoids trying to hold the line.

  A few open fires burned in the back, on the other side of the cavern. I helmeted up and peeked through it using the helmet’s various displays and filters, but it wasn’t being used to hide anything. They were just burning stuff ripped off the walls.

  The crowd hissed like water tossed on a hot pan as we moved in.

  “Be careful. We’re suited up, they’re not,” I said.

  “So, what the fuck are we supposed to do?” That was Zizi on the common channel.

  I was still thinking. Looking at the massive press of bodies shoving the carapoids back up toward the wall.

  Sthenos strode forward authoritatively and raised his pistol into the air.

  “Oh, shit.” I stepped forward as the crowd flinched, quieted, and started to stare at us.

  “Cease this destructive behavior and return to your designated quarters,” the Arvani officer shouted via amplification. The words rolled around the rocky roof, bouncing and echoing off the surfaces.

  “We want to be evacuated too,” a short woman in a gray mining uniform shouted. She had a pipe in her hands.

  “What are you talking about?” I started to ask, but Sthenos interrupted me with another loud command.

  “Disperse or face consequences,” Sthenos shouted.

  “Don’t say that,” Amira groaned on the public.

  Sthenos snapped back, looking at the platoon.

  I moved up past him and lowered my helmet to let the crowd see my face. I was a human being, not Arvani. The armor made us look like faceless machines, doubly so with helmet up. I wanted the crowd to see other human beings. I could hear other helmets snapping open around me as the platoon followed my lead.

  Holding both hands up, palms out, I called out, “What evacuation?”

  “The Arvani are all leaving. They’ve been boarding ships,” the miner with the pipe said. She stepped forward, suddenly realizing she was the closest thing to the group’s voice. The talking had created a momentary calm in the confrontation. I could see the carapoids edging over to us. I couldn’t tell anything from their expressions—the insect-like mandibles and eyes didn’t lead to much that I could recognize—and they didn’t say anything. “Everyone is running. They’re going to leave us here like they did on Titan. We want on the ships too.”

  “There is no exodus,” Sthenos shouted. “You will stay at your posts and do your jobs. The fate of—”

  “Fuck you, squiddie!” A bottle arced over the heads of the crowd nearest to us and struck Sthenos. The glass shattered and something oily splattered over the Arvani’s encounter suit.

  The Molotov cocktail’s fire had guttered out as it had been thrown, luckily.

  “Get behind us,” I ordered the Arvani. “You’re not helping matters.”

  But Sthenos spluttered and marched at the crowd. It raised its pistol. “I am Arvani, and I saw where that came from,” it shouted. “There will be a consequence—”

  “Fucking drag him behind us and get that gun out of his hands,” I ordered, making a quick decision. We were in armor, but Sthenos would literally get pulled apart by the crowd if he started shooting into it.

  Zizi and Aran from Alpha jumped the alien, disarming him and pulling back into the close wall of armor we’d made when forming up against the crowd.

  That was a popular move. Cheers and hoots echoed around the cavern, and some laughter.

  “This is insubordination,” Sthenos screamed at us.

  I moved another step forward and addressed the miner who’d been speaking, but loudly enough that everyone near the front of the crowd could hear us. “I don’t know what is going on, but we haven’t gotten the word to evacuate.”

  “That doesn’t mean it isn’t happening,” she said.

  “That’s true,” I admitted. “The Arvani are up to something, and they’re not sharing. With any of us. Not even their junior officers.” I pointed back at Sthenos, who was raging at Amira to try and get his pistol back.

  “I don’t want to get fucked,” she said. “Everyone on Titan got left. People are saying we should talk to the Conglomeration now, broker some kind of deal for when they come. We’re tired of being in the dark. We’re not their tools.”

  “I understand,” I said. “I know why you’re doing it. You have to make your decision. But just know y
ou are right. The Arvani don’t care about your lives. Which means that when they come next, it will be like that Arvani back there. They’ll start killing us. And in here, there’s nowhere to run if they decide pacification is needed.”

  “Desperate times,” she said.

  “They are,” I said. “But I think if we can keep together, organized, and use all the tools around us, we’ll see Earth again. I truly believe that. Now, I’m going to back out through the corridor. You seem like you have some sway around here. See if you can keep them from bringing down something worse?”

  “This is the only way they’ll pay attention to us,” she said. “We roll over, we go back to being in the dark.”

  “You do what you have to,” I said. “But let me say this. The Pcholem, the ship attached to this asteroid, I’ve talked to it. And I have the impression it can expand and carry a lot. Until it leaves, your ride is going to be with the giant alien starship. Don’t spook it. But if you’re truly scared, send someone to talk to it. Or camp out near it . . . peacefully and calmly.”

  She nodded. “Okay.”

  “We’re going to step back now,” I said. “And take the carapoids with us. Is that good?”

  Some shook their heads, but she nodded.

  We backed out down the corridor and then let out held breaths of air as the bulkhead doors shut. One of the carapoids split off and approached us. Strong, spiked, and bony hands waved a pattern in the air. “Gratitude,” it said simply. Then the massive beetle-like aliens trumped off down a fork and left us.

  “I was hoping for a hug,” Zizi said. “But that’ll do.”

  “Give our Arvani officer his pistol back,” I said. “Sir, we’re sorry, but we had to talk them down.”

  Sthenos snatched his weapon back and pivoted around to look at all of us. “There will be consequences for your insubordination.”

  Consequences. Sthenos seemed to like that word a lot.

  “I understand,” I said. “I will take on responsibility for any reprimands that come as a result of the platoon following my direct orders.”

  Shriek moved. “The angry human mob has a point,” he said. “All this dramatic behavior and running around while we wait for your homeworld to be destroyed is dreadful. Maybe you should broadcast surrender now. I’m sure the Conglomeration are wonderful and snuggly, like a mother on her eggs.”

  “Now’s not the time for your jokes,” I said.

  “That. Is. Traitorous.” Sthenos had frozen in place, staring at Shriek.

  Amira groaned as Sthenos stalked toward the struthiform. “No humor,” she said.

  But Shriek seemed to know what he had done. He turned and faced the Arvani, wing hands folded by his body and his head cocked. “What do you think, Arvani? You didn’t exactly help my homeworld, did you? Ran pretty fast once you all realized it was risky. Dragged us along to all your other fights. And here we still are.”

  “According to the common law of the Accordance unified military agreement,” Sthenos said, rattling off the specific law that let him execute someone during a mutiny, “I condemn you to death as an enemy to the Accordance.”

  Shriek dropped his helmet and stepped forward, large eyes on the Arvani energy pistol. “Do it, seafood,” he hissed.

  This wasn’t happening. I knew Shriek wasn’t a fan of the Arvani, but the naked anger usually showed up in other forms. Not suicide by Arvani officer.

  Sthenos’s tentacle tip moved its grip on the pistol to fire. Amira knocked it clear, the pistol bouncing down the rock corridor. “Treason!” The Arvani spun around and looked at us all. “Detain her and hand me your weapon!”

  “No,” I said, “We’re not going to do that. We need our medic.” There was a thud in the distance. I wasn’t sure what it was.

  “You face the gravest repercussions.” Sthenos looked at us all, realizing there was no help to be found, and then bolted for his gun.

  “Quick,” I shouted, and Ken was already by my side. Amira got there first, though, rocketing off a wall to strike the Arvani in the center of his upper tank. Metal cracked and creaked as she struggled to hold onto him in the middle of the eight flailing tentacles that beat against her armor. She was punching and grabbing at something inside the Arvani encounter suit, ripping it out. The comms. She was silencing his ability to call out. I hadn’t even thought about that.

  I grabbed tentacles whipping about. “Stop struggling, we just want to talk.” In the background, again, another thud. Loud enough that I glanced around, trying to figure out what it was.

  There was a keening, bubbling sound. I realized that was an Arvani scream, raw and untranslated. Completely freaking out. Hell, so was I. We’d laid hands on an Arvani officer.

  “Rope,” Amira said calmly. “Now!”

  She was jamming her thumbs into joints in the Arvani’s powered legs, crushing the metal until something inside snapped and the limbs stopped moving. Then she bashed in the speakers that let the Arvani speak with her elbow.

  Someone passed up some kind of paracord and a roll of utility tape. The alien stuff that was vacuum-rated. Amira and I wrapped the Arvanai’s limbs together and then sat down with it between us. I looked at her, the question plain on my face.

  “We need to crack him out of this suit and shove him out the shit-lock,” she said, referring to our crude bathroom against the asteroid’s hull.

  “It’s a long way from here to there. And . . .” We weren’t executing Arvani officers.

  “Asshole officers go overboard,” Amira said. “Old naval ships. Happened all the time.”

  “This isn’t the age of sail,” I hissed.

  “It might not be, but we’re going to hang if we don’t get rid of this.”

  “Why did you do this?” Shriek asked.

  “He was going to shoot you,” I said.

  “So? This was not your fight.” Shriek flicked a wing hand. “And what are the chances that even an Arvani would execute a vested officer of the Accordance?”

  “I don’t know,” I shouted at him. “That’s just it! It certainly looked about to shoot to me.”

  “Even if it did, it would only have cost that Arvani everything and meant no attention would be paid your insubordination.” Shriek whistled impatiently. “My life is mine to do with what I please. I have been dead since the moment I watched my homeworld burn. I accepted this long ago. I make choices about how to live, how long to live, and when. Not you. Now you are all doomed. This is an utter waste. I am filled with despair that I have known your names.”

  There was another thud. I looked up as dust filtered through the air, shaken loose by the asteroid shaking. “That’s the third time; what is that?”

  Then the atmosphere-loss alarms kicked on, the annoying whine piercing my skull and near dizzying me.

  16

  Helmets snicked up and I got on the public channel. “What the hell was that?”

  As if to answer me, an all-call went out, loud and crisp on the public channel. “Hull breach. Full vacuum protocol in effect. Everyone is to be in suits or near aid stations at all times. All CPF are to report up the chain of their command immediately.”

  “Pressure loss or attack?” I asked Amira.

  “They’d call it out if it were battle stations.”

  “Not on the public. Not with people rioting because they’re scared they’re about to get left behind like everyone did on Titan.” I looked around and then back down at our captured Arvani officer.

  “Good point,” Amira said. “Let me hop my way up . . . oh, here we go.”

  “Hello, Third Platoon. This is Colonel Vincent Anais again. I can’t reach your temporary Arvani commander, so I’m pinging your command channel.”

  “Yes sir,” I said, and then tried to talk right past his implicit query about the alien tied up by our feet. “What’s going on?”

  “C
ongratulations, you stuck around long enough to get off crap detail and for me to need you. There’s a full-blown mutiny.”

  “We just dealt with the rioters,” I said. “We calmed them down.” Sthenos wriggled about, halfheartedly trying to get out from under our knees where we’d pinned him to the rocky asteroid floor.

  Tony Chin was swearing to himself in Mandarin, I realized. What were we doing? “Chin, shut it down,” I hissed.

  “Not where you are,” Anais said, almost over me. “We’ve had human crews working with Arvani specialists around the clock to finish the Trojan conversions. Very hush-hush, but they’ve been turning the Trojans into carriers. Low-budget, retrofitted carriers. This is to get the numbers we need back to Titan. To retake what we’ve lost. But—”

  Another thud. We instinctively crouched for a second.

  Anais swore. That was new. There was a moment of quiet, and then he came back on. “So, the human crews working on two of the Trojans mutinied. They’re ostensibly under an Earth First banner. They’ve demanded the release of Rina Joseph, Alois Kincaide, and Alan Coatzee from Accordance jails.”

  I recognized two of those names. Rina and Alois. People who’d once planned protests by my parents’ side. I knew them as friendly smiles and laps I’d sat in. I hadn’t realized they were jailed. Rotting away under the Accordance.

  Anais continued. “But I think they’re just panicked. Rumors of impending Conglomeration attacks are everywhere, and they saw what happened on Titan. Which is why we need these ships to get back to Titan, damn it.”

  “What’re the loud noises?” Amira asked.

  “We’ve been exchanging fire. Trying to knock out the weapons they have trained on us. Devlin, we’ve been keeping what we’re doing here secret so that the Conglomeration doesn’t know our next play. But now, if they see us shooting at each other here in trailing orbit, they’re going to come out before we’re ready for them. And it’s going to be a big fucking mess. So you’re going in. Welcome back to active.”

  “Why us?” I asked reflexively.

  “I need someone who can think quick, think creatively, and not make a bigger mess.”