Conquest of Earth Read online

  Conquest of Earth

  Outcast Marines, Book 9

  James David Victor

  Fairfield Publishing

  Copyright © 2019 Fairfield Publishing

  ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. Except for review quotes, this book may not be reproduced, in whole or in part, without the written consent of the author.

  This story is a work of fiction. Any resemblance to actual people, places, or events is purely coincidental.

  Contents

  1. Emergency Survival

  2. The Future of Humanity

  3. On the Uses of Thermonuclear Devices

  4. Naked Opportunity

  5. Distractive Technologies

  6. Escape Velocity

  7. Master Command Function

  8. Runaway Rover

  9. Ansible

  10. Friends in High Places

  11. Freefall

  12. DIY Meteors

  13. Chain of Command

  14. Not What We Expected

  15. Ech

  16. Major Surprise

  17. Interlude: The Conquest of Earth

  18. Endgame

  Epilogue: A New Era

  Thank You

  1

  Emergency Survival

  FZZT!

  Second Lieutenant Jezebel Wen of the Outcast Marines ducked as another line of blue-white plasma fire speared across the munitions locker. The tall woman in her full power armor could see multiple spouts of steam bursting into the cramped corridors from where the cyborgs’ weapons had struck the pipes and units in this part of the Invincible.

  The Invincible that is in danger of breaking apart, Jezzy realized, slamming her back against the pipes and waiting for her moment to return fire.

  Gold Channel Message Alert!

  Sender: Corporal Ratko (Tech. Sp.)

  The inside of her visor lit up with a line of green information as the suit telemetries for her squad channel burst to life. And on the other end was Corporal Ratko—the small, angry Gold Squad member who had accompanied Jezzy on her infiltration into this hulk.

  “I read you, Ratko, but make it quick!” Jezzy breathed as she tried to sneak a look around the corner, seeing that the two cyborgs at the far end of the narrow corridor were already advancing.

  That was the thing with the Ru’at and mega-corp cyborgs… They didn’t tire. They didn’t know fear. They didn’t pause.

  Frack!

  “I’m clear, ma’am. Almost halfway across the wreckage field to rendezvous with the ship, Corporal Malady, and Willoughby.” The Outcast Marine’s voice sounded breathy and tense, and Jezzy wasn’t surprised. She had sent Ratko ahead of her on a solo, unassisted space-walk while she fought a rear-guard action, protecting the armed and primed nuke that they had found inside the Invincible, ready to use it against the Ru’at jump-ships that patrolled the Martian orbit.

  “Good to hear, Ratko. You know my orders. Two minutes and you blow.” Jezzy ducked as she leaned her Jackhammer around two large ceramic pipes and fired.

  Phada-BOOM! Phada-BOOM! Burst fire. She had no time to perform targeted kills on these beings. The metal man-things, with half of their human bodies encased in steel, were almost unstoppable anyway. Only a strike against their spinal cords would sever their essential circuits.

  FZZT! Her heavy shells struck, sending the first cyborg into a spin as a line of blue-white plasma erupted from the miniaturized particle-beam generator that was its hand and burned a line across the ceiling.

  Tsk! Lines of sparks erupted from the grillwork up there, as well as gobbets of molten metal as the creature’s fire clicked off. There was another deep, rumbling shake that moved through Jezzy’s feet.

  The Invincible had been General Asquew’s flagship in the Second Rapid Response Fleet, a vast pyramid of bronze and gun-metal colors able to decimate a planet, should it so wish.

  But now she’s ready to be scrap, Jezzy managed to find the time to morosely consider. Just like most of the Marine Corps ships that had faced the Ru’at directly.

  It was those particle-beam weapons, Jezzy knew. The ones on the bulky hand-units of the cyborgs were only child’s toys compared to the ones that the Ru’at ships held in their nosecones. Those weapons were able to burn holes straight through the double-reinforced, meter-thick hulls of even the toughest ships of the fleet!

  Jezzy knew it was all owing to the Ru’at’s more advanced technology. They were the ones who had sent ‘the Message’ to Earth, packed full of details on how to develop cybernetic and more bizarre technologies. The alien race was so far ahead of Confederate Earth that Jezzy thought, in cosmic terms, this must be like a colony of ants attempting to stop a human from trampling their nest.

  Impossible.

  The Ru’at Message had been a fake, though—or not a fake, but a sophisticated Trojan horse, and certainly not the olive branch that they had thought. When NeuroTech and the other human mega-corporations had developed the Ru’at technologies, believing them to be a gift and a way to communicate with the first alien species that humanity had ever found existence of, all it had done was build a back door to an alien invasion.

  Not that any of it mattered now, Jezzy thought. The Marine Corps Fleets were scattered, destroyed, and betrayed. The Near-Earth Fleet was under the direct control of the other Marine General, Hausman, who had just declared himself ‘Commander-in-Chief’ of Earth, and that left Asquew attempting to stave off the alien menace. And failing, badly.

  “Just get out of there!” Ratko was saying urgently. “My suit’s going to pass transmission range any second. I need to know that you’re out!”

  BOOM! Another shot from Jezzy’s Jackhammer was enough to send the already-stumbling cyborg backwards into its fellow. Luckily for Jezzy, this area was narrow enough so that only one cyborg could try to murder her at a time.

  Jezzy opened her mouth to respond, but then stopped. It would be better if she thinks I’m dead. Then she’ll blow the nuke with or without me.

  FZZZT! A line of blue-white fire shot past the edge of her helmet, so close that Jezzy swore she could smell the ozone burn. She couldn’t, of course—her power armor had a completely filtered air circulation system—but she, of anyone, knew just how the mind could play tricks on you when it thought it was going to die.

  Jezebel Wen used to be a Yakuza agent, trained to tidy up loose ends and enact the Yakuza’s justice in the Asian-Pacific Partnership region of Confederate Earth. Maybe it was this volatile and uncompromising early start that had given Jezzy her cool head during times of such imminent terror.

  What are my mission parameters? she thought as she traded more rounds with the two cyborgs who had cornered her. They both had ugly blast holes about their bodies or were buckled and scorched places in their metal parts, but they still came. Jezzy was only managing to hold them at bay by using her Jackhammer to knock them down or push them back.

  But they always—always—got up again.

  One. Keep the nuke armed.

  Two. Distract the Ru’at.

  Three. Get off the ship.

  When she thought about it that way, there didn’t seem to be much chance that Second Lieutenant Jezebel Wen was going to be able to get off this boat.

  Would these cyborgs be able to neutralize the nuke? Jezzy had no idea if their programming stretched that far.

  Would the cyborgs be able to send a message of warning to the Ru’at jump-ships outside? Maybe. Again, her knowledge of their capabilities was severely lacking. But she knew that they were capable of deep machine learning, analyzing their targets to best capitalize on their weaknesses, which showed a kind of evolution.

  “Sir! This is Ratko. I’ve got— SCRRRRR!” Jezzy’s internal speakers pulsed with Ratko’s voice, somewhere
outside the Invincible, but she was cut off almost instantaneously by static.

  She must have moved out of range, Jezzy knew as she fired again, and again. Suit-to-suit protocols for their squad-level communication was a narrow band at best, and she herself had further restricted it to make sure that the alien menace outside couldn’t easily pick up on what they were doing. Or attempting to do, anyway, she thought.

  Again, Jezzy thought that it was probably better for her squad member to think that she was already dead in here. That way, when the timer was up, the corporal would activate the nuke and their plan would be secure.

  But half a heartbeat later, it seemed that Ratko had managed to get her message through.

  Gold Channel Message Alert!

  Sender: Corporal Ratko (Tech. Sp.)

  Data Packet Received: Trusted. Verified.

  On her visor appeared a line-drawing schematic of the forward munitions locker of the Invincible, sent by Ratko. It had a glowing green dot to indicate where Jezzy currently was, as well as another flashing green dot just a few corridors away.

  Emergency Survival Raft: Designation 23, the tiny hologram display read.

  “What?” Why hadn’t she thought of that? She had automatically assumed that when the Marines, staffers, and soldiers of the Rapid Response Fleet had to abandon the Invincible, all of the escape pods and survival rafts would have been ejected.

  But clearly not. Jezzy frowned.

  FZZT! FZZZZT! There was a shower of sparks and a loud crack as the ceramic pipe by her shoulder exploded in a million fragments. The cyborgs were getting close!

  Jezzy fired as many times as she dared, aiming a burst shot at the one in front’s legs. It fell to the floor under the heavy barrage, but that only meant the one behind it had a clearer shot.

  Frack! Jezzy threw herself back as she ducked under the onslaught. She was only a few corridors away from both the nuke and the emergency raft. What should she do?

  The emergency survival rafts, Jezzy knew from her training, were a slightly more advanced version of an escape pod, which were little better than metal tubes on thrusters that automatically flew to a pre-programmed location when fired.

  The ESR of the Marine Corps, however, were entire little ship ‘units’ with their own directional thrusters and positioning rockets, and sometimes, they even had their own minor armaments. It made sense that there was one for this section of the ship, Jezzy thought. She was currently near the ‘top’ of the Invincible, and the place where the primary-one weapons were held, at that. If there was any sort of malfunction or problem up here, then the staff would want a secure way to get out—and fast!

  FZZT! Another line of burning light shook Jezzy out of her hasty thoughts. Whatever she ended up doing, she had to get out of this corridor first, and quickly, before the cyborgs rounded the corner.

  But Jezebel Wen had started off as a ruthless Yakuza, and then her talents had been honed by some of the best military training that the Marine Corps could devise in the Outcast Training Program.

  Even as the sound of metal feet clanked closer, Jezzy rolled, propped her Jackhammer against her shoulder, and fired.

  Upward.

  PHADA-BOOM! She fired in single shot as the ammo indicator light on her gun started to flash. Single shot meant that she could more effectively target the part of the ceiling she wanted to hit: the place where congealed gobbets of metal had frozen even as they had fallen, and a line cut across the gridded metal bars to the ceiling.

  Clang! Clang! Cla—

  Sparks flew, and the Jackhammer’s shells ricocheted down like deadly rain, but with a sudden, much greater explosion of neon sparks, she achieved her aim. There was a resounding crash as the already-damaged ceiling panel buckled and collapsed, dislodging dust and thick clouds of dark smoke.

  Warning! Environmental Hazard Detected!

  Suit Air Filtration Systems: ACTIVATED

  Time until Air-Filter Clog: 4.6 minutes

  Her shots had ruptured some sensitive internal organ of the Invincible, and black smoke plumed into the corridor. But Jezzy, inside the carapace of her power armor, was fully protected. For now, anyway.

  But her plan had worked much better than she had anticipated, as now there were not only bits of ceiling in the way, there were also billowing clouds of black smoke for the cyborgs to contend with.

  Which buys me some time, she thought. But how much? Jezzy was already scrambling to her feet and stumbling down the narrow corridor. She was sure that the cyborgs would follow her, after all. There was no reason to turn and look inside the loading bay of the nuclear missile, was there?

  Not if she made some noise.

  “Hey! You glorified drone-dolls! Don’t you want a piece of me?” she shouted, clanging on the pipework walls as she turned away from the loading bay and its terrible denizens and toward where Ratko’s map led her. It was an obvious escape bay—a small alcove at the end of the corridor with a bulkhead door and nothing else. ESR 23 was stenciled in bold type over the door, and Jezzy went straight for it.

  FZT! FZZZ—

  Behind her came the sounds of the cyborgs cutting their way out of the collapsed tunnel and coming after her.

  How much time? She flicked her fingers inside their metal power gauntlets, where lay the thin mesh gloves and touch-sensitive pads on the fingertips, which she used to navigate her suit’s holo-controls.

  Timer App Downloaded.

  Controls: Countdown

  Set for: 5 minutes; 1 minute; 30 seconds; 10 seconds

  It was the automatic detonation override that Ratko had coded and designed for her in moments, linked to the nuclear warhead, downloaded into her suit’s mainframe controls. All Jezzy had to do was to set the time and away it would go, but the clock was already running down on the device, cresting a little over a few minutes.

  Grabbing the door release lever, she yanked as hard as she could. She could feel the metal wanting to resist her, but the assisted strength given to her by her suit’s servos and interior hydraulics made short work of that.

  Jezzy pulled the door open and jumped inside, finding that there was just a small platform step and then another, already open door—straight into the ESR. She made sure to shut and lock the bulkhead door behind her all the same, knowing that the cyborgs could burn their way through it, but it was another obstacle between her and death, wasn’t it?

  The ESR was an octoid sphere whose door hatch hissed shut behind her as soon as she stepped in, and the console unit in front of the piloting chair glared into life.

  It was designed to register life signs and automate the escape procedure as soon as it’s entered. Jezzy was at least thankful for that. This way, she wouldn’t have to waste precious time working out how to use the damn thing.

  A series of deep, vibrational shakes shuddered through the ESR as it completed whatever mechanical unlocking procedure it needed to. Jezzy sat in the pilot’s chair directly in front of the console. There were three smaller bucket chairs on either side of her set against the ESR’s walls, meaning that each survival raft was capable of comfortably holding seven survivors.

  Lights started racing ahead of her on the other side of the viewing window, four lines of light in each of the corners of her vision, narrowing to a point before flashing once, twice…

  Motion Sensor Alert!

  Jezzy’s suit pinged her with the alarm as the small overlay map revealed two blinking orange vectors approaching, at speed, behind her. The cyborgs had made their way out of the collapsed tunnel. They had taken the bait. They could probably also see or hear or sense with whatever scanning measures they had installed the noise coming from the other side of th e bulkhead door.

  Initiating ESR Main Thrusters…

  This message appeared not in Jezzy’s suit, but instead on the lit-up console in front of her. The shaking and shuddering increased as Jezzy’s own motion sensors started to blink more and more rapidly.

  Prepare for Launch…

  She searched
the consoles to find the command she wanted: 360-degree camera control. She switched it on with a wave of her hand just in time to see the bulkhead door that she had so recently jumped through being pulled off of its pistons. Its metal pistons, soldered and bolted to the metal superstructure of the Invincible itself.

  No wonder the cyborgs were almost unstoppable—

  The first cyborg stood there, one arm dangling uselessly at its side from the strain of ripping the door, as well as having a myriad of Jackhammer holes across its chest and legs. Behind it in the darkness, Jezzy caught a glimpse of the second cyborg as it raised its weapon-hand. In that awful moment that comes with high adrenaline, Jezzy could make out every detail on the ESR’s screen of the things myriad revolving wheels lighting up as it prepared to fire.

  Any shot of that thing will go straight through the thin shell of this craft, Jezzy knew. She wouldn’t be dead, because she would be in her power suit, but she would be equally as screwed.

  Launch!

  Suddenly, the image in her cameras was obscured by glaring white, and then a furious avalanche of orange, yellow, and red flames as the main thruster fired. The flames engulfed the cyborgs. For a hideous moment, the ESR sat perfectly still as it fed the thruster with propellant and sought escape velocity.

  Jezzy could see the blackened outline of the first cyborg in the flames as its once-human flesh was boiled away, and its most tender pieces of metal started to boil.