Invasion- Pluto Read online

  “Come on!” he snarled at the flight desk and the flashing white, black, and red lights visible over the cockpit window.

  He’d done high-G training with the Marines. He knew focusing on the horizon, the middle point, would be their salvation.

  If I can keep us heading in that direction… Not falling into Earth’s atmosphere below or spiraling out into space.

  Solomon’s hands moved and responded with minute gestures to try and steer the craft into any exaggerated spins and out of any swerves that threatened to send them careening down towards the Atlantic Ocean far, far below. What he didn’t realize was that, of all the people inside that shuttle, he had the advantage.

  The Serum 21 that Doctor Palinov of the Ganymede Training Facility had administered to the Outcasts had been created to change his genetic structure. To promote his DNA and RNA to build amino-protein bridges between previously unconnected genetic code. It made the Outcasts tougher, faster, more resilient, and in Solomon’s case, smarter.

  The mutagenic serum that he had been given made only tiny adjustments to his metabolism, his neurological structure, allowing his brain to pass messages a fraction of a second faster, and to respond a fraction of a second quicker.

  But it was enough.

  I don’t want to die, I don’t want to die… Solomon gritted his teeth as he worked feverishly in the cockpit as Earth burned below them. He thought about his Gold Squad, now many thousands and thousands of miles away. He thought about Jezebel Wen, the tough ex-Yakuza enforcer who had become his friend. He thought about Karamov, his medical specialist, a little quieter and more reserved but filled with a deep strength. And he thought about Malady, the man who had been permanently incarcerated in a full tactical suit for previous crimes, and how loyal he was.

  I don’t want to die because I want to see them again, he thought, and suddenly—

  PHWOOOSH! The shuttle leveled out, flying straight across the top of the dome of their mother planet, still shaking and bouncing, but at least they were upright and heading in only one—rather than several—directions at once.

  Yes! Solomon would have punched the air in celebration, but he daren’t take his hands off the flight stick. He had done it. They were going to survive…

  “Everyone alive back there?” he called out.

  “Ugh—” there were various moans and groans from behind him in the shuttle compartment but no screams, so Solomon took that as a good sign.

  “EMERGENCY BROADCAST. ALL FREQUENCIES.” The speakers suddenly blared to life again. “All near-Earth traffic to return to holding orbit immediately. If you require medical assistance, head to Luna Station. EMERGENCY BROADCAST. ALL FREQUENCIES. All near-Earth traffic….”

  “We could try for the Shanghai elevator?” Solomon called loudly. Even though Shanghai was a part of the Asia-Pacific Partnership, nominally a ‘partner’ to the Confederacy of Earth, Solomon thought that they had a good chance of making it to the Confederate embassy, and from there…

  “Luna,” Ambassador Ochrie corrected him, sounding haggard. “It’s the safest location nearby, and the Confederacy has the Near-Earth Marine Fleet stationed there…”

  “Yes, ma’am.” Solomon took a breath and directed the positional rockets to change course, half-certain that they would tear from their moorings after the ride he had just put them through…

  But luck was on their side, at least a little bit of luck, anyway, as the shuttle shot upward in a curving arc towards Earth’s smaller sibling.

  6

  Last Stand at the Last Call

  “Holy stars…What am I supposed to do with this!?” Jezebel Wen couldn’t hide her frustration as she saw the busy field of craft clustered around Earth’s most distant relative.

  “Protect it,” muttered the man beside her. Shorter than Wen and wearing the deep purple and red ceremonial encounter suit of a colonel, Faraday of the battleship Oregon still managed to cut an impressive figure, as he and the Outcast Marine stood at the front viewing deck of the Oregon’s bridge and looked out onto the icy planetoid in front of them.

  Pluto was a small world, and so far away as to be almost inconsequential, were it not for two things: one, that it was far enough outside of the inner and outer system to provide an excellent departure point for jump-ships, and two, in recent years, it had become a major tourist attraction.

  ‘Come and See the Solar System’s Furthest Point!’ a gigantic neon sign on the sides of a slowly-moving cruise ship eclipsed their view of the planet beyond.

  The Oregon had jumped into Plutonian space just a half-hour before, and already their Barr-Hawking jump-ship had detached its clamps from their forward hull, retracted them and rose to join its fellows in deep orbit outside of Pluto.

  “Don’t these people know that there’s a war on?” Jezzy breathed, watching as the cruise ship glittered with lights. She could even see tiny shuttles leaving one of its main holds in small clouds to take near-flight tours of the small world.

  “And what do they hope to see? It’s a rock…” she muttered angrily. Jezzy was not one who was accustomed to feelings of anxiety. She had done most of her growing up within the Asia-Pacific Partnership’s most notorious crime syndicate, and of all of the things that it had taught her, the ability to maintain an icy control over one’s emotions and surroundings was perhaps paramount.

  However, Jezzy was not facing down a gang of Triads now. This was not a matter of deciding who was to die, and how best and most efficiently to overcome the enemy.

  What Jezzy was looking at was a picture of three large, bulbous Confederate cruise ships almost as large as the Oregon itself, as well as a host of smaller shuttlecraft. Each craft probably held between five and twenty civilians, and there was a host of smaller yachts and crafts clustering around Pluto’s main station—Last Call, as it was known.

  That could be what, a couple thousand civilians at risk here? Two thousand? Three thousand? More?

  “The Confederate civilians don’t want to be reminded of a war,” Faraday corrected her. “Most Confederate civilians won’t have heard about Proxima yet. But they will have heard about the Martian uprising. And that, instead of making them cautious, makes most people want to experience more, to spend more money, have better holidays…”

  We nuked Mars! Jezzy could have pounded on the glass in front of her. Let alone the invasion of Proxima, or the imminent arrival of the strange Ru-at ships at any moment. Surely the news that the Confederate Marines had dropped two thermonuclear devices on their neighboring planet made people a little more circumspect?

  But Faraday was right, Jezzy cursed silently. She had seen the same kind of behavior time and again when she had been a Yakuza executioner. Something curious happens to the human spirit when they are faced with overwhelming stress and constant anxieties. She had known informers and debtors, in their last days, to suddenly decide to sell all of their belongings or give them away. Even for the Yakuza operatives like her, the same applied. If they knew that they were heading into a highly-dangerous mission, the hours and days before would be filled with a curious elation—anything was possible, and every pleasure, no matter how small, had to be savored.

  “They’re trying to forget the danger,” Jezzy breathed, earning an agreeing sound from the colonel beside her.

  “They picked the wrong place to go to forget about it, then,” Faraday muttered. The older man was just as annoyed as she was, Jezzy knew. She wondered if he felt outmatched and outgunned by the Ru’at, like she did.

  Why didn’t they send the entire Rapid Response Fleet here to head the Ru’at ships off? Jezzy thought in annoyance, but she already knew the answer of course.

  Both of the Rapid Response Fleets are engaged with the Martian Uprising. Which, she knew, left just the two Near-Earth Marine Corps Fleets, both of which were usually kept stationed near the parent world of humanity at all times.

  Wonderful. Jezzy looked over at the colonel, seeing Faraday pull at his moustache as he looked long and ha
rd at the cruise ships, Pluto, and the orbiting jump-ships far beyond. His expression was stern, and the man did not look happy at all.

  You know this is going to be a last stand sort of fight, don’t you? She didn’t say the words out loud to her superior officer, but she thought them. Brigadier General Asquew had sent them both here to try and stop an alien invasion that clearly outclassed them in every way. That meant that General Asquew did not expect them to win at all, but she expected them to slow down the enemy, probably giving her enough time to rally the fleets.

  The old colonel looked over at her suddenly, and his expression was grim. Neither the Yakuza Enforcer nor the career Marine officer said anything to each other, but they nodded.

  They both knew perfectly well what they were doing here.

  7

  Luna 1

  “Luna 1, please come in. This is Lieutenant Solomon Cready of the Rapid Response Fleet, and I have with me the Confederate Ambassador and…”

  “Don’t.” The ambassador put a sudden hand on Solomon’s shoulder before he could mention the imprimatur’s presence as well. “It’s bad enough broadcasting to everyone that I’m in danger, let alone the leader of Proxima…”

  Solomon grimaced for a second, but he accepted the orders. “What, you don’t want to spook people?” he muttered. From where he sat, he knew that he would be able to turn his head to see the still stationary bubble of explosive vortex over Confederate New York. The people of Luna and Earth already had a lot to be worried about.

  “Of course. It’s my job as an ambassador to make peace, Lieutenant,” Ochrie said.

  “I think we’re past that point, Your Excellency,” Solomon muttered, but he did as he was ordered.

  Below their shuttle grew the monochrome craters, plains, crevasses and peaks of Earth’s moon. It still looked like a barren lump of rock in the sky, with large parts left barren, but that was all about to change.

  Rising ahead of them was Luna 1—the giant collection of white bubble-habitats that could be seen from Earth on a clear night as a distant spark of reflected light. Up this close, it reminded Solomon of some kind of ice palace: a set of white geometric bubbles, the smaller ones clustered around the larger, with many aerial-turrets rising from the bubble walls and apexes, shining with soft blue radiance.

  It could be pretty, if it wasn’t for the circumstance, Solomon thought. He had never been to Luna of course. Even during his most lucrative days as a thief on Earth, he could never have afforded the shuttle ride from the Shanghai Space Elevator up here.

  Luna 1 was the first, oldest, and largest of the Luna habitats, with Luna 2, 3, 4 and up to 6 scattered around the near face of the Moon. Like Mars, Luna was primarily an industrial colony, with the smaller habitat bubbles given over to giant processing factories, where everyone who lived there would also work at their local plant.

  Even though Luna shared much of the hard-working conditions and general poverty the Martians did, they had not developed the same puritanical frenzy as the Chosen of Mars/First Martian groups on the Red Planet. Perhaps it was due to the Moon’s proximity to Earth and Confederate control, Solomon wondered. What little he knew of this place was that they had plenty of trade unions and trade councils, and that a lot of mega-corporations also located their offices there to avoid vigorous Confederate taxes.

  Even Taranis? Solomon wondered sourly. He wondered what was left of his mission now. To find out where Taranis Industries had copied the original Message. To find out who had helped both Taranis and NeuroTech to start a war between the Confederacy and the colonies.

  To find out whether they were in league with the Ru’at…

  “Attention Orbital Shuttle Xge-4, this is Luna 1 Main Station. You are cleared to land at Port 12.”

  “Thanks, Luna,” Solomon said. “Who’s the senior Marine commander you have on base?”

  “That would be Major General Hausman, Luna liaison and director of the Near-Earth Fleet, Lieutenant,” the human voice on the other end of the line said.

  “Good. We’re going to need to see them. Immediately.”

  “I’ll send a priority message, but, Lieutenant, sir…” the voice sounded worried. “You know that Earth, New York, it’s…”

  “We know, Luna 1, believe me, we know…” Solomon said grimly, pulling the shuttle into a wobbling, arcing flight towards the smaller bubble with a giant ‘12’ stenciled on its top.

  “Ambassador! Lieutenant!” a loud voice greeted them as soon as Solomon, Ochrie, and Rhossily had left the re-pressurization airlock and were walking down the ramp into Bubble 12.

  WAO! WAO! “Alert all citizens! Non-essential travel is prohibited. All people with security experience to present themselves to the nearest Marine Corps office, immediately.”

  Blaring alarms and flashing orange lights were everywhere, and Solomon and his companions seemed to have walked into a station preparing itself for war. Solomon saw the port staff running back and forth in their gray service suits as they tried to do several things at once. Others were calling for supervisors or managers to attend to this and that important decision, now!

  The important decision that Solomon had to make right now, however, was whether or not to trust the man and his team of Marines in full power armor signaling to them.

  “Major General Hausman.” Solomon stopped and threw as perfect a salute as he could manage. It seemed to pass muster, as no one screamed at him for the attempt.

  The general of the Near-Earth Fleet was a man in his sixties, Solomon guessed. He was a tall and stocky man, and one who Solomon guessed must have been a giant in his younger days, but now whose physique had apparently been given over to padding rather than muscle. He wore the pristine white and purple uniform of his position, but without any of the armor that the General Asquew routinely wore.

  Hausman had short-cropped hair that might have once been blonde but was thinning and giving itself over to gray. He had clear, steel-blue eyes over a square, all-American jawline.

  “Lieutenant Cready of the Outcasts, Rapid Response Fleet, sir.” Cready nodded.

  “You’re a long way from your post, Lieutenant Cready,” Hausman said. “The Rapid Response Fleet is deployed at Mars…”

  “And the Outcast Company is deployed at Pluto, sir,” Solomon said heavily, studying the man’s face for any sign of a reaction. There was none.

  He doesn’t know. Solomon’s heart plummeted. He doesn’t know about Proxima, and the Ru’at. And the fact that they were coming here, to Earth system, any hour…

  “So…” Hausman looked perturbed.

  “Excuse me, General.” Ambassador Ochrie stepped forward, inclining her head to the senior military officer. “But we have critical information that has to be seen by the Confederate Council, right now. Lieutenant Cready is acting on orders from General Asquew to deliver this information, and me, to the right ears,” she said.

  Hausman frowned deeply. “I am afraid that is out of the question.”

  “Excuse me?” Ochrie looked sternly at the man. Solomon wondered who outranked who in this situation. Hausman was one of only three people who could be said to be in charge of the entire Confederate Marine Corps—Asquew being another one—while the ambassador was a representative of the Confederate Council itself.

  “Most of the Confederate Council were in New York,” Hausman said heavily. “Although we are trying to locate the remaining members of the council outside of the American Confederacy, we have no idea of how many survived New York.”

  No. Solomon felt a tremor of shock run through his knees and cursed himself for his weakness. A part of him had known, ever since seeing the bubble of light engulf the space elevator, that this was coming. But he guessed that his battle training hadn’t let him consider it fully.

  New York was one of Earth’s major cities. A site for a space elevator, a major hub for the nations of the world, and the Confederate Council was made up of world leaders of the various ‘fragments’ of the Confederacy, such as the Prem
ier of the Asia-Pacific Partnership and his top aides, or the President of the Russian Alliance.

  The Confederacy was supposed to be a system, of world-wide collaborative government. A way for humanity, as a whole, to ascend to the stars.

  In truth, it was a haggling, bickering, intimidating, and bribing network of different powers and old nation-states who managed to pretend to work with each other for the benefits that off-world resources and opportunities afforded them. The fact that all the different parts of the Confederacy had even managed to agree to creating the Marine Corps between them was a miracle.

  And now what’s going to happen? Solomon thought in horror.

  “Until all partners of the Confederacy have managed to put forward their representatives, the council cannot convene.” Hausman continued, and Solomon nodded to himself. At least that much made sense. Each part of the Confederacy who lost their leader, president, prime minister or chief would have to emergency swear-in the next highest-ranking civic official. Until then, the Confederacy itself was rudderless.

  “According to Confederate guidelines, Ambassador, during such situations, the authority passes to the most senior ranking military officer, which would be myself.” Hausman nodded severely. “And I have called for immediate martial law to be in place across the Confederacy until we can respond to this…disaster.”

  “This attack, General.” Ochrie’s voice wavered. “That was an attack against the Confederate Council. It had to be.”