So It Begins Page 8

  The skybuster turned the world to fire.

  Down the rabbit holes, the men watch movies while the surface burns.

  I take no interest in them now that I’m wearing captain’s bars. On the nights they show my movies, I stay in my quarters and read technical manuals. Centcom told me that with time the memories should fade. They haven’t, though. There’s something wrong with me, a flaw in my matrix that keeps me from forgetting.

  They never should’ve made me a captain.

  General Wayne was there to hand me my bars and congratulate me when I came back online at the clone farm.

  “You’ve done good, son, and we got it all on film,” he said. “The folks at home loved it around the world. You’re international now.”

  They told me the Frek in the canister was a type that intelligence had reports of but had never seen up close. It grew clones of captured soldiers. Once the Frek realized how clones were helping to sustain our war efforts, they decided to use them against us. They had captured several clone farms in South America, which gave them all the data they needed. They couldn’t master our technology, but they found an organic way to create clones. Then they set out to infiltrate our troops by sending decoys into the field. They’d started with Special Forces. Captain Lorre and the rest of his monster unit had been bogus, infected with Frek germs to self-destruct. They had given us a Trojan horse and trusted us to ferry it inside Camp Scott. The fact that I’d been among the decoys was only because the Frek had captured the clone farm where I’d been brought online. Our real cargo had been the recovered torch from the Statue of Liberty, a “valuable artifact” like our orders had said. Now it was gone, and we had a whole new front on which to fight the Frek. I guess they hadn’t counted on their stray bastards fouling up their plot by trying to rescue what their senses told them was a brood-mother.

  Me and all my “others” got bucked up to Captain for my “quick thinking and decisive action in the field.” I hadn’t known until then that I was a clone.

  “It’s better that way,” General Wayne had said. “You had some popular movies before the Frek landed, but we had to test run your matrix. Make sure you were functional, see what kind of ratings you got. You start out a sergeant for a couple of runs, and we see if you break out into a more popular role. We’re at war, sure, but that doesn’t mean we can’t give the people some entertainment to keep their spirits high. You passed with flying colors. Now we’ll start reaping the cumulative benefits of your experience. That’s how we’ll beat the Frek. Sooner or later, we’ll find the way to decisive victory. But it’s a hell of an adventure getting there, and we’ve got to keep the populace on board with the war. If we let it sink in how dire things really are, it would be too demoralizing. People might want to surrender. We won’t let that happen.”

  I asked him when I would see my men again, if they would keep my unit together. A puzzled look came over General Wayne’s face, and he smiled like a patient father as he told me, “They were extras, son. Extras don’t come back. Extras get replaced.”

  He saluted me and walked away.

  Before he stepped through the door, I asked, “General, are we winning?”

  Without looking back, he said, “Of course, we’re winning the damn war. We’re the heroes, son.”

  He seemed so certain.

  I can remember a lot of things I’m not supposed to, but I can’t remember how long we’ve really been fighting the war with the Frek. I think of how easily it came to me to sacrifice myself and my men by blowing the skybuster, and it reminds me that sometimes Frankenstein’s monster was the hero, too.

  Now the whole world feels like a haunted house: not everything here is what it seems, and there are ghosts everywhere.

  That’s why I don’t watch the movies anymore.

  I can’t sit down there in the dark while the ground rumbles and shakes above us, sit there with the good men who are winning the war against the Frek, but who won’t come back when they die, who won’t ever see victory, who won’t ever be known for their sacrifice. I can’t sit there in the dark with the extras. They’re heroes too, but they’re trapped in a war movie, and I’m trapped in a horror show.

  THE BATTLE FOR KNOB LICK

  A Chronicle of The 142nd Starborne

  Patrick Thomas

  How the hell did we end up like this?” grumbled Andie Hastings with enough venom to make a cobra slither away with feelings of inadequacy.

  The man in front of her on the drop ship ramp turned his head as they disembarked. “Because we followed your orders to abandon the people of Ozark to the walking dead.”

  “Shaker, I am still your commanding officer and you will treat me with respect,” ordered Hastings.

  “Not any longer, or did you miss Benedict’s coup back on Kyklopes?” said James Shaker.

  “We will retake the station,” whispered Hastings.

  Shaker and Flauker Lao laughed. Hastings bristled at the mocking sound of the men she had considered her two best junior officers.

  They stood in formation at the base of the Harpy’s ramp as Harvey Kline and Justine Dorna descended and lined up in formation beside them.

  The Harpy’s sergeant had saved the former colonel’s quintet for the last drop. All the other teams had ten members. Instead of having one team with fifteen, the sergeant decided to make sure Hastings’s team was operating at half strength. “Knob Lick is a kilometer southeast of this position. It had a population of seven thousand and several factories. Your weapons will be unlocked after we are airborne. Once you locate or exceed fifty survivors, comm Kyklopes for evac. Good hunting.”

  “Thank you, Sergeant,” said Shaker, meeting his eyes. The sergeant nodded back, approving. Few of the decommissioned officers or enlisted were able to hold their heads up after Major Hans Benedict’s dressing down for their dereliction of duty which ended in the rebel major stripping all five thousand soldiers of rank and status in the Host forces.

  The quintet moved far enough away from the Harpy-class drop ship so the heat from the blasting of her engines didn’t fry them. All stood and watched as their ride lifted off to return to orbit.

  “Excellent. Now we can start re-gathering our crew and plan our retaking of Kyklopes,” said Hastings.

  “Benedict has both the literal and moral high ground,” said Shaker.

  “I followed protocol,” said Hastings through gritted teeth.

  “You gave the orders, but we followed them. People died,” said Shaker.

  “And worse,” said Lao, thinking of those the reanimation virus infected, killed, and brought back as mockeries of life. “Plus, there is no way to lock him out of the command controls.”

  “And he can override our weapons, making their value in a firefight about as effective as clubs,” said Shaker.

  “Not to mention even if we gain control of a Harpy, Kyklopes could blow us out of the sky,” said Lao.

  “They don’t know about our sensor dead zones.” Even an orbital space battle-station as large as Kyklopes has sensor limitations to the parts of atmosphere and planet it has a direct line of sight to, augmented by a web of smaller sensor satellites orbiting the planet. Since Ozark had few orbit-capable craft and Kyklopes was their only line of defense from external attack, the dead zones caused little concern, but they were there. “We can achieve orbit in one of the dead zones, plot a course, and use our momentum to approach the station undetected,” said Hastings, rightly suspecting the method Benedict had used to board her station.

  “Benedict is hardly a fool and probably has Behemoth orbiting over another part of the surface. And a Colossus-class warship can blow a renegade Harpy out of the sky without breaking a sweat,” said Lao.

  “Not that ships sweat much,” added Shaker. “Unless you count the plumbing system.”

  “So what do you two propose?” said Hastings.

  “We carry out the mission. Find any uninfected survivors and get them to quarantine on Kyklopes,” said Shaker. The reanimation vi
rus incubated by the twenty-fifth hour of infection, so thirty-plus hours of isolation was enough to guarantee a lack of infection. The battlestation’s emergency facilities housed half a million, nearly a quarter of the planet’s pre-infection population.

  “Get reinstated in the Host,” said Lao.

  “Benedict is not the Host. He’s a goddamned traitor who mutinied and took over his ship,” shouted the former Colonel Hastings. “And he’s only a Major to boot.”

  “I understand he refused to abandon people who needed his help,” said Shaker. “And not a single ship that returned to Earth to fight in the conflagration has been heard from again.”

  “Not to break up this debate,” said Dorna. “But deaders are attracted to noise and we have no idea how many are nearby. May I suggest we switch over to headsets and start moving toward Knob Lick. And do it quietly?”

  “Excellent point. Fan out twenty feet apart, standard star formation,” said Shaker.

  “What makes you think you’re in charge?” growled Hastings. After more than three decades of service to the Sway, the idea of following the orders of a former subordinate was beyond distasteful, especially after having her command stolen out from under her by her former lover. Add to that being lumped in with the rest of the soldiers and having Benedict himself point a gun to her head after she pleaded for mercy and Hastings’ bad mood was easily understood.

  “Because none of us are going to follow you at this point and someone has to do it,” said Shaker.

  “I second Shaker,” said Lao.

  “Third,” said Dorna. “Which makes the motion carried.”

  “The Host is not a democracy,” shouted Hastings.

  “But we’re no longer in the Host, or what controls it, are we? You can come or you can stay. I think I’d rather make up your quota of rescues than have to deal with your suicidal plans to take back Kyklopes, but the odds of you surviving alone are slim,” said Shaker. “And prior to this episode, you were a good commander. The same principles apply. You look out for us, we look out for you, but as equals. Can you handle that? We need to know that you have our backs before we engage the enemy.”

  The former subordinate and superior locked eyes in a battle of wills. Hastings lifted her rifle and aimed toward Shaker, who dove to the ground. A second later three plasma shells ripped through a corpse that had come over the crest of the hill behind Shaker. The superheated shells reduced the zombie to pieces, but the noise attracted another ten walking dead.

  “Nice shooting, ma’am,” said Shaker, firing at another.

  “I trust that answers your question?” said Hastings.

  Shaker’s response couldn’t be heard as Lao, Dorna, and Kline were blowing more corpses to pieces.

  In the silence that followed the one-sided fight, the quintet turned rapidly, scanning the area, each pulling their breathing masks up and goggles down to prevent infection from any airborne spatter and switching on their comm headsets.

  “Anyone see any more deaders?” shouted Lao.

  “Clear,” said Dorna.

  “I think we’re good,” said Kline.

  “Move to the road, people, and let’s hightail it out of here and scout the town,” said Shaker.

  The gunplay had knocked the fight out of Hastings. She fell into formation with the rest of her former subordinates.

  “Dorna, you were the officer in charge of monitoring the reanimated. What going to help us beat or avoid them?” whispered Shaker into his comm. “Benedict’s prep was rather limited.”

  “Yeah, all I know is don’t get bit or have sex with one unprotected,” said Lao.

  “Ick,” said Dorna.

  “Hey, we had to watch a vid on it before we got dirtside R&R,” replied Lao. “Means someone had to be desperate enough to try it.”

  Dorna sighed. “More than one sadly, but it was hardly widespread. The reanimated are mainly used as slave labor. The ones in the labor force are fitted with controllers in the cerebellum. They shock parts of the brain to control and program movement. It’s choppy unless the insertion is perfect, but very effective. Most people called them stemmers because of the mistaken assumption that the controllers go in the brain stem. I guess it’s catchier that cerebellers. Stems are also what the controllers are commonly called. Personally, I’ve always thought it was stupid to use an infectious workforce, but settlers on a planet like this can’t afford to waste any resources, even their dead. The stems are fairly easy to insert and a syringe of infected blood and a couple of zaps from a defibrillator can usually revive anything dead less than forty hours.”

  “I hear the 121st Starborne has an entire zombie legion,” said Kline. “The Host has bloodsuckers, patchwork soldiers, and were-beasties fighting for us, so why not? Use the monsters to fight the monsters. The Host never mentioned that we could end up fighting their own monster soldiers in the recruitment vids though, did they?”

  “Benedict’s 142nd Starborne doesn’t have stem soldiers, does it?” asked Lao.

  “I don’t think so. Amazingly, this is the first known planetary outbreak. All previous outbreaks have always been limited to a much smaller geographic area before they were contained,” said Dorna.

  “Translation, they were flaypalmed,” said Lao.

  “Which worked, but using it against major civilian centers was banned by the Sway government after it incinerated a high-ranking politician’s kid,” said Hastings. “Otherwise, I would have flaypalmed the first two infected cities and the surrounding countryside.”

  “You could have done that? What about all the innocents?” asked Dorna.

  “I didn’t and look what happened to them. Do you think they’d prefer to have been incinerated quickly or be deaders?” said Hastings. “This all started ’cause some idiot violated protocol and didn’t report being bit. The reanimation virus killed that smuck who came back as a deader and went cannibal on his friends and neighbors.”

  “Not how I want to go. I get bit, I’m eating my gun,” said Lao.

  “We’ll just stay out of sight and we should be fine,” said Shaker.

  “Not necessarily,” said Dorna. “Sight is not as important as hearing and neither matches smell in helping them hunt living meals.”

  “Smell?” said Kline.

  Dorna nodded. “The olfactory nerve doesn’t connect to the spinal cord, it hooks right into the brain. More primal. Because it connects higher up than the stems, it is hard to bypass. There’s a failsafe in the stems that stops the legs when it loses a signal, but the arms and heads can still attack, especially if they smell something and are hungry.

  “And they’re always hungry,” said Lao.

  “True, which is why handlers are trained to not go near an unsecured deader,” said Dorna.

  “Okay people, something up ahead. Looks like a farmhouse,” said Shaker.

  “There’s livestock. Maybe that means people,” said Lao.

  “Not necessarily,” said Dorna. “Deaders are people-eaters. Livestock usually get left alone unless there’s fresh blood in the air. Then they’ll go into a frenzy and attack anything moving, including each other.”

  “There’s our solution. Anyone want to donate a few pints? Come on Shaker, it’s for a good cause,” said Lao.

  “Sure, I vote we use yours,” cracked Shaker.

  “I second it,” teased Dorna.

  “Forget I said anything,” said Lao.

  “No, it’s not a bad idea,” said Hastings.

  “What do you mean?” said Shaker.

  “If the deaders get one of us, it takes a long time for the virus to take affect. We set a trap and get as many of them into one area as we can,” said Hastings.

  “And throw the wounded to them?” said Kline.

  “Too cruel. We let them get into the middle with some grenades and go kamikaze. The spatter would fill the air, drive them all crazy. With luck they all rip each other to shreds and the rest of us pick off the survivors,” said Hastings.

  “Coldhear
ted,” said Dorna.

  “Maybe, but better dead than deader. And at least it would be quick,” said Hastings.

  “You going to do it if you’re wounded?” asked Shaker.

  Hastings paused. “I pray I have the guts, but yeah, I will.”

  Shaker made the mistake of locking eyes with her. He wanted to mock her, but found he couldn’t so he turned away. “Let’s do a recon.”

  The quintet checked each out each outbuilding and the main house, but all were empty.

  They repeated the process for all the buildings they came across as they followed the main road into town. Fortunately deaders wandered and didn’t stick to the roads. None of the searches turned up any survivors.

  Cautiously, they topped a hill. “Down!” Shaker hissed into his comm and the quintet dropped to the ground. “Multiple deaders surrounding that building.”

  Each of the soldiers moved to get a better view. There were several animated corpses moving around the grounds in random patterns, others appeared stuck to one spot while three were loading a truck with anything they could. It was full to the point of overflowing. The soldiers dropped their breathing masks to talk easier.

  “What the hell are they doing?” whispered Lao.

  “That’s a factory of some sort. Some of them must be pre-infection workforce stemmers. The ones loading must still be getting a signal, so they haven’t stopped. The ones standing still have no signals and have reverted to standby mode. The others are victims infected with the re-animation virus,” said Dorna. “Parts of that building look about ready to fall down. Looks like some of the deaders tried to make their own doors instead of using the open one. They’ve been know to attack buildings if they think someone is inside.”

  “Look at the third-floor window. A towel hanging out,” said Shaker.

  “So what?” said Kline.

  “Back home I lived in a high rise. That’s the signal for rescue in case of a fire,” said Shaker.

  “You think there are people in there?” said Kline.

  “There’s deaders sniffing around; they’ve got to be there for a reason. It’s a good sign. Ideas for the best way in and out with any survivors?” asked Shaker.