Ripples in an Emerald Sea

By Adam Mannan

Acting Sublieutenant Lya 9/E872/87911-41918 arrives on Ilendum for her first posting. She's greeted by secessionist violence and an Alliance Military command in a deplorable state. Burdened with injury and clandestine orders, Lya soon finds that the situation is worse than Sector HQ anticipated. The reputation of the Alliance is being tarnished, a people are being exterminated and there are greater dangers to the dream of utopia. Lya and the allies she can make on planet are alone against the enemy, but not for long if they can't discover what the real enemy is and do something about it.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Adam Mannan
• Release date: Dec 28, 2012
• ISBN: 9781301962327

Adam Mannan

Adam Mannan usually lives in the South West of England. He grew up in Nottinghamshire close to Robin Hood, aged oaks and forest. His interests include martial arts, fitness, and adventure.

Book preview

Prologue

193391 First Cycle Third Quarter.

Ilendum’s Orbital Station.

Air churned sluggishly from low-grade recyclers, like an ailing last breath. Overpowered lighting assaulted the eyes and revealed the shoddy squalor of dated and worn furnishings. Dirt blackened padding, escaped from the split plastic coverings of waiting benches, lay where it had been kicked by hurried feet days or perhaps seasons ago. Litter wrappings, drink cartons and various other discarded travellers’ paraphernalia ornamented the feculence. High overhead an elaborate crystal lattice of interlocking glass-alloy was another victim of sloth for its begrimed panels barely revealed the emerald-gold splendour of Ilendum and the inscrutable chrysoprase luminescence of Proxima Behyeb, one of the system’s binary stars.

From the balcony of the third terrace Khasgal Oerit stared down into the busy throng of disembarkers from the last ship. He felt tranquil as though everything was now in the hands of fate. Indeed it was.

He was alone on the third tier. The few shops and agencies that remained on the space station since the Sylarbs took control had been concentrated on the ground floor and the upper tiers were dark and empty. Even the elevators and moving stairways to those floors were unpowered.

He racked the slide of his double action pistol. The custom trigger was feather light. The old semi-automatic had killed thirty-two Sylarb Planetary Security Force officers, now it was going to kill a woman for those hated oppressors. He would have liked to look at the holopicture of his family again, but he had put it along with all his identification chips into a disposal chute. No matter the outcome, his existence had ended. Indeed there were lots of things he would have preferred to his present situation. He merely hoped that after he killed the woman the Sylarbs would keep their word and free his family.

Khasgal saw his target. He knew her instantly for his mark; for she stood a head taller than the Sylarbs and Ilendish, and her alien clothes seemed a blend of uniform and reinforced pressure suit. Solid, muscled, yet willowy and lithe, she wove effortlessly through the space station’s crowds oblivious to the weight of the bulging duffel thrown carelessly over her shoulder. She was heading towards the ticket bureau to secure a place on the next shuttle downside, as he knew she must. Where better to commit an assassination for the Sylarbs than in the entryway to their immigration office?

She was moving faster than he expected, but since he had measured the time from his vantage to where he would pull the trigger, compensating was not a problem. He left the terrace and descended the immobile stairways in no great hurry. He kept his semi-automatic at his side shielded from sight by the natural fall of his rain mantle. The gun felt heavier than it ever had and Khasgal could feel the slickness of his palm. Something was going to go wrong, he was certain. My family! The way was clear. He closed his eyes for the last few steps of the stairs. Everything would be fine. He would kill the woman and then be shot by the Security Forces.

There was a wide supporting pillar to one side of the escalator that obscured her from him as he stepped off the stairs. Khasgal opened his eyes and brought his pistol to firing ready. She was tall, and they had told him that only a headshot would kill her. He aimed a little higher than where a Sylarb’s head would be.

His mark passed the pillar and Khasgal’s half breath caught in his throat even as his finger eased the trigger. Spectacular only captured the shadow of her perfect majesty. Strong hands of rapture seized his heart. He was to the side of her and yet she saw him. Her head swung to face him as she spun. The severe focussed intensity of her gaze was chilling; it would have paralysed him had he been less disciplined. Those eyes that were incredibly clear and green, flecked with gold like his beloved Ilendum, should have been mesmerizing. Instead they were hard, terrifying windows onto blood, death and pain on a scale he could not comprehend.

For only the second time in his life an execution was not a precise series of rehearsed actions. It was disorientating; like the components of motion moved at the wrong velocity. His first round passed through where her head had been as her spin put her back to him. Uselessly his brain noted that one of her arms was much shorter and in a sling with a bulbous cylindrical device. As she came out of her spin, his semi-automatic ejected the first round’s jacket and reloaded the chamber. That was wrong he should have been able to put two rounds in her head before she reacted. It was so fast and dizzyingly strange.

Khasgal fired again, but this time he went for centre of mass; she was too fast for a headshot. He did not see where his bullet struck her, for the incredible force of her duffel smashed into his torso and face. He thought it must be how it felt to be hit by a speeding ground car. There was no pain, just strange cracking and popping sounds from his body and the feel of flight.

Chapter 1

193391 First Cycle Last Quarter.

Onboard an SC-50 shuttle landing on Ilendum.

Searing white light bore into her eyes. Tears wept from her lacrimal ducts, but like most of her body her eyelids were paralysed. Her corneal epithelium itched; it hurt as if scraped with a knife, or as though needles were driven into it. She wanted to blink, but could not. She wanted to move, but could not. Powerful hands gripped her wrists and shins tightly, crushing and hurting bones and flesh alike as they carried her.

The new neural chassis. This one is for pain testing. Bay 204. Tell them to use much smaller increments to destruction than the chart. The owner of the hard androgynous voice snorted. This chassis is too pain responsive. We need to know if anything is salvageable.

A hand gripped her shoulder and she rose from the black tide of old yet vivid memories. Instinctively, her right forearm swung upwards and outwards, whilst she twisted and dipped her shoulder, to dislodge the lingering hand. Except she had no right forearm and her upper arm was bound in a sling and capped with a heavy regrowth tube.

The hand withdrew and she looked into the earnest face of the young trooper seated opposite her.

I’m fine, she told him, her voice gravelous and broken. Unconsciously it came with the frenzied pace and energetic tumult that was Lya and sounded thus as a single word.

He was not so young she reflected. Perhaps six standard years younger than her, but that difference would effectively diminish as he neared optimal physical maturity.

Quickly, unbidden and annoying, Aerie’s data flowed into Lya’s brain. *Iamond, Tarmon. Born 017371 on Hyver’s World…* Lya was not paying much attention to it at the moment, but it would be there in the cavernous storage of her neuralnet and perhaps deferred recall when she wanted it. Aerie was an autonomous mind in her brain and neuralnet that had grown from a copy of Lya’s mind. There was nothing like it in the science research network, unless partitioning of a neuralnet for a grafted genie was counted, but that was like comparing superluminal communication with shouting.

I’m fine, she told him again. This time her voice did not betray her. She took her drink carton from the slot beside the window, caught the straw between her teeth and drank. The water was cool with a taint of iron.

Sir, I’m sorry. I think you were having a nightmare, he said. He had the sort of naïve endearing face of the new recruit in a holomovie and the almost too perfect good looks. And this is real life too, Lya told herself whimsically. And I’m a temporarily maimed, hard-hearted action junky of superfluous rank, about to go on my first official assignment. She had to be hard-hearted, because if she was not she would open herself to grief and anxiety that would destroy her and no doubt harm someone near her.

She nodded. Yes, it was quite spectacular - I’m looking forward to the next instalment, Lya said, her voice dancing lyrically through the words in a quarter the time it should have taken to say them.

He blinked and then as perception dawned, his eyes darkened as his visage became a hurt frown.

Lya grimaced. Or not.

Great! Within ten seconds of conversation she had completely failed at humour and was halfway on track to seeming crazy. Not bad, if only she could do it with more flair!

*Consistent with your usual interpersonal perspicacity,* Aerie scurrilously observed within the privacy of Lya’s head. Lya let the comment pass; she knew Aerie almost as well as herself, which meant that the trickster had an excellent retort prepared. Besides she needed to concentrate on Iamond; she remembered how alone she had felt leaving all her friends to begin provost training. It might well feel the same for Iamond.

Was it about how you got that… and those? he inquired softly and hesitantly, indicating her severed arm and medal ribbons. The medal ribbons were neither the cloth or plastic strips of other military organisations, instead they were part of the tiny colour bars that were so compressed they required magnification or the augmented eye of Alliance Military personnel to decode them. Almost all achievements and qualified skills could be read from those bars, which made them extremely significant for competitive and command reasons. Lya was proud of her tiny colour bars, she only regretted the results of her time in provost training, but you did not get second chances. Nevertheless, there were times when she would have happily covered them over to avoid conversations. Most people seemed to think that if you got a medal for something you would be happy to talk about it.

Distracted, she was not focussed on the conversation and thus the question struck her hard when it registered; any question concerning her missing arm did.

No, she replied harshly and the sound was like a distant whip crack. It was foolish for the question to anger her, but in some manner it always got asked. Everytime, without fail it made her angry. Amputees were not unknown in the Alliance Military even if they were rare and transient. Limbs were replaceable and even without a vatted graft the femtobots swimming and diffusing through her body could rebuild a limb over time. She wanted to ball her hand in a fist. She needed to ball her hand into a fist and smash something. Clenching her fist was for her the donning of mental armour. Pounding her fist into something was therapy, and would have been a swift release. Why such a gesture should help her so much she was not certain, her reasons ever seemed more complex than the cannonical explanations designed to pick apart prey in an interrogation.

Fortunately for the compartment’s only other occupant making a fist helped enough, and the trooper could keep his boyish face intact. At least for the moment, but if he pushed with his questions… Her heart rate had risen to twenty-two beats per minute, that put her on the edge of needing to intervene before she lashed out. Through her neuralnet and its control on the femtobots in her body she amended her adrenomedullary and adrenocortical hormonal activity and promoted glycogen synthase.

When you were one-handed, she had noticed, people placed an inordinate amount of attention on your good hand. At least they did when they were not staring at where your other arm ended. She glanced at his name label - Iamond, T. Well Iamond, T. had certainly noticed her tone and her fist. Had he been a marine with his sight expanded into the infrared by an extra adaptive rotational ocular layer then he would have noticed the moderate increased blood flow to her face and hand. Her anger had none of the usual facial and skeletal musculature tell-tales. Just my fist, she thought ruefully of her loss of control.

She reviewed his docket from her neuralnet and assimilated the information. Aerie had flagged everything of interest, which was not much and seemed to be merely pointers for polite conversation.

*Is that a hint, Aerie?*

Aerie disdained answering. Was that revenge for her earlier refusal to be bated or anticipation that Lya had a trap prepared? Either way, Lya scored it as a victory.

Regretful of her rapport with her fellow soldier and the effective end of the conversation, Lya leaned towards Tarmon Iamond and held out her hand.

Acting Sublieutenant Lya, she introduced herself as they shook hands. It felt less and less awkward to her making the gesture wrong handed. Perhaps she should record the experience for the experience archives. It would not do to…

She clenched her stomach muscles as she saw the skin of Iamond’s face shrivel and bubble as though exposed to intense thermal radiation. His eyes split and oozed viscous clear gel laced with blood. That morass quickly began steaming and sizzling, filling Lya’s nose with the odour of cooking meat and heated blood. His hair caught fire.

Then the vision was gone. It had been brief, perhaps a second at the most.

*Lya, we have to get help.*

*No! No and no!*

*You keep hallucinating and that was the second hallucination with an olfactory component - I don’t know what the expanding sensory modality corresponds to, but I don’t think it can be good - Neither can I identify any damage to our olfactory system or a viral infection, which means it’s cerebral, * lectured Aerie. Having a partitioned and interfaced portion of her brain and neuralnet had many advantages. It was also entirely irritating when it took the medical or moral high ground. After all, it had the same training and experience as her.

*It will pass. It must pass,* Lya shot back. *Once I have my arm back, it will stop and if it doesn’t I’ll get help.*

Iamond T unsuspecting of her internal dialogue licked his lips. He was obviously very unnerved by whatever expression had reached her face. That was different, Lya mused knowing that she had revealed too much. Normally, when people stared at her it was because of her energy or looks and the contours of apprehension did not remould their faces.

Tarmon Iamond, sir. Very pleased to meet you, he said. He looked too nervous to be pleased about anything.

Lya stifled a snigger, thought about kissing him, and picked up her drink carton again. Are you looking forward to deployment? she asked between sips so quickly that it might have only been the pause to swallow between sips.

He grimaced and she laughed.

You are just as impressed with Ilendum’s file as I am then - It’s apparently one of the most spectacular swamp planets.

She had a good laugh; one that was high, bright and sweet. Talon had told her that it was the fairest sound a man could hear; it was like honey on his tongue, his heart on an angler’s hook and rising fire from his abdomen. She was not convinced that was entirely complementary, it sounded far too much like symptoms of poisoning, but then Talon had an endearing penchant for not speaking plainly. He also delighted in leaving his victims immersed in their perceptual foibles. Next time she saw him she was definitely going to tickle some truths out of him. Nevertheless, her laugh had a restorative effect on Tarmon’s spirits.

Mine read oppressive, he replied trying for humour.

And failing! Lya thought pushing the corners of her mouth out so that her smile would seem to grow.

*At least he tried, all you do is mock him,* commented Aerie uncharacteristically failing to grasp Lya’s sentiment.

I can’t wait to see it, admitted Tarmon with false enthusiasm. Blast shutters still occluded the shuttle’s windows. He glanced at the closed door of their small compartment conspiratorially and then said quietly. The soldier I’m replacing committed suicide. Blew her head off in the mess.

I’m sure that contributed, she lilted, uncomfortable with talking about such things on a civilian transport. Surely, he understood the significance of her provost crimson collar and cuff? She too had read the news addendum to the location briefing: Violetta Tabitta Harmyl, a store’s clerk, had shot herself during Third Cycle Main. There were a lot of other deaths in Lya's Ilendum file and she thought it very unlikely that many of those would be in the one Tarmon received. Even so, she did not see how trooper Iamond could be so certain that his posting was as Harmyl’s replacement. The close-fitting, round high collar and cuffs of his skinsuit were indeed the gold colour that a store’s clerk might wear, but with an on-planet presence of twelve thousand personnel and arriving sixty-two days after the suicide, the odds that Iamond was Harmyl’s direct replacement were strained.

Oh, the planet, he grinned, finally connecting her four macabre puns - or some of them perhaps - or none of them, he was after all being diligently friendly.

They hadn’t been funny, certainly not worth a grin, Lya thought. Then she chided herself for being glum. She had made a bargain with Aerie that she would make good friends on this posting. Tarmon was certainly a good candidate for friendship. Providing he was not too inquisitive and she did not scare him senseless.

There… Lya started, but the craft shivered as its low-grade inertial dampeners failed to quash all the turbulence of passage through Ilendum’s Mesosphere. Lya waited the dozen seconds it took the juddering to lessen.

There are worse places, I am sure, she told him with the tiresome voice of experience. He would know that anyway from the virtual experience programming all Alliance Military received, but then there was a difference between experiencing several millennia’s worth of engagements, including prolonged conflicts in extremely hostile environments, and serving several years on a drab planet like Ilendum.

Lya’s grin came back. Ilendum had a lot against it; as an AM posting it was far out of the way and routine peace keeping operations did not particularly inspire her. However, the planet itself was intriguing and there were large and dangerous indigenous ectothermic vertebrates. That would make hunting entertaining. The indigenes used rifles, but Lya liked to hunt with a knife; claw against claw it was much more exciting and fairer than a rifle. Besides she had no intention of killing anything. There was nothing, well few things, as rewarding as catching a ferocious predator by surprise and resting your flat hand on it before chasing it off. She and Aerie had done it often with the vicious carnivorans of Selardi. Since the large Varanoidea populations were a pest problem and the species numbers were not threatened, hunting would not impinge on the AM’s ethics concerning flora and fauna conservation outside of combat zones.

She looked at the shuttle window. With the blast shields down the glass threw back her reflection. Lya looked away quickly enough that she did not have to relieve visions from Medura.

*We should take an honest psych evaluation,* Aerie berated her pointlessly.

You only have one name? Tarmon asked clumsily redirecting the conversation.

*Don’t suggest that again,* she told Aeri.

Yes… and no - You wouldn’t be able to pronounce my second name and you’d probably have to store it to remember it.

Try me, he enthused.

Disinterestedly, Lya shrugged. Lya 9/E872/87911–41918, she told him deliberately running the sounds of the numbers together and speaking twice as fast as she normally did. Her gaze drifted towards the window and the reflection of her own face, but she pulled her gaze back to Tarmon and forced another smile. She should put a routine into her neuralnet to make her smile at appropriate moments, instead of having to remember to do it by herself.

A number? he asked surprised and she knew that he had recorded and slowed her voice.

That's what it sounded like? her nonchalance sounded fake to her ears, would he notice? Do I care? Lya looked at her hand and turned it over so that she could see her palm. She had an air hand the fortune teller on the Canpterus Flower had told her. That seemed so long ago now, but her chrono told her it was only two hundred and seven standard days.

It was a number. Is that like your birth registration code or something? he demanded too enthusiastically.

Birth! she snorted derisively. Her stomach knotted into a cold ball, strange as the sensation was she ignored it. Since when was anyone born? trilleted Lya angrily.

There are some people. They still go through the geneering, but then they have the baby grown inside one of their bodies. Or so I’ve heard. So what is the number?

It’s an experimental code, she admitted reluctantly in a sigh, surprising herself.

His features creased in confusion. I don’t understand, he admitted after a moment. You are an experiment?

Aren’t we all? she demanded evasively. She leaned back and crossed her legs. To most people it should have signified that they should either change the subject or stop trying to converse.

Iamond did not even pause. Evolutionarily perhaps. Though science has very much displaced natural selection as such.

Don’t be so certain, Lya replied swiftly, as she identified a strategy to ambush Tarmon from asking where she came from. Scientific intervention in survival of the fittest is a significant factor in determining the endurance of a species whether you want to exclude it from your definition or not, she told him too smugly. This was a path that fit the conversational interest parameters that Aerie had highlighted for him. Which most importantly was likely to distract him away from her origin.

Nonsense, he said vehemently, the emotion augmented in his voice as he warmed to the subject. Perhaps if you specify that the scientific intervention is originated and practiced by the surviving species. But if the surviving species is only a passive recipient of the technology then you cannot argue that the species in question is more evolved than a species that does not survive. Then you have other species that are integral to the survival of another species and so are conserved by other species even though they are genetically much simpler: Like Rhizobia and a plant host. When you come down to it, trying to provide a definition for more evolved or not is better done by defining the end point you want and then slotting in the definition. For example the most evolved organism is the most prevalent, or the most resilient, or the most complex. But not the most prevalent, the most resilient, and the most complex. Because if you went for three properties you would have to start complicating the comparisons and perhaps trade off between the importance of properties. Unless of course there was a clear leader.

She grinned Aren’t you meant to be a grunt?

Only on duty, he smiled. No, I like philosophy and biology. My speciality was bio-molecular engineering. For me the best part of it was the ethics seminars.

And you ended up in logistics?

I was more academic I guess. This way if I pass the competency examinations for the areas I’m interested in then I can go into research after this tour. It will give me more options, than if I carried on a speciality from environmental or systems. And environmental never appealed to me.

Lya’s seat thumped into her bottom and against the back of her legs as a concussive jolt ran through the shuttle. She was thrown forward. Swallowing the blood from her bitten tongue she gripped at the armrest so hard that her fingers pierced the thick plastic covering.

Tarmon Iamond’s face paled and his knuckles were white where he gripped at his own armrests. His voice though sounded much calmer than he looked.

What… was… that? he demanded fighting against the inertial change.

An explosion… of some… sort, Lya told him. Some blood escaped her mouth and ran down her chin. She did not let go of her chair arm to wipe it away, because at that moment the shuttle began to corkscrew along its steepening descent. The violent gyroscopic motion pressed her into her seat and as she had been leaning forward it pressed down on her spine until she thought her back must break. Her skinsuit intelligently hardened around her body providing lumber support and facilitating her breathing. The forces acting on her continued to increase, but even though the strain was tremendous her skinsuit was keeping her intact.

The compartment’s glass-alloy doors cut out the sounds from the corridor beyond and for that Lya was glad. She had been on a civilian passenger ship during a disaster before and she could still recall the horrific screams of the terrified civies. A body slammed against the clear pane so quickly that even Lya’s trained eye could not distinguish any details before it smashed apart. Blood and body pieces described an eldritch spiral over the glass doors, the floor, and then travelled out of sight. Tightly in the grip of the centripetal force, her shoulders and back being pressed towards her feet, Lya could not even shudder.

Like a malevolent spirit, a funnel of viscous black-brown smoke coiled swiftly along the corridor until the internal door’s windows were as black as a starless void. The speakers came live with a prickle of static in the eerie silence of the compartment, but instead of an announcement came a piercing soul rending scream that was wracked with agonised sobs of terror.

Lya had been forced so far down that only Tarmon Iamond’s knees, her own, and the floor were within her field of vision. At any moment she expected her spine to snap. She pushed hard against the floor with her feet, trying desperately to straighten her back so that her spine could take the force as compression rather than shear. Despite her engineered body, physical, chemical, and hypnotic conditioning she lacked sufficient strength to overcome the acceleration and her stiffened skinsuit. She dared not override the skinsuit’s hardening, as her neuralnet flashed warnings to her brain that she would not retain vertebral integrity if she did.

How long before they hit the ground? Ilendum’s surface was eighty-eight per cent swamp; some of it was deep enough to consider a sea, but in other places rock lurked beneath shallow puddles. Lya brought up the shuttle’s specifications in her neuralnet and ran several estimations. The SC-50 shuttle was solidly built it would maintain integrity if it struck water or soft vegetation that permitted at least four hundred and eighty metres of travel. If the pilots could increase the shuttle’s descent from twenty-two degrees from the vertical, then the travelling distance the shuttle required would decrease, as would the rate of momentum change when the shuttle struck the planet’s surface. At twenty-two degrees the shuttle might survive if it struck water, but even with the inertial dampeners its occupants would not.

They must hit the ground soon! It seemed they had been falling for hours.

Lya initiated a hostile take-over protocol. Her brain did the work in overcoming the shuttle’s control encryption. Whilst her neuralnet, the delicate and complex array of nodes and memory bundles surgically implanted into her skull and brain attempted to acquire dominant interface with the ship’s control systems. She found the control ports without difficulty. Some civilians it seemed thought that the mere presence of security technology was sufficient to exclude hackers and they had not bothered to hide the ports or use higher-level encryptions.

*Aerie, lock down damaged systems. Repair as much flight essential as you can. And run intrusion screening for us.*

Lya secured the control port. The two pilots were still connected, though only one was conscious and that one was in no shape to do anything constructive to save the ship. Lya disconnected both pilots and deactivated the pilot’s announcement comm. Except for Iamond's and her own ragged breathing the compartment was silent again.

Status and damage data flowed into her brain. An explosion in one of the shuttle’s port drives had ruptured part of the hull and destroyed key control systems. Three hundred and thirty-three passengers in the nearby compartments had been killed instantly. Many more in compartments further away were most likely seriously injured. Had the passenger liner’s disembarkation officer bothered to seat passengers according to their seat allocations, instead of allowing them to find a place wherever, Lya would have been in one of those eliminated compartments. She really could not let such a great gift of luck go unrepaid.

The remaining three drives were almost fully functional. Lya calculated the counterforce she would need to stop the rotation of the shuttle. She boosted the shuttle’s rudimentary inertial dampening, risking redlining the system to make saving the civilians more likely. Then accounting for unaugmented human tolerance to acceleration and the overloaded inertial dampeners she began countering the rotation.

The SC-50’s designers had planned for the shuttle to be controllable in the event that one of its drives failed, and that foresight had just saved what remained of its passengers.

She sat up gingerly. Iamond groaned and Lya saw that the logistics grunt was unconscious. He would wake up shortly as femtobots repaired any damage he had sustained.

Inbuilt and programmed safety restrictions tried to cut in to prevent overloads on the grav generator nodes. The system was not as well tuned or responsive as an Alliance Military vessel and there was a delay before the safeguards stepped in. Lya had already moved on and missed the drop in the grav generator output before she felt the returning pull grab at her. Her skinsuit hardened instantly, but for an unprotected and unaugmented civilian that punishing force might have snapped their bones like kindling. Certainly the forces were beyond an elderly skeleton to deal with. Lya attacked the safety systems with a fury. Their schematics flashed through her brain. Time pulled at her, people were dying, and there was no simple override solution. She put a loop into the safety program removing its limiting effect on the grav nodes, but the hard systems could not be altered remotely. Or could they? No need, she could fool them. With the program looped, the inertial dampener hardware limiter took its data feed from a gamma channel in a separate system. Lya isolated the commands and killed the feed. Aerie suppressed programmed malfunction interventions before they could raise more problems.

Lya pushed aside her guilt for how many lives had just been lost because she had not dealt with all the safety overrides. There would be the rest of her life, if she survived, to dwell on her error.

As the seconds crawled by and their spin slowed Lya was able to raise the descent angle to seventy-one degrees from the vertical. It gave them more time in the air and offered a more survivable crash. She opened a few flaps to bleed off velocity and rebalanced the drives at a lower power output.

The shuttle received comm traffic from the spaceport traffic authority, but as Lya’s take over of the ship’s control systems had been illegal she had no intention of opening a channel to the spaceport controller. Instead she activated the pilot distress signal and very cautiously manoeuvred the shuttle onto an intercept course with its flight plan. It was a cumbersome unwieldy vessel compared to any of the ships she had trained to pilot and its drives were slow to respond. Thus, for a little while she found herself overcorrecting and causing the craft to wobble in its ungainly flight.

As the shuttle settled into the spaceport’s emergency gravnet, Lya reinstated the pilot’s control interface and erased all log entries and data records of her own interface. Technically it was impossible to tamper with the black box on civilian craft, especially remotely. The devices only recorded data and once data was entered it could not be erased or edited. The Alliance Military’s covert operations teams had however found the perfect solution: Rather than erase data on the black box, they had devised a data protocol that masked known markers to readers. Finding the dereferenced data would be like spotting a pebble you had flung blindly into space whilst spinning randomly. Which made it perfect for Lya to hide any identity skeletons of her neuralnet that the black box had logged during her intervention.

Chapter 2

193391 Second Cycle Second Quarter.

Ilendum’s Primary Spaceport, Ucort, Ilendum.

Acting Sublieutenant Lya stepped out of the terminal building into thick humid air and dazzling sunlight. The arrangements of aligned proteins implanted into her retina adjusted quickly to counter the glare that penetrated the massive crystalline semi-icosahedral dome that enclosed the space between terminal buildings and the arrival lobby. Glass-alloy security fields bounded caulked wooden walkways and lines of green arrow shaped lights flowed in the direction of the exit. The walkways arched over formal gardens though its denizens were completely different to anything Lya would have expected for a formal arrangement. Diverse Araceae, with their inflorescence partially enclosed in faintly luminous spathes, formed lattices of colour. Camouflaged Charadriiformes with red-green trailings peented as they skipped along the edges of pools filled with swathes of willowy serrulated leaf Cladiums. Nearby an enormous Nepenthes, sank almost invisibly into a mud bank, rhythmically opened and closed multiple wide fleshy peristomes each large enough to swallow a human. It reminded Lya of a cruiser flushing missile tubes in a continuous barrage.

She repositioned the strap of her heavy AWOL duffel bag, stored an extremely high resolution visual image in the cavernous memory of her neuralnet, and strode with stunted briskness for the arrival lobby. The gravity pulled at her. Her lungs strained with the effort of drawing the heavier air into them. At point five over standard gravity it was a significant and uncomfortable change from shipboard gravities. She wondered if she would suffocate before her body acclimatised. Her head felt at least twice as heavy to her neck and her legs were already aching.

Through her neuralnet, Lya flicked through the public transport options for a ride to the Moss Cove Base and cursed inwardly. The spaceport admittedly had a fairly serious disaster on its hands, but by delaying her, the investigators had caused her to miss one of the two daily buses that went all the way out to the base. There was the second one but it might as well have been due the next day. Ilendum currently endured forty-seven hours of sunlight and six hours of darkness. The next bus to Moss Cove was due two full hours before dark, which gave her just under twenty hours to kill.

Great, she muttered grimly.

She stepped through another scan cubicle and into the arrival foyer.

Great, she grumbled even more glumly as the glare of camera lights momentarily dazzled her. Newsies, distraught and apprehensive people crowded the area around the arrival sortie. There was no one she could see holding a plaque with her name or broadcasting a personal message for her neuralnet. There were plenty of adverts and open strings of questions by newsies, but no personal messages or anything public regarding transport to the Alliance Military base. Her last bit of optimism that the base would send a skimmer to the spaceport died.

Move along, barked a squat barrel chested security woman in the green livery and bivalve torso armour of spaceport security. Against the polished aeruginous resinous floor the colour was almost a camouflage. The woman had her visor up revealing her moustached craterous wrack of a pockmarked face. Lya was glad for only having drunk rehydrates and not eating any of the dubious meat wraps the spaceport had provided. Those were probably the last things that someone tortured with high-G aerobatics and smoke inhalation wanted to eat. Especially, as the shuttle’s compartments had been opened to the emergency response teams which loosed smoke and odours of charred flesh and burned plastics to traverse the shuttle. Most of those who had survived had been brought off the SC-50 on stretchers or in grav-chairs, which had given them plenty of time whilst waiting their turn to appreciate the fine bouquet. Iamond and her had been the only ones to walk off the shuttle under their own locomotion. And I’m the only one not to have thrown up, she thought, that has to count for something.

She found a channel between the press of bodies and quickly made for the exit.

Can you tell us what happened? demanded a reporter thrusting a compact recorder at Lya's face, and jostling her injured arm in the process. Lya gritted her teeth in response to the intense flare of agony that ran up her arm through her shoulder and into her jaw. Snarling into the recording device, she brushed the newsie out of the way. The movement shifted her AWOL bag and the ridiculous gravity almost pulled her from her feet.

Another reporter eyed her smoke soiled clothing, opened his mouth to speak to her, and met her eyes with his own. He changed his mind and stepped back out of her way. Lya did not look at him as she passed, but she could not resist a tight grin.

Her right arm throbbed painfully. Femtobots would be at work on any trauma the knock to the regrowth tube had caused and they would get to the pain in their own good time. Either that or Aerie her duality would wake up and promote the synthesis of something useful in her body. In the meantime if anyone knocked her right arm again, she was going to bite them.

Elongated pentagonal cupolas of transparent polycarbonate housed the racks of small nozzles that comprised the sprayers. Each cupola was large enough to accommodate about three people with their luggage and a full cycle took about two minutes. Lya had no intention of being bitten to death by bugs or risking that her military grade immune system and femtobots might be able to cope with local diseases. Which meant that she was not going to leave the lobby without passing through one of the things. Unfortunately, large queues for the two working sprayers snaked around the concourse, each ending about sixty people later at a food counter where spiced meat slices and skewers spat and sizzled. With spices and without plastic it smelled better than the shuttle, but Lya was not entirely reassured about its sourcing.

She wrinkled her nose as she joined the queue for the cupolas. Lya could not decide if she was nauseous or hungry. Travelling usually made her hungry, but maybe not today. Still there was plenty of time to decide if she wanted to eat something. It was not as if she risked missing her bus, but she could really do without spending an hour shambling forward a few steps every couple of minutes. Had she any of the local currency she might have bought something, but her service chip would probably only work with civilian vendors on base. She would have to wait until she was issued a local one.

Two planetary security troops walked by the queue, their eyes were predatory as they looked over the people. Both wore pulverizers in addition to stun rods, restraint cuffs, sprays and needlers. Pulverizers were stubby pistols that demolished and utterly broke down tissue. They were short range with excellent penetration against armour, as well as good dispersal. As a battle zone weapon pulverizers were useful anti-armour weapons. They were also small and compact making them portable. The only significant drawback was that a reasonably sized energy magazine allowed about four shots. Admittedly each shot was a pulse of long gravitational radiation, that instantly mashed organic tissue or anything else with a similar density range. In fact each shot was able to end the aggression of two or three closely grouped flesh targets. Against even a siege-armour clad opponent, there was rarely any wounding with a pulverizer. Mostly what was left was a bloody pulp. Better than a blender in any chef’s armoury, Lya thought. In the context of civilian law enforcement, other than as a deterrent, a pulverizer was on a par with rocket propelled grenades or landmines as a good choice. The collateral fatalities that were likely to occur if it were fired in the crowded spaceport concourse would be appalling.

She resisted the impulse to clench her fist. Instead she smiled sweetly at them and winked. The risk in antagonising them was worth the surprised widening of their eyes, followed by surges of anger that pulled at their faces. Ilendum was not part of the Alliance as yet, but the distant Sylarb Regal, its governing authority, was in the joining process. The presence of the Alliance Military on Ilendum was at the request of the Sylarb Regal. According to Lya’s brief the AM was charged with the assistance of the Planetary Security Forces and the prevention of civil war, but there was a suggestion in the AM documentation that the Sylarb Regal thought that the AM would prevent Ilendum’s secessionist movement achieving any independence. As if. She thought dryly. And if these thugs are the planet’s police force then there was no wonder many people were not content.

In her peripheral vision, Lya watched the two planetary security make a circuit of the foyer. She allowed herself a smile as she saw the pair pass the beginning of her queue and walk passed the ‘out of use’ sign that obstructed the way to the third and fourth sprayers. She moved out of her queue giving herself a line of sight to the security man’s left hand as he entered a short code on the machine’s control pad. It was a standard alphanumeric keypad with four columns and five rows of keys. Even at this distance Lya’s enhanced eyes could read the key labels. Lya noted carefully the motion of the man’s hand and the particular curl of his fingers as he tapped in a code. She grinned. The code was so short and so simple.

The out of use sprayer came to swift life and the PSF troopers stepped inside.

When the sprayer stopped cycling, the indigene security troopers deactivated the machine and ambled towards the outside exit. They glanced at the queue and one of them muttered something to the other who laughed.

After they were gone, Lya stepped passed the ‘out of use sign’, dropped her bag to the floor and typed in the code. Her first attempt was wrong. That was disappointing. She might not have seen exactly which buttons the security trooper pressed, but she knew the general motion of his fingers and that should have been enough to work it out. Her second attempt was the correct one and the machine came to purring life with the return of her smile. The doors slid open and a green light came on. Lya pushed the ‘out of use’ sign out of the way with her foot. She caught up her bag and stepped into the machine.

Relax, close your eyes and breathe normally, the machine told her.

You first, Lya retorted without thinking, but it was most likely a prerecorded message, rather than a complete artificial intelligence like a genie.

Cool mist came in a continuous gentle exhale from the grill floor. Droplets beaded on her impermeable uniform tunic and pantaloons, moistened her hair and skin. Other than Lya’s head and hand the rest of her was kept in hydrostasis by her intelligent weave skinsuit, that like all AM personnel, she wore beneath her uniform.

As the nozzles deactivated, powerful fans beneath the grill floor started spinning. They drew out the moisture and circulated hot dry air. Within the half minute of that part of the cycle Lya was dry again.

Lya left the machine activated. Self-righteously she was not interested in the reason the PSF reserved the machine for their own use. No doubt if they did not reserve a machine they would queue jump anyway. She did not exactly look back, but she saw enough to be aware that a new fork in the queue had occurred. A small smile crept across her mouth and with a start, she opened a fist she did not remember clenching.

Outside, Ilendum’s alien air was close, wet, and oppressively heavy. Her uniform was slick with condensing vapour and her hair was wet after a few steps. It was exactly as she had imagined a heavy gravity swamp to be, except that the reality was exaggerated ten fold. Moisture beaded everything and ran in trickles that were often seemingly too viscous for water in such heavy gravity. It dripped from foliage and overhangs and collected anywhere that it could not run or soak away. Dank, rich, astringent and sweet odours of putrescence and spores made her nose twitch. Lya breathed through her mouth and instantly had the taste of Ilendum’s air.

Where they were not disturbed, a staggering variety of eukaryotes and bryophytes clung to any surface or grew upon the ground and water in lush carpets. There were Basidiomycota and Agaricomycetes that were silvery black and so small their stipe were half as thick as a Homo sapiens sapiens’ head hair, whilst the largest of their kind were dozens of metres across and stood like trees. Much of the fungi had curiously chordate characteristics; like lamellae that contracted and relaxed in the manner of flensed muscle fibres; or dentated buccal cavities that suddenly opened and snapped shut, to suck in and capture insects that droned through the sodden air with the sound of an ailing fan. In many ways it was pretty: The astoundingly vivid and complex patterns of colour amongst the predominant dull greens was worth a long look. Moreover, even with her briefing files on Ilendum’s fauna, Lya was not certain whether some of the flora she saw was more plant, animal or fungi.

Around the spaceport the ground was metal and rock composite, but if she looked towards the verdant walls of vegetation then there was an indistinct blurry line that wavered about a metre above the tallest foliage; that would be the air side of the ill defined water-air-boundary the planet had. Apparently, the heavier gravity helped reduce the humidity, but as far as Lya was concerned the above standard gravity did a poor job for its toll on her.

A wall of wet air and dust assailed her as a hover car pulled out from the curb. It was like being in a sauna. The dust clung to her uniform forming blossoms like splotches of mud. It had a foul taste in her mouth like something rotted and left in stagnant water, then semi-dried in the sun. Reflecting, she decided that was probably exactly what the dust was.

Most of the indigene transports rode on air cushions which generated a terrible din and draughts of muggy air. Lya tugged her AWOL duffel back onto her shoulder and then knuckled the gritty grime from her eyes. She followed the signs for buses.

She was passing the stretch of sidewalk given to pickup and she stopped abruptly. There was an AM Lynx light utility vehicle in swamp camouflage with the Moss Cove camp insignia colour-etched into the doorplate.

With a surge of hope, and abandoning all decorum, Lya rushed it. She agilely avoided a dropping chiropteran like creature with lepidopteran wings of a two-metre span. Its prey or purpose was not her; for it flittered obliviously away, its long ovipositor curved like a slender elephantine tusk.

Acting Sublieutenant? asked a man she had not seen behind her. She recognised the voice, pivoted lightly on the balls of her feet and felt a flush of embarrassment for her unseemly haste.

Tarmon, she greeted him. He was definitely holofilm too handsome.

Sir. Forgive me, but I missed the transport to the base and I was hoping you might ask if I could ride as well.

Lya glanced at the Lynx. Though it was open topped, the high armoured sides stopped her from seeing the pilot.

It’s your designated transport to the base, sir, he told her.

Is it now, she mused with satisfaction. In that case of course you can.

Thank you. I asked the pilot, but she said that it was up to you, he said falling in beside her.

Trying to leave without me?

Err, no, sir,

Good, she grinned impishly.

Could I carry your bag, sir? he asked. Evidently not relaxed now that there was other military around.

Do I look crippled to you, trooper? she demanded dangerously.

He hesitated and could not resist letting his eyes flick to the regrowth cylinder on her truncated arm. No, sir. It’s just…

I see, she cut him off. I’m messing with you, Tarmon. You can chill a little. The AM is one big happy family. That’s what they told me anyway. Here hold this, she said dropping her duffel from her shoulder and handing him the strap. She could not help surreptitiously admiring the shape of his body beneath the glove like fit of his uniform. Too long amongst civies, Lya decided, capturing his buttocks and the back of his legs as a pin-up for her neuralnet. Cute face, gloriously healthy skin and the almost ubiquitously good AM body, Iamond certainly had potential. She directed her mind to the task at hand. What was it she was doing?

*Other than ogling, securing transport to base,* Aerie informed her.

Whilst the AM Lynx was a light utility vehicle and floated effortlessly a metre above the road surface, it massed about seventeen thousand eight hundred kilograms, was ten metres in length and two thirds as much across. Armoured plate covered all of it, including the squared open-cycle gas-cored nuclear thermal rocket housing on either side. She had never flown one and Lya wished that her arm might have regrown enough so that she could pilot this one.

Hello onboard, Lya called.

A dark eyed and strong-featured face crowned with a beret peered down from over the Lynx’s side.

Sublieutenant Lya? the woman demanded.

I am. Lead-Pilot…? Lya answered discerning the flaming sphere over two inverted chevrons affixed to the shoulders of the woman’s black uniform. Beneath it, the violet turtleneck of the woman’s skinsuit was visible. It looked almost as good as the provost’s crimson, but almost won no medals.

Sassaransa, sir, the pilot called down. One moment, she said disappearing inside the vehicle again.

Soundlessly the anti-grav projector lowered the vehicle until it was a hand’s breadth from the road. A door clicked unlocked and folded down. Sassaransa stepped down.

You look like hell, Sassaransa said her eyes widening in shock as she really looked at the pair of them properly. She was about Lya’s height, which put her a couple of fingers shy of two metres.

Thanks, I get that a lot, sir Lya replied snidely. How is it that a Lead Pilot plays taxi?

Sassaransa grimaced. Because there is not much for a pilot to do on planet. We don’t run regular patrols. Some of the indigs try and shoot us down and we’re not meant to retaliate. Some way to run a peace keeping operation, heh? She shrugged. Lots of problems, little to do. Anyways, better you find all this out from someone other than me.

Fair enough, sir, Lya replied all too aware that the pilot’s recalcitrance derived from Lya’s provost uniform. Do you have space for another passenger, sir?

Bags of it. And please drop the sirs, Sassaransa laughed pleasantly and Lya found herself liking the pilot.

Only if you do too. She glanced over her shoulder Hear that, Tarmon? On board with you. Lya turned back to Sassaransa. Do you mind if I kip on an empty pew? I’ve missed out on too much sleep recently.

Pew? Oh yeah, help yourself, Sassaransa invited as she stepped back to allow them to climb aboard.

Tarmon, with a gentle push from her, seated himself next to Sassaransa. He put the safety belts of the seat next to him through his duffel’s straps and Lya suppressed a grin. She hoped Sassaransa had no intention to fly upside down; she did not think lynx were designed for that.

There were three rows of seats in the back separated from the rest of the compartment by a bladed arch of metal designed to redirect turbulence. Lya picked the last row. It was a non-combat arrangement, but then this was probably the camp’s taxi vehicle for important civies visiting the base. The seat was long enough for her to stretch out and comfortable enough that she was yawning as soon as she did. The sky was a murky azure and the sun a bright ball of heat. She draped her arm over her face and closed her eyes. The pain in her regrowing arm throbbed in time with her heart.

Chapter 3

193391 Second Cycle Third Quarter.

Ilendum’s Orbital Station.

On the bridge of Ilendum’s orbital station, Debinga Quivy consulted her chrono for what seemed like the fiftieth time in the last few minutes. Then drying the perspiration from her hands, she pulled a filter mask over her face. She walked slowly behind the Alliance Military liaison’s chair, all the time depressing the button of a small silvery cylinder. A fine mist spurted soundlessly from the tiny nozzle and passed over the AM liaison.

He did not react and though she was glad he had not noticed what she had done, Ilendum planetary security technical specialist first grade Quivy wondered if the spray would work.

Time seemed to drag on. She consulted her chrono again and decided to make another pass. That was not the plan. It should have worked and then she could spray him again directly in the face. Worried she hefted her cylinder, conjured up the moral fortitude and set off towards him.

Before she reached him, the AM liaison sagged in his seat. His head lolled so that his chin rested against his chest.

Quivy released a deep breath in an enormous sigh. Her hands were trembling she realised as she wiped her palms on her uniform.

The two Ilendum planetary security operators, seated in front and to either side of the AM observor, glanced at her. Then one of them input coded instructions into his terminal and all the screens went blank.

That’s it, commented one of them.

Twenty-seven minutes. Then we go live again, added the other.

Will he stay out? the first asked.

Debinga Quivy remembered her task. Quickly she walked in front of the AM officer and sprayed a good portion of the cylinder's remaining contents directly onto his face.

Twenty-six and half minutes, she told them checking her wrist chrono. Her voice sounded less stressed than she felt. She sprayed the AM liaison again for good measure. This time she emptied the cylinder. He’ll be unconscious the full forty-minutes, she told them.

One minute later, twenty-three light seconds out from Ilendum, space-time rippled and a dimensional funnel irised open. Through it came an Arbrean Confederacy heavy cruiser and a larger Matix Class carrier. They moved into a forty-nine degree Naolir orbit of the planet. Sixty assault transports launched from the carrier. The carrier and heavy cruiser then moved swiftly into a stable position on the far side of Ilendum’s third moon and incidentally the largest sensor black spot for planetary defences.

The assault transports dispersed as they entered the atmosphere. Each found its landing beacon, placed by advanced units, and set down safely. They shut down their drives and deployed signal camouflage. Within twenty-two minutes from the start of the operation the assault transports were completely invisible to the planetary satellites, even if the satellites were not currently disabled.

Lieutenant Niklen Mei, Alliance Military liaison to Ilendum Planetary Security Orbital Control, woke with a start. He wiped drool from his chin and looked very intently to see if either of the two indigenae controllers had noticed that he had dozed off. Both were watching their screens with their customary bored indifference. Their consoles placed their backs towards him and it looked as though neither of them had been distracted enough to look at him. Good job I don’t snore, he thought suppressing a snigger.

He knew one person would have noticed, but that did not matter. He glanced over his shoulder at the comely Sylarb tech and his amoret. Debinga Quivy felt his eyes on her and looked up from her data pad. She blushed prettily and he smiled back.

Deb, can I get something to drink? he asked.

193391 Third Cycle First Quarter.

Somewhere between Ucort and Alliance Military Installation - Moss Cove, Ilendum.

The lynx hurtled along fleshy corridors of hanging vines and twisted limbed trees, tangled so thickly together that only flecks of powerful sunlight danced on the rippling emerald water. Flowers of bright yellow, dazzling orange and glaring purple dotted the vines. The tiny exotic flowers were little more than flashes of colour. Occasionally, sudden screams from swamp denizens cut through the drone of the nuclear thermal rockets with horrible shrieking violence. In the lynx’s wake the water furrowed and then leapt into the air in two ropy braids.

Sassaransa flew deftly, Tarmon gripped his seat belts and tried not to look at the pilot screens. Sprawled on the very last seat Lya slept, and for once her dreams were less than retakes on nightmarish memories.

The anti-armour missile struck the front of the lynx just below its twin twelve-barrelled 8.7 mm rotary cannons. Strong armour ruptured under the force of the warhead’s shaped charge, but the blade like aerodynamics of the vehicle deflected much of the force. That deflected force was enough to flip the lynx’s nose by a few centimetres, which coupled with the powerful thrust of the nuclear thermal rockets directed the armoured behemoth into the canopy. Creepers and branches snapped and exploded with animalistic cries.

Neither Tarmon, nor Sassaransa were harmed; the frontal armour arched over their heads and their safety belts held them securely, if uncomfortably in place. The foliage however, struck Lya viciously. Her skinsuit defeated the brunt of the damage and saved her from being shredded. But, a branch skewered her side and tore her screaming from the vehicle. The last ridge of the vehicle’s armour clipped her ankle and, though her boot and skinsuit dissipated much of the force, her heel shattered.

Unstoppable, the lynx careered onwards tearing through soft growth and smashing through the trunks of the squat fleshy swamp trees. Sassaransa almost had the damaged vehicle back under control when another anti-armour missile hammered into its side beneath the left nuclear thermal rocket mounting. This time the shaped charge was not deflected; the explosion ruptured the lynx’s side and destroyed the left nuclear thermal rocket. Flora, fauna, water and earth were atomised for two kilometres as immensely pressured gas superheated to several tens of thousand degrees sprayed outwards. The lynx was launched on a new trajectory far faster than it was intended to travel, but its antigravity kept it from flipping and high-grade inertial dampeners consumed the momentum change within the vehicle. Shrapnel tore into Sassaransa, and shock cocooned her, but even so she had the presence of mind to kill the right rocket.

The lynx spun in a circle, its sophisticated antigravity keeping it perfectly parallel to the murky