The Guardians of Sol (2 page)

He chuckled, he sounded sad, but he chuckled. “You’re a good Captain, Rhys. I wish I was as even keeled at your age. I’ll handle things here; you get things moving where they should be moving.” He clasped my hand before letting me go.

“Castle to Bunker. Get some Engineers armored up, we have captured tech they need to analyze.”

“Yes, sir, Cap’n sir. I’ll get right on it. Anything else I can do for you?”

“Can the attitude. Patch me through to Command and find something useful to do.”

I waited while the boy, whoever he was, puttered around with the tasks I gave him. In the meantime, a team of Vindicators reattached and reloaded my back weapons. I reloaded my arm guns myself; the clips cycling into place under the plating. After about fifteen minutes, a half-dozen Engineers jogged past in their all-purpose armor. Fifteen minutes after that I was finally connected to someone back at the Forge.

“This is Colonel McKenna. What do you have for me, Captain?”

I swiftly outlined what had just happened and asked him for assistance. He hemmed and hawed for a few moments before connecting me to his superior, where I related my story again. The General assured me that they would send a people to clean up immediately. Of course, after so many years in the system, you learn that ‘immediately’ from a General usually means in a few hours when it’s not one of his personal project.

So we waited. And waited. Voodoo finally woke up and did what he could to check on my squad's wounds. My shoulder hurt, but he couldn’t find anything particularly wrong with it, not with field kit. After several hours, a dozen shuttles descended from the sky. They made a few passes to shed more of their speed before landing on the beach where they disgorged fresh squads of Castigars, engineers, and various investigators.

The incoming commander hailed me and O’Neal. We filled him in on the details as we walked over to him. His armor was dark and smooth, with strange, jagged protrusions. It looked almost organic. Like nothing I had seen before. But then, the Captain of the Fallen, second squad of the Specials Battalion was like no one I had ever interacted with. Rumors said that the Fallen had never been seen in public without their armor. He spoke with an accent I have never been able to place and I have not found anyone else who could. Every squad in the Specials receives customized armor filled with all of the newest toys. The Specials were as much test platforms for technology as they were a military force.

“Gentlemen, you did good work. The research being done here will shape the future" Cari'das told us in his uniquely calm manner. He sounded like he had a better idea of what was going on than we did. "Go get some rest, get a meal. Your squads will be shipping out with the captives in twenty-four hours. Then this facility will be moved. You are dismissed.”

“Sir!” we both replied. We gathered up our men and headed back to the bunker. Once we were inside and our armor had been decontaminated we headed towards the cafeteria.

“Jack, who did you leave in charge of the Bunker, anyway?”

“All I had on hand was a Venator. Why?”

“You left a Venator in charge? Blood and Depths! I’m surprised we got any support at all. You know those spooks aren’t reliable for rank and file like us.”

“Hah! You need to lighten up. The pup just needs some more experience,” He yawned. “I’m rethinking the chow. See you on the ride home tomorrow.”

“Goodnight, Jack. I’m going to see the med bay about my shoulder. Try not to snore for once.”

May 17 2289. Sol System, Mount Fuji
Japan, Outside of Tokyo

A sword flashed down towards his neck. He blocked with his own blade and rolled away. Coming up, Barak Simeon sent a throwing knife plunging into the ninja's eye. Looking back down the path, he spotted shadows that signified the arrival of more of the dark warriors. Barak reactivated the active camouflage on his armor and ran into the Mount Fuji research laboratory.

Once inside, he used the cipher AI in his gauntlet to lock the blast door at the entrance. He took two thumb sized explosive wafers from the hollow pocket in his armor's right hip plate. Carefully, he rigged them to explode if the area just in front of the door was breached.

This done, he continued down the corridor, taking care not to make noise. His mission was simple; get the Japanese research on miniaturized plasma weapons and power systems. All while leaving a minimum of casualties along the way. Yes, simple. Except that the facility that he was raiding was practically in the middle of the empire's capitol, with the highest security, and looking for their most important project. All of which happened to be a reality of top order security software, hardware, and elite troops.

Speaking of which, there was a pair of heavily armored samurai up at the intersection ahead. Either of them would be a match for the average Castigar. Barak was neither average nor a Castigar. He charged in, silent as a ghost, before he registered on their thermal scanners. He leapt onto the nearer one's back and attached a wafer to the base of his neck. The samurai threw him off and Barak landed hard against the wall. The wafer went off, the samurai went down. His partner began to quickly to heat Barak's chest to uncomfortable levels with his wrist laser. The laser caused the active camouflage to become a riot of colors. He rolled and jumped to his feet. He sent a knife at the hulking form, but it didn’t even spark before bouncing away.

The samurai drew his O'dachi great sword and flicked it at Barak. He jumped over it and kicked his opponent's head. As the dome snapped back, Barak twisted in the air to attach a magnetized wafer to the samurai's visor. He tucked his shoulder into the fall as the wafer blast went off. He collected his knife, and his breath, and checked on the samurai. Their vitals were strong, and aside from a few cracked armor plates, it looked like their ballistic bodysuits had absorbed most of the force. He looked at his remaining wafers, there were four; he'd have to be careful with them.

He set off down the corridor to the right; his map said he should be about fifty meters away from the target. This mission was well inside his wheelhouse, but… It didn’t matter what he thought. He was the best of the best, and although technically a Venator, Barak was a mean, lean death commando; stuff straight from the Israeli training grounds. He would perform to the best of his not inconsiderable abilities and make the Sentinel proud.

Another samurai was patrolling the hall just in front of the target lab. He checked his meters; the active camouflage was fully operative again. Turning it on, he snuck up on the armored frame. With the mission specs in mind, Barak snaked his sword into the sensor package in the base of the helmet, just under the smallest gap in the defense. The whole armor short-circuited and fell to the floor.

About this time an explosion rippled through the ground. The ninjas had breached the blast door. Two seconds later, Barak felt another explosion, they'd found his little present.

He opened the lab door, looking around he saw no security, nothing on thermals and nothing on UV range, good. He plugged in his AI and let it do its work, downloading all plasma research and uploading its Guardian counterpart data to the personal files of a less than scrupulous researcher working on the program. Barak didn’t understand why he was giving a non-Confederate nation research data. The Sentinel had ordered him to, however, and as one of the man's Hounds, Barak did not intend to disappoint. He did a quick review of the facility blueprints. Ah, there, a remote access hatch, and a way out.

With the data in "hand" as it were, Barak took off in the direction of the hatch. Taking a stairwell up two levels he came across a ninja. Or, he thought it was a ninja. It looked like a ninja. The armor was the right design, but it was red and dark blue instead of the standard matte black. Another problem was the way the man moved, the grace and confidence didn't fit with the skulking of a shadow warrior, and he held a katana, not the short straight blade that ninjas generally favored.

The not-ninja turned around, drew the katana, and saluted Barak. He grinned inside his battlemask, so it was going to be like that, eh? He drew his blade as well. They circled each other, waiting for an opening. The not-ninja held his sword angled from hip to left toe in a two handed grip. Barak held his backhanded, laterally across his chest.

The not-ninja - Barak was beginning to suspect a crazy kind of samurai - whipped the katana up and out, coming at Barak's left side, so he twisted to the right. Sweeping out he struck sparks off the not-ninja's helmet. They locked blades on the follow through of their individual strokes. Neither could successfully disengage. Seemingly stuck like this, Barak kicked the inside of the not-ninja's knee, to bring him down. The katana swept out at him one more time, he caught it at the hilt, and slammed his own blade through the not-ninja's visor, and into the brain.

There was one last stretch before the access hatch; however, it was blocked by automated turrets with overlapping fields of fire. A Castigar or another heavy armor unit might be able to walk through that hail, but Barak’s armor was designed with stealth, not protection, first in mind. He took two wafers from his pocket and set them to act like grenades, three second delay. He had the AI open the door just long enough for him to throw in the wafers. Bullets pinged off the door. Barak counted quietly; two, one, boom! The door bowed outward... Barak sighed and pulled the torch from his left gauntlet to get started on making an opening.

The AI locked down all the other doors and bulkheads on Barak's level. He finally managed to cut and push his way through the misshapen door and peered inside. The turrets would only be useful as scrap in the future. Moving carefully he made his way to the hatch, and used his last two wafers to blow it off its mounts. He retrieved the AI from the computer system and went out into the mountain's shadow. The bright streak of a rocket caught his attention. Using the optics in his visor, Barak zoomed in to see a squad of AEU Special Forces pinned down by the research facility's security forces. His mission had brought attention to theirs. That made him smirk and with a rude gesture to thank the knights for the distraction, Barak made his way to the Confederate embassy without a problem.

May 18, 2289. Von Braun City, the Moon

“Are you sure we can’t do anything, General? They attacked a Guardian facility. We lost over two dozen brothers. This cannot go unpunished, sir.” I said. I was close to insubordination, I’ll admit. It is a good thing that the Corps are fairly loose with protocol outside of battle. At least, in my experience we are. You always hear rumors about hard-ass officers. Their units always seem to be less effective in practice, though.

“I know, Captain Castle. But this is out of my hands. The Sentinel himself has to decide how to handle a declaration like this. I don’t think it was a declaration of war though. If it were then the Republics would have tried to hit the Forge or any number of other places to cause more damage and chaos. No son, I think this was just a raid in force to get their hands on the research data at the base. I don’t think that any Guardians were supposed to survive. They even managed to blind our satellites during the attack. Thankfully, they overestimated how long that nuke would keep everyone out of business and you held off their superior numbers admirably. I am putting your name on the shortlist for a commendation,” General Roberts handed a file to Colonel McKenna and then looked Captain O’Neal in the eye. “Jack, I’m honoring your request for a transfer to a desk job. I’m giving you a promotion too.”

“Thank you, Sir!” Jack replied.

“One more thing before we finish up here. Any ideas on how the Republics managed to get a nuclear device over California? Let alone in the air at all? There shouldn’t be any kind of electronic warfare that low-key that could blind the Redeemer satellites that long. I need something to present to my bosses, but all my analysts have their thumbs up their arses.”

O’Neal nodded to me, so I went ahead. “We’ve been thinking about that the last few days, sir. It might be a coincidence, but I saw an old airliner right before the sky lit up. If the bomb was on it then the Redeemer satellites might not have registered it as a threat; especially if it were shielded against any radiation leakage. The relevant data should have been retrieved before the debriefing.”

“All of the mission logs from your team were corrupted by the EMP wave. The airplane thing is a good idea. And it is a good deal more plausible than anything I’ve been given so far. Alright, next order of business for you two, a few men from both of your squads have requested transfers of their own, and I think they deserve them. That said; neither squad will have enough men to operate on their own. McKenna, get this down for the record. Henceforth, I am combining both units, to be under the command of Captain Rhys Charles Castle, furthermore, the newly integrated Anvil squad shall receive two weeks of Rest and Relaxation on either the Forge or here in Von Braun City before reassignment,” He pressed his thumb onto the scanner of the data pad McKenna placed in front of him. “Glad that’s done with. Colonel McKenna will work on rebuilding Hammer squad as well. I hate having the Third legion at less than full strength. What are you men still doing here? I have work to do," He said with a smile. "Get on out of here.”

“Sir!” We saluted, then turned with military precision (and we are military, after all, even if we don’t always show it) and exited the man’s office.

“As far as Generals go, Roberts is pretty good to the men under him, eh?” I mentioned to Jack. He grinned.

“Fairly long-winded though,” He checked his chronometer. “We were in there an hour for what was supposed to be a half hour meeting.”

McKenna bolted out of the office, “Captains! Hold up!”

We stopped immediately, did an about-face, saluted.

McKenna saluted back. “The General just got word. The Republics aren't saying a word about the raid, but the Sentinel is going to bring it up at the world leader conference. If it isn't resolved there a punitive strike is the most likely next step. The General thought you two would appreciate hearing this before it gets going on the grapevine. I believe that I’ve taken up enough of your time, Captains.” He went back into the office, leaving us alone again.

“So… What do you think would be good enough restitution to call the whole thing even?”

Jack struck a thoughtful pose for a moment. “If they offer anything it will probably be some form of blood gold. Maybe they can hand over the research team that supercharged those tanks and mechs. On the other hand, the economic depression that a punitive strike would bring should give them about enough hardships to teach them not to mess with the Guardian Corps again. I think I prefer the punitive strike option.” His smile got wider. “Well, I have to go tell my wife that she no longer has to worry about me coming home all corpsified. See you around, Rhys.”

“Corpsified? Is that even a word?”

“It is now, Pup. You need to watch more television,” The older man grinned at me. “Now go run along, play with your friends. Some of us actually have lives to attend to.”

*****

I meandered through the halls and alleyways of the military complex on Von Braun City. I had no particular destination, nowhere to be. Eventually I found a “hill” that overlooked the grey, rocky plain outside of the city and its protective dome. I laid against the tree until the dome began its polarization to the night cycle. My shoulder still hurt. I probably should get too see a decent doctor soon in case there really was damage that the nanobots couldn’t repair.

“Personally, I prefer the polarization effect to most of the sunsets I’ve seen on Earth. Its like getting to see an aurora every night without having to freeze your giblets off.”

I jumped. I had thought I was all alone, but even with the default level of alertness I had built up from years on various battlefields the man startled me. He sat down next to me with a calmness and grace I had only seen from sword masters in holo-vids. He was wearing a uniform like mine, and although I didn’t recognize his unit patches he had a Castigar service pin like me. His sandy blond hair was almost shaggy - longer than most Guardians wear theirs. An airtight helmet isn’t very comfortable with too much hair. He was wearing captain’s bars, although they were strange, bronze with an obsidian stripe through them instead of the normal pure silver.

“Rhys Castle, right? I’m Captain Christoph McCulloch, Shadowstealer squad, Specials battalion. How do you do?”

“I… do well enough," I, surprisingly, replied calmly. "At least as well as I can reasonably be after I’ve just lost a lot close friends. But I don’t expect you to want to hear my troubles. What brings a Specials Captain out this way?”

“Whenever I’m on the moon I like to come out here to see the sunset,” He chuckled. “It really is the best place to watch it. How’s that shoulder of yours doing?”

“It’s still sore. My doctor told me to keep the regenerative bandages on for a few more days. How did you know I hurt my shoulder?”

“I’m not exactly blind, Captain. Well, that and I saw your personnel file. You’re remarkably intact for how many times you’ve been injured. I just find it amazing that in over fifty engagements you haven’t had to get one cybernetic part, and you’ve only lost seven men. It takes a rare man to rack up that kind of record. Do you regret anything? All this time serving in the Corps, do you regret
anything
?”

“I’d be a fool if I didn’t have regrets, Captain. I just lost five of those seven a few days ago,” I replied a little coldly. As a fellow captain he should know better than to ask that sort of question so soon. “Every single one of those seven men w
ere my friend. Every single one of them had a family. I regret not being able to save them. I regret not being able to make any of those battles any shorter than they were. But the past is the past, and while I may look back on my decisions I try to learn from them so that I can do better in the future. I wouldn’t be much good to anyone if I couldn’t get over the past, now would I?”

“No you wouldn’t. Rhys, may I call you Rhys? You do not strike me as a fool. How far into the Swordmaster rankings have you gotten? Because the way you talk shows understanding deeper than most men I come across.”

Now it was my turn to chuckle. The man did have a disarming nature about him. “I just the tests for the Third Tier before that last assignment, but I enjoy the philosophy courses. What is all this about, anyway?”

“Nothing in particular. I’m just a curious person is all," he replied so smoothly that I was inclined to believe him. "Did you know that despite being called a battalion the Specials only has nine squads right now? Not even a full company. I hear we might be getting some new additions soon,” Christoph got up. “Just a suggestion, take your leave on the Forge. I don’t think you’ll be disappointed.”

“What? Why?” I asked, but the dreg just smiled and walked away; leaving me wondering what the Hell just happened. Confused and annoyed I did what any respectable soldier with too much free time would do. I pulled out my com and dialed Haywire. “Hey Jimmy, you and Shot-put still going to meet me at the pub tonight?”

*****

“And that! That is why you can’t trust a parakeet to watch your gold.” Shot-put exclaimed before he slumped into unconsciousness. Haywire and I just laughed. John never was, and probably never will be, able to hold his liquor. Although he does tell the funniest, strangest stories before he passes out, none of them remotely true. We’d been exchanging stories about our fallen comrades, which just made the end of John’s tale all the stranger.

“What should we do with him?” Haywire asked me.

“I figured once we’re done here we’d just take him home and draw various embarrassing things on his face. That’s all I have right now. Not much, I know. You have any ideas?”

“Not at the moment. Something with cling-wrap and toilet paper maybe? We could always leave him half-naked on top of a building. But I’m sure we’ll come up with something after a few more drinks. So what’s this I hear about leave?”

“Oh, right. That. Yeah, starting Thursday we have two weeks of leave to spend here or on the Forge. I’m going to go to the Forge, I have a… hunch… something interesting might happen there.”

“And why would you think that? O mighty Captain?” He asked me. So I told him about my encounter with the Specials Captain on the hill. Drunk as he was, the best he could offer me was a “Wow, you should probably go to the Forge then.” I just smiled and patted him on the back.

He jerked up straight, eyes bright and wide. “What time is it?”

I checked my wristwatch. “Almost twenty hundred hours. Why?”

Ignoring me, he got the attention of the barkeep. “Hey! Turn to viewer to ESN3! The Mecha Series Final is about to start!”

“I still don’t understand why you love these games so much,” I said.

“It’s big! It’s fast! It’s like what we do but bigger and flashier and prettier!” He explained, suddenly much more animated but still slurring his words a little. “Using a machine that big, the way those pilots do has got to take all kinds of skill. I would love to have one of my own someday. Shush! It’s starting!”

I hadn’t even been talking, but I turned my attention to the screen anyway. It took me a minute to gather what was going on, exactly, but after that minute, I saw that the Tortoise team from
Japan was facing off against the Falcon team from the Guardians' Idaho territory, the battlefield, a rocky radioactive desert in what was once western China. The viewer showed each team’s mecha in succession. The Falcon team was tall and spindly, each armed with the huge plasma swords known as beam sabers, and a stripped down beam rifle.

The Tortoise team provided stark contrast. Thick shelled and rounded, the bluish-green machines hoisted huge cylinders that could only be missile launchers. An assortment of knobs and bumps gave some evidence to other hidden weapons at the heavy contraptions’ disposal. They loomed over the Falcons’ machines by at least five meters.

Soon, the bell tolled. Almost immediately, the Falcon team took off. They were moving so fast they become blurs on the holo-viewer. The Tortoises jumped up as well, their boosters letting them hover at a slower but still appreciable speed. The heavier mecha started to take hits from the Falcons’ rifles, but the thick armor easily absorbed the energy from the shots.

The Tortoise team went into a circle formation and spun around, firing a few of their missiles. The Falcons easily evaded the offending projectiles. The spindly machines’ ridiculous velocity created afterimages on the recording with each movement. This give and take went on for several minutes, making it easy to see why both teams were in the final match.

Finally, one of the Falcons, painted a copper red, jumped up onto a Tortoise. It plunged its beam saber down at the mecha below it. The Tortoise shifted so that the blade only impaled his arm and part of the chest, instead of his head. A small cannon on the Tortoises back ‘shell’ fired from its locked position. The Falcon fell to the ground, completely perforated. The remaining Falcons seized upon the distraction and fell on one of the undamaged Tortoises.

Surprised, the man barely had any time to react, and failed to make use of that time. The mecha fell to the ground in three pieces. The Falcons split up their attack. One went after the damaged machine while the other attempted to distract the intact Tortoise.

The damaged mecha fired from a low yield particle cannon hidden in its chest, taking out the attacking Falcon’s whole left side. The Falcon crashed to the ground. Now outnumbered, the last Falcon took advantage of his vastly superior speed, and bolted.