Velenia IV, Cassandrian Front, 611.08 A.E. (Age of Exploration)

“Surge warning!” Captain Harissa shouted in the general comm. “All back! All back!”

According to the files, she was in charge of a reconnaissance mission several sectors away from my ground troops. The file didn’t state which ship she was stationed on—likely a temp transfer sent here urgently. The first thing I did was to query Command as to whether she was involved in a dark op. When that turned out not to be the case, I went ahead and conveyed the transmission on my bridge.

“Marking her location, sir,” I said, displaying a map of the area on the bridge wall.

“Who does she report to?” Augustus grumbled. He wasn’t one to like surprises, especially during routine missions.

Officially, we had been ordered to assist purging operations throughout several systems. Almost none of the personnel enjoyed taking part in that. It was better than actual combat, but not by much. And there was always the possibility that something went wrong.

“Reports are redacted, sir.”

“Use my authority!” the captain barked.

“It’s not a matter of access, sir. The information is not available. Up to her last transfer, the captain was stationed on the Everdawn. No new information has been added in the last month.”

“Wilco, look into this!” Augustus took out a cigarette from his front pocket and lit it up.

“Aye, cap’n,” Lieutenant Wilco replied. “Probably some bureaucrat messing it up again.”

“When I have surge warnings from an unknown soldier, I want to know details before—”

“Multiple surge warnings, sir!” I displayed them on the map.

Dozens of people were shouting in the general comm. The number increased to hundreds. I requested direct access to their suits’ video feeds. In three times out of four, my request was denied under the pretext of mission security. In the remaining twenty-five percent, though, I got more than I bargained for.

This wasn’t the first time I had seen a Cassandrian surge, but this one was particularly big. Reviewing my memories, I classified it as the second largest event of this nature I had witnessed. The area affected stretched across two landmasses and included seven individual sectors.

Does anyone have a handle on this? I asked in the ship comm channel.

The area’s supposed to be clear, Radiant Flight replied. She was equipped with the latest generation of mini sats, and so had acted as the unofficial watcher in this mission. Either the Cassies have developed some new tech, or they have dug themselves deeper than my scanning range.

My captain is freaking out, Alabaster Flame said. I’m on full alert and waiting for planetary bombardment. Good job on missing that, Raf.

Sending a new wave now, Radiant Flight announced. There’s still a twenty-three percent chance that we are dealing with a cluster of small surges rather than one big one. Anyone detect any system movement?

Nothing has jumped, I replied. Neither ours or theirs. Whatever this is, it’s all from the planet.

And here I was thinking that we were done with the annoying part, Blinding Path transmitted. He was one of the older frigates, though with more weapons than ten ships combined. I’ve been ordered to go to red alert. Keep your grunts safe, there might be fireworks soon.

“Multiple ships are preparing for planetary bombardment,” I added on my bridge.

“Where’s the source of the surge?” Augustus asked.

“Still unknown, sir. Leading hypothesis is that they were hidden deeper than the mini-sats can penetrate.”

“There’s always an excuse for missing things.” Augustus took a long drag of his cigarette. Based on their body language and facial features, the rest of the bridge officers tended to agree with him. “Go to yellow alert. Show me anything you got from down there.”

A hundred visual feeds popped up on the bridge walls. There were multiple times more transmissions coming in, but I chose to limit the information. The human mind was incapable of dealing with information overload.

The entire bridge could see how the squads of ground troops retreated in near panic, using flames and bullets in an attempt to stop the increasing waves of enemies. Every few seconds, several dozen feeds were cut off as their owners were killed by the enemy.

Judging by the reaction of the people on the bridge, the sight couldn’t have been pleasant. Fleet restrictions prevented me from seeing the actual nature of the enemies. Instead, all I could observe was censored blackness moving mercilessly closer.

Feeds flickered on the wall as I replaced the deceased with those still alive. Meanwhile, a hundred of my subroutines analyzed the data received, creating a model of overall progress.

“By my estimation, a fifth of the planet will be lost within the hour. Expected losses—two and a half million. Four, if no evacuation takes place.”

As I spoke the words, I felt as if a salvo of missiles had breached through my outer hull. There were too many losses for something that could have been avoided entirely.

“Nothing special I can find about her, cap,” Wilco said. “Someone dropped the ball somewhere.”

“I’ve completed my calculations for an optimal bombardment pattern in coordination with the other ships in orbit,” I said. “Just give the word, captain.”

All eyes turned towards Augustus. The old captain finished his puff in his typical calm fashion. Every captain had flaws, and Augustus had more than his fair share. However, when it came to military strategy and tactics, I could rely on his judgement.

“There’ll be no bombardment,” he said to my surprise, then took another puff. “Just remain in orbit and wait for instructions from HQ.”

“Aye, sir.” I knew there was a seventeen percent chance that he would choose this course of action. A rescue operation on a planet that was already scheduled for purging wasn’t something HQ would freely go along with. If this was related to a dark mission, one organization or another would have intervened. Clearly, this wasn’t the case. “Do you want me to continue with the data collection?”

“No, we’ve seen enough. Space is our battlefield.” He looked at the feeds I was displaying. “Cut the feeds and be ready to move out.”

I did as ordered.

“Losing a planet during purge.” Augustus shook his head. “If incompetence was a skill, humanity has it in spades.”

Ship chatter continued for several minutes more, but soon it became clear that there was nothing that could be done. The operation had worsened to the point where salvaging it was impossible. The entire incident was going to be filed away in some database as acceptable losses, and a new flotilla would be sent to purge the planet once more. Meanwhile, no one was going to ask the obvious question—how had such a vast number of Cassandrians managed to remain hidden up to now?

Anything you can tell me, Raf? I transmitted in the comm channel.

I’ve been ordered to stop scanning, the ship replied. No clue where they came from. I rechecked my memories. The underground chambers were empty. It’s as if the Cassies just popped out of nowhere.

Do you think you were thought quarantined? Blinding Path asked.

I should have seen something. The captain sent a priority one request to get an answer from HQ, but nothing came out of it. The Cassies just appeared out of nowhere.

Appeared out of nowhere and took over the planet, the old frigate repeated. Alarming. If we have to worry about planets we’ve won and purged, I don’t see the Fleet surviving this war.

The conversations quickly broke up. The various captains had their orders and none of them included anything going on the planet. Less than an hour later, as Augustus had predicted, a new set of orders arrived. I was ordered back to human space to get a new cadre of ground troops, then return to the front. As Augustus liked to say, “The war must go on.”

* * *

At the time, I hadn’t given the unexplained surge any thought. My focus was on the needless waste, created by the many layers of bureaucracy. There was no way I could have suspected that there was something else at play. Could the Fleet have known? It was always possible, although in that case, I thought the event had been missed, just as we were clueless as to what was going on now.

“Give me numbers,” I said in comm while trying to reduce the weight of the stone slab.

“Nineteen confirmed hostiles,” came the response. “They are gathering in a group and heading your way.”

“Wait, they are heading towards us?” my sergeant asked.

“Affirmative.”

“This makes no sense.” He turned towards me. “A reverse surge?”

“The big brains will figure that out. Meanwhile, we need to get the prism to them.” I cut off a few more slices of rock, then lifted the chunk. It was heavy, but manageable. The only drawback was that I could carry it or shoot, but not both. Whichever choice I made, my squad was going to suffer.

“All teams, defensive positions. Move back and protect our access points. We’re starting our way back. Someone, grab my rifle.”

One of my team members complied.

“Base point, give me an arrival estimate.”

“Difficult to say. We don’t have all—”

“Four minutes,” Colonel ‘Rissa interrupted. “You have four minutes. We’re ready on our end, if there’s a second surge heading our way. Whatever you do, get that prism back intact. That’s a priority zero order.”

“Understood.”

Priority zero order… It was always fun getting one of those; and in perfect Fleet tradition, it was for something that was next to impossible to achieve. Running a few dozen simulations, I came to the conclusion that there would be a significant number of casualties. If I was lucky, they would only be among my team. If not, the entire hive would be overrun, and possibly the planet as well.

The old frigate was right. Humanity’s delusions of victory seemed far less certain if we had to worry about purged planets becoming Cassandrian colonies. No wonder such things were kept under wraps. If it turned out to be a pattern, the entire Cassandrian buffer zone might reignite at any instant, and there would be nothing we could do about it.

We moved as quickly as possible. Two members were a few steps in front of me, weapons at the ready, and one covering the rear. Our goal was to reach the first waypoint before the Cassandrians reached us and make a stand. Given the amount of time remaining, I was uncertain that it would work.

“Teams one and two, anything on your end?” I asked in comm.

“Nothing, ma’am.”

“No visual here, ma’am.”

“Let me know when you get a visual,” I said.

I kept running simulation after simulation. So far, none of them had a satisfactory outcome. The greatest issue was the drops. If the surge had occurred from below, we could have fought our way to the first waypoint, then strapped the prism to the cables and pulled it up along with us. That would have provided us with a tactical advantage and made escape much easier. With the Cassies coming from above, there were no good options. If we tried climbing, they could take us out easily. If we waited for them below, they could cut off our escape route, leaving us to wait for the rescue team.

Time passed like paradoxical fragments—seconds were at the same time painfully long and incredibly short. When the four minutes had passed, we were still a fair distance away from the drop point. The only hope lay in the fact that the enemy hadn’t reached the first teams yet.

“Second waypoint, start climbing up,” I ordered.

“Please repeat that, ma’am. We can’t see you.”

“We’re almost there. Start going up to assist the main team. Main team, how are things on your side?”

“All clear for now, ma’am,” Corporal Listra said. “Maybe they took a wrong turn and—”

A burst of gunfire stopped her mid-sentence. The outcome I feared the most had taken place—the Cassies had found us while we were still at the bottom of the connection shaft. At this point, our choices were reduced to one: make a stand here and hope we were strong enough to outlast our attackers.

“Base point, we’ve engaged the enemy. I’m aborting the extraction. I repeat, I’m aborting the extraction.”

“You don’t have authority for that, Elcy,” ‘Rissa said. An analysis of her tone of voice indicated that she agreed with my course of action but couldn’t condone it because of the superiors breathing down her neck.

“That’s the only outcome with a chance of success, ma’am. We can’t get the prism back up in one piece, regardless of casualties. We’ll try to keep it safe until reinforcements arrive.”

“I don’t have the authority to send any help.”

“It's out of my hands, colonel. Either you send someone to retrieve the artifact or it remains here along with our corpses.”

Augustus would have been proud of me if he could have heard that. Everyone else, possibly not. Right now, there was no point in worrying about that. My priorities were the survival of the artifact as well as my own, in that order.

“All teams: get back down here,” I said. “We’ll be waiting this out.”

“There’s too many of them!” someone screamed through comm. “We can’t hold them off!”

“Sergeant, go ahead!” I shouted. “I want a plan ready by the time I get there. If you need me to cut a slab of wall or two, let me know.”

The man dashed on. Meanwhile, I put in all the effort I could carry what at this point was little more than an extremely heavy paperweight. It was highly doubtful that Med Core would be able to get anything from that. My conscience core didn’t allow me to quit, despite my objections.

Then it happened, the thing that everyone expects but dreads: I heard the death gurgle of one of my team through comm. The first casualty had taken place.

People used to think that there was a relation between time and number of casualties. As if lasting minutes until the first death would ensure that it would be minutes more before the second. Maybe it would have been nice for such cosmic logic to exist, but reality was far messier. If anything, the thousands of observations I made indicated it was the opposite: most often, the first death brought many more. I had seen entire fronts crumble on the ground moments after the first few of their ranks died.

“Status!” I shouted, hoping my voice would be heard among the noise of gunfire.

That didn’t turn out to be the case.

“Base point, give me a status of my squad.” I was going to have to learn the long way.

“Casualties are growing, ma’am,” came the reply. The message was clear—from here on, we were on our own.

“I can see you, ma’am!” someone from the remaining team shouted.

“Good, have you chosen a good defensive position?”

Going through my memories, there were quite a few options, but I preferred a human to make the choice. The reason wasn’t that I thought they could come up with a better plan. Rather, the contrary—none of our options were particularly good or bad. The important thing was that I give a task to my grunts to occupy their mind with.

Arriving at the bottom of the shaft, I found that the sergeant had half of the remaining squad directly beneath the cables, aiming up. From what I could gather, he was more afraid of Cassandrians using them to climb down than anything else. I found his fear to be unfounded, but didn’t comment.

“Things aren’t looking good, ma’am,” the sergeant said.

“We all have one of those days, Sergeant.” I put the Cassandrian prism on the floor. Taking my breath, I then reached for my sniper rifle.

As I prepped it for use, the sound of gunfire above stopped. Instantly, I went beneath the cables and aimed up.

“Do you think the Cassies have broken through?”

“I have no doubts,” I replied. “If there are no gunshots, it means there’s no one left to shoot.”

A deathly silence followed. I froze completely still. Controlling my breathing, I aimed up, waiting for the first signs of an enemy. The point wasn’t for me to shoot, but to confirm the approaching Cassies. My left hand held the cable, feeling for vibrations. The moment I felt them, I shot at the darkness, then immediately stepped back. The rest of the squad followed suit. However, nothing fell. The cables, however, started swinging.

“Incoming!” I shouted. The lack of proper light was to the enemies’ advantage. The access point was ours.

Bursts echoed, as several of my squad shot up, following my example. After a few rounds, there was another pause. This time I heard something falling down. The height of the shaft made it take longer than expected, but eventually it fell down with a dull thump.

That’s a Cassie? I wondered.

It didn’t match any of the specimens in my personal database. Furthermore, it was different from the creature I had encountered earlier.

“Base point, we have contact. What’s your status?” I asked.

“All clear on our end. No other sightings.”

That meant it wasn’t a surge, or at most only a partial one. Such instances were generally rare. I hadn’t personally witnessed any; the only times I’d heard of them were during shipyard gossip while waiting for refitting. Aurie probably knew more about the topic. At present, that shifted the odds of our survival, though not by much.

“Estimation count is low hundreds,” the comm officer said.

“We’ll keep that in mind, base point,” I replied.

“Bureaucratic asshole,” my sergeant hissed, voicing what probably everyone thought.

“Look on the bright side.” I aimed up the shaft and fired another shot. “At least we know we won’t run out of bullets.”

For half a minute, we continued to shoot blind. When Cassandrian bodies stopped dropping, I ordered that we stop. While I didn’t want to raise anyone’s hopes, this was encouraging. It meant that the first part of my squad had thinned the enemies to the point where there was a space between them. Running a few simulations, I estimated that I could be facing anywhere between twenty and two hundred enemies.

“Pull back to the tunnel!” I ordered. “The prism is our main priority.”

A priority exceeding that of ships and people. From the perspective of the big picture, that was the correct thing to do. Everyone who joined the Fleet knew it. Sometimes it made sense, sometimes it didn’t. That was the chief reason that ships were made not to fear their own death. Humans were a different matter altogether.

I moved the artifact while the rest of the team covered me. About a dozen of us were left at this point, ready to face an enemy ten times our number.

“Calm and collected,” I said in comm. “Odds are good that some of us make it.”

“Maybe you will, ma’am,” someone said. “Ever faced hundreds of enemies before?”

“In space, that’s all in a day’s work.”

Soon enough, the Cassies became visible. Even with the weak light sources at our disposal, we were able to see them sliding down the cables. There were dozens of them, all with a spider or crab-like appearance. Chitin covered large parts of their bodies, thankfully too thin to stop a direct hit from a projectile.

The instant I caught them in my sights, I started shooting. Each bullet was a hit, each hit a death, but that only meant I could eliminate eight before I had to reload. The rest of the team produced far more results, even if they weren’t as efficient. Taking advantage of their cover fire, I slid a new magazine into my rifle and kept shooting. No matter how many we downed, more of them kept coming. By the time I loaded the third clip, it became clear that the weapon wouldn’t help me for much longer. Bodies piled up, providing cover for the new arrivals. Just like in space, reinforcements hid behind the husks of the dead before they charged on.

“Back!” I threw my sniper on the floor and switched to my sidearm. “Reload in shifts.”

“They just keep on coming!” the sergeant shouted.

“It’s a trickle!” I shouted back. “That means they’re running out.”

So far, we had achieved seventy-three confirmed kills, which put us in the median of their numbers. From here on, every kill could turn out to be the last. There was simply no way of knowing.

As the fighting continued, we pulled back further. I was forced to carry the prism while everyone else was covering me. So far, we had managed to avoid any casualties, but that was of little consequence. The team on the top of the shaft had done the same for a while, then crumbled completely in under a minute. The moment the first of the Cassies got close enough to strike, the battle was over.

Suddenly, the ground shook. The tremor lasted fragments of a second, but was strong enough to be felt by everyone.

“Keep on shooting!” I shouted. Earth tremors and explosions had bad effects on people, especially when occurring for the first time. Nearly always, there was a slight pause in activity, leaving them vulnerable. “Base point, we got a tremor, explain!”

“What’s your status?” ‘Rissa asked instead.

“The prism is intact,” I said, knowing what she wanted to hear.

“Keep it that way. The rescue team has finally drilled through. We’ve started evacuating. A team’s been assembled and is heading your way.”

“Roger that, ma’am.”

Knowing that reinforcements were on the way seemed reassuring, but pointless in the long term. By the time they reached our position, things would be over one way or the other. The only thing they’d be useful for was to deal with potential Cassandrian reinforcements, and by the looks of it, there was no sign of that happening.

“You heard the colonel,” I said to my own team. “Help is here. Don’t get killed in the next ten minutes and you’ll get to see the sky once more.”

“That means we get to see the sky either way, ma’am,” the sergeant laughed. His humor was returning, which was a good sign.

“Retreat fire!” I shouted. Normally, fighting for a few seconds’ advantage wasn’t worth much, but with enemies being so remarkably few, every second counted. Of course, it would have been much better if I didn’t have to drag a heavy chunk of dead weight.

“Reloading!” the corporal of my team shouted.

We had reached that stage—the moment when things became tense. Bullets were not an issue. Myself and the squad had plenty of those. The time needed to reload, though, was something we didn’t have any of. In a few moments, the rest of the team would have to reload as well, creating a lull in the fire potential.

“Single shots!” I ordered.

The Cassies were still coming at us in groups of three and four. Their carcasses started to clog the tunnel in front of us. Based on my observations, we had already passed the hundred mark, suggesting there was a sixty-seven percent chance that the fight might end in a few minutes.

“Reloading,” two more people announced in comm. The rest were saving bullets. I was running hundreds of simulations in parallel, in an attempt to find the best outcome. And then, suddenly, the Cassandrians stopped coming.

“Hold!” I shouted.

A second passed, then three, then five.

The sergeant looked at me.

“It can’t be that easy,” he said.

Considering the losses above, I couldn’t agree that it was easy, but I agreed with him. I had never heard of a squad surviving a surge without considerable orbital support. The only times in which ground troops achieved victory were during mop-up operations.

“Base point, Cassie attacks have stopped,” I said. “Anything on your end?”

“All’s clear, ma’am. Director Sim has been extracted. The colonel is organizing the evacuation efforts.”

“Let me know if there are any changes.” I reloaded my sidearm, then holstered it. “Reload and be on guard. There might be other waves.”

I waited until everyone on my team had done so, then slowly went forward. Looking closer at the Cassandrian corpses, they seemed in quite a pitiful state. It was as if someone had made an army of everything at hand and thrown it at us in an attempt to kill us off. The Fleet used to do that, sending mothballed ships into battle to boost their overall numbers. Sometimes they did the job, but in nearly all cases, the ships never made it back.

“Should you be touching that, ma’am?” The sergeant approached as I was poking the remains.

“We need to go through them to get out of here,” I replied. “Decon will take care of any organic traces. Everyone ready to go on?” I looked over my shoulder.

“Aye, ma’am.”

“Let’s get out of here.” I stood up. “The main thing now is—”

It happened faster than a second. Looking back at my team, I saw something else. It was barely a movement in the darkness of the tunnel, far from any of our light sources. A normal person would have missed it. I had considerably more processing power. Even in the faint light, I was able to analyze images in milliseconds, revealing the approaching shape, then matching it to everything else in my memories.

With a single action, I drew my firearm and took two shots.

“Contact!” I shouted, as my team’s reactions kicked in. Instinct made them shoot back at me. Experience taught them to turn around to aim at my target instead. Massive gunfire followed.

Instantly I grabbed the prism, wading through the Cassandrian corpses while the rest provided cover fire.

“Base point, we have another surge!” I shouted. “From within the hive.”

“What’s the point of origin?” the comm officer asked.

“That’s all the data we have! What are your orders?”

“Reinforcements are on the way. The prism remains the top priority.”

So that was it. Our lives were expendable. Everyone knew what was meant—we could all die, but as long as the artifact made it planetside, the mission would be considered a success.

It never was an easy task telling your squad they had to sacrifice themselves so that the Fleet could gain a strategic or tactical advantage. Thankfully, I didn’t have to.

“Sunil, help the LT get up the ropes!” the sergeant shouted. “Everyone else, full fire. We keep them busy until reinforcements arrive.”

The gunfire grew louder. It was possible that the advancing Cassies were less than a few dozen, but it wasn’t for me to take that chance. I had to get the artifact away from them as fast as possible.

Putting in as much force as my body allowed, I ran through the corpses, carrying the artifact. The assigned private followed me close behind, ready to shoot at anything should it pass through the defensive line.

Two different attacks from both sides. From a tactical point, that made no sense. If the Cassandrians had that advantage, they could wait a while longer to do a pincer attack and be guaranteed a victory. Instead, they had performed two attacks, suggesting that I was dealing with different groups.

Cassandrian factions striving for dominance, I thought. Although, if that were the case, the sub species should have been different.

“Are you alright, ma’am?” Sunil asked. I jotted down the stupidity of the question of the adrenaline he was subjected to.

“Get the gear ready,” I replied. “We’re roping the prism to the cable.”

It had taken us minutes to fall back from our escape shaft to the corridor. This time, we were back in four seconds. Throwing anything of my gear that would weigh me down, I wrapped the artifact in the climbing net I was given, then attached it to one of the cables. Seeing it handle the weight was a relief. At least I could be fairly certain that the Cassies hadn’t done anything to our escape route.

“Get rid of your rifle,” I said, attaching the gear that would help me climb up. “We only need to make it a dozen meters before they get here. Make sure you get both of the cable ends as we go up.”

Nothing like a mission going wrong, I thought, then started climbing.

The weight wasn’t the issue going up; it was the lack of balance, causing me to swing more than I would have preferred. The private soon joined in, taking the ends with him. This way, even if the rest of the squad failed to stop the incoming Cassies, we’d at least have a chance. There wasn’t much I knew about this new subspecies, but from what I had noted, they weren’t in any condition to scale the walls.

“Proceeding with extraction,” I said in comm. “We’re heading up the shaft. ETA seventy-six minutes.”

“Roger that. Reinforcements are due in twenty-two.”

At least they would be able to pull us out faster. Another two minutes in, and the gunfire ceased. I was unable to see any movement in the shaft below, but it was obvious what had happened. The second half of my initial squad was gone. The private made a few attempts to raise the sergeant or any of the people through the comm, but no reply followed. From here on, we were on our own—the only two survivors of a seemingly successful mission.

Twenty minutes later, it was official. The gamble had paid off. I could hear the sound of creatures at the bottom of the shaft, but none of them were able to climb up or fire any projectiles to cause us to fall down. When the reinforcements came, we were pulled up in all haste and quickly escorted to the exit point.

No one bothered giving us any details. They simply took the artifact—jotting down the mission as successful—and ordered us to proceed to the evacuation point. No one bothered to clear the bodies of the fallen, or even gather any personal items and gear. The dead were left where they lay, along with their weapons.

“What about quarantine?” I asked one of the rescue team members. “We’ve been in contact with the Cassies.”

“That’ll be dealt with planet-side, ma’am,” the woman replied. “The main thing is to get you out of here.”

“If we ignore decon protocols, we’ll end up with the same thing that happened here,” I stressed. “Do you want to risk this spreading to the surface?”

There was a momentary pause. The woman, along with several others, stopped and turned towards me, their faces invisible behind full opacity helmets.

“It has already spread all over the surface,” came the reply. “The reason we took so long to reach you was because we’ve been fending off Cassie attacks non-stop.”