Saturnius Mons (Ruins of Empire Book 1) Read online

  “Okay, Carr. You got us. No need for killin’. We can talk about this. I’m alive and you got the upper hand. I’m sure Laban don’t want this to be any bloodier than it needs to be.”

  Carr laughed again. “Well, the boss does like to keep it clean. You and your people surrender to us right now and we talk.”

  “Carr, I want assurances that I don’t get my head blasted off if I stand. Your guys look like they got itchy trigger fingers. You tell ‘em I’m gonna stand up. I’m gonna stand and they ain’t to shoot me. Make sure they know it.”

  Carr shouted orders in the same strange language that the natives spoke. How the hell did he learn it?

  Viekko leaned toward Lucjo and whispered, “When I say ‘go’ you all run. Tell them.”

  Lucjo nodded. While the other side was still conversing, he passed word to Alisa, Mikelo, and Jocjo.

  When the conversation ended Carr said, “Okay, we’re all set. Now you just come out now.”

  Viekko turned and put his hands up over the divider first. Satisfied that he didn’t get his hand blown off, he started to stand.

  Carr stood up as well from behind a cluster of pipes. He held one of those strange guns while the forest people spread out around him. Now that Viekko got a good look, there were closer to fifteen men all armed with this rifle. He started wondering how many of those damn things Isra brought and how she could have been stupid enough to think that it was a good idea.

  Carr aimed his gun at Viekko. “You alone?”

  “No. There are others here with me. Soldiers from the city.”

  Carr’s eyes surveyed the area. “Are they armed?”

  “Only with blunt weapons and snares.”

  “What about you?”

  “I’m packing two guns in my shoulder holster.”

  Carr motioned with his gun. “Take ‘em out and throw them here.”

  Viekko glanced around and found himself looking at a whole mess of gun barrels all being held by folk with some terrible shakes. All it would take was one bad move and they would snap up their guns and spray the area with bullets.

  Viekko shook his head. “If it’s all the same to you, I’d rather someone come here and disarm me. Your guys are lookin’ twitchy and if I go reachin’ for my gun, I might end up fulla holes.”

  Carr considered this. He turned to a couple of the men and said something. They hesitated for a moment and started in Viekko’s direction. Viekko remained as still as he could to avoid spooking them. He didn’t move when they both got close. He didn’t twitch as one, holding the rifle with one hand, went to go for Viekko’s gun with the other.

  Viekko smiled. At least they were as inexperienced as they looked. A professional would never get that close.

  In one swift movement, Viekko grabbed the barrel of the rifle with one hand and pushed it to the side. With the other, he pulled one of his handguns and fired two shots. The first one went into the head of the other gunman standing nearby, the other into the head of the man frisking him. Then he fell back behind the concrete as every other man with a gun unleashed a storm of bullets.

  Viekko turned and yelled at Lucjo, “Go! Now! Go! Go!” Then he stood just enough to see over the barricade shouldered the rifle and fired full automatic on Carr’s position.

  His goal was just to spray bullets downfield and create enough violence of action to give the rest of his men a moment to escape. The gun was remarkable though. In the initial few fractions of a second the gun locked on to several targets and augmented the barrel to hit them. He managed to hit and kill five…no, six of them. Seven with another shot from his handgun.

  But he only had a moment, and he was pushing the limits of that unit of time. The men he hadn’t killed scrambled for their own cover, so he turned and sprinted as hard and as fast as he could out of the refinery complex.

  Viekko jumped and scrambled his way through the obstacle course of steel and concrete. Once he hit open ground, he surged forward as fast as his legs and the EROS suit would allow. Lucjo was out ahead followed by Mikelo and Alisa helping Jocjo run. A few hundred feet into open ground, it felt like the gates of Hell opened from behind them. Viekko kept running, focusing on nothing but the refinery wall and the forest looming in the distance.

  Lucjo paused for a moment and turned to see if the rest of his people were behind him. It was a mistake. As soon as he stopped, his body erupted into a hundred little red geysers and he fell backward into the grass.

  Seeing their leader fall caused Alisa and Jocjo to pause either in shock, or just at a loss of what to do next.

  Viekko had a realization. Those tracking systems were amazing but they could only do so much. In the hands of an untrained person who couldn’t hit the ground if it wasn’t for gravity, even the auto-track would have a time shooting a moving target. They were safe…well, safer if they kept moving.

  Viekko headed right for Alisa and Jocjo. He barreled into the two of them and sent them both tumbling into the grass. Viekko rolled until he found a broken slab of concrete for cover. He raised the rifle and returned fire.

  Viekko watched the forest people streaming out of the refinery through the gun sights. Unlike the blind attack earlier, Viekko focused on precision. He aimed, squeezed off a few bullets, and an enemy fell. He went to the next, squeezed off a few rounds and moved on. He managed to pick off another five before Carr screamed orders and the others sought cover. It was a shame he couldn’t get Carr into his sights.

  Viekko took a moment to check on Alisa and Jocjo. Alisa knelt over her fellow soldier’s body and watched in horror as Jocjo took his last breath.

  One of Carr’s men showed himself. Viekko squeezed off a few more rounds before he turned, grabbed Alisa, and ran for it.

  Mikelo never stopped running. One doesn’t become an old soldier without knowing when the time is right to flee. He waited at the wall and helped Alisa over. Viekko helped him next and got over himself just as a few bullets slammed into the stone.

  Once over the wall, they charged through the forests toward the safety of the city. There was still the occasional crack of rifle fire as they sprinted through the forest, but they didn’t seem to be giving chase. After a few moments, Viekko felt they were safe.

  More people were dead and Laban now had control of the refineries. And, frankly, he could have them. There wasn’t anything on Titan worth dying over as far as Viekko was concerned, and he wasn’t going to try.

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  Before the war, Earth glowed with the lights of a hundred mega-cities. After the war, the only light came from the fires of a world ignited. The light of Civilization would not be seen for many generations.

  -from The Fall: The Decline and Failure of 21st Century Civilization by Martin Raffe.

  Despite her better instincts, Althea established an uplink to Viekko’s medical regulator. She told herself it was to look for any adverse reactions to the triple-T. It was a dangerous drug, after all, not produced in any reputable lab but in small, clandestine operations with no regard to purity or sanitation. Using it in this way was a risky treatment, if you could call it that, and she had to be extra vigilant during this time.

  But in reality, she needed to know that Viekko was alive out there.

  She touched her EROS computer and scrolled through the data. His pulse was racing, his blood pressure and adrenaline were lower than before but still high for...

  She shut off the screen on her EROS computer and closed her eyes. All of the readings were perfectly normal for a man in his situation. She hoped that the lower readings meant that he was out of danger and on his way back. Or, at very least, somewhere safe. Even if every single reading flatlined at once, there was nothing she could do from here.

  Althea needed a distraction. Isra and the Houston were conversing and mostly in the native language now. She couldn’t understand a word, so that left Cronus who was typing away at the supercomputer’s keyboards, oblivious to the world around him.

  She leaned against the
console near him, smiled, and said, “Have you found anything?”

  Cronus didn’t look away. “Almost. I am trying to bypass the lockdown protocol on the rest of the computer’s systems. I am almost there, but I have found something else. Something important. Something that continues even while the whole system is in lockdown. It is the Signal.”

  Althea leaned closer to the screen. To her eyes it didn’t look like anything but a blur of symbols scrolling endlessly top to bottom, moving so fast that it didn't register as anything with meaning.

  “I don’t understand,” said Althea. “What do you see here?”

  “It is a code,” said Cronus looking at her with a manic grin, “A constant string of data being transmitted. Terabytes of data. Generated constantly requiring the bulk of this machine’s processing power. And this machine was designed to perfectly simulate evolution of all life on Earth.”

  “What is it for? What does it say?”

  Cronus's grin faded slightly and he turned back to the screens. “No idea. But there is so much. One does not dedicate a piece of art like this to a task if it's not important.” He leaned close and whispered conspiratorially, “And one does not elevate system maintenance to a religious practice without cause.” He motioned with his head to the acolytes in the white robes wandering between the server towers.

  Althea watched an acolyte open a panel and pull out a keyboard on a rolling slide. He or she -Althea couldn’t tell with the hood- methodically typed a few commands, pushed the keyboard back into its place and closed the panel.

  “It’s all ritualistic,” Cronus explained. “No thought payed to the process and no understanding of the science. The wires, the code, transmission protocols and data management; they understand none of it. They only know what to do, not why.”

  Althea watched the acolytes at work. A religion based around the computers. It made a strange sort of sense. Althea considered herself reasonably proficient with computer technology. Above average, at any rate. But she had to admit a level of ignorance when it came to how it all worked. And what was magic if not a catch-all explanation for things beyond most people’s understanding? And what was religion if not a way to control that which one does not understand?

  The sound of the main door sliding open and several loud footsteps on the steel catwalk made Althea jump. She wasn’t expecting anyone quite so soon. Viekko entered with a fire in his eyes that suggested that he was bringing the demons of hell with him. Two of the Houston’s soldiers tailed him. They too had a certain look in their eyes and the front of one of their coats was covered in blood. Viekko cradled a rifle in his arms more advanced than anything Althea had ever seen. Corporation Marines didn’t even have such equipment. He stopped just inside the temple and, without a word, dropped the gun. It hit the catwalk with a resounding clang like the toll of a funeral bell.

  The Houston approached with his mouth twisted in a sneer. “Has the problem been resolved?”

  Viekko stared back defiantly. “Not as such, no.”

  The Houston inspected his soldiers paying particular attention to the bloodstain that covered the front of the woman’s coat. “And what of my other soldiers?”

  Viekko’s eyes hardened into a glare that could shatter steel. “The enemy is entrenched in the refineries. Our small force suffered heavy casualties in the encounter and we were lucky to leave without a total loss. Mikelo and Alisa here were the only survivors.”

  The Houston bowed his head and clasped his hands together as if he were saying a prayer. He spoke a few words to his solders who immediately bowed their head and turned to leave the building. The Houston watched them leave for a moment before he shook his head, “I trusted you. The Urbanoi trusted you. What has happened?”

  Viekko motioned to Isra. “That’s what I aim to ask her.”

  Althea looked hard at Isra’s face to see any trace of fear or confusion. Repulsion or guilt. Something that would let Althea know what, if anything, Isra had to do with this. But her face was blank.

  Viekko looked for it too. When he couldn’t find it he said, “What? You don’t got nothin’ to say about that? Nothin’ at all?”

  Isra sighed through her nose as if the whole matter were a trivial annoyance. “What would you like me to say?”

  Viekko looked down at the gun at his feet. His voice was cold and mournful. “Any damn thing. Lie to me. Tell me this tengeriin nokhoi baas ain’t what it looks like! Tell me that it looks bad but you’ve got an explanation. Tell me that mich Laban set you up and you didn’t do what I think you did.”

  Althea didn’t want to believe what she was looking at could be real. She wanted to believe that, against all reason, the rifle had always been here. But her eyes drifted over the tiny targeting screen built into the upper receiver which housed sophisticated components built out of centuries of arms research. This couldn’t have been created here, not on a planet that could barely maintain the computer equipment of the fallen civilization. She remembered the locked supply crates and how Isra changed when they were stolen, and she understood. She didn’t want to. She wanted there to be a different explanation, but there was only one that made any sense. Isra brought those guns to Titan.

  The room fell into an uncomfortable silence. Even Cronus stopped his incessant typing to turn and wait for a response. Althea desperately hoped the mission leader would have something, anything that could justify such a reckless action.

  But Isra was monotone and calculating, like she was going to describe her own death with total medical accuracy. “As I mentioned before, if we lose Titan, they will have everything they need to keep humanity under the Corporate boot.”

  “The guns!” yelled Viekko, “Tell me about the ta zondoo guns! I ain’t seen nothin’ as sophisticated as them.”

  Isra, as calm as ever, glanced back at the Houston. “I am getting to that. Suffice it to say the Ministry’s orders were to succeed at all costs. What you found was a weapon that could be given to literally any person anywhere and the technology could compensate for their lack of training. Dubbed the ‘Peasant Gun,’ it was developed by the Ministry to instantly turn citizens into soldiers as deadly as the most highly trained marines. It was meant to give us the edge. A way to apply sufficient force against the Corporation if they decided to violate interplanetary law, which is clearly what they have done.”

  Viekko folded his arms. “With your own guns I might add.”

  “Your people,” said the Houston as if trying to wrap his mind around something, “They have come to Titan to destroy us? It was them who killed my soldiers?”

  Viekko stepped back, “It weren’t people from Earth. Well, it was one man from Earth, but the rest, they were people from this planet, the forest people, the Perfiduloi as you say. The same ones we found dead outside the city walls. If you ask me, somethin don’t make sense.”

  “Viekko—” Isra started.

  “No! No more lies or secrets. Everyone’s cards on the table right now. Houston, is anything you told us about the forest people true? What happens to the people you ‘rescue’? What the hell happened at the spaceport?”

  The Houston closed his eyes. “I did not want that. My people, the Urbanoi, want to help them. To rescue their souls and bring them into the light of the Kompanio. But when the new star flashed in the sky, the Perfiduloi gathered against the Kompanio. They came to welcome those who would destroy us. I tried to convince them to leave but in the end… The judgment of the Venganto was complete. There was nothing we could do.”

  “What is the Venganto?” said Isra.

  The Houston regarded Isra and Viekko with a look of slight contempt, “The Venganto were left to us by the Kompanio. When the ships first stopped coming, there were others. Rivals of the Kompanio that came to take our city and destroy the Urbanoi. The Venganto protected us then. They protect us now.”

  Viekko kicked the gun across the catwalk to the Houston’s feet. “Well I don’t suppose these Venganto want to fix this situation then?”


  The Houston shook his head, “They only come in darkness. That is why you and your people must leave before the eclipse. The Venganto will cleanse this world.”

  Isra started to say something when three of the City’s soldiers ran across the catwalk to the Houston. One of them whispered something in the Houston’s ear. His face remained unchanged.

  He dismissed the soldiers and turned to Isra, “I’m afraid your failure is complete and we must put our faith in the Kompanio. It was foolish to do otherwise. You must leave now.”

  The Houston made a slight gesture and the soldiers surged forward. A couple took Viekko by the arms, a brave action since Viekko was nearly a third taller than either of them and outweighed them by a factor of two.

  The other went to escort Althea out and Isra yelled, “Houston! This is not over. From what Cronus told me, you will need help using the computer to restore the refineries once we reclaim them. We just need time.”

  The Houston turned his head toward the sky. “I have heard the Kompanio. They are clear. Remove all Outsiders from the city.”

  “You want to hear the Kompanio?” asked Cronus, turning back to the keyboard. “All you had to do was ask. I have found their voice. Hear it now.”

  The pyramid filled with an unholy screech. Althea covered her ears and winced. It was like the sound of a nail on chalkboard recorded and then sent through a feedback loop. The noise lasted for a few seconds and ended with a pop. When Althea uncovered her ears there was a pleasant female voice instead: “…those left behind, it is imperative to the continuation of Transplanetary Energy’s work on Titan that you follow these procedures. The refinery complex must never be allowed to fail.”

  All around her the soldiers and even the Houston repeated the words, “The refinery complex must never be allowed to fail.” She realized that all of the soldiers were on their knees.