Into the Light by Jane Wallace

Sevin awoke the next day to the frantic buzzing of his digi. Foggy with sleep, he snatched it up and read its screen. It was 07:00 GST. As Brodie had anticipated, new orders had been received overnight. There was a meeting for Special Ops in the Briefing Room in thirty minutes’ time. Messages from Lauden, and Sevin’s second-in-command for the Special Ops unit onboard Vehement, Captain Gilip Cantor, confirmed they would be accompanying him.

He jumped in the steamer, Vehement’s approximation of a shower that was more like a dry-clean, and dressed quickly, hurrying the short distance from his cabin to the Fleet Commander’s quarters which usefully were also on Level 4. Preoccupied with arriving on time, he took a while to realise the permadrone of the engines had cranked up a notch. He stopped by a porthole and saw they had changed course overnight. The points of Altan’s twin suns were directly ahead.

The autodoors swished apart to reveal a full complement seated around the square table in the Briefing Room. On the side facing the door, Brodie sat dead centre, flanked by the two lieutenant colonels, Regis and Weffer. Both looked as if they had been up all night. Regis’ blond hair was askew and his collar unbuttoned while Weffer’s jaw was showing a dark shadow. Their assistants stood behind them. Weffer’s looked a piece of work, Sevin thought, taking in her bristling black cropped hair daubed with a streak of white at the forehead. And, of course, there was Reverre. He sat on Weffer’s right and slightly away from the table edge, his head tilted in a pose of studied boredom. As Sevin entered, he sat up and fixed him with an unblinking stare. Behind Reverre, Macroy stood to attention, undaunted by the blobby scab which had replaced the wart on the end of his nose.

Sevin suppressed a smile and took the remaining seat between Lauden and Cantor.

‘Everyone here now? Good, we’d better crack on if we’re going to make the juniors’ briefing at 08:30,’ said Brodie. He rubbed his hands together. ‘As you have probably guessed, we have a new mission. We are to move off patrol and liberate the planet of Gridon from Gharst control. Everyone, welcome to Operation Rebel Heart.’

Sevin glanced at Cantor and saw his junior was as surprised as him.

‘Our objective is to attack strategic locations on the planet with the intention of either defeating the occupying Gharst forces under Hauptleiter Stor Jenalt or bringing them to surrender,’ continued Brodie.

‘With respect, sir, it cannot be done,’ Sevin said. ‘There are only three battalions onboard - eighteen hundred regulars plus Special Ops which is only fifty more. The Gharst on the ground must be five times that.’

Weffer’s assistant bent forward to whisper in his ear. Sevin frowned as he took in her rank and name badge. Command Sergeant Major or not, Hauki shouldn’t be interfering. He examined her carefully. She was in her early forties with a stout but powerful physique that looked capable of simply steamrollering any opposition. Her tawny skin and fine features placed her as an outerworlder, possibly Tarangan. Her expression was proud to the point of rudeness and her lively eyes had been scrutinising the Special Ops team since the meeting started. Sevin marked her as one to watch.

Weffer nodded at her words. ‘Our intelligence says Jenalt has three thousand troops.’

Cantor shook his prematurely grey head. He was thirty but a decade fighting the Gharst had aged him. ‘Excuse me, sir, but that’s not enough to keep down a planet like Gridon. The population’s seventy thousand.’

’You’re right,’ said Brodie. ‘That’s why the gribs have got securimorphs to keep the natives in line. We think they’ve got around nine hundred Nightwatch in place, that’s the one equipped with the SK1 blaster. This is where you come in, Sevin, you and Special Ops. We think we know where the masterboard is located. It will be your job to disable it and put the morphs out of action before we start the main assault.’

‘Even without the robots, Coalition forces are heavily outnumbered,’ Sevin said.

‘Well, that’s where we have a trick up our sleeve. Colonel Reverre can explain.’

Reverre leaned his elbows on the table and Sevin caught a waft of cologne. As usual, he appeared freshly shaven, there was never a sign of stubble around his square jaw. His facial skin was so sleek that Sevin wondered if he had been cosmetically referenced.

‘We’ve been approached by a local resistance group called the Corazon,’ he said. ‘They are small, but active, and they’ve had some success with raids and supply line disruption. They’ve said that, if we equip them with weapons, they will assist us with the attack.’

‘How many men have they got?’ asked Cantor.

‘Their leader, a man called Kristil, says he can provide two thousand.’

Now the idea seemed even more absurd to Sevin. A tatty rabble of guerrillas would be little help against the Gharst sturmgangers, regular troops as efficiently inhuman as the robots which aided them. They were fanatics, brainwashed to believe in the ancient Gharst myths that glory in battle was a one-way ticket to the divine dining hall which was the Gharst notion of heaven. They also carried comms implants, embedded in the skull by the ear canal, so they could receive their orders instantly. Their manoeuvrability was second to none. Sevin had seen a whole battalion change direction in a matter of seconds.

‘That evens things up,’ Brodie was saying. ‘Let’s have a look at the strategy.’

The dull white surface of the table-top warmed under their fingers and turned to navy. In the centre, a real-time image formed in ochre and watery blue of a globe ringed by a titanic silver torus. Over the northern pole hung a solo moon and the ghostly mantle of a radiation belt. This glimmering veil was the largest repository of antimatter particles in the Known Worlds, a key asset to any faction attempting to take control of the Altan system and beyond. Antimatter was used widely for ignition systems in the fission reactors onboard space craft and increasingly for power stations on the ground. Only small amounts were required but these were rare and difficult to extract – making them as valuable as the traditional gold-dust.

Yellow specks could be seen teeming over the belt: gigantic automated scoops which sucked up its plasma and sifted it for antimatter. When they were full, the scoops offloaded the particles into special collection points on the torus from where they would be transported to the ground hundreds of kilometres below via scenders, the elevators travelling up and down inside the sixteen stanchions which anchored the entire structure to the planet’s surface.

The work was low-paid and dangerous, leaks in the pipeline caused terrifying geothermal effects and radiation sickness was common. The company bosses had long since decamped to luxury residences in Delta Nine or Zudan, although since the Gharst had commandeered the operations, profits had been negligible.

‘Here’s Gridon, home to our largest antimatter production facility which has been occupied by the Gharst for the past three standard years,’ Brodie said. ‘As you are aware, the Gharst are controlling antimatter supply to Altan and the neighbouring systems so the price has rocketed, upsetting commodity markets and posing a serious threat to energy provision across the Known Worlds. It is of the utmost importance for us to regain Gridon and re-establish normal supply and demand patterns.’

The onscreen sphere rotated ninety degrees and the view zoomed in above the equator to show the central plains of a continent running north to a rippling coastline greyed with urbanisation.

‘Gridon’s land mass comprises 60 per cent of the surface, but much of it is uninhabited. Banthan here,’ Brodie indicated the sludge of development on the coast with his light pen, ‘is the hub for government, comms, transport and so on. It’ll be the focus of the attack.’

Now the screen was showing a much higher resolution map of the city itself, obviously captured by a spy drone. Sevin saw an aerial aspect of a network of streets surrounding a central square of high-rise blocks. Travelling south down a six-lane highway jammed with vehicles, the camera paused over a massive space port and industrial complex which stretched for many kilometres, the Actiran processing plant. Finally the perspective pulled back to set the city in its topographical context: the sea to the north, a hilly region to the west, the southern plains and, to the east and running alongside the coastline, uninterrupted forest. Here Brodie drew a circle.

‘Operation Rebel Heart will be a two-pronged attack,’ he said. ‘Colonel Weffer will take two battalions, 95 Starfleet and 22 Laser, to rendezvous here with the Corazon. Once they’re armed, there’ll be a quick march, and I mean quick, there’s six K to cover to get the city by first sun-up and begin the offensive.’

Weffer nodded his agreement and Brodie continued: ‘Simultaneous to the dawn attack, Pramis Volunteers, under Colonel Regis, will approach from the west and secure the space port and the Actiran facility. There’ll be some Corazon at strategic points throughout the city, ready to rise up as soon as Coalition forces enter the Banthan city limits. When we’ve contained both areas, the security detail will be mandated to the Corazon and the Gridons can have their homeworld back.’

He tapped the light pen on the table surface and grinned at Sevin. ‘There is a large contingent of morphs deployed at the space port and the Kraton, the governor’s palace. We think they are being controlled from here.’ He indicated a group of buildings which looked like an abandoned industrial park in the hinterland between the space port and the sprawl of the Actiran plant. ‘Special Ops will locate the masterboard and deactivate the morphs while 95 and 22 are kitting out the Corazon. That will give you about two hours to get in and out. Should be enough for you, eh, Sevin?’

Brodie leant back in his chair. ‘Any questions?’

‘When does it start?’ said Cantor.

’Disembarkation begins at 02:00 GST tonight, together with Ground Force troops from Valiant and Victory,’ said Reverre. ‘You’ll have observed that we diverted during the night. Within four hours, we’ll arrive at the moon Riddan. If we stay on its dark side, we’ll remain undetected. The Gridon extronet is not sophisticated and we can find enough fall-out between beacons to land the skydrives covertly.’

‘Alright?’ Brodie looked around for more queries.

‘You’re sure the masterboard is there?’ Sevin said, frowning at the map. ‘It doesn’t seem right to me. Surely the Gharst would have it closer to Central Control, somewhere in the town or the Kraton?’

‘Of course it is, I have it from the highest authority,’ said Reverre, his mud-grey eyes brimming with indignation.

‘I’m sure you do.’

‘Right, right,’ interrupted Brodie, sensing a stand-off. ‘Any other questions? No? Good, dismiss.’

Sevin hung back, anticipating a showdown over the events of the previous night but Reverre gave no sign of bringing it and Macroy continued to glare at the opposite wall. Sevin resolved to watch his back and followed Lauden and Cantor out of the room towards the mess for breakfast.