Diaspora Ad Astra (3 page)

Now, far below them, in the eye of the storm, a lone figure stands at the edge of a limestone cliff. Except for the Omniskin, he is the very picture of a Republic Intelligence
Officer—forgettable features on weather-worn skin, short wind-tossed hair raking his forehead, and an arrogant watchfulness in his demeanor. His Omniskin looks like interlaced lengths of
impossibly dark silk that twine about his fingers, travel up his forearm to disappear under the cuffs of his stealth suit. This is Captain Delgado, and his gaze scours the skies for a glimpse of
seven compatriots hurtling down towards him.

The howling wind picks up, managing to bleed through the unnatural stillzone that drapes their target island. His Omniskin shifts and ripples, thickening around his neck and
torso, trapping much-needed warmth at his core. Out of habit, Captain Delgado murmurs thanks to his Omniskin, though such thanks are seldom necessary. He’s worn Konstantin for nearly seven
years and it has served him faithfully—it has never failed, never wavered, never frozen in all the time he has been in service. Captain Delgado will—during times of extreme
peril—confide in Konstantin as a friend, a lone confessor in unknown territory, a partner in policy-driven crimes against the enemies of the Republic.

He checks his Konstantin’s signal for the seventeenth time, the tenth since he sent the TARGO signal to the
R.P.S. Artemis
via Omniwave channels, and this time
is shocked to find that his tracker reads four signals. One is his, bright and strong and dead-center on the screen of his hand-held tracker. The other three flare erratically and appear to
originate from Sanction’s target arena—the slaver stronghold twenty kilometers inland, just beyond the range of hills along the edge of a treacherous ravine. Captain Delgado hesitates
for a fraction of a fraction of an instant. Then he boosts the output of his Omniskin and pours all his will into the next few seconds attempting to overpower the interloping signals that have
chosen this astoundingly inconvenient instant to reveal themselves.

One hundred fifty kilometers above Captain Delgado and dropping, Captain Aharad sees the four signals throb in green and yellow mere centimeters in front of his right eye,
curses his fortune as he considers an emergency abort, then selects Delgado’s signal when it flares brightly on his screen.

Seven pods lance down from the swirling, lightning filled skies above Captain Delgado and impact the water just below the cliff, sending up a wall of surf and clouds of
steaming vapor.

Captain Delgado masks Konstatin’s signal with a thought and a grin, runs over to the cliff’s edge and gets ready to activate the pull-cable turbines at Captain
Arahad’s command.

OMNIANS

It is an hour earlier, and Captain Arahad airs his concerns on the Omnian signal tracker. Captain Arahad—normally tight-lipped about his distrust of Omnian
technology—argues openly with Oplan Sanction’s chief architects on the
R.P.S. Artemis
.

The chief architects—two physically present and a score in Omnian mindspace—concede to many of the observations of Captain Arahad. Yes, Captain Arahad, little is
known about the Omnian Imperial Shroudskins and except that they were powerful, long-lived, and nearly extinct. Yes, Captain Arahad, the first three Presidents of the fledgling Republic,
constitutionally mandated bearers of the last Imperial-class Omniskin, complained of a stiffness in the skin, occasional lapses in the maintenance of the Omnian mindspace, and a steady degradation
of power. Yes, Captain Arahad, we cannot ascertain why a small number Omniskins fail and wither. No, Captain Arahad, the mission will not be scrubbed or postponed. Our decision is final.

Captain Arahad regards his audience, all Omniskin bearers—some barely expressed, appearing as thin gauzy gloves clinging tightly to delicate fingers; some nearly fully
expressed, covering every exposed surface of skin with writhing multi-hued fibers—and resigns himself to his course of action.

INTELLIGENCE

It is 08-08-2108 at 0820 and eight soldiers are silently cutting their way through the heavy jungle that covers the hills. Matte black Moroblades slice easily through bark and
vine, stealth suit boots clamp down heavily on leaves and twigs underfoot, muffling the team’s steady progress through the hills.

Finally, a clearing halfway through the hills. Railpistols are raised and fusion blades are primed as Captain Delgado and Lt. Marako perform a perimeter sweep.

CLEAR, signs Lt. Marako. CLEAR, signs Captain Delgado. And the soldiers enter the clearing.

They swiftly bury most of their kit and packs—their rations, supplies, dropsuits, climbing gear, pullropes, bivouac tubes and mess tins—taking only weapons,
ammunition, and signalgear.

Finally, Captain Delgado briefs them.

The slavers are keeping all their human cargo, all 1207 of them, in ventilated cargo containers that surrounded the base of the slavers’ three-story structure. The
slavers had lined the outer ring of these containers with Detonite blocks, perhaps as a defense against ground assault or perhaps to destroy all witness to their crimes if the Republic presence is
detected.

As expected, the storm has deterred active sweeps of the building perimeter, and the slavers have recalled most of their forces to the first ring of buildings. Only perimeter
sensors and a skeleton crew of patrols are responsible for the security of the slave pens.

Captain Arahad is silent for a moment, then says, “We stick to the plan. Secure the captives, then we proceed with Sanction.”

Then Lt. Marako, a tall, lanky veteran of the Anti-Spinward Insurrections, asks a question in his reedy tenor. “What about the three signals we saw on
insertion?”

Captain Arahad looks at Captain Delgado and says, “We can take one.”

Captain Delgado says, “I can take another.”

“And the third?”

“Let’s hope he waits his turn.”

ORDINANCE

It is one month before the final phase of Oplan Sanction, and Captain Arahad sits in the communications room of the
R.P.S. Artemis
, facing a luminite screen. The
flickering, drain-drenched image of Captian Delgado on the screen limns Captain Arahad’s features in shades of blue and indigo. Behind Captain Arahad, Omniskin-clad communicants methodically
adjust a shifting tapestry of glowing filaments, patiently extracting the voice of Captain Delgado from a sea of Omniwave static.

“Nulid, this is Rayom. Link established, ” says the image of Captain Delgado.

“Rayom, Nulid. Link secured,” responds the smaller, slightly leaner communicant who promptly nods to Captain Arahad.

“Captain Delgado, I’m Arahad—Captain of Task Force Sanction. Your report?”

“Storm is unusually stable and hasn’t moved. Must assume Remergent involvement, but I’m not sure how.”

“Yes, yes,” says Captain Arahad as he leans closer to the screen, “but can the Artemis proceed with General Order 18?”

“Negative, Captain. Too much particulate matter is being kicked up by the storm for precision laser bombardment.”

Captain Arahad swears softly, then asks: “No chance you can lase the targets for orbit-to-surface missiles?”

“I can, but they’ve rigged the slave pens with detonite blocks. I count at least three slavers here with remote detonators. Captain Arahad, I’m sorry but
you’re going to have to come down.”

Captain Delgado waits for a response from Captain Arahad. Hearing none, he continues: “Captain, I can’t do this alone.”

ASSAULT

It is 08-08-2108 at 0845 according to the Terran Standard Chronometer, and Captain Delgado is picking his way quietly through the underbrush just meters ahead of the Captain
Arahad. They round at the edge of the ravine, shrouded by the foliage of the jungle, and signal the team behind them to stop.

Captain Arahad regards Captain Delgado for a long minute before sheathing his standard issue Moroblade, and pulls out his own hand-held signal tracker and switches it on. He
looks up, catches Captain Delgado’s eyes and raises his other hand to sign: THREE.

Captain Delgado nods, and signs: SPLIT. PINCER. I TAKE RIGHT.

Captain Arahad shakes his head and signs: NO. YOU STAY. WE PINCER.

Without waiting for Delgado’s response, he signs quickly to his team and they fan smoothly into position. Captain Delgado watches quietly as Captain Arahad veers to the
left with Sgt. Jun Oppus, a dark, squat Fusionlancer, and Handcannon Specialists Bert Tanada and Ferdie Anghel. He turns to watch Lt. Pol Marako, charge to the right along the exposed edge of the
ravine along with Republic Ground Scouts Ayel Torres, and Esteban Orro. Then he activates his stealth suit and melts into the surrounding greenery.

TROUBLE

It is 08-08-2108 at 0915 and something is wrong: Lt. Marako finds that the Detonite blocks that line each stack of pens are deactivated and activates his signalgear. Captain
Arahad confirms that they have found the same thing on their side of the structure.

Were the slavers afraid that a nearby electrical strike might trigger an explosion? Were they in the process of setting up the blocks when the storm hit?

Concerned that such a strike might still induce current in the detonation wires, Captain Arahad has the blocks collected and junked in the nearby ravine before continuing with
the mission. All the while, he and his men do not comment on their most disturbing finding: all the containers are empty, except for a few captives who had been clearly been punished for some
infraction—and one slaver: his weapon missing one round, his remote detonator crushed in his mangled fingers, and his head cleanly severed from his neck.

When Captain Arahad and Lt. Marako rendezvous with Captain Delgado, they share their findings in hushed tones and quietly consider aborting the mission. None of them consider
this a question of courage—all have impeccable records and all have proven themselves time and again—no, it is a matter of prudence. Too many variables, too many unforeseen
circumstances. But weighted against the hope that the captives are alive somewhere, they decide to risk breaking signal silence and contacting the
R.P.S. Artemis
.

In the middle of their report, Captain Delgado stiffens, gags, and convulses. His eyes cloud over and become milky white, his Omniskin ripples and shifts, becoming darker,
sleeker, and finally almost metallic. Then he is screaming “Hide! Hide!”

Suddenly, the first blood-soaked Remergent is in their midst, a howling man corrupted by a writhing mass of scaley flesh, venom-tinged fangs and spurs, and a blur of leathery
wings and fins. It wraps itself around Captain Delgado and hurtles back into the sky, over the trees and out of sight.

Captain Arahad triggers his Omniskin tracker and cranks it up to full gain. “Incoming xeno at Ten on me. Sterilize, sterilize, sterilize!”

Lt. Marako, bleeding and one-limbed, engages the first Remergent as it barrels into the clearing, an emerald-skinned humanoid sheathed in undulating multicolored scales, and
attempts to evade its strikes with his stealthsuit’s zoombelt. He almost succeeds, but is cut along the face by bony fins that blossom from his opponent’s forearm and tumbles to the
ground.

Then Orro and Anghel are there and empty their railpistols at the Remergent. Hyperaccelerated steel sabots burrow through stone-hard scales, rip through corrupted tissue and
bone, and erupt out the Remergent’s back, staggering it long enough for Sgt. Oppus to behead it with his fusionlance. The scales explode into a mass of tentacles and limbs that writhe and
grasp for anything living that it can attach itself to, leaving behind a bleeding humanoid convulsing in its viscera-strewn wake. Orro and Anghel make short work of the Remergent, their whirling
Moroblades scythe through its withering extremities before finally spearing its central nerve clusters.

Captain Arahad grimly watches one signal fade from his tracker, then barks: “Two more! Approaching from Four and Ten on me!”

SANCTION

It is two months before the New Isabella Three assault, and here we see scores of inter-system ships and in-system orbiters inhabiting what has now been secretly identified as
a Remergent-infested zone suddenly find themselves besieged by raids: the
Mongo Express
, the
FredJoanna 3
orbiter, the
Amianan
Cruise Liner, the
Tres Hermanas
,
the
JohnAndMarsha
, and the
Famas Gohan
, and many many more. The victims: mostly
migrantes—
the highly mobile blue- and white-collar workers who powered the expansion
of multi-system companies in search of higher pay and better positions. Celebrities, politicians, and royalty are released or ransomed, while the rest are enslaved to crews and cabals infested by
or indebted to the Remergents.

So we see security is increased, and patrols are strengthened, and see many attempts deterred by the Republic’s diligence and ferocity. Unfortunately, neither the
thwarted attempts nor the captured pirates yield any useful information concerning the slaver ringleaders.

And so the Atilano Administration decrees, over Hypercast audio and video network channels that slavery is punishable by death, that the slavers will be caught and punished.
And the Atilano Administration quietly unleash half of the Omnian Corpsmen, around thirty in number, into the Republic citizenry.

Dubbed Special Intelligence Officers, each Corpsman is tasked with to blend into the spacelanes that slavers prey upon, to follow the slavers back to their bases, and to gather
intelligence on their operations.

Among them is Captain Delgado.

DEATH

It is 08-08-2108 at 0952, according to the Terran Standard Chronometer, and Captain Delgado is twisting furiously away from a torrent of spur-covered tentacles. A glancing blow
catches his right rib, and he topples heavily to the ground.

Selekyulos
. It is a word that echoes dully in his head—a name, a declaration, a challenge to him and to his Omniskin. Konstantin bristles, and as Captain Delgado
struggles to his feet, he feels a frantic rustling throughout the folds and fibers of his Omniskin. A wave of heat ripples across the back of his spine and outward to his extremities—cuffs
tighten, seams sharpen, and the once-silky lining of his suit is suddenly teeming with threads and tendrils that writhe and pulse to a strangely syncopated rhythm.