Space Marine Apocalypse (Extinction Fleet Book 3) Read online

  Unferth, the skald operative who had been primarily responsible for organizing Thatcher's resurrection and escape, had taken great pains to cover their tracks. Idris himself only had to allow it, but in so doing, was himself party to the tragedies that had resulted. He believed just as much as narrative strategy hardliners like Skald Omar, that to aide Thatcher in transforming himself into the beast that was now called Loki had set him apart from the rest of humanity's defenders. Idris might still serve faithfully aboard the Bright Lance, but forever would he be a man who betrayed his own, even if he thought it in the service of the greater good.

  He had managed to avoid Skald Hart without drawing attention to his avoidance, given that the sniper was often away on missions with the other operatives. Weeks or even months could pass without the Bright Lance hosting the Special Forces warriors. Of all the men in the All-Father's army, it was the sniper who would have been able to read the resurrectionist's body language and would know him as a traitor in an instant.

  Idris considered for a moment, the coded message he'd received from the traitors, the first and only communication he'd had with them in the years since first helping them escape aboard the Prax gunship. It had only been three words, but they spoke volumes, and while Idris knew little of Loki's plan, he understood the goal of Ragnarok. His heart thundered in his chest at the thought of a grand conflict, a final rest, and he worked to calm himself.

  "They are coming," said Idris, repeating the message Loki had sent him, saying it to Wallace and the Watchman as if they were his own words, and when he did it felt as if he'd divested himself of a tremendous burden. They were coming, which meant that nothing else mattered, there was only the way forward.

  "These biomass raids, in my opinion, are two-fold endeavors," Idris continued, feeling much more in control of his mannerisms and body language now that he was giving his briefing, the traitorous guilt finally yielding to the task at hand, given a tangible legitimacy now that it was being spoken aloud. "The extinction fleet is gathering biomass in order to affect a significant invasion force, to breed enough ships and swarms to mount another attempt to overwhelm us. However, I believe that these raids have also been field tests, similar to the behavior exhibited on Heorot."

  "The stealth tech," said Skald Wallace flatly.

  "Yes," nodded Idris. "As you know, each hoard ship has an alpha garm that functions as the swarm leader. Reports from marines in the field, in addition to what autopsy results we were able to glean from recovered corpses, indicate that the alpha garm are capable of exerting a sort of psychic pressure that helps the stalkers and feeders enjoy a degree of camouflage. However, in light of the discoveries on Trilicum, I believe that the alpha garm are not the source of that psychic pressure, but simply a conduit."

  The men were silent, and Idris pressed on.

  "Marine Sharif, before succumbing to the blackout, discovered a human skull and complete brain that was hardwired into the central system of the bio-vessel," said Idris, as he brought up images on his datapad and those of the other two men, directing their attention to several still photos and a short video of the skull fragments in the lab.

  "In his rage, the marine destroyed the brain, and then wreaked catastrophic damage on the central system before perishing from a combination of shrapnel and a series of strokes, a common demise for those blacking out for the first time. However, we recovered enough brain matter that we could analyze it on the cellular level. What we found was eerily familiar."

  "Grendel is back," muttered Skald Wallace as he scrolled through the photos until he was looking at a relief image of several tissue samples.

  "After a fashion," agreed Idris, and his eyes flitted to the Watchman, for a moment recalling the trauma of first discovering that Grendel's power could rob the marines of their ability to resurrect, and of the old Watchman dying with a scream over and over until it was agreed that he would be allowed to remain dead.

  "The brain from the hoard ship was packed with garm cells that were identical to those found inside Grendel, with a heavy concentration on the sending cells. The alpha garm that accompany the hoard ships have a more balanced distribution of cells. It is my theory that the human brain is the source of the psychic emissions that baffle our long-range technology, or more specifically, our mind's ability to interpret the data of our own instruments. The alpha garm draws that emission and focuses it in a highly concentrated way to give an advantage to the ground swarms. In short, the Hive Mind has found a way to use human brains to broadcast a psychic signal into our minds that obfuscates ships and swarms with varying degrees of potency."

  "Where did the garm get all these human skulls and brains?" asked Wallace with an edge of incredulity in his voice. "If they could breed humans for skull and brain harvesting then we'd have encountered something like this, or worse, much sooner."

  "It stands to reason that the enemy would have had a number of opportunities to harvest freshly killed corpses on a piecemeal basis over the years, in addition to the possibility that there are prisoners being kept far behind the frontlines. The garm adapt, as is said, and the idea that there are experiments being done on captured humans is not so far-fetched," answered the Watchman before turning away from the skald and facing Idris, his tone implying that he expected Idris to not only have an answer but a solution. "When you say varying degrees, do you believe that different marines and tech officers respond to the psychic emissions differently?"

  "We have statements and combat records from multiple engagements with hoard ships and alpha garm that indicate this is the case, in short, it works on some men more profoundly than others," responded Idris. Anticipating the commander's next line of questions, he added, "I believe that we can use these findings to create a solution in advance of the renewed invasion force, as most of their ships will likely be equipped with such hideous technology."

  Idris took a deep breath, preparing himself for their reactions, and then looked at each man in the eyes before continuing.

  "Marine Ajax, often referred to by the grunts as the Bloodhound, was exposed to the garm cells when he first faced Grendel on Heorot. As you know, over time he was able to harness these cells to enable him to, in a way, track high functioning garm organisms by instinct. His body, by whatever stroke of biological luck, was able to cope with the garm cells, incorporating them into his overall nervous system without compromising his consciousness or ability to resurrect," said Idris, knowing that he was dancing on the razor's edge of being discovered, given that he'd been intentionally keeping Ajax in a state of limbo, having faked the failed resurrection attempts.

  With Ajax off the board, the beast, Loki could orchestrate the cascading events that would trigger Ragnarok, a full-blown apocalypse. Idris had been introducing trace chemicals that caused Ajax to suffer fatal strokes, rendering him brain dead, every time he was resurrected. Since it was Idris himself who was responsible for investigating the issue, there was little risk of discovery.

  "I recommend that we attempt to replicate what could best be described as the 'bloodhound effect', and expose a percentage of our marines and tech officers to the garm cells. By harvesting the cells that are now part of marine Ajax's DNA, it is possible that his transmutation of them will eliminate the negative effects that they had on others," said Idris, looking pointedly as the Watchman, "Like your predecessor."

  "As I understand it, Ajax cannot fully resurrect, he is essentially brain dead every time you bring him back, correct?" asked Skald Wallace.

  "That is true," answered Idris, steeling himself for the turn, "However vegetative his state may appear, the garm cells remain active. Though his conscious mind is inert, the alien cells are still active, sending and receiving.

  “If we can successfully replicate his abilities in enough of our forces, that could enable tech officers to pierce the veil broadcast by the hoard ships and allow warriors on the ground to push through the emissions of the alpha garm.

  “These are second generation garm cells
, having already passed from garm to human once before, and now human to human, transmuted by our own rather protean genetic makeup. As such these new hounds should be able to resurrect the way Ajax was, before his tragic encounter on Tankrid."

  "The more swiftly and with effective prejudice, we can respond to these biomass incursions, the longer we should be able to delay the extinction fleet's next attempt upon the Bifrost," assented Skald Wallace. "A counter to the enemy's tech is worth risking lives. Reaper's Lantern is near the end of a rest and refit, we will tap parts of their tech crew, and Gorgon Company has been serving in their legions, hard men who will not shirk from their duty, we will pull the first test group from their ranks."

  "Recruitment into the All-Father's military has been in steady decline year after year, as has the increase in non-suitable candidates for Einherjar status," observed the Watchman as he stood, prompting Idris to stand more firmly at attention and Skald Wallace to rise from his own seat. "Whether the time we buy ourselves is months, weeks, or even days, all the more warriors we will have to hold the line. The United Humanity Coalition is, by its nature, a fractured union, susceptible to corruption and avarice, though with the undeniable escalation in garm activity our representatives have been able to secure more equipment and raw materials allotments.

  “While we may not share all the details with UHC command, a heavily censored version of developments will perhaps speed up the arrival of those allotments. The extinction fleet had indeed affected some degree of change in its war effort, from the push to seize Rakka to these biomass raids. In truth, I am growing suspicious that much of the purpose behind the renewed assault upon Rakka was to misdirect us from the recovery of the downed hoard ship, or at the very least, giving its internal systems time to self-destruct, which it ultimately accomplished.

  “You are free to proceed, Specialist Idris, I will ask that all ship's captains and marine commanders provide volunteers for the first round of tests. Based on performance, we will re-assess and increase the volunteer pool. Good day, gentlemen."

  As abruptly as it began, the meeting was adjourned, and Idris found himself standing in the body forge of the Bifrost only a few hours later. The heavy warship Reaper's Lantern was also docked at the battle station, and volunteers from Gorgon Company would be arriving within the hour.

  While the body forge aboard the Bright Lance was the personal dominion of Idris, as a resurrectionist he had full access privilege upon the Bifrost, as the facilities on board the station were much more extensive than any of the warships. It was here that the torcs of the men slain by Grendel had come to rest, including the last surviving torc of marine Ajax.

  Idris lifted the torc of Ajax and slotted it carefully into the receiver of the resurrection pod. He typed in the activation commands, and then took hold of the two remote-assist servo-arms that specialists used to reconstruct the clone bodies from the base blocks of organic tissue. As he worked, Idris was keenly aware of the tissue samples he had collected from the liquefied human brain recovered from Trilicum. They were already mixed with delivery fluids and waited in hypo-injectors that were neatly lined up in rows on his mobile utility station.

  Once the marines and tech officers arrived, he would be injecting them with the Trilicum sample based hypos, while masquerading as if doing so with cocktails made from the cells of a resurrected, yet vegetative, Ajax. It was a risk, he knew, but the only way to balance his conflicting loyalties.

  The warriors of the All-Father legitimately needed a way to counter the garm stealth tech, though he couldn’t very well allow the transmuted cells of Ajax to be unleashed. One marine hero with a direct connection to Loki had been difficult enough, and from what he'd gathered, the doomed marine had come close to thwarting the traitor's plans. If hundreds of marines and tech officers suddenly found themselves connected not only to the Hive Mind but the beast, Loki, as well, the schemes and the sacrifices that made them would be uncovered prematurely.

  The Einherjar must be made stronger, to fight the wolves at the gate, but not at the cost of losing the window to ignite Ragnarok.

  This was the middle path, Idris was sure of it. If he could facilitate the creation of an entire cadre of Bloodhounds, the armies of the All-Father would have their counter, and the playing field would be returned to level.

  No one outside Loki's circle of traitors knew that a second Hive Mind, the Beta, had ever existed. The marines of Hydra Company had witnessed garm intercene war on Heorot. The official judgment was that the Hive Mind was cleaning up the evidence, ensuring that the Einherjar escaped with as little intel as possible. While that was indeed true, they could not have known that it was, in fact, the first blows of a civil war between the Alpha Hive Mind and the Beta, a war which the Beta Hive Mind lost.

  This made Ajax the only marine with garm cells from the Beta hive, and the only Bloodhound who would be able to track Loki and his hybrids. It had something to do with which breed the cells came from. In the case of Ajax and Loki, both of them had Grendel as a common ancestor, as it were, so inherited the dual awareness of both Hive Minds as well as each other. No, Ajax had to be kept out of the fight until the precise moment that giants and wolves took the field against the warriors of man. That time was not yet come, though the need for other men to be hounds was immediate.

  If his theories were correct, and the garm cells took root, the new crop of hounds would be connected only to the Alpha Hive Mind. In fact, given that the cells were from a converted human brain, and likely third or even fourth generation, there was a significant probability that the hounds would only have a connection with the hoard ship and accompanying alpha garm broods. He doubted the new hounds would be able to accomplish the feats of tracking Ajax once had, so narrowly focused and specialized the cells were that they would ingest. They would be bloodhounds indeed when on the scent of the hoard ships, though just as oblivious as any other marine with regards to the other broods.

  As Idris carefully crafted the body of Ajax, volunteers from Gorgon Company began to file into the waiting area just outside the laboratory. From the corner of his eye, Idris recognized marine Jorah, one of the few men not of Hydra who had faced Loki. Like the rest who entered that room, he had died and been reborn without his memories of the encounter. Gorgon was a decorated company and had been part of Task Force Grendel in addition to being present at Heorot.

  They would do.

  MONSTER SWAMP

  The murky black water swirled thickly around Jorah's armored waist as he trudged through one of the many fetid bayous that were the defining feature of planet Odessa.

  While the small world was not without a multitude of natural landscapes, low mountain ranges, an assortment of shallow saltwater seas and a number of modest forested regions, it was the vast wetlands for which the planet was known. The planet was thought to have little value, the waters were brackish, the trees twisted and gnarled things, and there was little in the way of precious resources.

  While these conditions were undesirable for regular colonization, they were ideal for service as a prison planet. Odessa Corporation secured the rights to the world, renamed it, and soon was shipping in life sentence convicts to serve their terms on the rugged world.

  It had probably been a somewhat quiet world, thought Jorah as he put one booted foot in front of the other despite the powerful suction of the mud that was up to his shins underneath the water, until Odessa prospectors discovered ink-rock.

  Ink-rock was a crude substance when pulled from the depths of the planets upon which it had formed, yet it was capable of being turned into a multitude of fuels depending on the refining process employed. The entire wetlands region of Odessa, nearly sixty percent of the planet, was revealed to have massive ink-rock deposits lying in wait below the treacherous waters and thick foliage.

  Extracting ink-rock was a complicated process, made all the more so by the unique difficulties of wetlands drilling. The conditions of the environment prevented the more high-end equipment from b
eing used, and Odessa found it necessary to rely on older models and methods. It was dangerous work, as the wetlands were rife with parasites, predators, and unpredictable landscapes. Thankfully, for the corporation, they already had a population of convicted lifers to fill out the labor force.

  Now that command was aware of the extinction fleet's campaign of biomass raids the enemy hoard ships could no longer operate with impunity, their clandestine feeding raids were subject to ever more swift response and punishment.

  The discovery on Trilicum had changed everything, both for the Einherjar and the garm forces, as it allowed the marines to rob the garm of their stealth tech. The garm adapt. Marines overcome.

  Jorah had been the first to volunteer when the call came down. He had lost his memories before, entire campaigns forgotten with the loss of a torc, though the sinister use of bombs by the traitors to wipe the minds of those who faced them on Tankrid was still a fresh wound. Perhaps, he'd thought, becoming a bloodhound would further empower him to strike back. He'd approached every engagement since Tankrid with a sense of vengeance as if every garm he slew went towards balancing the scales of an already burdened soul.

  The Reaper's Lantern, with its new cadre of hounds, some serving as tech officers on the heavy warship and others like Jorah serving as marines on the ground, was on the hunt yet again.

  The marine admitted that it was something of a nightmare, to have the garm in his mind, a tangible psychic presence that he could hone in on when he focused himself. This was the fifth such engagement that the Lantern had been sent to intercept, and as the extinction fleet stepped up the frequency and boldness of their raids, so to, did the Einherjar rise to meet them.