Ex Lacrima Remnant

Track #62 – Zero Zone

The Niteowl Seraphs zoomed through the air, carrying their precious cargo, closing in on the seedship. A tight formation, eight pilots with hastily refurbished mechs – some missing a limb, some with scratches all over the paint job. Still, that was all that was left. No more resources. No more second chances. It was do or die. The exhausts of the flying armors drew long trails behind them, all while the clock ticked, all while the capsules shook in their arms.

“Two more shots on our four, incoming!”

The voice of Captain Mariakidis thundered inside the cockpits, the pilots adjust their bearing immediately after hearing it. And, from the sky, came the answer. A blazing strike from above, burning the antenna, the tower made by the swarm, to cinders. Dirt and dust exploded around the impact area, ejecting stones and gravel all around it, almost like a small meteor wounding the ground. Another rod form above, another bolt piercing the heaven. Another clump of towers gone. Mariakidis rose up, still careful about not letting the payload go, ran a scan on the ashen field.

“There are nanos all around us, mostly inactive. Don’t get too close! If you do, eject and let your Seraph crash land! We can’t risk another infection!”

Ash. Ash. Only ash. In a radius of more than two hundred kilometers from the seedship, no traces that an intelligent civilization lived there remained. It was as if nothing else ever existed, as if the massive black monolith were the only structure that had ever occupied that space. Much like when it landed. Much like when it terraformed the planet for the first time. Mariakidis couldn’t help but shiver. Three days before, there stood the largest, the brightest, the most populous city in the world. Countless skyscrapers, an entire underground block, hundreds of factories, millions of people gathered together. Of that megalopolis, nothing remained – absolutely nothing. After having watched over mankind for almost a millennium, New Babylon had been erased from history in the span of one night.

Another blaze from above, another cluster of antennas reduced to ashes, as more and more trails soared down from the low atmosphere, covering dozens of kilometers each second.

Nemo.

The ultimate secret weapon of New Netherlands – one that, in theory, was an even bigger waste of money than Kaitos and Atropos combined. A massive network of satellites armed with heavy railguns, shooting tungsten rods at forty thousand kilometers per hour, metal javelins that vaporized as soon as they hit the ground at hypersonic speed. The explosions were impressive to witness, with waves of rubble sent flying by the impacts, the ensuing shockwaves spreading through the air, causing everything to shake. Those strikes, though, created only shallow craters – three, four meters deep at their lowest point. Enough to destroy the antennas, the repeaters built by the swarm, but quite underwhelming compared with the visual spectacle of their cosmic kiss. ‘Underwhelming but cool to see in action’ wasn’t a bad way to describe the Nemo system: it was an undeniable feat to be able to scorch the ground from space, but Nemo couldn’t be used against moving targets. Each shot needed ten to fifteen seconds to reach the ground. And the explosion, as spectacular it was, was nowhere close to be as destructive as small sized atomic device. All in all, Nemo didn’t offer many advantages compared with a swarm of nuclear missiles – except one: no radiations. Which was a boon for their last assault, the very last attempt at regaining control of the seedship. The anti-impactor cannons of Lagash were shooting restlessly, intercepting the rods before they pierced its hull, defending the core of the vessel at all costs. Giving the small strike force a window to get in, capitalizing on the heavy rain sent down from space. Trying to hit Lagash had been a waste of time and still was, until those cannons were active. Too many to destroy, too widespread on the surface of the ark. Finding the weapon control system using Robin’s insider information and shut it down was the only plan they could agree on, short of relocating all of humanity on the Moon. A two pronged assault was also prepared as a contingency plan: the surviving Aquila and Civetta bombers were deployed to destroy the towers, out of Lagash’s cannon range, while ground troops were scrambling to install loudspeakers around the swarm front, syncing them on the ‘Zonta-LeFou frequency’ (Mimi strongly objected to having her name attached to it, but Pangean officers thought it was a good idea). That would give a temporary respite, a way to keep the civilians safe, at least for a fleeting moment.

Another rod flew down, eviscerating a massive clump of spires. More than antennas, those structures felt like organic tumors, twisted, eldritch trees emerging from the ground. The seedship fired back, vaporizing a javelin before it could breach through. Mariakidis floored the throttle, saw the open gate in front of her, the gate they managed to destroy in previous attack, leaving a vital point of access open.

“Captain Mariakidis to all the Niteowls. We’ve reached the target! Sync your thrusters with your group leader! Let’s throw the containers in three…”

The Seraphs boosted forward all together as one, charged their arm thrusters, pulling a massive reinforced capsule.

“…two…”

Five hundred meters. Three hundred. One hundred.

“…one…”

The magnetic holders were released, the boosters on the capsules ignited.

“NOW!”

All Seraphs pushed the capsules at full strength, the engines in the containers booted up, accelerated brutally for one second. In one last burn, the two payloads burst through the open gate of Lagash, screeched on the black metal, slid on it as the engines turned off. The lights on the surface blinked red, then orange, then green. Before switching off. The capsules started opening up like a paper box. Revealing their content, their occupants. Eight Pangean soldiers in one. Five in the other. Plus a woman in red robe, armor and gas mask. A rhizome with a red rose peeking out of her eye socket. And a blind violinist in a shameless cape. Mariakidis roared in her microphone, switching to the language of exchange.

“Dudes, you know what to do, ain’t it? This ain’t yer usual field trip! So go get’em and bring this asshole ship down! Understood?”

A choir in her speakers, right as she turned back, as she started moving up the sky.

“Yes, sir, yes!”

She smirked in her cockpit, switched back to her native tongue.

“Please, come back in one piece, alright? I have reserved a nice table in Kalimnou for twenty-four people. If only eight of us get there, they’ll be quite angry. So, take care and good luck. Niteowls out.”

Then, she closed the comms and looped back, followed by the seven other Seraphs. Her part, their part was over. Whatever happened next, she could only hope they made the right choice by trusting those foreigners and their creepy plants.

**

“You know, I expected the control system of a satellite weapon array to be a little more… modern?”

“You don’t fix what ain’t broken, Malstrom.”

Mal was sitting in front of a row of displays, showing very crude maps of New Netherlands, with red crosses and blue dots spread all around it. The blue dots were the spires, data courtesy of the Pangean surveys. The red crosses were the places Nemo already struck. The interface looked like something from an old video game, one from at least twenty or thirty years in the past. The text on the windows was badly scaled up and oddly pixelated. No holographic controls either, just knobs, pointers and keystrokes. Still, there were two sockets for a neural interface jack, of the kind Dobrio sported behind his neck. Mal felt like being lost in an old tech museum, while watching the three operators pushing clicky physical buttons, manually choosing which satellite to fire from, monitoring the leftover ammo and correcting the targeting system using some sort of triangulation. Commander Rysas lit a cigarette, drew a puff.

“First time in fifteen years that I see the thing in bloody action outside of a stupid exercise. I wish they sent us footage from the ash fields. It would be a nice morale boost to get a good look at the – you know, those gross towers going boom.”

A new red cross appeared on the map, eliciting yet another round of applause. Still, the seedship was untouched. Every rod directed at it had been intercepted and shot down before impact. Despite witnessing Nemo in action, Mal couldn’t get over his first impression. Everything looked simple. Everything looked horribly outdated. It was a mystery to him how that system was still functioning, even after watching the hands of the three technicians moving around the controls, much like pianists playing solos together. Rysas touched her forehead, massaged the bandage covering it.

“…it hurts. Those Eastcol bastards went in hard. Glad our plants did the job.”

“They sure did.”

“Yup, I’d never want to have them as enemies, after today. Never wanna see a dried out woman ever again, thanks.”

Mal groaned, kept himself from retching. Agave and Felce went no holds barred on the enemy, to the point where even he wasn’t sure whether they were the ‘good guys’ or not. On the battlefield, those two rhizomes turned into bona fide demons, having no qualms about drinking people alive. One little thing that kept him warm, though, was that Prim didn’t. No matter what happened, Prim didn’t suck any water from them. She kept her promise. She kept her oath. That made him feel better.

A sound of steps behind him. Mal turned to glance at the newcomer. It was a tall Peacekeeper in full uniform sans the helmet, performing what looked like a crude military salute directed at Commander Rysas.

“Sir, we got a message from Atropos.”

Rysas nodded, welcomed the comm officer, saw a small roll of paper in his hands. She chomped the cigarette among her teeth, groaned while waving her finger at him.

“So, ol’ Geiger’s holding up there still fine?”

“They’re evacuating the station and moving to Neon for the time being, sir. They got a landing clearance to go through the missile shield, thanks to some connections he had there and... not having been on Lagash, when the swarm came out.”

Evacuating. Mal almost spat on the control panel at those words, coughed, cleared his throat, interrupting the messenger.

“Wait, wait… what happened to the station? Was it struck down? Is… is everyone okay?”

The comm officer nodded, browsed through the printed report.

“One stray missile from Lagash hit a peripheral section of the ring, causing a massive oxygen rupture and destroying the main water reservoir. No casualties, but they decided to leave before the seedship adjusts her aim. Even at max speed, they’ll probably land in a couple days at best, orbital rendezvous and everything. Commander Geiger wrote that we shouldn’t worry about them, that they have enough food and water for the trip and that all of his soldiers are in good condition. His last message contains a… huh, weird closing note, though.”

“That is?”

The comm officer went through it, started reading it out loud.

“We brought all the animals from the science lab with us – hummingbirds included – and they’re all fine.”

Rysas squinted her eyes, drew another puff.

“That senile idiot! Who cares about some lab rats, in the middle of the apocalypse – did he finally lose it? ‘Twas high time, I tell you”

Mal squinted his eyes too. Geiger didn’t strike him as someone who could be that gentle with plants, but that was unmistakably something he wrote to reassure Lacrima. Who knew that the rugged old commander could be so considerate?

Another round of applause. Another red cross on the ground.

That brought Mal back, brought everyone back, including Dobrio, who was intently staring at the display and cheering like a small kid every time a new target was hit – a mountain gorilla of a small kid, but still that was what his excitement made him look like. Prim was sitting close to Edera, resting on her shoulder while taking a little nap. Mal watched her chest moving in and out, heard her rhythmic breath in the background, all while Edera was redressing her own wounds, trying not to wake her companion up in the process. That unknown rhizome hadn’t said a single word since the moment they came back from the battle, except thanking Prim once. Mal wondered, even if only for an instant, whether she had a fixation too, but let that thought die in his mind. For once, it was nice to see a more reserved, less trigger-happy plant gal, especially after having dealt with someone as explosive as Felce. That same Felce was muttering and swearing, chewing words among her teeth, nervously fiddling with her fingers, shaking her legs in what could only be defined as utter unease, while glancing on and off at the operators tapping their fingers on the old, physical keyboards.

“…the most advanced secret weapon system in the world… and it’s a scam. Tech older than a sequoia, low precision, ten to fifteen seconds to hit the ground, and no moving targets? This cannot be it, this can’t be the real Nemo, come on…”

Agave sat close to her, sipping some juice from a bottle, keeping it among her tendrils.

“Aren’t you happy, sis? You were right, for once. Nemo exists and is operational, even if maybe… not as fancy as you thought?”

“…yeah, but isn’t it… disappointingly normal? It’s… so much less cool than in the comnet theory! Like, look!”

She waved her hand at the three operators, at the cadre of displays hanging on the walls.

“This looks like, I dunno, a public transport control center? Same vibes! I would almost expect those operators to start… start sending buses on a detour – not commanding life-ending satellite cannons! That map is just painful to watch! Even the ATV navigator looked more professional! And the icons, the design, the tech? So last century! There isn’t even a single holodisplay, no screens full of trackers and zoom-ins on the presidents and most powerful individuals in the world, no constant surveillance on the secret space carriers the Shurayan Space Forces are building around the Moon, nor even a basic real time data feed from our target area! Everything refreshes every, what, five seconds? Some of those indicators haven’t been updated in minutes! And… and you can almost see the scanlines! Scanlines! Because some of these… things still use CRT tech! Have we… I dunno, time-travelled back to year six hundred something?! Because it sure seems so.”

Felce buried her head inside her arms, grumbled a little more.

“Are you really telling me that this is it? This is all what it takes to steer Nemo?! The most well guarded secret of New Netherlands, the ultimate death-from-above killer weapon, the pinnacle of Neodutch research?! Lagash take me, talk about a reality check…”

Agave crossed her legs, making sure her new ankle switchblades weren’t triggered. That was a neat trick, one that she wished she knew before. Her wrist blades were so annoying to take care of, but the new ones? Those got in and out like a charm. All that excess lymph she had accumulated in the days after the battle at the Eye had an avenue to bloom, giving her a new toy to play with, finally making her less useless. Her attention returned to Dobrio, to his open jacket exposing his abs and pecs. She wondered whether drinking that meatloaf’s water had anything to do with her awakening. That had cleared her mind for sure, for the first time in a long while, but she had no proof on whether it helped or not. So, instead, she decided to keep a note about going for an encore, sometime in the future – possibly, not sharing him with Felce.

Rysas brought the cigarette to her lips once again. Smoking was officially prohibited in the whole facility, but she didn’t care at all, for once. In one hour or less, Eastcol bombers and ground garrisons would have closed in, attacking a bunker that had no front gate, no turrets, no railguns, no Tulip Shield, no weapons at all. As easy as stealing candies from a baby. So, before that moment came, she decided to indulge a little in her vices and have a go at her premium smuggled Shurayan cigs, those she hid in her closet for the duration of her stay at Panopticon. Another strike. And another one. From the beginning of that operation, from the moment they opened their channels again, more than one hundred rods had been shot to the ground, in a continuous fire that depleted one fifth of the total Nemo capacity. In her heart, she hoped that was enough. Another strike. Another red cross. Rysas put out her cigarette, lighted up a new one. Her lungs wouldn’t have been happy, but that was a problem for ‘future her’.

“Sir?”

The comm officer interrupted her quiet again. She rolled her eyes with contempt.

“Yes?”

“We’ve just got a message from Pangea, highest priority.”

“And?”

“The payload has been successfully delivered, but…”

“But?”

The comm officer turned the page once again, started reading from his report.

“Around five minutes later, a small Eastcol unit has managed to land some of their soldiers on the seedship too, using the same Seraph-carry tactic Pangea developed. Status currently unknown. Not sure whether they’ll cooperate with the Pangean strike team or they’ll start infighting once inside Lagash.”

“Well, that’s how things go.”

Not a hint of disappointment, not a hint of displeasure. Espionage and counterespionage. No way the Eastards wouldn’t have a plan B, even better if it was meant to use up Pangean resources. Rysas licked the filter, enjoyed the taste of tobacco on her lips, found the strength to open them up in a wry smile.

“Call all officers and gather them in the common room. We need to start the evacuation plan ‘fore the Eastern rats come and bomb us. Only the essential personnel to operate Nemo will remain on duty till the very end.”

She crossed her fingers, stared at the display.

“We did our job, earned our freedom. Now, it’s all in their hands.”