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    The Evolved: The Evolved, #4
    The Evolved: The Evolved, #4
    The Evolved: The Evolved, #4
    Ebook318 pages4 hoursThe Evolved

    The Evolved: The Evolved, #4

    By Richard Quarry

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    Two centuries ago, Earth forced a rebellious party of space colonists to flee the solar system in a jury-rigged habitat never meant for interstellar travel.

     

    Now they've come roaring back. Existing as a Group Consciousness, the race calling itself "the Evolved" quickly sends the navies of Earth and her colonies reeling.

     

    Fast Cruiser Captain Arvada Sattar, of the Peregrine colony, fights an isolated guerilla war against the conquerors. But she faces condemnation from her own government, which sees surrender as the only option. Meanwhile her brilliant tactical officer, Sahan Kotori, finds himself increasingly drawn to explore an artifact of the Group Mind — a bizarre and hostile landscape where a single misstep will leave behind nothing but an eternal scream.

     

    The fourth book of an epic science fiction series, The Evolved carries space war into a future where the mind becomes the greatest weapon, yet can never unshackle itself from the heart. Experience this gripping and unique saga on the far frontiers of human experience.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherRichard Quarry
    Release dateApr 23, 2022
    ISBN9798201254308
    The Evolved: The Evolved, #4
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      Book preview

      The Evolved - Richard Quarry

      Chapter 1

      If not here, demanded Arvada Sattar, Captain of the fast cruiser Shamash, "where? If not now, when?"

      She stood before the conference table in her briefing room, addressing the other seven commanders whose faces showed on the screens spread across the opposite wall.

      Their expressions were sharply divided. The four senior officers, Captains of the Peregrine line of battle ships — the heavies — glanced uncomfortably at each other. The three younger commanders, who like Arvada each commanded the bridge of a fast cruiser, nodded their agreement. But remained careful to look straight into their own monitors, avoiding the eyes of their superiors.

      Captain Sattar, spoke Commodore Cearn. I share your concern for the inhabitants of the Hesione colony. Yet we have little knowledge of what might await us there. You have called this a ‘rescue mission.’ If we go barging in there with a force of Marines to engage an unknown number of Grinders, it strikes me that whoever wins, we are likely to kill as many civilians as we rescue.

      One month ago the Commodore had been a lean, energetic man, his face as sharply creased as his dress uniforms. Now pouches sagged beneath weary, haunted eyes. His magenta fatigues were rumpled and visibly sweat-stained. His once precisely combed hair had spread out and flattened, revealing patches of bare scalp.

      We do not know how many enemy infantry may be holding the colony, he continued. His voice had taken on a quavering note since the rout at Demeter. We also don’t know how our Marines will fare in battle with these Grinders. Remember that every one of our ships they managed to board at Demeter, they took.

      With respect sir, said Arvada, "I would note that when the Shamash entered the Hesione system on a recon mission, we received messages transmitted just before the Grinders jammed communications totally. It frustrated her no end that she had previously reported these transmissions, only to be ignored. They indicate that no more than a hundred Grinders, probably less, were left by the Evolved to hold the colony."

      Oh, only one hundred, came the sarcastic rejoinder of Captain Raisa Catalan, on the screen to the right of Cearn. Though Cearn was officially the Commodore of this detachment of the Peregrine fleet, Catalan had been throwing her weight around more and more since the catastrophe at Demeter. "Bring them on. Captain Sattar, we know next to nothing about these people."

      Arvada fought hard to hide her anger. A skill she’d learned grudgingly at the Academy, where only the influence of her mother Garuda Sattar, a leader of the expansionist movement, kept her from getting kicked out.

      Arvada was also extremely self-conscious over the rumors that the only reason she’d gotten command of a fast cruiser at such an unprecedented age was that the Peregrine Alliance needed to buy off her mother before general elections. A rumor all the more painful because very likely true.

      I would submit, she said, "that the fact that we know so little about the Grinders is another reason to engage them now. Because if we intend to fight this war, then we need to learn more about our enemy. Here we have an opportunity to engage them at favorable odds, where we are not threatened by their fleet."

      Catalan gave a snort. Not threatened by their fleet? And just how did you arrive at that conclusion? If the enemy comes through Hesione’s Jump point they could trap us here.

      The presence of the whole fleet is not required, Arvada replied. What I propose is that the attack on the Grinders be made by the combined Marines from two of the fast cruisers. A third cruiser will stand ready to lend support if needed and to help us accommodate the civilians we take from the colony. The rest of the fleet can make the Jump immediately. If the Evolved do appear, our cruisers possess enough speed to bypass them en route to finding a Jump point at Hesione. Or if necessary, we can turn away and make the Jump from the dwarf star.

      Now it was Cearn’s turn to protest. The dwarf? But that could take you out of the war for what, three weeks? How are three fast cruisers going to quarter and feed these thousand colonists you propose to rescue for such a time?

      Close quarters and short commons, Arvada replied. It won’t be comfortable, but then neither I suspect is living under Grinder occupation. But I don’t believe that will be necessary. If the Evolved try to come out of the sun, the perturbations will warn us in time to make a break for a Jump point within Hesione.

      And the colonists you don’t have time to get aboard? asked Catalan.

      They will not be any worse off than before.

      If they live, muttered Catalan. "And what if you cannot disengage your Marines? They will certainly be worse off than before."

      Why are we so quick to presume disaster? Arvada thought, but held back saying it. There are risks, yes. But for two weeks now we have been in retreat. If we are to come out of this campaign with any message of hope at all, risks must be taken.

      The question is, Commodore Cearn insisted, risks for what? Causing civilian casualties does not strike me as a hopeful message. Even if you succeed, the Alliance is already straining under the burden of thousands of refugees streaming into Harrar’s Reach before the Evolved. How many Marines can we squander in order to bring in more? Especially after losing so many at Demeter.

      He made a face like the word Demeter caused an upsurge of bile. Would it not make more sense strategically to preserve our Marines for a more coherent strategy? The fact that he phrased it as a question rather than a command revealed just how far his morale had collapsed.

      And just what coherent strategy did he mean? Everyone in all eight briefing rooms knew the answer.

      A last-ditch defense of Harrar’s Reach. The de facto homeworld of the Peregrines.

      They would run away until they could run no longer. Like they’d been running since Demeter.

      Demeter. Utter disaster for the combined Earth and Peregrine fleets. Now both forces were engaged in a strategic withdrawal. The agreement was for them to rendezvous at Harrar’s Reach. Only Arvada didn’t believe Earth would risk its remaining ships to defend what must already look like a lost cause. Most likely they’d fire off a few salvoes then scurry on back to their homeworld.

      What difference were a hundred or so Marines going to make?

      All the Commodore’s strategy amounted to was assembling the Peregrine fleet for one more set-piece battle it had already shown it couldn’t win.

      A battle that in her heart Arvada did not believe would ever take place.

      Defeat had become an assumption. When the time came, Naval Command would capitulate in the name of humanity.

      If the Evolved were to be resisted, then somewhere, sometime, someone had to resist them.

      Arvada twisted around toward the console on the briefing table.

      Show Hesione.

      The screens behind her displayed the usual postcard art: the Shamash, her propulsion units ablaze in a way that to a knowledgeable eye would show the ship blowing up, angling upward, always upward against a backdrop of colorful nebulae and solar flares.

      In its place came a view of the Hesione mining colony. A scattering of domes, processing facilities, launching and docking pads, and kilometers-long piles of blue-green tailings stretched across a pock-marked chunk of rock. A place where a lot of credits could be earned quickly, if you didn’t mind a little danger and a lot of discomfort. Not somewhere people usually chose to raise their families.

      "Those are Peregrines down there. Not just ‘colonists.’ Peregrines. She knew she’d have lost her command for such arrogance in peacetime, but now was the time to push the limits if there ever was one. Brothers and sisters to us and every member of the Alliance. A thousand of them. Why should we risk so much to save them, when there are thousands more on other habitats still imperiled and beyond our reach? Because we are here."

      She tried to channel her mother, an impassioned speaker if not always a strictly logical one, whose philosophy had always been to press into space as far and as fast as you can, and solve the inevitable problems when you get there.

      What do we fight for? she asked the Captains. "What do we expect them, our people, to fight for? Because if we are to win this war, they must. If the Peregrines are to prevail, the people must endure, and they must fight."

      Captain Sattar, said Catalan, you are grandstanding. A trait I presume you acquired from your mother.

      She was a trim, strong-featured woman well into middle age but wearing it well. She had narrow, probing eyes and a tight mouth. Unlike the other Captains, who wore rumpled magenta fatigues, she’d turned up in full dress purples with two rows of medals across the left breast. Which would have impressed Arvada a lot more if a single one of them commemorated killing anyone.

      Once again Arvada forced down her temper, as the other Captains looked away from their monitors, embarrassed by this personal attack.

      Never go on the defensive. She’d learned that too from her mother.

      "How many Peregrines are we going to leave behind as we run away? Because that is just how the civilian population will see it. We, the military, are now looking down upon a colony where a thousand of our fellows are held captive by one hundred Grinders. A number we should certainly be able to overcome. If we run away, how do we explain that to our people? A ‘strategic withdrawal’? Will that strengthen their resolve for the fight to come? We must make this attack. Win or lose, we must earn the trust of the people that we will fight for them."

      Catalan was obviously searching for words to express some rejoinder. Arvada did not give her the chance.

      "Commodore Cearn, I request permission to launch an attack against the enemy troops holding the Hesione colony. I further request two fast cruisers besides my own Shamash be assigned to the mission. I acknowledge the risk, and take full responsibility for the consequences. I know there are reasons to deny my request. But before you invoke them, please Sir, I urge you to ask yourself again. If not here, where? And if not now, when?"

      Faced with such a stark and simple decision, Cearn took a breath, shook himself slightly, and sat ramrod-straight, looking less decisive than strained. Arvada knew he wanted to pull the whole fleet out. That was the safe course. But this meeting among the Captains could not be hidden, and he did not want to be known as the man who abandoned the settlers at Hesione to the mercy of the Grinders.

      Captain Sattar, he said with that preoccupied air of a man trying to imitate sobriety, you will conduct an attack against the enemy troops holding Hesione. I am putting you in command of the battle group. See to your dispositions.

      Thank you, Sir, she said with inner elation, even as she recognized that his approval stemmed less from any clear-eyed appraisal of her chances than a simple inability to take the responsibility of saying no.

      Overruled, Catalan could not leave it at that. Commodore, may I make a suggestion?

      Which is?

      "I am sure we are all impressed with Captain Sattar’s martial spirit. Which may lead her to take personal command of the attack force. I would remind the Captain, and I am sure you agree, that this is against all custom. If the operation does not develop as planned, the leader of the Battle Group must be available to coordinate either withdrawal or reinforcement. I therefore recommend that Captain Sattar be specifically ordered to remain aboard the Shamash."

      That is customary, Commodore Cearn agreed. Plainly he was sick of argument. Captain Sattar, you will coordinate the attack from your bridge. Assign leadership on the ground to your XO.

      In the middle of her elation, Arvada’s world fell apart. To lead troops in battle would be the fulfillment of dreams that began in childhood and carried her through the Academy.

      It would also assure her of prominence among the fast cruiser Captains. Without invoking her mother.

      But to argue the point might incite Cearn to cancel the attack entirely.

      Sir, she said, I thank you for your decision, and give you my pledge to carry it through. My first officer, Sahan Kotori, will lead the ground attack.

      But again Catalan had to try and scupper her. Commodore, I must express my reservations about the choice of Sahan Kotori. Simply put, he comes with too many warning flags. In particular there have always been concerns about his pacifist heritage.

      You bitch, thought Arvada. Someday I’ll scuttle your smug ass good.

      Sir, she said. If I may. First Officer Kotori is not a pacifist. In fact he is the one student in the whole history of the Academy never to suffer a single defeat in the Decahedron. Should Captain Catalan choose to lead the Battle Group herself, she will of course choose her own officers. Otherwise, I respectfully request she allow me to choose mine.

      Yes, of course, Cearn agreed, giving Catalan a dirty look across the screens. He did not want to draw this out and did not want to take any more responsibility for anything. That’s settled. Captain Sattar, the best of luck to you.

      Thank you, Sir.

      She was exultant.

      And now that the die was cast, very much scared.

      Chapter 2

      That bitch Catalan, fumed Arvada Sattar. She got Cearn to tie me to the bridge. Jealous hag is afraid I’ll upstage her.

      So you will, said Lieutenant Commander Sahan Kotori, as he tugged his compression leggings on over his underpants. If the war lasts long enough. And we do too, of course.

      I really wanted to lead the attack party. It’s something I’ve dreamed of.

      Hey, Arvada? he said in that sardonic tone he had, completely unsuitable to an XO addressing his Captain. Forget the glory-hunting, okay? I’ve got other things on my mind.

      Yes, of course. Damn. I’m sorry, Sahan. He was right. All that jockeying for rank and medals and prestige that ruled the peacetime navy turned to selfish absurdities once people started dying. As they very soon would.

      But the aftertaste lingered.

      They want to surrender, she said. Catalan, Cearn, some of the other heavy Captains. I can feel it.

      They were alone in the dressing room leading to the ship’s gym. The Marines were suiting up in the prep room adjoining the launch deck. Privacy was hard to come by aboard ship, and Arvada did not want to advertise the fact that she was basically accusing her superiors of cowardice and/or treason.

      Demeter was quite a shock to them, said Sahan. All those pretty line of battle ships twisted inside out and streaming red icicles. Not their idea of a war exercise at all.

      They’ll wait till what’s left of the fleet gathers at Harrar’s Reach. Then they’ll use the excuse of avoiding civilian casualties to surrender to the Evolved. You can see it, the way they hardly dare look at each other. And you never heard so much mumbling among the brass in your life.

      Very likely. He didn’t sound too concerned. But like he said, he had other things on his mind.

      Sorry, she said. Any questions?

      Sahan jumped into the legs of his fighting suit Marine-style, leaping up to grab a bar above the stiff pants clipped to a ring, pulling himself up, then dropping into them. Releasing the clips, he sealed the magnetic fastener about his waist.

      Quite a few, but none you can answer. We are going to learn a lot about the Grinders in the next few hours.

      And would he be among those who died learning it?

      No. Sahan is too good in a fighting suit. He never lost in the Decahedron, he won’t lose here.

      But even as she tried to hold that thought firm, Arvada knew she was fooling herself. War was not a matter of individual duels. A few centimeters this way or that, a half-second more or less, and the most skillful warrior could die.

      Moving out of the dressing ring, Sahan went over to the bench where the upper portion of his suit lay. A slender but well-muscled man, nothing stood out about him except for piercing eyes, almost shockingly blue. Straw-haired and of medium height, his features tended toward the soft and rounded, suggesting to those who didn’t know him a mild, even benevolent spirit.

      Which along with his Dainichi heritage had garnered him a lot of bullying at the Academy for being the token pacifist with no place in a real navy.

      Only for the first year, though. Long enough for the trail of broken ribs and broken noses to convince people to keep their taunts to themselves.

      Far from being a pacifist, Sahan was just plain nasty. In a good mood.

      Arvada had added him to her circle their sophomore year at the Academy. She gathered people not because they flattered her, but because she found them useful. And aside from his growing reputation in the Decahedron, she found herself fascinated by Sahan’s cold-blooded but penetrating insights, the product of a fierce intelligence working through a born outsider’s eye.

      Of course he fell in love with her. Which raised a bright red warning flag. Arvada granted exclusive rights to nobody. But without her fully realizing it, they’d grown into their own little partnership against the world.

      So they became lovers. Briefly. Arvada knew from the beginning it was a bad idea. Sahan insisted on trying to storm the barricades she had very deliberately erected around her heart. Not to mention her career.

      But even after the inevitable crash and burn, they remained close. Joined at the hip, as others said. Emotions might fluctuate one way or another, but they both recognized they simply moved through the world better as a team than alone. Though Arvada knew full well Sahan still dreamed.

      Now here she stood watching him prepare for the storming of Hesione and wondering if this would be the last she ever saw of him. The thought did not produce grief or fear, but rather disbelief.

      Sahan fitted himself into the padded upper half of the midnight blue suit, wriggling into it like a butterfly wriggling out of a cocoon. The suit padded his outline but kept close to form. It included an internal plastic exoskeleton replete with hinge points, longitudinal sections that expanded and contracted in the same manner as muscle but a good deal more forcibly, servo motors, and hydraulic flex tubes that reacting to the suit’s radar and echo location, would partially fill to cushion any impact.

      The suit also amplified his muscle inputs on a logarithmic scale that took most people several years of intense training to master. With his training in the esoteric martial arts, Sahan had taken to it like a second skin.

      Arvada helped him fasten the electromagnetic seals of the suit.

      He raised his helmet, holding it close by his head.

      Hook me up, would you?

      She took the helmet, then stood with it in her hands, unmoving.

      She felt the need to say something. But what? In her mind, this, war, could not be the end of anything, but rather a beginning. But could it be the end for Sahan?

      No. That beginning she felt so sure of … it involved them both. It had to.

      Arvada felt the maverick urge to say I love you. Not because in that moment she felt it, though on the other hand she was not sure she didn’t, but because it would lift his spirits to hear it. That was all.

      But what would she say when he returned?

      Because he would. She was sure of that. She’d had her moment of doubt, but it had passed.

      Anyway, right now Sahan might not care one way or the other. It hurt her to think so, but as she watched the tight smile playing across his face, Arvada understood how for a man with a tortured heart and long-standing solace in violence, the coming battle served as a sort of fulfillment.

      She worked the helmet’s power band into the black pigtail of wires emerging through the skin high at the base of his neck. Finished, she tapped his shoulder. He fitted the helmet, festooned with tiny sensor arrays, down onto his head. Arvada worked the fastenings. Then helped him mount the oxy unit and thrusters with their maneuvering belt.

      Next came the plastic harness with a swivel mount at the shoulder for a flechette rifle. Arvada fastened a short-handled battle-saw to his chest harness.

      She wanted to go in his place. Not for vanity this time.

      They stood in silence.

      Be careful, she said at last, her breath coming hard. I can’t afford to lose you.

      Through the ceiling lights glinting off the helmet she saw his typically cynical smile.

      You can’t afford for me to be too careful, either.

      Chapter 3

      On the screens spread before his pilot station Sahan Kotori saw the rocket burst in a churning magnesium-yellow storm off the port bow. The assault craft’s hull flexed and groaned as the AI forced it off course. Neutron-hardened pellets spattered against the ship, sending it into shudders. The inertial dampers canceled out some of the effect, but the gyrations were too rapid to be wholly tamed.

      Sahan hissed out a breath as he waited to see if the impacts would send the ship into a spin that at this velocity might kill everyone aboard. But the autopilot wiggled the vessel back on course, his pounding heart taking a little longer to catch up.

      Through his helmet speakers he heard several of the thirty blue-suited Marines cocooned in the shock cushions behind him moan. Most likely without being aware of it.

      Easy, he said. To his own ears his voice had a rounded, slow-motion quality as he fought down the nausea. We’ve deployed the EMP. They’re firing blind. We’ll get there.

      The pock-marked surface of the asteroid grew across the main screen. Six large blue-gray domes of the processing plants formed a circle four kilometers in radius, inside of which the towering derricks of four docking stations accommodated traffic on and off the asteroid. The gravity being next to nothing, the wallowing freighters could lift off to transport ore and minerals throughout the Alliance.

      Despite the domes, the majority of Hesione’s population lived deep underground, safe from chance meteor strikes.

      And that might be where the Marines would have to go to dig out the Grinders.

      Pellet mines seeded above the landing zone continued to buffet the hulls of the landing craft. The two other vessels reported damage but kept on swooping downward. The Grinders, or more likely the Evolved who controlled

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