Imperial Starship Sirrah's Pride
In Hyperspace Quadrant 2487b (Rynadon System)
6.07.40185
Private Jacobs, of Unit 11 in the fifty-seventh regiment under commander Perrell, was lying on his bunk in the crowded barracks of his unit. He was doing something that the general bulk of the Imperial Guard foot soldiers wouldn't be caught dead doing. He was reading a book. It was a very special book to him. It had been found among a ruin at Terra, his home planet. It was titled The Wisdom of War, and it had no author. The book began with a single quote, which Jacobs loved. At the moment, he was reading it, a single sentence on an otherwise blank page, with a slight smile on his face:
"A Soldier will fight long and hard for a bit of colored ribbon" – Napoleon Bonaparte
All of a sudden, his contemplations were most rudely and unexpectedly jarred, as the Private himself would have said.
Captain Martin stomped into the main barracks, looking, from Private Jacob's point, furious. Of course, that in and of itself wasn't such a big surprise. The Captain, it was said, always seemed to be perpetually angry. Most people divined the Captain's mood by his hands. Open, he was fine or slightly annoyed. Balled into fists, and he was really angry. But if he was holding a gun in his hands, he was always very, very happy. This was his disposition as he walked into the barracks of Unit 11.
What was remarkably surprising about his entrance was this fact – that he was holding a really big gun. No officers were allowed to carry anything larger than a small solid-shot pistol with them on the ship under most conditions, and most officers chose not to – it made them look weak to their subordinates. The only time anyone was allowed to carry around a larger combat weapon – which was informally defined as "anything bigger than a goddamn remote" – was if the landing zone for a drop was fourteen hours or less away. This was a submission to the fact that a whole ship full of soldiers took a long time to get themselves together in less than that much time – the reasoning was simply that there were too many damn soldiers, even for the military speed and precision that dominated among the ranks of the Imperial Guard. So it also wasn't strange that they didn't know that they would be expected to drop soon. What was strange was what they had expected.
About a year and a half ago, the ship Sirrah's Pride had received a set of battle orders. A large brood of Tyranids had, very quickly, wiped out almost half a dozen worlds in a system full of habitable planets. It had occurred extremely quickly – only a decade or so – but after the first Tyranid invasion, the Imperium had become alert for this sort of thing and decided that quick and decisive action was imperative. Sirrah's Pride was dispatched three months later. It was estimated it would take a little over two years to reach their destination.
Private Jacobs was particularly uneasy. Their mission was top priority, and they wouldn't have stopped except for an extreme emergency. Possibly, he thought their own ship was about to be attacked. As a foot soldier, there wasn't really anything he could do in a space battle, and in the army, not being able to protect yourself meant almost certain fatality.
The Captain, however, seemed to find himself beyond such mundane concerns. His voice barged into Jacob's train of thought, sending all but his most fundamental thoughts fleeing. "Get set, boys and girls, the LZ is hot, the sparks flying and aliens dying! Get ter Equip, then get the hell to DZ! Three hours! Move it!" Jacobs rolled his eyes. These military cavalier officers all had the same style: all gung-ho, exactly the sort of 'I don't know but I've been told' men. As they said, there were exactly three rules to being an officer: Treat your men like girls or babies and swear at them a lot. The officers also did not tend to excel in the area of refined education.
Jacobs dropped from his bunk. He understood Captain Martin's little speech, as well as what he was supposed to do. LZ stood for Landing Zone; that was where the Imperial Guard would land. Since they couldn't be anywhere near the system they started out for, no one really knew where that was; or if they did, they weren't telling. By comparison, DZ was Drop Zone, the gigantic bay where the army would leave the ship for whatever planet they were landing on. And Equip was slang for Equipment Management, a part of the ship where the army would go to pick up their guns and, In Jacobs' case, armor. He was lucky – his veteran squad was one of the few who got the slightly more protective armor, rather than the standard flak jacket. He would head to Equip, and then take a quick detour to the observation platform – also known as the op room, because of the number of officials who tended to be there. Then he would head to the DZ. With the right timing, he would get there just in time.
Jacobs opened the door, walked in a few meters, and stopped, his mouth open.
In front of him was a gigantic planet. It was huge even for most planets. He had never seen one so big in all of space. And it was rotating extremely quickly, to his eyes. Daylight must only last about seven or eight hours on this planet, he thought. A dense mat of clouds obscured a large corner of the planet, but where the clouds were wispier, he saw that this was very much a water planet. A vast blue ocean predominated. There were enormous ice caps, the tendrils of which easily reached halfway to the equator. A comparatively small continent sat on the eastern edge of what Jacobs could see, but he was not fooled; because of the planet's vast size, this continent could be the size of continents on planets with mainly land. However, this was not what shocked him.
He saw spores. Hundreds of them - thousands, possibly. This gigantic planet, he realized with a sinking feeling, was the site of a Tyranid invasion.
He raced down to Drop. The story of this planet, he knew, would not have a happy ending.
Planet Rynadon
6.08.40185
The bike bounced and rattled along the rutted road. Alicia gritted her teeth to stop them breaking like brittle glass and twisted the throttle more. It was dangerous, but she knew speed was of the essence. It was almost an hour since she had left Liever, and she knew she was close. She just had to make it across a small canyon. The canyon was just through the foliage ahead. A narrow rope bridge, just wide enough for a car, and then on to the village, and she could alert everyone to Liever's trouble. Although they probably had problems of their own.
Just a little farther, she thought. Just through these ferns-
Alicia burst through the ferns in question, the bike fishtailing slightly. The canyon was, as predicted right ahead. And the bridge –
Alicia swore suddenly and twisted the handlebars, the bike spinning out of control. She swore again and twisted the brake. The bike began to skid sideways toward the canyon's edge. A plume of mud shot up, obscuring her view. She was half on, half off, unable to do anything but close her eyes tight.
The bike stopped.
Alicia opened her eyes slowly. She looked around, then pulled her leg from under the bike, holding onto the handlebars with one hand. She peered over the edge. One wheel was spinning slowly over the air.
Alicia gazed out over the canyon, and a huge knot of anxiety in the pit of her stomach exploded.
There was no bridge.
Actually, to be precise, there really was a bridge. It was broken, though. The two halves were hanging down on either side. The ends of each bridge where it had been broken apart were slightly smoldering, as if something extremely hot had sliced through them. A small trickle of smoke lazily wound up into the sky, crossing the moon, winding up into space.
As Alicia stared out over the canyon, a crazy idea entered her head. She had to get across the canyon. The bridge was broken. There was no other way to cross.
When she was a few years younger – about seventeen or so – she had gotten the idea of crossing this canyon. There had been no bridge back then, and so she had gotten Liever and a couple of other friends to help her build it. Her village on Rynadon was quite small; it was just a colony, relatively new, only a few decades old. It was mainly a big village of farmers and the two innkeepers. No one had any special professions, so no one knew how they might build a bridge. And until then, there was nobody worth crossing the canyon to get to – in fact, there was no one at all to get to. So she had to build the bridge by herself.
About a year later, she had the notion of crossing without the bridge. So she had built a ramp, run trials, and used a long rope attached to a makeshift safety harness as her only precaution against danger. The rope was connected to the bridge.
She remembered the event well; she had gone about 10 yards from the lip of the canyon, revved up, and shot off the ramp. She was about halfway across, when the bike flew from under her and landed on the other side of the canyon. She didn't quite make it; she sometimes said that her bruises still hurt. But she had still recognized it as the only other way to get across the canyon.
So she knew that she would have to jump.
She walked over to a mound of earth she had constructed a few years ago. It was a makeshift ramp, and last time it had served her well. But would it be sturdy enough after all these years? She didn't have time to test it now, to run trials. And she definitely couldn't make a harness, even if she had had time. No bridge, you see.
But she still had to get across, and this was the only way.
Determined not to look over the edge, Alicia wheeled the bike to the very edge of the small clearing she was in, then turned the bike around. She hesitated for a second, then swung her leg over the seat and settled in. Butterflies beat a tattoo against the inside of her stomach. She swallowed, and then turned on the engine.
She revved the motor. Several birds flitted away suddenly, indignant as the bike roared. Alicia watched them go with little interest, then turned her set gaze to the canyon in front of her.
Ok, Alicia, she thought. Stop stalling. Get on with it.
Then she heard a different voice. This is insane, it said. Liever.
She grinned. First sign of madness, voices in her head. This is for you, Liever, she thought.
Nothing happened for several seconds, then a minute. The motor rumbled passively. The birds alighted on a farther tree, cocking their heads, inquisitively inspecting the bike. Then –
Alicia suddenly twisted the throttle as far as it would go. The bike shot up a huge plume of dirt, then suddenly found traction and kicked forward. Alicia was almost thrown off, but held on. Her head snapped back, and she winced. Through the pain, she pulled her head forward and twisted the handlebars slightly. The bike turned a little and was now heading straight for the ramp. She squeezed her eyes almost shut.
The bike flew off the ramp. The motor ran frantically, spinning the wheels in space. As the bike climbed higher, Alicia twisted the handlebars and pulled one end up.
The effect was immediate. The bike was pulled around, so that it began to spin slowly in mid-air. At the same time, it flipped sideways, over her head. Her hands were jerked away and she began to freefall.
Alicia twisted her body convolutedly, and she began to spin around, fast. She used her arms to protect her head and tucked her legs in, now spinning even faster. She braced herself for impact and squeezed her eyes tightly.
A second passed, maybe two. Then her knee slammed into the ground. Her sense of gravity reoriented and her arms flew out over her head. She sprawled into the ground as pain shot through her knee. She lay there for a second.
Suddenly she twisted to the left, rolling sideways, as the bike crashed down where her leg had been seconds ago. It bounced on the rutted path and then slid sideways, coming to a halt at the base of a small tree.
Alicia lay, clutching her knee, her face taught with pain. The birds were everywhere, flying in the air, twittering exasperatedly. The racket they were making drilled through her head, adding to the massive headache she already had.
She groaned, and then squeezed her knee. She gasped with the intense pain as the bone popped back into place. Then the pain was gone, and a sigh of relief swept through her. She ran a hand through her hair as she pushed herself up into a sitting position. She put her hands back on the ground and tilted backwards, grinning fiercely at the sky.
Take that, Liever, she thought.