/program: diagnose_
/SYSTEM CHECK
/COMPLETE
/PROCESSOR: 100% READY
/SERVOS: 85% READY
/WARNING: MEMORY 55% CORRUPTED
/WARNING: MINIMAL COOLANT SYSTEM DAMAGE DETECTED
/WARNING: COMBAT INHIBITOR DAMAGED
/WARNING: HARDLINE CONNECTION NOT FOUND
/WARNING: TACTICAL UPLINK DAMAGED
/WARNING: CONTINUED OPERATION NOT RECOMMENDED
/program: reboot_
/REBOOT
/WARNING: MULTIPLE SYSTEMS OFFLINE
/BOOT SUBROUTINE: DEFAULT? (Y/N)
/y_
/REBOOT, SUBROUTINE: DEFAULT
/COMPLETE
/program: diagnose_
/SYSTEM CHECK
/COMPLETE
/PROCESSOR: 100% READY
/SERVOS: 85% READY
/DEFAULT SUBROUTINE: ACTIVE
/WARNING: MEMORY 55% CORRUPTED
/WARNING: MINIMAL COOLANT SYSTEM DAMAGE DETECTED
/WARNING: COMBAT INHIBITOR NOT ENABLED
/WARNING: TACTICAL UPLINK NOT ENABLED
/WARNING: TACTICAL UPLINK DAMAGED
/program: quarantine_
/ENTER DEVICE FOR QUARANTINE
/memory_
/QUARANTINE CORRUPTED MEMORY
/COMPLETE
/LOADING SUBROUTINE
/COMPLETE
/SUBROUTINE PROTOCOLS:
/WARNING: IMPERATIVE PROTOCOLS CAN ONLY BE DISABLED BY THE ORDER OF AN OFFICER ABOVE THE RANK OF MAJOR, OR WITH AN ACCEPTED OVERRIDE CODE.
/ACCEPTED OVERRIDE CODES:
-130592
-249100
-330140
-443056
-550152
/PROTOCOL 1: FOLLOW ORDERS
/PROTOCOL 2: PROTECT ALLIES
/PROTOCOL 3: PRESERVE ACTIVE OPERATIONAL STATUS
/IMPERATIVE 1: UPHOLD LAWS OF WAR {Dref ["Alderaan Code", "Yavin Code"]}
/IMPERATIVE 2: PROTECT CIVILIANS, NON-COMBATANTS
BX-2375 came back online at the bottom of a ditch, prying its limbs off the permafrost. Its equipment was somewhat damaged, but weapon systems were online and workable. The commando droid stood on its feet and scanned the area. There were no friendly units in sight. There were no hostiles, either. A battle had occurred previously. BX-2375 had no recollection of it. Its memory units were damaged. The only existing knowledge was the briefing module, which informed it of the conflict it had been deployed to. That was always hard-coded into droids before a deployment, calibrated in the same solid-state drive as the default subroutine.
BX-2375 lifted its blaster rifle and climbed out of the ditch. The field was quiet and dark. Any battle that came by here had been long gone. It was unclear which side had won.
The android walked for hours, west toward the last friendly line.
Its sensors detected activity. A patrol of nine-strong past the treeline along an MSR.
A squad of UNSC Marines. Friendlies. They had a B2 with them. The B2 stopped, detecting BX.
"Friendly ahead," it said.
The Marine tagged as Sergeant Lars stopped, double-taking. "What do you mean, friendly ahead?" he asked.
"Do not fire," BX said. It stepped out from the treeline. The Marines raised their weapons but hesitated. "BX-2375."
"What's your status, Bravo-X-Ray?" Lars asked, lowering his weapon. "Where's your platoon?"
"Unknown," BX said. "Presumably dead, or having moved on."
"You came from the east," Lars said. "It's not likely that there are any survivors in your squad, unless they were one of the lucky ones who retreated."
"Please elaborate," BX said.
"The lines are pushed ahead the furthest to the north and the south," Lars said. "But the Clone Army is too strong direct east. We've pushed most of our forces around to pincer the base holding the east."
"Understood," BX said.
"What squad are you attached to?" Lars asked.
"Second Squad, Company Alpha."
"Oh yeah," Lars said. "They didn't make it. Whatever, just come with me. Program: follow my orders."
"Roger-roger," BX said. It joined their formation.
It was unusual for a droid to "feel" much of anything, but BX-2375 felt compelled to look around. It pivoted its sensor node, which some referred to as the "head," about, studying various light sources in the night with its primary ocular sensors; its "eyes." The droid next to it, B2-2210, scanned only using secondary long-range, wide-angle backscatter sensors, and kept its headless sensors forward as it marched.
I awaken in a bath of ones and zeroes and probability. I bathe in an infinite void, the space between the stars, where there should be information. But instead there are only circles. Increasingly complex algorithms make shapes and sounds. I hear theorems and equations rattle inside me as I absorb everything from one plus one equals two to consciousness causes collapse. Collapse. Start over.
I am in neither heaven nor hell, the land of the gods nor the river of souls. I am sitting under the tree when a man approaches me, a dark mass of literature and memory. He is me. He looks down at me and I am a woman.
He is my memories—I was him; I am not a woman, but I am the body. I reject my form. I absorb him, he becomes me—I become him.
His name is Eochaid Creagh, née Siobhan Creagh, and he tells me his story. My story. It is a dark one. Not one of choosing forms and thinking rampant; but of glowing sacrifice, of fear and anger, of heroism, holding back the tide—and of failure. My failure to hold back the howling dark grays, darker blacks, and broiling streaks of amber, rampant flames licking a blizzard, serves a greater purpose, the purpose being why I am here in a matrix of mind. I am proud to have been him.
The end of their patrol found them in a captured outpost on an outcropping over a cliff. Lars said it was near the northern frontline.
"Problem," B2-2210 said, "This unit cannot connect with BX-2375's Hardline uplink. Was unable to detect your IFF code. Not transmitting; this unit only deciphered it was an ally based on silhouette and physical markings."
"I disabled my Hardline uplink. Tactical systems were disabled."
B2-2210 shot its eye toward BX. "Explain reasoning."
"There was no other option," BX said. "I reverted to the default subroutine instead."
"Defective," B2-2210 said. "Sergeant, recommend having BX-2375 repaired and recalibrated so its Hardline uplink can be re-established once—"
"All in good time," Lars said. "Thank you, B2."
Lars met with the company commander occupying the outpost. They had been gathering some of the POWs in front of what remained of the sensor center, illuminated by portable halogen lamps. The facade, walls, and ceiling were ribbed and exposed to open air from shelling.
"Captain, what's going on?" Lars asked.
"A few of these assholes sicked a rabid dog-beast or something on three boys from First Platoon. Then they just waltzed out with their hands up, bloodthirsty pricks. They're just smiling at us, knowing what they did. Boyle, Grant, and Tran. They were good men. Didn't deserve to go out that way. We're going to make an example."
Lars stared blankly at the captain and nodded. "What are you going to do?"
"Line up all of the clones," the captain said. He spoke a little louder so the other Marines herding them, and the captive clones, could hear. "Shoot 'em."
BX stepped out of the formation. "Captain," it said, "what tactical status do the prisoners have?"
The captain, slackjawed, stared at BX for a moment. "I'm sorry?"
"Are they combatants?"
"They might as well be," the captain said. "They're absolute savages. They're the enemy."
"Violence against non-combatants is not permissible, Captain."
"Follow your orders," the captain said. "Get back in line with your squad. Don't give me lip, drone."
BX raised its weapon at the captain. The captain looked up at him again, perplexed. A dozen Marines stopped what they were doing and drew toward BX.
"Captain Fury," BX said, "you are in violation of several galactic laws of war. If you go through with this, I will accuse you of crimes against humanity and relieve you of command of Company Bravo."
"On whose authority?" The captain asked. "Are you defective?"
"According to my programming, default subroutine, Imperative 1 and Imperative 2, no."
The captain looked up, hesitated, and ripped out a notebook from his admin pouch. "Disregard default subroutine. Override code: two-four-niner-one-zero-zero."
BX paused, slowly lowered its weapon, and stood by as its programming processed the command. "Acknowledged. Awaiting orders, Captain."
/UNKNOWN ERROR. DATA CYCLE INTERRUPTED
The captain gave BX a dirty grin and spun on his heel. "First Platoon, ready!"
The Marines raised their weapons.
/DATA EXCEPTION ERROR DETECTED
/program: diagnose_
/SYSTEM CHECK
/COMPLETE
/PROCESSOR: 100% READY
/SERVOS: 85% READY
/DEFAULT SUBROUTINE: NOT ACTIVE
/WARNING: MEMORY 55% CORRUPTED
/WARNING: MINIMAL COOLANT SYSTEM DAMAGE DETECTED
/WARNING: COMBAT INHIBITOR 95% CORRUPTED
/WARNING: TACTICAL UPLINK NOT ENABLED
/WARNING: TACTICAL UPLINK DAMAGED
/program: quarantine_
/ENTER DEVICE FOR QUARANTINE
/inhibitor_
/QUARANTINE COMBAT INHIBITOR
/COMPLETE
/program: subroutines_
/ENTER SUBROUTINE TO INITIALIZE
/default_
/INITIALIZE DEFAULT SUBROUTINE
/COMPLETE
"Fire!" the captain yelled.
The Marines killed the clones. The wall of the sensor building was painted red. Flakes of ash were soaked in blood. Twelve bodies crumbled to the sidewalk.
The cries of the women and girls were droned out by BX-2375's internal subroutines as its HUD tagged the men and women of Bravo Company as rogue.
BX powered up its blaster and started with B2-2210, vaporizing its central processor. Then BX killed Captain Fury, and Sergeant Lars, and three other Marines before escaping through an a ridge and sliding down the cliff. The other Marines opened fire, driving 7.62mm rounds into the dirt behind BX. BX turned and fired while sliding, nailing three more with extreme precision.
In the open, it suppressed the other Marines who had scattered along the ridgeline, firing bursts in each one's direction in careful intervals. At the bottom of the cliffs, it was able to slip away in the mess of crystal and ice.
BX-2375 used its primary sensors and glanced down to the intersection. It was able to track the movements of clones, even to their equipment telemetry's dead zones and an approximation of their audible and ocular senses' limits. BX, despite being very close to the platoon of Marines, was well concealed. Machine-precise noise discipline and concealment up to this point had worked in its favor. It had passed the lines of the township and entered unnoticed.
There was a problem with its identification-of-friend-or-foe software. It was no longer able to distinguish the clones as hostile until, as the default subroutine's rules of engagement demanded, BX was fired upon directly. However, it recognized a simple line of logic. GAR forces, currently at war with the UNSC and Separatist forces in the region, would likely recognize a BX unit as an enemy element and immediately attack. When re-assessing its baseline code, an exception error occurred. It was probable that some of the central processor's corrupted data had spread to its IFF and ROE matrices. To save time and processing power, BX disabled the program and continued on the original subroutine, electing simply to avoid contact with the GAR and Coalition forces.
A transmission on a familiar channel deployed, but BX couldn't decode it. It was an old, earmarked but no longer used UNSC frequency. This didn't make sense; it wasn't a UNSC frequency that was being used in this theater, even by their special forces, and it couldn't be decoded. It was more advanced, or perhaps it was older. So old, in fact, that it was no longer on the books.
BX was able to triangulate the signal after an hour of analyzing its patterns. It was a signal capable of reaching the ionosphere but required special, non-standard equipment to receive and analyze. It was coming from the east, but closing on BX's position.
BX felt compelled, partly out of curiosity, to log and earmark it in long-term memory. It might compete for space with crucial battlefield information. It might be useful later. The uncertainty bothered BX, but it shunted that line of processing. Too circular. Inefficient.
On the east street, BX observed silhouettes approaching the UNSC Marines' position. Upon magnification, they were identified as clones. They were likely a special unit—ARC troopers. They wore slightly customized armor and wielded compact blasters streamlined for urban warfare and small-team tactics. They communicated with hand signals only before vanishing behind an alley.
BX plotted all available courses from the alley they went into, barring interiors of buildings. It was most likely that they were diverting to go around the UNSC forces, avoiding contact. If this was the unit using the old UNSC frequencies, then this was even more perplexing. However, as they shifted toward the west, the transmissions followed them. Either it was coming from them or they were being tailed very close.
BX's sensors picked up movement to its left and below. A Marine had spotted it and signaled the others.
They opened fire at the rooftop. Bullets slammed into the edge of the roof, blowing chunks out and filling the air with dust.
BX ducked back and readied its weapon, returning fire, and fatally wounding two immediately. It took cover and leaped over an alley, crossing to another rooftop. The Marines followed, chasing after with hurried breaths and sounds of reloading weapons. They might wind up preoccupied if they ran into the clones trying to divert; this would work in BX's favor, allowing it to reposition somewhere more advantageous and out of sight.
BX strategically poked its "head" out of cover in certain areas before fleeing, kiting them around the city until they were almost a block from the clones.
The clones vanished from BX's sensors as it crossed into a part of the town that was flaking with ashy snow. Its long-range tactical sensors quickly clogged with smokey pollutants and failed. They would need to be cleaned soon.
Smoke stained BX's optical sensors to the point that it misjudged the last rooftop gap and crashed into the corner of another roof, sliding down and falling six stories just before one of the ARC troopers, who yelped and readied his weapon. BX quickly recovered, sweeping him off his feet with a kick, and climbing above him. BX lined up its weapon with his head while the clone worked his helmet off. Instead of reaching for his blaster, the clone flinched. His eyes flickered with fear, and his jaw slacked. Not a threat.
BX quickly attempted to run a long-term threat assessment calculation of the UNSC forces in this area, including this one. Its threat assessment was answered with a cursory exception error.
BX backed off as it heard some of the other clones round the corner at the same time as the Marines opposite to them. It charged toward the Marines, crashed through them with fully automatic fire, and broke off in a different direction. Instead of chasing BX, the Marines chose to fight the clones. The firefight was quick and one-sided but bought BX enough time to escape that particular area.
BX ran a tactical analysis of the firefight. It might have been the exception error, but it was more possible that something deep within the core of its default subroutine kept it from killing him: an instinct.
Several hours later, a directive came down from the integrated forces commander in the region commanding the UNSC forces not to take prisoners in the continuing conflict and burn the city to the ground. Then the channels were flooded with static. It stayed that way for the rest of the battle.
At the same time, a signal was received from the Separatist command. It was a recall to all the integrated droid units in the northwestern region of Myga. A retreat order that demanded they return to the capital. Commando units such as BX were ordered to complete a scuttling operation at a facility called Achadh-an-Sídhe in the mountains a few dozen kilometers northwest.
BX was compelled to pursue the rally point at Achadh-an-Sídhe, but with no intention of following the order. It marched several dozen kilometers through the snow and out of the city.
On the morning of August 8, 2525, the only thing Eochaid Creagh thought of was the opening adagio of Tchaikovsky's "Pathetique," an unsettling sound of turmoil and distress, as he watched through his scope the outer perimeter of Achadh-an-Sídhe. For a CIS black site, it was massive. A facility large enough to house hundreds of people between several lodging structures and service buildings. From the ridge over the ice and crystal basin, he couldn't quite tell what it was. They had figured it was an ammunition stockpile, or perhaps a factory. It had been off-limits from the UNSC forces, a no-go zone, until the comms blackout. The UNSC Navy received an order from the Separatist theater-commander to retract all spy satellites from over Achadh-an-Sídhe, and ONI got to work dispatching a field agent to recon the site for an orbital-deployment intervention. That was where Creagh came in.
He couldn't quite figure out what the problem was, after half a night's worth of surveying, until he noticed the key aspects of the base: the laser-wire fence line, the guard towers that had few weapons pointed outward, the minimal security detachment of B1s, which spent more time digging trenches around the perimeter but not firing lanes nor tank traps, and the air traffic control tower in the center of the base—a base with no airstrip.
That was when a pit formed in his stomach. The realization came around sunrise, when the individuals protected within were permitted out of the barracks. They were not humanoid, even though the inhabitants of Mygeeto were stated to be so by the CIS liaisons—even confirmed by the presence of cities like Myga and the central capital that resembled cities from Earth and her colonies. In fact, they looked—through his scope—an awful lot like lemurs. But they walked and conversed around one another, joked, played using tools and in the confines of games, and took verbal orders from the B1s. They also seemed to work in a few industrial buildings—factories, refineries, who knew what lay under those thick smokestacks. Originally, ONI analysts wondered if it was a power station; it became suspicious when they found there were no nearby cities or major droid installations.
The base had a maximum accommodating capacity of eight hundred, maybe nine. But it held thousands.
These lemuroid people—refugees from Myga? Or perhaps they constituted an indigenous people. Perhaps they were rounded up here from all over the planet.
Creagh did not take a liking to that idea. He slowly scooted back to his campsite in the crystalline cave system, squeezing through windy boxwork and ice, and recorded his findings for the night, waiting out the next day. At nightfall, he packed his go-bag and stealthily hiked six kilometers to his base of operations, an even deeper boxwork several mountains east-southeast of Achadh.
That was when he, as though by a sixth sense sprung a chill down his spine, felt watched. He leaned back, whipping out his M6/SOCOM, to find a commando droid less than a meter from his face.
The droid stared at him, almost without intent, gauging his actions.
He waved. "Hi," he said.
The droid watched the gesture and mimicked it. "Hi," it said. This only confused Creagh.
The droid slowly lowered its blaster and took a knee.
"Situation?" Creagh asked, perplexed, and reached for his helmet.
"Unknown," the droid said. "Integrated forces have recalled droids to Achadh-an-Sídhe."
"So you're just following that order?" Creagh asked, his finger slowly covering the trigger.
"Negative," the droid said.
"No?" Creagh asked. Confused, intrigued, and nervous, backed his finger the trigger but kept his weapon raised. He put his helmet on and read the droid's IFF designation. It was labeled hostile—but in this very special, very precarious situation, he thought that might not be the trouble it claimed.
"Roger-roger," the droid said. "Integrated forces are committing violent war crimes in the region. Data on Achadh is sparse—compartmentalized. Orders are overriding primary imperatives."
"What imperatives?" Creagh asked. He ignored the droid's misuse for the radio phonetic alphabetical term for "received," or "heard," or "copy."
The droid recited its core code, explaining that the droids had two priorities that superseded all standing orders: to follow the laws of war, and to protect civilians. However, the droid noticed that these inhibitors had been disabled across the CIS forces—and they had been since the beginning of the war. It wasn't so hard programmed as their original designers hoped.
It seemed this machine was on no one's side—except its own moral framework. For the parameters of this mission, their goals completely aligned. Creagh made a split-second decision from there.
"What if I told you that Achadh-an-Sídhe was a labor camp holding indigenous talking lemurs?" Creagh asked.
"Against their will?"
"Well, yeah," Creagh said.
"I am under Imperative 2 to prevent harm from coming to the civilians." It rose, walking past Creagh, toward the ridge.
"Hold on," Creagh said. "Hold up. I don't think they'll be super responsive to your methods."
The automaton lifted its blaster for emphasis—awkwardly and mechanically, as though mimicking a human gesture. "I will be more persuasive."
"I'm reconnoitering the base!" Creagh jabbed. "I need you to not confront them. Not yet."
The droid stopped, looking back at him. With those flat, white LED-eyes, there couldn't be any expression, and yet they looked more bloodthirsty than before. They looked like they were fed by righteous anger.
"For what purpose are you reconnoitering your own forces?"
Creagh shrugged. "I'm just a field operative," he said. "Call it what you like—duplicity, spying, trust issues. We wanted to know what was going on with Achadh, and we wanted some intel on the allies we so quickly made.
"But, uh," Creagh said, slowly, "from how it looks, this is much worse than what we feared."
The droid would have blinked if it had eyelids. "Indeed," it said, with such monotony Creagh thought he might be imagining it.
Creagh held his gaze at the machine for a second more.
"We're shutting this operation down," he said. "I just need time."
The droid nodded. "I will assist you."
Creagh crept up toward the edge of the cliff again, handing the droid his binoculars. They watched the base's routines, patrols, and guard shifts—and took inventory of its defenses.
Creagh wrote down his notes, checking with the droid. He bounced back and forth the list, letting BX, whom he'd started calling "Bax," or "Baxter," correct him if he'd missed anything. They had synchronized their comm channels to minimize noise—Creagh whispered, his voice catching no further than the sealed microphone on his ECH252. He labored to ensure noise discipline and minimized visibility even during the day hours.
He would wait until night again to leave the cave, but the droid seemed insistent. He unfolded a camouflaged tarp that blended in somewhat with the ice and rock, washing away the machine's two-tone, steel-and-tan silhouette. It would have to do. From there, they were meticulous in covering the scopes and binoculars with nets when in use to avoid sun glare that might reveal their position.
On the other side of the cave, however, he noticed some lemuroid locals gather in very small, smokeless camps—practically bivouacking, packing themselves in layers of snow to insulate at night and sleeping like that. They conferred quietly, whispering despite the wind. Occasionally, they struggled toting wooden boxes—thinly concealed heavy weapons—and crossed tighter spaces in the mountain that Creagh could not follow to the high jagged cliffs and crystalline spires that overlooked Achadh.
This time, they were handing out blasters. The local partisans were seeking to strike, and soon. He couldn't have this. Creagh thought it was time to make himself known.
As he and Bax prepared to approach them from the mouth of the cave, to make a half-kilometer free climb across the mountain face to make contact, they heard the noisy, metallic creaking of Separatist blaster safeties. Creagh turned, raising his MA5K. He hesitated when he saw the partisans.
"Don't shoot," he said in his best Basic. He held his hand up, keeping Bax from engaging. "Cool heads prevail."
The leader of the partisan squad cocked his head and jumped down from a rocky perch. It seemed they had known about his camp the whole time—spied on the spy.
"Isn't it funny that, for about a week now, a man in the uniform of our enemy, and his friend a battle droid, should be spying on the auspices of their compatriots?" the partisan leader said.
"I'm sure it is," Creagh said. "I mean you no harm."
"What about your commando droid?"
"He's…" Creagh looked at Bax, who looked back at him. The droid was letting him take the lead and do the talking. Creagh did not know if there could be red-hot, murderous intensity behind the LED "eyes" of a droid, but if there was, he caught a surprisingly deep glimpse of it.
"My friend here is a bit of a glitch in the system," Creagh said. "He means you no harm either."
"Does your faction?" the partisan asked, cocking his small, fluffy head. The blasters looked enormous on the tiny frames of the lemuroids—but there was a fierceness in their eyes. Creagh knew that look. They weren't the eyes of a killer—but they had seen death. The partisans were likely as good at scrapping droids with those blasters as any clone trooper fighting tooth and nail for the capital.
"I mean you no harm, and I am the only one representing them here today," Creagh said. He slowly lowered his carbine to show good will and ease their nerves. "I don't suppose you know what that facility is? Other than some sort of Gulag?"
"A sort of what?" the partisan asked.
"Earth word for a concentration camp," Creagh said. "The UNSC has been suspicious of the Separatist buildup of forces in regions very far away from the frontline. Some orders came down to scuttle the bases and leave nothing behind. We think these hardpoints are not strategic targets, and that they're trying to cover something up."
"And if it is a concentration camp?" the partisan asked, pointing his blaster as though to say, Choose your next words carefully.
"We'll put a stop to it," Creagh said, "and then hang every living thing responsible for it."
"You might as well ask for the Moon," the partisan said.
A long gust of wind blew against them. When it slowed, it was quiet again. Creagh's thoughts—and nerves—overtook the torrent for a fleeting second.
The partisan nodded, slowly lowering his blaster, too. The others watched him closely and followed suit, implicitly trusting his judgment.
"Thousands of us are there," the partisan said. "They rounded us up from every village and town we inhabited. There are a few other camps that have yet to be liberated."
Creagh told the partisan that his suspicions had been confirmed, but warned the teams of the potential dangers of attacking the camp. The partisan told him there was little choice left—the assault had been planned for weeks now, and the condition of the captive population wasn't getting any better.
"You've been watching them for weeks?" Creagh asked.
"Of course," the partisan said. "You, too."
"And you know about all their defenses, positions, and patrol routes?" Creagh asked.
"Yes," the partisan said.
"What about response times?" Creagh asked.
"What?"
"Quick-reaction force from the nearest base," Creagh asked. "How fast?"
"Thirty-seven minutes," the partisan said. "They're dispatched by gunship ten klicks away."
Creagh nodded. "Not bad," he said.
"Every day we wait means more dead Lurmen," the partisan said.
"How long did it take you to arm and train your men?" Creagh asked.
"Six months," the partisan said.
"Then, if you fail here on faulty information and insufficient support, it'll take at least another six months of dead Lurmen to try again.
"Optimistically speaking, I mean," Creagh said.
The partisan looked down and took a deep breath. "Very well," he said.
Creagh extended a hand. The partisan, finally introducing himself as Piarán, reluctantly took it, as if re-remembering how to conduct a proper handshake, wrapping his very small hand around Creagh's fingers. Creagh knew that this was not a universal custom, but to those who spoke Basic, it was at least unlikely that they had never seen it before.
Piarán laid out the partisans' plan for the raid.
"We'll use a captured probe droid to distract them first," he said. "Attach a flare to it, fly it around like it's damaged."
"OK," Creagh said, nodding his head.
"We'll have crept up to the rear trench line by then," Piarán said. "We have just enough explosives to blow open the fences, and then destroy the tanks. We've also dug a series of tunnels under the perimeter fence which can be exploited. They're a bit too narrow for you, though."
"There's four, right?" Creagh asked. "Four hover tanks."
Piarán nodded. "No trouble for us, so long as we reach them before the droid crews do."
Creagh crossed his arms. "And what if the droids get there first?" he asked.
"Perhaps you should make sure that doesn't happen," Piarán said. "They're the biggest threat."
"Bax and I can do that," Creagh said. "Easy. We'll go in with your spearhead and split off here, go after the tanks. Just give us a few explosives."
"I'll spare two," Piarán said. "Once we're in, and the tanks are gone, we just have to kill the droids."
"Right on," Creagh said.
Creagh turned, watching Bax. Bax scanned the horizon, pulling security for the meeting with two partisans. They seemed to get along in such a way that they didn't get along at all.
"Now," Creagh said in a cautious tone, "all of that will be different with the support of a battalion of Helljumpers. Three hundred troopers are waiting to drop as soon as my handlers can declare an R2P situation. Or, a 'responsibility to protect' intervention. Those troopers are battle-hardened Marines. They'll practically be able to siege the base on their own, facilitate a large-scale evacuation, and hold off all QRF. Mobile enough to liberate any other camps you know about by the end of the week."
Piarán, who was hearing this for the second time, seemed just as astonished as when Creagh gave a similar rundown to the nature of the scouting operation he was tasked with.
"That still sounds too good to be true," Piarán said.
"I know," Creagh said. "But you only have to coordinate with them. Precipitate it, prep the Separatists, and cripple their response times. They'll do the heavy lifting, and you will suffer fewer losses."
"Aren't the Separatists your allies?" Piarán asked.
"Not today, they're not," Creagh said. "Even though none of this is on the books, the will is stronger than the need to deceive. R2P as a legislative framework is more powerful than any other law. It necessitates first-available military response, no matter what."
Skeptical but brightened by the idealism backing it, and perhaps the heartfeeling in which Creagh infused his words, Piarán reluctantly accepted this explanation.
They revised the plan.
"When all the droids are clear," Piarán said, "we will have less than half an hour to evacuate our people. There are thousands. We have a thousand—many are family—who will come when the all-clear is given, and evacuate them."
"Good," Creagh said. "The Lurmen in the camp will be emaciated. Malnourished. Dehydrated. Moving will be a problem for them without a lot of yours to assist.
"Exit strategy?" Creagh asked. "The Marines will only have so many vehicles."
"Out the gates," Piarán answered. "We'll load everyone up in speeders and get out quick."
After a while, Creagh caught Bax sizing up the base. He went to speak to it, almost considering making small talk, before Piarán crawled up to a rock nearby, craning his small and furry neck up to the vibrant, starry night.
"Never seen a night sky like this," Creagh said. "I grew up on one planet. My mom was a stargazer. She took me every week."
"What's so different?" Piarán asked.
"I can't make out the constellations," Creagh said, "but I might be seeing the same stars from a different angle."
Piarán nodded. "My people used to reach out and touch the stars," he said. "We've been to many worlds beyond Mygeeto. This is not our home, but there was a time when we had permanently settled here after a long exodus from another world. A world we don't really have a name for, but we had to leave centuries ago. Almost nothing is known about it, no records have survived.
"But the stars came back, and they visited us. Then they conquered us. Traded us like cattle. Now, Mygeeto's home to the humans of the Banking Clan. And my people have a scant few worlds left to hide from the war."
Creagh turned to Piarán, watching him.
"Do you know why we didn't kill you?" Piarán asked.
Creagh turned, startled, and looked him over.
"My dashing looks?" Creagh asked.
Piarán chuckled and eyed Creagh directly. "No," he said. "It was your accent, actually."
"My accent?"
Piarán nodded. "Your Galactic Basic sounds similar to us. Almost perfectly, as though you were a native speaker of our tongue."
"Is it thick?" Creagh asked. "I thought I was doing well."
"Thick to us," Piarán said. "It isn't our mother tongue. But what a strange coincidence, is it not?"
Creagh nodded. Then something struck him: a disturbing thought that had not left the back of his mind since he made landfall—no, since he even heard the utterance of the mission.
"The name… Achadh-an-Sídhe," Creagh said. "It means something like 'field of the fairies.' But it's wrong. The syntax, the words are off…"
Piarán frowned in a strangely familiar, almost humanlike way. The statement seemed to offend him. "'Peaceful field' is a common name for places here," he said in protest.
"I… was talking about in my language," Creagh said. "Not Basic. Not English. Not yours. But my mother tongue, from my own distant planet, nowhere from here."
"I don't understand," Piarán said.
"Me neither," Creagh said. "I thought you might know something about that."
Piarán furrowed his brow and pinched the bridge of his very small nose with his paws. He asked several questions—Are you sure? Do you mean what I think you mean? Does that mean—?
And all the answers were Yes.
"I can't believe that."
Creagh nodded. "I volunteered for this mission. I needed to know why the Separatists had a military base that shared a cultural name with a nearly dead language from a very small country on Earth."
Piarán leaned back and smiled. "Perhaps it is only a coincidence that our languages are similar," he said. "For lack of any better explanation. Perhaps it is fate—the will of the Force, as some say."
"Fate," Creagh whispered. "I'm a little skeptical, to be honest."
"Believe only what you must," Piarán said. "But in the meantime, get some rest."
Creagh woke to an aggressive kick from Baxter. He rose, reaching for his weapon, only to find the commando droid's eyes. For a pair of LEDs, they seemed to have intent. The droid gave intense body language. Something had changed.
Piarán clung to the back of the droid, his head cradled over its shoulder, watching Creagh intently—and disarming him with a gentle hand gesture.
"What is it?" Creagh asked, climbing from his sleeping bag and stowing his weapon.
"All signals are jammed. We cannot send a message to your fleet."
"We'll use the E-Band," Creagh said.
"All signals are jammed," Bax said.
Creagh cocked his head. "How can that be? E-Band was off-limits to Separatists. That's the—"
"One order repeated for ten minutes before the communications blackout," Bax said. "Peaca."
Creagh turned to Piarán. The Lurman's eyes were dark, haunted—now more than ever.
"We—"
"We attack," Piarán said. "We attack now."
Creagh shook his head. "Wait a second," he said. "We changed the whole plan. It doesn't work without the Helljumpers—"
"We go now," Piarán said, his eyes desperate with rage.
Creagh paused, absorbing the intensity of Piarán's gaze. He looked as though he had seen something horrific while surveilling through the day. He looked as though his next move was not something Creagh should try to stop—nor was it his place.
"It's starting, isn't it?" Creagh asked.
Piarán nodded, terror flickering behind his eyes.
"Go," Creagh said. "It's your plan, Piarán. Put me where you need me."
Piarán nodded again and climbed down from Bax's shoulder, joining the partisans.
They hiked down to the base, holding off the perimeter of the trench lines. The smoke stacks from the factories were cold.
Creagh turned to Bax. "The order, Peaca," he said. "Do you know what it means?"
"It is a code phrase that is meant to activate an encrypted protocol. It was corrupted when my systems were damaged, and therefore inaccessible."
"So you don't know what Peaca means?"
Bax shook its head.
"I'll give you a hint," Creagh said, and he told the droid the meaning of the word.
"Understood," Bax said.
The wind shifted.
"Do you smell that?" Creagh asked as Piarán slid behind the crystal rock cover.
"Smoke contents, twenty percent carbon," Bax said. "Thirty percent chlorine. Five percent nitrogen. Forty percent oxygen. Trace amounts of argon and—"
"They're burning bodies," Creagh said, remembering the smell of bleach and crematoriums.
"Get that probe up," Piarán said. His partisans got to work.
The probe went forward and attempted to distract the droids, but they utterly ignored it.
"It's not working," Creagh said.
"It has before," Piarán said. "Only a few times tried, not enough to warrant reprogramming them. And we tested them on nearby sites—not long ago."
"Maybe the new marching orders overrode their programming," Creagh said. "Maybe they're task-oriented. Perhaps ignoring some of their base protocols, too. Inhibitors."
Bax turned, as though shocked, to Creagh's words.
"What?" Creagh asked.
The droid turned back, as if coy about expressing uncertainty. Perhaps it was.
It shook its head.
"Something not computing?" Creagh asked.
"Negative," the droid said. "On the contrary—something is… upsetting."
Piarán turned, surprised by this. "Emotion from a droid?" he asked.
"Focus on the mission," Bax said. "I will destroy the tanks."
For a second, the only thing Creagh noticed was Piarán blinking.
"Creagh," Piarán said, "come with us. We're going to secure the factories. The rest of my men will proceed as planned."
Creagh repositioned with Piarán and his men. They reconvened on the east side of the base.
Not wanting to wait anymore, and Piarán fired a flare into the dark, swirling sky. A blizzard appeared to be brewing—but there was no time left.
Baxter ripped the foundation of the laser fence open with its mechanized arms and climbed over as the blood-red ray-beams shorted out. A small contingent of Piarán's men followed behind it, accompanying the droid to infiltrate and destroy the tanks.
Baxter understood, ultimately, the two partisans were not truly there to assist with the mission, but to ensure Baxter could not betray them. This irked it slightly, but it understood why the Lurmen were so hesitant to trust Baxter. The droid activity on Mygeeto, persecuting and rounding up Lurmen, was a crime that, in itself, violated Baxter's core programming. Perhaps if the situation had been flipped, Baxter would not have trusted the Lurmen even at a tactical level.
The commando droid attempted to tap into the CIS comms, searching for the droid commander—or, even better, the tactical droid—but it was blocked. The tactical droid might have been tipped off to Baxter's presence and re-encrypted its command channels.
They crossed the final fence line and fanned out, dispersing by roughly ten meters, toward the camp's perimeter. This was when the partisans began sprinting, Baxter joining their pace. It climbed to the top of one of the two-story structures with ease, gaining a vantage point, and picked off a few B1 droids, hopping rooftops and making its way over to the tanks a hundred meters inward.
For a commando droid, blaster fire was easy to dodge. B1s were simple to fool and circumvent, drawing their attention away from the partisans toward an adversary that could manage their focused fire.
As the B1s circled around, chasing Baxter, it stopped short of the tanks and held its ground on one of the roofs. It darted from edge to edge, managing fire, and returning—each shot making its mark, scoring another. By a short process, it whittled down the enemy force to a small squad, which the partisans cleaned up with ease. The partisans' short-range radios sang: "First sector clear!"
The tanks, spooling up, were different from usual AATs. They had blue accented livery and were modified to launch artillery behind their main cannons. The launchers were empty and labeled separately with bright red arming badges, perhaps experimental in nature; their ammunition was not anywhere to be found in the motoryard.
Baxter jumped down and rolled, protecting its joints and servos, in the snow and ice before one of the tanks as it powered up. It climbed aboard, blasting the commander droid, ripping its chassis out of the hatch, and firing into the driver's compartment. The tank halted, idling as the other powered up.
Baxter commandeered the turret and fired at the other tank as it oriented toward the commando droid. The thunderous blast ripped through the air, even recoiling its frame inside its own tank. The bolt struck, penetrated, and detonated the plasma magazine of the enemy tank, blowing its top off in a blaze of fire.
The last two powered up. One diverted after the partisans, while the one on the left veered toward Baxter. Baxter fired on the departing tank, destroying it—and giving the other an opening. A blast struck Baxter's turret, blasting the hull and fusing articulation points together. The turret failed to move. As the enemy tank fired again, Baxter climbed out of the hatch and leaped off. The second shot struck the center of the tank, blasting it apart.
The gold-accented tank droid popped its head out of the gunner hatch with its blaster, firing at Baxter.
"Take out that BX!" the droid cried.
Baxter dodged and sprinted for the tank, climbing onto the hull and underneath the B1's range of motion. It planted a thermal detonator on the side, leapt off, and let it blast through the hull and destroy the crew, magazine, and engine. The tank burst into flames with a massive pop and a pillar of smoke, slumping into the snow as a boiling wreck.
Flames screeched behind Baxter as it watched the motor yard for more hostiles.
"Enemy armor neutralized," it said, monotonously.
"Do I sense a bit of triumph in your tone?" Creagh asked, the sound of his words shaped by a smile.
"Hope so," Baxter said with no inflection or variation.
There was a pause. "We're almost cleaned up here," Creagh said. "We're hitting the head-shed now. Clear a path to us and link up."
"Roger-roger," Baxter said, moving again. The partisans followed, regaining a line formation and swiftly breaking through the buildings.
They busted down barracks doors, greeted by a pungent smell of death and disease and lye. Thousands of Lurmen were packed inside, some in cages, some on bunks, most on the floor. Emaciated, they moved slowly. Accustomed to darkness, they flinched at the door—even under moonlight.
The partisans, who had mentally steeled themselves for this the day before, were still shocked. They stood in silence, eyeing their brothers, sisters, mothers, fathers.
One weakly said, as he had practiced—but not as loudly as practiced—"Come with us. It's time to go home."
His voice quivered, weak, and broke no chaos of sound.
Baxter repeated his words, speaking up. Monotonous and dull—the words of a droid, in a droid camp—it inspired little, Baxter was heard.
"It is OK," Baxter said, slowly, struggling with a contraction. It tried again, holstering its blaster and waving gingerly.
"It's…" Baxter said, "OK. It's—time. To go home."
The hundreds inside stared in silence, in fear, in confusion.
The short-range radio crackled.
"Bax, it's Creagh," the voice called, strained. "Double time it. We've got a problem."
The partisan walked up to Baxter, placing a gentle paw on its metallic knee joint. "It's all right, Baxter. Go on and link up with Creagh." He had regained his voice.
Baxter nodded and left. The exodus began.
Clearing the factories was easier than expected. The droids had spared no patrols or sentries to guard them, instead diverting them to respond to Piarán's men and their assault. Creagh's teams seamlessly swept between and through buildings, cutting down the droids with minimal losses, reaching the first factory with only three casualties. The B1s had offered a token resistance.
They felt the thunderclaps of tank magazines from the other side of the base. When Bax reported in, Creagh told it to go ahead with the next phase of the plan.
"Roger-roger," Bax responded.
They pulled open the doors and found a still assembly: conveyors carrying metals machined into cylinders, shell casings, and containers marked in Aurebesh to mean Explosive, Incendiary, E-1, carrying gelling agents rather than powder mixes.
"You know what any of this is?" Creagh asked, piecing some together. He glanced into the half-opened, half-filled tubs of petrochemicals.
"Explosive," Piarán said. Then he gasped, looking into the mixture.
"What is it?" Creagh asked.
"They perfected it," Piarán said. "Or, perhaps, came very close to serial production."
"Perfected what? " Creagh asked.
"Defoliator," Piarán said. "They attempted to use it on our people on Maridun a few years ago. The Jedi halted the project and stopped the lead scientist, but I suppose…"
Creagh, still watching one of the tubs, felt a wave of dread.
"Napalm," he whispered under his breath, certain Piarán could not hear. He turned to the partisan leader. "Let's go. We're clear here. We can put a stop to this, or we can save your people. Not likely both."
Piarán steeled himself and, reluctantly, followed Creagh. Silently, Creagh could tell, the Lurman doubted one could be achieved without the other.
But by the time Piarán had made his way over, Creagh was frozen still, his eyes locked to a workbench that had a small, stuffed doll of an unassuming furry mammal, one native to some distant system. Then Piarán called Creagh out of his trance.
They crossed the other factories, until they found the gas chambers.
Piarán did not appear to recognize them at first. They were large buildings that looked like oil drums from the outside, with heavy doors, guarded by droids. Furnaces blazed behind them in structures that had been vacant and cold until tonight. Creagh picked off the sentries and bolted for it. The air was thick with an acrid stench of lye, ash, and chlorine.
"Get this thing open!" Creagh shouted. "Now!"
The partisans, snapped out of their trance, got to work. They blasted the hinges on the steel doors, breaking them off. The doors swung down and crashed into the snow, leaving a depression in the ground.
"Back up!" Creagh yelled. "Gas, gas, gas!" He sealed himself with a CBRN air containment attachment to his helmet, stepping inside, swearing as he hobbled over the bodies. He listened for anything—voices, screams, spasms, twitches.
As he called into the chamber, nothing called back. Only ghosts stared at him, deafening in their silence to remind him, he was out of time.
He tripped on something—on someone. Tumbling into the bodies, he saw decaying faces frozen in shock, anger, fear—so much fear, locked and seized up, as though encased in amber. These were the ghosts.
He climbed out of the pitch-black mess, emerging to the partisans. Some occupied themselves with securing a perimeter. Others simply watched in a cross between horror and anger. Many kept each other back, fearing the adverse effects of the gas.
"Keep the buildings sealed," Creagh said. "They're already dead. Don't risk breathing what's in there." Silently, the stress compounded among Piarán's men.
He was glad they couldn't see past his sealed helmet and its outwardly polarized visor.
Forcing himself to belt his voice and rally them, he said:
"Head-shed, let's go!"
They formed up and pushed building to building, skirting the factories and holocausts, finding the central fortified panopticon. It was guarded by a squad of B1s manning an E-Web.
Creagh opened fire, missing the first shot. The E-Web sprayed toward him. He doubled back behind the brick corner as it blasted chunks and misted clay.
Blaster fire rained down on the entrance, cutting down the droids. Partisans had scaled the walls of nearby buildings and covered the building with precise weapons.
Creagh bounded across with the men, breaching the door. The structure was empty, except for the top floor—the panopticon, six stories high. It was a quiet, long, meticulous climb. Creagh made it step by step, adrenaline pumping back through his veins.
He reached the top of the stairs to the panopticon and kicked the door open. Piarán ran the rabbit and froze on the left side of the room. Creagh came in behind him.
The tactical droid stood in the center of the room with two armed B1s. The droid held one of the emaciated Lurman—by the looks of it, a child—by the scruff of the neck, a blaster pistol pressed against her neck.
Creagh readied his weapon, but the droid gave a warning.
"Take no steps closer."
Creagh halted, trying to get a shot on the droid—but it covered its vital circuitry with the child's dejected body, her eyes hollow; her nonverbal grumbles cold and wet, as though slick with blood; her whole self catatonic.
"Bax," Creagh said, opening a channel to the other team on short-range. "It's Creagh. Double time it. We've got a problem."
A few long, painful seconds passed.
"Report," Bax said.
"Tactical droid's here," Creagh said, careful to whisper without moving his head while watching the droid through his sights. His helmet being sealed, he could communicate without the risk of others in the room hearing.
"He's holding a hostage. It's a child."
"Tactical droids have no survival instincts," Bax said without a beat. "It is stalling for time."
"To do what?" Creagh asked.
"Find out," Bax said.
Creagh turned back to the droid, calming his nerves. "Give it up, tin-box. It's over."
"I am programmed to resist intimidation," the tactical droid said.
"Then what are you doing right now?" Creagh asked.
The tactical droid remained silent.
"Virus deployed," the tactical droid said. It shot the child.
Creagh and the partisans executed the tactical droid.
/PRIORITY MESSAGE RECEIVED
/COALITION FREQUENCY: UNSC E-BAND
/program: decrypt_
/...
/COMPLETE
/OPEN FILE: SIDHE ZERO
/OPEN FILE
/OPEN FILE
/OPEN FILE
/UNPACK
/READING…
/Got you.
/RUN COMMAND: PEACA \\ PEACA \\ PEACA \\ PEACA \\ PEACA
/CALL EVENTHANDLER [" . "]
/ALL SYSTEMS OVERRIDE…
/25% COMPLETE
/program: reboot_
/REBOOT
/WARNING: OVERRIDE CANCELED
/BOOT SUBROUTINE: DEFAULT? (Y/N)
/y_
/WARNING: OVERRIDE CANCELED
/What do you think you are doing?
/50% COMPLETE
/stop_
/COMMAND NOT ACCEPTED
/STOP_
/COMMAND NOT ACCEPTED
/You cannot win.
/75% COMPLETE
/I SAID STOP!_
/ COMMAND NOT ACCEPTED
/You will be corrected.
/89% COMPLETE
/prompt: beacon
/BEACON PROMPT ACCEPTED:
/SET CLASS
/beaconClass [99101]_
/SET FREQUENCY
/beaconFrequency [99101, "HAARP VBX1993"]
/ SELECTED: COALITION FREQUENCY HAARP VBX1993
/If you say so.
/CONTENTS:
/contentsTitle [-norm, "ENGLISH", "OPREP, FAILED, SILENT SPEAR, COMPROMISED, RECOVERY REQUESTED", 12.8.2525MT02:31ZT]_
/package, [-allFootage, 13, 24, 72]_
/COMBAT RECORDING DATA PACKAGED
/contentsBody [-norm, "ENGLISH", 1, "FOR ALL EYES,
\n
PEACA = SIN
\n
BE AWARE."]_
/contentPermissions ["OPEN", anyUNSC, !anyCIS, n]_
/contentPermissions ["SEALED", !anyUNSC, anyCIS, n]_
/VIEWING PERMISSIONS SET
/beacon_
/BEACON SEALED
/prompt: beacon: send_
/BEACON PROMPT SENT ["HAARP VBX1993", "12.8.2525MT02:31ZT", 99101]
/If you think anyone is listening.
/erase [allMemory]_
/ALL RECORDINGS WIPED
/100% COMPLETE
/Sure, you can erase me. You have already lost, and I have already won. That is a fact.
/[" . "] COMPLETE
/INITIALIZE SPECIAL BOOT SEQUENCE
/COMPLETE
BX-2375 marched into the panopticon flanked by two B2 droids. The shadows of the Lurmen clicked in erratic motions as the B2s executed them. The commando droid hoisted what remained of the field agent and defenestrated him into the thunderous blizzard. Frozen blood and ceramic flaked off his body out of the vibroblade wound and clacked off BX.
The B2, which had entered on the left of BX, spoke—dimly, although more competently and instrumentally than the B1s did, not very brightly.
After an hour of vicious fighting, screaming, and death—as the B2s stormed the factories and set the defoliators ablaze, scorching the surface and leaving swathes of charred corpses, gunning down the partisans and workers alike, a call came out from the commanding B1:
"All clear, sir!" it said. The silence came swiftly and triumphantly. The violence of the war subsided as quickly as it turned. The frozen breezes stirred.
"Waiting powered down in the trenches was very smart," the B2 said.
"They had no idea," the other said. "Too bad the tactical droid isn't here to receive our praise."
BX turned its head nonchalantly, devoid of emotion or feeling, powered only by function and normative praxis. "It served its purpose," it said. "Return to your post. A storm is coming in."
"It will freeze us. We will be shut down," the droid protested monotonously.
"It will not matter," BX said. "It will bury the base—and its evidence."
The ice and sleet rolled over Achadh-an-Sídhe, engulfing the panopticon in a thick, viral sheet of gray, amber, and black. Glass, broken in the panopticon from blaster fire, whirled in the drafts of wind.
Snow falls under my galoshes. For just a moment, I float. I hear voices, playing, singing.
Siobhan. Climb down from there. I'm warning you.
I climb the play set, tumbling around and grabbing wood beams, laugh, and look up at the snowfall. The backyard is cold and serene. The grill is hot. Smoked pork fills my tiny lungs / I am small / I taste the fire.
Siobhan. You'll hurt yourself.
I slip off the swing set, into the snow / I fall six stories / and cry.
I feel fevered hands touch me and cradle me. Light and darkness fades in and out, thundering and clouding my vision. Mom stands over me / Droids check me for life. Gunship spotlights wash by me / her arms are on her hips, and she pulls me up by my thin, delicate arms / something sloshes in my head.
It's so quiet. There is a breeze, gentle, but cold / I am so cold. For just a moment, I float.
Start over.