The Catalyst

-Chapter 11-


The whole story was much clearer to me now. These were the Centaurs—or the ‘goat people’ as Crow had preferred to call them. The Nanos had come here and attempted to save them, but they had failed. What was it Alamo had said? These people had lost to the Macros, because they had lost their planet. Well apparently they had lost more than their planet—they’d lost all their natural planets. But they still survived in these artificial worlds floating in space above them. How had they stopped the Macros? Most likely by cutting a deal with the machines. I knew from experience that the Macros were willing to deal, if they thought it was in their interest to do so.
I also could now better see how we fit into this grand equation. My offer of troops let them kill several birds with one stone. They could kill my troops by letting them fight against other difficult races, allowing us to eradicate one another. For all I knew, the Macros had had a truce with the Worms too, before they landed and let us out to ravage their world.
I began to get angry then. It was a deep-seated thing. My old anger against the Centaurs was slowly being replaced by a fresh hatred for the Macros. These machines had coldly played the biotic species off against one another from the start. They’d used us callously—as one should expect from machines. We were variables in their calculations, nothing more. Round-off errors. Bits of dust and meat best used to rip each other apart.
Sure, Centaurs had killed my kids that fateful night. And I had killed them in righteous revenge. But who had engineered the whole thing? Who had armed both sides, and sent them into a deadly embrace? Machines.
“There has to be a way to talk to these people,” I said to Kwon.
Kwon shrugged. “Must be. The Nanos did it. The Macros did it.”
I walked over to the communications box. First I ordered all my marines at each of the four breach points to look for a way down to the floor of the central cavity. I could tell now that we had all penetrated the outer skin of this habitat, and we were inside the structure, but the real battle would be waged inside the sphere-like interior underneath us. The ‘floor’ of the central chamber was parallel with the surface of the planet we orbited. I would have expected the entire structure to be rotating to produce gravity via centrifugal force, but instead the gravity was being generated artificially. Our sensor boxes indicated the tug of a gravity field would be felt once we got into the central cavity of the station, and although it was much less than Earth’s gravity, more like the Moon’s, we would be able to walk down there, if we moved out onto that artificial planetary surface.
After a bit more scouting, Kwon walked back to me excitedly. “There’s a lift system, sir. Several tubes that run all the way down to the floor of the main chamber. They are big, and should hold twenty or more men each.”
“How’d you find them?” I asked.
“We just followed the corridors. The Centaurs who came at us used the lifts to get up here.”
“Let’s go then, before they blow them up.”
We didn’t make it all the way down. I wasn’t really surprised. Some Centaur engineer was on the ball, and he shut off the lifts before we reached the floor of the big chamber. Occasionally, there were openings in the tube that showed us glimpses of the central cavity. We’d made it about half-way down, but most of our troops hadn’t even gotten into the tubes.
I had Kwon and Lieutenant Marquis with me. I used my com-link to contact the rest who were up above, at our breach point. “Go back and get your skateboards,” I told them. “Blow the grates and ride them down to the bottom of the tubes. Secure them and we’ll meet you there.”
“If we take our skateboards all the way down,” Lieutenant Marquis said, “we might not be able to get out of here later.”
I shrugged. “That’s why I wanted the tubes,” I said. “But the enemy has forced my hand.”
I could tell by the look on her face, which was visible through her faceplate, she didn’t like this answer. She didn’t want to be left with no retreat. I didn’t have time to argue about it. These Centaurs had to have an army of some kind, and they were probably organizing below. I’d already given them too much time to get their act together.
We didn’t find any ladders. How were Centaurs supposed to use ladders? What we did find was not encouraging. There was as thin spiraling ledge in the tube along the walls. It was less than a foot wide. I thought about these hoofed, sure-footed people. They were goat-like, and weren’t mountain goats famous for running along impossible trails?
We set off, following the thin ledge downward. There was a thousand foot drop down into the tube, but with low gravity and our magnetic boots, I figured we could do it. We made it most of the way too, before the first laser shot came beaming up out of the darkness below us and burned the legs off my lead man. Screaming, he fell into the pit, bouncing and caroming off the walls.
My men crouched and readied their projectors. We still were equipped with the lighter beam units we’d had on Helios to operate in high gravity. This was a low-gravity fight, but I was glad for the lighter equipment. More bulk would have lost me more men in this situation.
“Careful when you return fire!” I shouted. “We don’t want any blue-on-blue! Only the lowest ten fire.”
They didn’t need any more encouragement. Lasers flashed and our visors darkened to save our eyes. Spots of heat and vapor exploded below us. I wasn’t sure if we’d gotten the sniper or not.
Another shot came up at us, and nailed the marine behind me. It came up and burned right through his suit, and right through his left hip joint. He didn’t have one of the battle suits. Most of my men didn’t. Lit on fire by the strike, he began to fall. I grabbed him, as did the next marine in line.
“Kwon!” I shouted, “assessment?”
“We’re pinned sir, and have no cover. We need to get out of this position.”
“Options?” I demanded. Both sides were firing now. I thought we’d gotten a few of them, but more shots kept coming up, and we were firing blind down the long, dark tube.
“We can shoot it out,” Kwon said, “Or retreat back up to the elevator cab.”
I didn’t like his options. “How far are we from the bottom?”
“A few hundred yards.”
“Let’s run down the walls, using our magnetic boots. Only those in battle suits should try it. Our boots won’t hold all the way down, when we lose our grip, we jump.”
“It’s too far down, sir.”
“This gravity isn’t Earth-normal—and neither are we. The jump is survivable.”
“You first,” Kwon said.
I chuckled. “All right,” I said. I stood up, cranked my magnetic boots to full, and took my first step down into the tube, firing as I went. “Don’t shoot me in the ass, men. Let’s go!”
Kwon shouted orders. My marines held their fire.
Charging down a vertical surface turned out to be a hard thing to do. I soon found it just didn’t work. My magnetics weren’t strong enough to hold me onto the side of the tube. Even running down was pretty impossible. Being conditioned by nanites, we were all much stronger than normal men, and the gravity was much lighter, but my weight was out of place. With the heavy pack on my back, I was top-heavy, and the top of me was too far from my boots. I was levered forward, breaking the magnetic hold and found myself falling face-first into enemy fire.
This wasn’t my best plan, I thought as I went down, still firing into the darkness ahead.